The Diogenes Museum Poem by Anthony Weir

Uniquely, what Man puts into life
is Death - while seeing his 'soul' as sanctum
and not slaughterhouse.

Trapped in our private catastophes of comfort
we only seem to live:
comfort, even more than consciousness,
makes criminals of us all,

hovering like pale moths between madness and sanity.

Madness is what fashion-doctors say it is;
sanity: what business makes us buy;
consciousness: the madness of not being
but wanting to be: new rot in new wood.
We are no more alive
than the machines that are our only progress.
Hope is the most addictive of afflictions.

The only problems are human - and
the human problem is the problem of scale.
The outer darkness is much more inviting
than the inner one. What people call
'the miracle of life' is really the costly accident of existence,
a consuming hotel.

Why should we need reasons for suicide
when life for those whose consciences are open
is the only Hell?