The Last Lap

The Last Lap

I'm going insane. Isn't risperdal good

Any more? I've been taking it 30 years.

I'm starting to cry so I guess I'm not wood.

Now ends the world in a flood of tears.

I couldn't withstand. I have never been strong.

People like flies buzz around me and whine.

Passing unseen through the feet of the throng,

I'm grasping my books. Even these are not mine.

10-19-13

Cliches

Dr. Kelly laughed and said, “I am

The most important person in her life

Right now.” I sat and looked at her in horror.

Clearly it was not reciprocal.

At the mercy of a therapist.

Autonomy! The patient doesn't matter.

A dollar sign. A reason to wake up

At 6 o'clock to get to work on time

Until the blessed day that you retire.

The patient won't get well until he wants to.

Jesus! This profession is a bore.

11-17-13

Still

Not for what she did to other patients,

But what she said to Kathy,

Sad, confused and frightened,

And what she did primarily to me.

I never understood it.

Forty years of thinking

Always brought me to the same conclusion -

That I don't understand it.

She's never going to tell me.

She's been dead for years, her secrets with her.

Short and enigmatic,

A simply little lyric,

Not to music, only to my soul.

She had no soul, but just a brain to plot with.

“Plot”! The magic word

That means I'm paranoid

According to the magazines,

In the vernacular.

11-18-13

 

My Decrees

If I ruled the world

There'd be a lot of changes made.

Mandatory background checks

Despite the NRA,

Despite Republicans and what

They think or feel or like.

Aid to the disabled

And the sick would be enough

That they could live

And know they were alive.

To be a cop, be nice to people

(Meaner than the villains).

To be a shrink, be nice to people.

Care a little more

About the patient than about

What you were taught in college

(Whatever that was)

And about your check.

If you're a bigot,

Fear retaliation.

11-18-13

16 Years

Talking about killing, I said,

“You will not kill me?”
In a simple feeling voice

He said, “I wouldn't do that.”

I asked him, “Do you love me?” He

Said, “No. Mechanical

Men don't love.” And then I asked

Him, “Do you like me then?”

He said to me,

“You ask too many questions.”

But that he cares about me is

Beyond an argument.

11-18-13

 

Lines

Without jokes I know that I would die.

Poems kept me going 50 years.

I very seldom look up at the sky,

But pay my rent on memory in tears.

If you went away the sun would dim,

The stars would fade, the sea invade my house.

There is an enchantment being him.

Puss has made companions with the mouse.

Now we're equal. Did I make you mad?

I do not want to hear about the others.

Hapless souls accused of being bad.

Several times he's said that we are brothers.

11-18-13

A Plea

Who can I talk to?

A preacher of course,

And Jesus and god and Mary.

Not hardly I think.

We got a divorce.

Added to which I'm a fairy.

Call a psychologist,

Give him my dough,

And talk 50 minutes. That's all.

Then walk out his door

With a therapized glow,

And collapse in a heap in his hall.

Although on my meds

I am crazy as hell,

A status that's hard to reverse.

But if I stop taking them

How can I tell

I won't be eleven time worse?

10-18-13

 

The Book

A book of poems that I wrote

Have all been published prior.

It occurred to me to put

That in the title. So

The customers perhaps will think

If someone liked these poems

Enough to publish them before,

Perhaps I'll have a look.

And I believe these certain songs

Remain among the best

I've ever written anywhere,

And read will sell the book.

Next week sometime they go on sale.

A pipe dream and a folly?

There's nothing now but to await

The promise of tomorrow.

10-18-13