“Empathy” by Sergio Maestrini
no such thing as
invisible illness
it’s right there
behind unfocused eyes
under fricative
sighs of speech
in detached
helpless gestures
if only you
care to notice
From my books Bohemian Scents and Legacies (vol. 1)
Mental Illness
All posts tagged Mental Illness
“Synergies of Inner Paint” by Eidz
chasing sanity
among hideous shadows
cast into the mind
by broken lights of the eyes
detached from reality
“Empathy” by Sergio Maestrini
no such thing as
invisible illness
it’s right there
behind eyes
under fricative
sighs of speech
in detached
helpless gestures
if only you
care to notice
“Tank Man 2 – Thousand Yard Stare” by Peter Hodge
past and future collide in the present
annihilate memory kill expectation
shattered and shocked to discover the
moon is in fact a white hole in the night
nothing tangible ever existed at all
explosions of heat in the clock of the
brain are the only real things in the world
cannot think for the sound and the fury
of time in this ultimate war with itself
here and now nothing more than a series
of freeze-frames disjointed each one from
the other all sense of a live continuity lost
in repetitive wreckage of moments the eyes
remain motionless vacant for were they to
see the before and the after they surely
would die from the pain of the knowing
“Merzbild the Psychiatrist 1919” by Kurt Schwitters
mind mechanics who tinker with innards of misfits
PhD’s and MD’s with assistant voyeurs
armed with chemical cleavers and couchfuls of dream-sweat
lay open and palpate benign eccentricities
driven to modulate so-called abnormalcy
drunk on elixirs of theories distilled from
the semen of Freud and the spine juice of Jung
these self-possessed specialists blueprint new syndromes
for every least tic of behavior and habit
once curbed by mere forces of popular scorn
now free to enjoy celebration by acronyms
swearing their craft owns the wisdom of science
when challenged by genuine ills of psychopathy
colorful capsules are scooped from their pockets
professional platitudes pour from their lips
hot electrodes deliver a maelstrom of shocks
to poor major depressives devouring memory
scribblers of clinical notes and self-help books
these roosters of rubber-floored wards and asylums
sport popinjay egos and Savile Row plumage
congenital misfits amidst mad humanity
“Brtoken Mind” by André Kutscherauer
he fell from cold rain
unable to cling to
the slippery drops
disarticulate pieces
freefalling fragments
of self shower down
onto unflinching heads
too deeply indrawn
to take notice or care
of foul weather or
one broken man
From my book Range of Motion
“Face of Insanity” by Calvin Armitage
savant in his prison
of ill-construed sanity
arm’s-length perceptions
he’s more than a lunatic
less than a man
curiosity freakishly wired
in only one mode sublime
single dimensional genius
inhabits dystopian
wards of society
cognitive spectrum
a flat graph of functions
miscast as outcast
a social pariah
pejorative analog idiot
save for that singular
most inexplicable
island of intellect massively
mountained by memory
rare suffered syndrome
we cannot pretend
to in least comprehend
raising questions of
which of us owns
the superior mind
From my book Onionskin
Bipolar Portrait
Painting by Mathew Ihasz
From pinterest.com
twin demons dance
among neurons
hellish the music
electronic synthesis
plays in the mind
personality pulled by
two disparate tempos
a slow and go agony
grappling with ganglia
desperate to grab onto
temperate moments
slip-sliding between
the too little too much
blunt intensities
polarized quashing
the peace of pedestrian
passage through life
but then…
genius is suited to
dancing with demons
to banishment off
to the edges of sanity
rarefied precincts
of furious function
the cognitive freewheel
of madness propelled
many great contributions
to arts and to sciences
black and white
bleak and bright
products of changeable
suffering intellects
gifts that would prove
providential to we
unafflicted dull masses
“Labyrinth”
Painting by Jeffrey Smart
From theaustralian.com.au
what if my words
the turned paths of their penstrokes
create the labyrinth
Antique Cast Iron Bedstead
Photo from ebay.com
no rest for the crazy
compelled to bide runaway
days in beds black as obsidian
heaving itself through
wrought curlicue shadows
it races through channels
that penetrate nights
soundless restless and
reckless its feet melt
in puddles of madness
while porcelain finials
spin with the heat
of an inhuman speed
the whole hurtling mass
on burn-to-ash course
with its conscious cadaver
to charnels no soul
ever chose or survived
no rest for the crazy
compelled to ride runaway
sleep into nightly oblivion
Poesy plus Polemics 