Leaden Thoughts Comments

These are leaden thoughts indeed. But the very fact you can shape a poem around them is a good sign - you have not surrendered to them, you haven't taken them back inside once they are exteriorized as the metaphor of LEAD. That's a complicated way of saying You are using poetry to fight back. I liked the image of the orange in the middle of the poem; its sweetness is followed by the darkest passage in the poem. But in the last stanza you show compassion for others' worst suffering, and that's a redemptive emotion.