Not Paranoid

Not Paranoid

I have been released.

I was just released.

My poems are not fated to be

Mediocre trash.

One man. One ugly,

Heinous little man,

Screamed at me (neck feathers fluffed)

That I was paranoid.

His degree? A recreation

Therapist. That's all.

And I believed him. No one else

Would tell me what I was.

And I read Eric Berne who said

That paranoia is

The exclusive province

Of mediocrity.

And paranoids are very ugly people.

I learned my medication

(From the daughter of a doctor)

Is for bi-polar, not for paranoids.

And a kind psychiatrist

In 1966

Told me then that I was cyclothymic.

So many years. So many goddamned years

I believed that f-cking Leffingwell.

Arrogant. Omniscient. Who dreamed up any answer

To every question he was ever asked.

He went to Jacqui Schiff and came back,

No, not cured, but her.

Instinctively I hated him

Years before we met.

A silly ass! An autocrat!

Today I hate him more.

He's in the ground. He died of AIDS.

Epitome of wisdom.

Unprotected sex.

Who else did this bastard drag along?

I feel my poesy and I

Have just got out of prison.

11-1-13

 

The River

Visalia Community Counseling -

Indifferent, useless farce.

Everyone cares so deeply,

Like my mother's arse.

Less than an hour I found out

I am not paranoid

And never was. Jesus Christ!

That's a cause to shout.

Paranoids, said Eric Berne,

Are mediocre men.

And all my hopes are poesy -

A brain, a pad, a pen.

I figured I was fated,

And all I wrote was trash.

I only wanted excellence.

George can have the cash.

I was told so long ago

That I was cyclothymic.

Trumped by uncredentialed shrinks

That I was schizophrenic.

And paranoid, no less. The fact

That's truest of them all

Is push me any way you like,

And that's the way I fall!

However I kept writing.

Perhaps this heart of wood

In 57 years has written

Something that is good.

And as for diagnoses -

How the unknowing blow! -

I was given one at 20

By someone trained to know.

11-1-13

 

Diagnosis

Diagnoses? I've been given

Two. First by a shrink,

A qualified psychiatrist

Who said I'm cyclothymic.

The second by a little twerp

That all my instincts hated,

A recreation therapist

Who'd gone to Jacqui Schiff.

Sitting on a couch he screamed

That I was paranoid.

He also kissed me on the mouth

When I was unaware.

Paranoid? Well, Eric Berne

(An author I had read)

Said paranoids are mediocre.

I was dead to read it.

I wanted to write poesy.

I wanted to be good.

I hadn't quite forgotten the

Psychiatrist of yore.

Alas the ugly fagot's yell

Rose loud above the storm.

For 40 years I've thought my verse

Was destined to be trash.

Phony and uneducated

Bastard, go to hell.

You loved me.

Then it seems you have a problem.

And possibly the paranoid was you.

11-1-13

 

Disclosure

Believing her intention

Was to drive me crazy

For pretending to be crazy

Around some crazy people,

I went mad, then madder,

And sitting on the psycho ward

Made incoherent noises.

In ignorance! In total ignorance!

Jacqui, you are dead.

But that's what I was thinking.

Now resurrect

And tell me what you did.

11-1-13