dear persons
in february i had what my doctors termed a nervous breakdown - myself, i
can't say i was too happy with their terminology - essentially, i wasn't
feeling too good for a while, however, out of it came a poem, or
would-be poem. the piece is not biographical but is an attempt to find a
metaphoric language that conveys the 'what it feels like'. i would
welcome, nay, even implore, any comments on the appended, whether they
be about it as an aesthetic object or as an example of psychopathology.
so here it is (openly):
The Madness of King David
The servants no longer purred but barked.
The Queen Consort was plotting with France.
Slowly he picked the feathers from his skin.
That was for Wednesdays. Other days,
unlike the people in the lifts, he stayed
all the time awake, knowing that by his consciousness
the world might hold together. Not fall apart.
Not fall ....
until Thursdays, for instance, which were a particular kind of problem,
as the skies were never the right colour
nor the noises outside his palace
(for they had the tint of small burrowing mammals)
(and his puzzlement was presented with certain shots of Kim Novak
in The Great Bank Robbery, wriggling her bum
with a rather conspicous tail-flounce perched on her dress
reminiscent of Great Ape females on heat. Disturbingly. See zoo. See
cinema.)
nor the verse forms which came to hand
for their exoticism bethought him of trade wars.
But there were other days again, not named in the calendar,
when he revisited his telescope
(the world's first, many times since upgraded and restored)
a gift, the Chancellor told him, of Johannes Kepler,
where, in his own perspective, the firmanent hung
studded with the running signatures
of those he thought of as friends.
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