Songs From The Umbra Poem by Clive Culverhouse

***Songs From The Umbrapoetry by Clive Culverhouse This is perhaps one of my most complex poems and so here's my analysis of what it is about. Umbra is shadows and in this context a shadow world for example between the living and the dead. So here it's a metaphor for being between two places, not really properly in either, like a shadow, but the two worlds are really two states - OK and NOT OK. Crucially though, there's someone else there too. Again a suggestion that thoughts are not particularly helpful or positive as, to my mind, you were pulling petals off flowers and I was teaching children to swear, this also suggests anger and frustration of the depression being experienced. Next it seems that death himself might have a desk with lists of people he's going to go after. Am I on the list due to my decline of mind? Depression and paranoia go hand in hand. Then a reminder of the crucial point that there's someone else there too. Finally all the metaphors stop with the reality that I'm sat on the kitchen floor feeling depressed. But - I'm not on my own, I have support in some else being there too so I'm not going through it on my own. That's about the measure of it really. Hope it helped. ***