Viewing poetry as a gift, Edward Hirsch writes in his book “How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry:  “The question poses itself as how to keep alive an interior life in the face of our own and the world’s corruptions.”

As an example of a solution, he presents Charles Baudelaire‘s prose poem entitled, “At One O’clock in the Morning,” in which the speaker delivers a dramatic monologue that begins, “Alone, at last!”  In the poem, the speaker first relishes the double locking of his door, shutting out the necessity to be as gracious as he has had to be all day.  He recounts events (“let us recapitulate the day”) that have transpired to make him feel the “tyranny of the human face.” In his comings and goings that day, an acquaintance had ignorantly asked if there were a land route from France to Russia, an editor dissatisfied with the speaker’s work had claimed his publication represented the “cause of decent people”, as if others were “edited by scoundrels.” There was someone the speaker felt did not deserve the letter of recommendation he had to write for him. “Horrible life! Horrible town!” the speaker exclaims.

Unloading as he does leads him by his poem’s end to pray for strength to be better than those whom he despites, to request that poetry and those he admires redeem him by adding to his consciousness and raising him above the pressures of constant requests and rejections:

Discontented with everyone and discontented with myself, I would gladly redeem myself and elate myself a little in the silence and solitude of night. Souls of those I have loved, souls of those I have sung, strengthen me, support me, rid me of lies and the corrupting vapours of the world; and you, O Lord God, grant me the grace to produce a few good verses, which shall prove to myself that I am not the lowest of men, that I am not inferior to those whom I despise.

It seems to me that Baudelaire hit upon a successful strategy–heartfelt complaining that leads to introspection, possibly redemption.

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Imagine yourself arriving home to an empty house or office and using the privacy to lock the door and let loose with your complaints or to be honest about what you are feeling.

Begin a piece of writing with a sentence that ends with “at last.”  You might say “In love again at last!” or “Done with love at last!”

If you are a therapist, hospital working, day care worker, unhappy partner, child of a dysfunctional family, or cameraman for a soap opera, you might begin, “Away from the screams and sobbing at last!”  Whatever is bottled up inside of you that you can imagine escaping from by shutting the door will work to launch this piece of writing, as long as you then continue speaking freely about it.

Alternatively, you might think about achieving something that others might not think of as an achievement, something you’d be better off enjoying behind closed doors:  “Drunk at last!” “Safe with stolen goods in my pocket!” “Fingers in the fudge sauce at last!”

Don’t hold back with what you write next; instead, like Baudelaire, recapitulate your day from the point of view you have announced in your first line.  Keep writing. Allow yourself to go on and on and on, unabashedly. Exhaust your complaints, and then shift to speaking to a you, whether it is a supreme being, spirit, particular person you have in mind or your own best self.

After driving the complaints out full throttle as you can manage, you will most likely have little trouble formulating a request that will help you rise above the situation you have described or find a way toward what you most want.

Give your piece of writing a title (you can use the “at last” line for that) and acknowledge Charles Baudelaire’s model. You may find you have something you’ll think of publishing or putting in the mouth of a character, despite the dated language of the opening:

Tantruming at Last!
(With thanks to Charles Baudelaire)

No sound but my own voice and pent up tears, all energy in my face and lungs.  I will not throw dishes or books, break computer screens or tear the curtains down. Only my rage of words, calving glaciers, boulders down a mountain gaining speed, house thrown off its stone foundation, an elephant when feeding time is overdue, the sound of nuclear fusing. I have said yes and yes and yes and yes and cannot stand myself and cannot sleep. I take one to the park to play and one to the library for a lecture and one to the doctor and the first for a meal and the second to a meeting and the other to a friend’s for tea. I arrange another’s doctor’s appointments, financial assistance, and driving needs. I have said yes and yes and yes and envy who says no; this jealousy leaves welts along my tongue; my words projectile as pus pushed from subcutaneous sores.

You, the one I love outside my door! Don’t go away. Stand in the swollen surf, the riptides you think will sink you. Pretend frequencies are higher than you can sense and come to hug me as if you couldn’t hear my roaring. Hug me, hug me, hug me; I’m small and waiting and need a gentle wind to bring soft soil that will protect me.

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During the coming season when overloads of joy, frustration and despair are upon you, allow yourself to use the force of life’s underbelly to bring you away from “corrupting vapours” and preserve your inner life.