Accentuate the negative | 25 October 2018

In Competition No. 3071 you were invited to supply a demotivational poem.
 
This was your opportunity to come up with a bracing antidote to the world-view peddled by an eye-wateringly lucrative self-help industry that feeds on a mix of insecurity and the aspirational narcissism du jour.
 
You came at the challenge from various angles, but the opening to Tracy Davidson’s entry speaks for many:
 

It doesn’t matter what you do in life,
It’s just a constant loop of pointless shite.

 
Honourable mentions go to Adrian Fry’s paean to the power of no and to Douglas G. Brown’s 21st-century spin on Longfellow’s ‘Psalm of Life’. The winners, printed below, earn £25 each.
 

When you are feeling down, be sure
That worse is yet to come,}
The most that humans can endure
Is bound to come to some
Which could be you, so should you be
Uplifted for a minute,
Just dig a hole, six foot by three,
Jump in and lie down in it.
 
The cloud that’s hanging over you
Has got no silver lining,
You know that you are overdue
For trouble, and resigning
Yourself to misery is best —
Accept that life is crappy.
At least you never will be stressed
With trying to be happy.
Katie Mallett
 
Every day is Monday morning.
Don’t expect completion, ever,
Only hopes that die aborning,
Only more futile endeavour.
 
Entropy is our condition,
Alienation just the same.
Knowledge, principles, ambition?
Counters in a pointless game.
 
Why speak the words that have been spoken?
Language is at best inane.
Why repair the thing that’s broken?
Broken it will be again.
 
Everywhere it’s always raining,
To the grave like lice we crawl,
Truest poetry most feigning.
Bollocks is the sum of all.
Basil Ransome-Davies


 
Success is never guaranteed,
Says Phil, my friendly lifestyle coach.
So if at first I don’t succeed,
I just give up — this new approach
Has made me less depressed, says Phil.
Now every time I pay his bill,
I compliment my mentor’s skill,
And kid myself it’s what I need…
When any challenge comes along
I try it once, and hope to fail.