Pain, empathy and being clever.

I woke up early this morning and was feeling okayish. (Look, it is my blog and if I want to invent a word, I will).
Then I read something on Facebook which made me feel sick with misery.  Is this empathy?
Or am I being self-indulgent by appropriating someone elses pain and sorrow?

This also got me thinking at a tangent.  Why do people think it is funny to mock real grief and sorrow if they don't care about what has happened?
Tell your workmates that you parent/partner/child is very ill or badly hurt and most seek to comfort.
Now tell them your pet is hurt or ill.
Someone will say 'just get another one' or make some other 'joke' at your expense.  And people will laugh.
On the radio the other day, there was a vet offering advise to pet owners.  The presenter thought it funny and appropriate to say frequently 'Apart from having it put down, is there a solution?'.
Now why is it funny to threaten someones beloved pet?
Tell a group of people you love cats and someone will tell a story about a cat being terribly hurt, maimed or killed.  Why?  To hurt?  It seems a form of bullying to me.
You see, these stories stick in my brain.  When I am down, they haunt me and I feel sick and miserable.  I hurt to think of the pain and suffering.  And it seems endless.

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Off that topic before I spend the rest of the day crying.

I've been reading other peoples poetry a lot recently.

I realise that, however intelligent I am, I am not clever.  Most of it goes straight over my head.  The free verse that most people seem to prefer so often comes across to me as a jumble of adjectives and emotions with no meaning or purpose except, perhaps, to the writer.  Some of it is so tortuous and strained it seems contrived rather than poetic, if you see what I mean.  Yet other people love them.  I must be thick and inartistic.  For me, a poem should say what it means and speak to others clearly.  Some poetry I read I do not enjoy because it is not enjoyable.  It is gut-wrenchingly painful, heartbreakingly sad.  Not enjoyable but beautiful.

My poetry is blunt, to the point and often bitter.  it relects my world view.  But I don't think it is 'clever'.