The Poetry of Madness

If I were to say anything about my poetry, it would include a sense of freedom. Its cryptic language can seem like a barrier at first, a verbal barb to keep intruders out, but if one peers carefully between the bars of type they will see a soul. It is mine. Under its weave of metaphor I create myself, remember myself, understand myself.

I have thought a lot about whether I will post any poems in this blog. I understand that works created after 1977 need no official copyright to be protected under the law, but how many others do? I know it’s legally my property as soon as it rolls off my pen. The disparaging fact is that there are still some who don’t know this. And yes, I am afraid my hard work will be taken from me by some inconsiderate plagiarizer. You, gentle reader, will no doubt understand. Maybe my poems don’t garner me any money, or food, or even respect, but they are still fruits of my labour. So I have reservations.

Yet, this blog is in itself an act of bravery and good faith. I am rolling out my corpse for the masses, throwing rot and glitter on it to see if it is truly quelled by its mortality. To see if anyone can understand, or even relate. Also, the title of this blog itself came from one of my earlier poems, one that I wrote for my mother just fresh from a diagnosis. So, after much consideration, I am posting a piece that I feel expresses my frustration with this insidious madness and the insult of medication that comes with it. Who knows? Maybe someone who has my diagnosis in whatever form will see that there is a place for understanding, for love, and for freedom in words? Here goes!

Infirmity

Recovery is made complicated

by a collapsing of will, by a folding of fingers,

by the coughing mechanism in my brain

that subdues all thought.

There is synchronicity in failures,

as though their coming together makes the universe

sane or digestible.

I am difficult these days:

a nesting doll of insufficiencies,

one hidden under the other like layers of protective skin,

each one thickening my lucidity.

I am impervious to the cutting edge of reason.

I go nowhere; my bubble is perfect.

Reflections pass through me, distortions

of the places or people I’ve been.

A layer of film thin as fingernails

shimmers its rainbow at me and I blink,

dazed by its fabulous promise.

I can’t get to it without breaking

the skin, without bursting through walls

of blunted stupidity.

I am blank.

The slug of my mind regresses to regularity and

mediocrity takes the place of art or hope.

Brokenly I walk on rheumatoid limbs,

the chop-chop of the clean sidewalk impedes me

with its consistency.

I am so centerless and crooked

that brute force is required to counter the injury of boredom.

Grey and listless, there are no true circles –

only twisting, toddler approximations.

My bedside table is littered

with vapid letters, stunted pencils, and crude lines.

I lean forward to it in expectation, but nothing results;

I am the white blindness of meditation.

My pen has no edgy nerves.

My hands are filled in with concrete, dry and heavy.

My fingers flake off like chalk,

dust drops from my sagging eyelids.

I am unable

unable

unable.