Author’s note: sometimes I find it interesting to see how a poem evolves. So, here’s one that started as a somewhat freestyle poem, that, after time passed, I decided to turn into a sauna sonnet.
Freestyle
Empty hole
In core of his soul.
He forgot his goals.
Time galore, but still needs more.
Missing half amplifies
Ambition lost;
Life simplifies
But at what cost?
Time now consumed by adult toddler
Who, when he was a toddler, was his coddler.
And feverishly, manically recalling
Memories of the missing, haunting and enthralling.
The missing becomes his poem,
In danger of being lost forever,
The bliss and glad life
No longer its own witness.
Sauna Sonnet
Introspection: he finds an empty hole
Down deep in the core of his troubled soul;
Goals forgot when he set out to explore.
He had time galore, but still he needs more.
It seems the missing piece now amplifies
Several signals of his ambition lost;
Bittersweet: he finds his life simplifies,
His schedule now streamlined, but at what cost?
Time now consumed by an adult toddler,
Who was, when he was a toddler, coddler.
And feverish, manically recalling
Memories of the missing—enthralling,
Haunting—the missing becomes his poem,
Bliss and glad life, no longer witness own.
Copyright ©️ 2025 H.K. Longmore
Musings of a Kunderian Monster 
Is Suffering Really Necessary?
Author’s note: I wrote this last week, in two cities and over hundreds of miles in the air, before Robin Williams left our sphere of existence. While that event and the subsequent news and social media flurry may color how you read this, and while some of it may even apply, to think I am making any statement about that would be incorrect.
This post showed up in my FB feed the other day stating:
Someone commented on that post saying that pain is necessary, but suffering is not. This idea is not restricted to that post or its comments. Over at society6.com, Josh Lafayette has an art print expressing this idea. And there’s a picture incorrectly attributing the idea to Buddha (the tl;dr version of the article: “Imagine someone in Asia posting ‘Jesus quotes’ (which are actually AA slogans) under a picture of Santa Claus, and you’ll get a feel for what’s [wrong with this picture]”).
The problem with reading the dictionary when you’re doing your spelling assignments in second grade is that you can’t let people misuse their native language with impunity. So let’s take a look at the root word “suffer“, as defined by the descriptive linguists at Merriam-Webster:
You won’t believe what happens next! Oh, sorry, this isn’t bait. I’ll leave that stuff on buzzfeed.
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Posted in commentary, essays
Tagged art, atonement, auto accident, co-feeling, compassion, Edvard Munch, etymology, Fake Buddha Quotes, language, linguistics, medkänsla, Milan Kundera, Mitgefühl, pain, pietà, pity, semantics, soucit, suffering, The Merchant of Venice, The Scream, word misuse, współczucie