Thursday 16 December 2021

'REBIRTH' - A Superb Epic Poem by Robert (Roibeard) Shanahan


 

my poem

 

I Dedicate this tale to Arthur Bloomfield

A grand creative writer

And as true creators are very supportive of other writers

Thanks for publishing me some years ago .....

 

 

‘REBIRTH’

 

A flickering fluorescent light

Morse code in its intent

Can’t quiet make out what it’s saying

Something about Rebirth it seems

 

I’m hurtling down a Asylum corridor

Strapped too tight on a cold sheet less Gurney

Inducement drugs pumping into both of my arms

Being pushed up and down

By two raucous orderlies

 

Each one standing at one end of the passageway

Thrusting their arms out shoving the trolley

Throwing their heads back chortling

One says to the other

Pushing the trolley off fast

 

‘’I be XY’’

‘’That what I be’’

 

Propelling the trolley back

The other responds

 

‘’I be XX’’

‘’Better than thee’’

 

Another hard push

XY answers

 

‘’Maybe I have something truly wonderful for thee’’

 

Thrusting me back

XX answers coyly

 

‘’Maybe who knows what fate will be’’

 

They cackling together raises a cacophony

Like hyenas caught in a closing ring of raging fire

Unbearable vibrations scratching my eardrums

 

They then begin to spit on me

Murky showers of saliva

Raining on me

 

Torrential falls all over my body

Soaking the gurney overflowing

 

Creating multi coloured streams

Cascading through the corridor

Cockroaches discarded patient identity bands

Float with cigarette butts sailing around the legs

Of the empty benches

Dropped magazines starting to dam up the flow

 

Then the spit they sprout

Turns to molecules

Molecules of Chromosome 3

Absorbing into my body

Transforming my form

Melting the very sense of myself

 

They then return to shunting me

Up and down the corridor

 

When suddenly coming down from the ceiling

Are two industrial grappling hooks

They attach with a screeching noise

To the rails of my gurney above my head

 

This lifts the trolley upright

Strapped tight standing

I suddenly observe XY to the side in shadows

 

He is of those shadows barely distinguishable

His outline all I see as if it was drawn by crayon

Smudged his opaque penumbra

He has a remote controller in his hand

 

In the oblique shifty stance of a fiendish attendant

Battling with his inner demons at large

He with a lifted stone from his path to throw

His psyche trembling

His demons holding a crumbling mountain

Just above his head

 

Inside his shaking outlined body

I perceive all within his form

Chaotic kaleidoscope absurd shadows swirling

 

His eyes are the only solid thing

They appear as sulphide marbles

With a image of myself encased within its centre

I see myself moving about inside his eyes

I am painting an image of his souls sight

 

I am developing those visual elements

Line space mass colour

To brush in perspective emotions and moods

Moral reactions and the most grand

Empathy and grace

Finishing them dropping my easel

It slides off his eyelashes

 

I have by fated chance uncovered his spiteful Animus

The final unmasking of a masked man

 

An appalling pentimento seeps through

I have under estimated the pitch dark depths of his persona

Dank painted elements emerge from within my image

 

“Why this imposing imagery”

“A calamitous havoc”

“A assured destruction of everything”

 

I hear my internal dialogue screaming

 

It is a burning down of every Utopia

Igniting the fragrances of Nature

Insects spliced together exploding

Like jumping jacks fireworks

 

Nature sprites spiralling up taller than mountains

Screaming for Famine and Blight

Their throats bulging near to rupturing

Vomiting poisons over all the lands

Creating massive crop failures

 

A great hunger for this world depicted

I can yet hear the screaming chorus of the unfed

Retarded children angels

Sniffing left in dirty beds alone

 

I see animals devouring themselves

Birds catapulting hard into the ground

Fish leaving the sea massed squirming on the shores

 

Smeared faecal matter in all its shades the decimated sky

The world as it was in all its unbalanced ways

This the Last sunset

 

Then I can see no more till

The world closes like a immense book

There is something on the spine

I can not understand

Regardless there is some remembrance

Mixed with a strange enticing bewilderment

 

A Language far away from primal gestures

Not from a fossil record’s suggested neural systems

Hardly to arise from the stance of stags lions or birds

 

Amorphous shapes with dissecting lighted angles

Piecing definite intentional streaking

Over what seems

Patterned dotted rainbows psychedelic Braille

 

With blots blobs and daubs to the ends of the spine

Amongst intriguing divine intricate sparkles of lines

Is this the words of earths future inhabitants

 

If at all letters

The phonetics ambiguities meanings unimaginable

Nothing for Darwin’s spirit to finally get to

Nothing for linguists here to endlessly argue about

 

Then the front board and back board separate

Opening out covering the entire world

Just a enormous spreading stain is all to see

Across the dead planet seeping into the tectonic plates

A Rorschach test it appears to me now

 

I see a planetary wasteland doomed forever

For whatever that is within the soil

Flys over it

Walks or crawls on this earth

I see its absence obviously in the ink

 

Or maybe as I look deeper

A image of myself as a child sobbing

A ancient bronze nail through my shoe

As I was eagerly stepping out to feel the sun

After winters hard chill had finally left

The book slams shut loudly

 

XY jumps in fright

 

His eyes look like they have been staring

At the brightest brightest light

Then those very eyes were suddenly pitched into darkness

This darkest of deepest dark upon them

 

Now seen exciting his over opened gaze

As he manically grasps the controller

 

XX stands a little apart from him

I see her in the phantom asylum light

 

She stands under a illuminated lamp

Smoking a cigarette

Blowing smoke rings

Poking her finger through the billowing circles

 

Blowing the smoke away then smoke rings again

Disinterested detached

Seemingly bored by the happenings

 

Yawning now looking at her nails

Staring at her wristwatch

Silently imploring time to race

Counting flies buzzing attracted by the lamp

 

Tapping her foot to a unheard dance tune

She moves her head rhythmically

And appears temporarily somewhere else

 

When her cigarette smoke reaches me

It becomes a acrid nicotine fog

As I peer into the toxic mist

 

She has altered

I see her in dimness then clearer light

Observing her it appears through a brass porthole

The sounds of the sea is on me

Waves breaking over my mind

Spindrift’s swirling blown by roaring winds frame my viewing

 

There is sand grinding between my toes

Then wind now blows a stray beach umbrella covering XX

She braids herself to the umbrellas shaft

Transforming it to a Breaking Catherine wheel

Ever increasing dramatically in size and distress

 

I hear the sound of splintering bone

The creaking of dry spokes of wooden wheels

The hungry calls of oncoming scavenging birds

XX screaming my body shakes

This combined shrill will forever inhabit my life

 

Becoming entranced staring at its centre Hub

The darkest of blood stains bubbling there

I black out into a sweet oblivion

Then only rest I’ve had found in this unconscious state

If only for a moment it seeming eternal

When the smell of acrylics awakes first my nostrils

Then my nose is tapped rhythmically

With a cold Ferrule the umbrellas tip

It’s cold Pongee high grade polyester terrifies me

Awakens me in a start

Blinking my eyelashes in disbelief

The beach umbrella disappears

 

I now see that she is now pegged on a clothesline

She appears to me on a line

Tied from a swaying tree

To the side of a dilapidated house

Emerging from its stone chimney

The moon behind her rises

 

The shoulders of her uniform held up

Her arms half winged in the wind

To and fro she is blown

 

Her body a pinned rag doll

On a dire fraying rope clothesline

 

The portal transforms to a microscope

My vision now is swinging on a swing

From macroscopic to microscopic

 

In microscopic I observe sinews

The muscles of rodents and moths

Entwined in that homemade rope

There are paint freckles from the houses walls

All through the strands

 

In macroscopic the naked eye fails

The largest scale acts up

General analysis malfunctions

 

Perspective cuts up the big picture

Into small boxes places them onto top of themselves

A tower of human phenomena

 

Buffeted by blusterous tempestuous gusts

XX now rotates a pirouetting Pinwheel

Then instantly she is blown upwards

Collides into that tower and lands upon its battlements

 

And as I entranced gape

From the top of her head

A waterfall of pitch black lustrous hair gushes

It falls down over the bartizan

 

Great masses of hair travelling beyond the barbican

Wrapping itself into knots around the corbel

Plaiting itself through the murder hole

Gaining great speed across the courtyard

 

I see this coming on me as a tsunami

Getting closer darkening any view from my trolley

I can feel the irritation firstly from a few stray hairs

My skin releasing histamines alerting me

Unfortunately too late not that i could do anything

 

Then its all on me

At once hair enters my mouth

Tying up my tongue

Subsequently my nose is stuffed

Round and round my ears it waxes

Now my whole face is a clump of hair

Tightening around my neck

 

Thereupon it follows my restraints over and over again

Till my body is veiled with hair completely

It cocoons me I cannot breathe

 

In my fear I observe myself entering dormancy

My temperature rising

Feeling increasing vibrations shaking me

Till it becomes full tilt

And splits my pupal case

Breaking hair strands asunder

 

In my ear I hear clipping sounds

Snip

Snip

Snip thousands of times repeated

 

Concerned that I may have been cut to bloodied pieces

Trying to feel what’s there and what’s not

If there’s bleeding or gore

 

Counting my fingers and toes

Do I still have ears or a nose

Has my penis been carved up

Like a carrot for a vegetable stew

My testicles sliced as onion rings

 

With the risk of horrid infection coming on

I feel it lurking somewhere near

As it always is

 

Attempting to take my mind of my predicament

I imagine her now high in the firmament

A ruffled stick figured kite

 

Getting higher in the darkening sky

She spinning her way over the clouds

Now gone from my view

Shocked surprised by her leaving

Then my attention overtaken by a sound

Then a compelling sight

 

A rusty automotive in shadows beside the house

Sunk into sodden ground up to the hubcaps

Big bulbous bullet riddled car

 

A gnarled tree grown through the back seats

Festooned with desiccated nests

Mother birds skeletons their bleached bones

Pitched Stiffly lying over the sides of the discarded nests

 

Cracklings slivers of shell glisten on old dried blood

One nest alive fledglings devouring the Mother bird

At the top of the tree another Mother bird prepares a new nest

 

The immense side door of the car opening then shutting

Rust falls over a elbow drifts down over a clenched hand

An ancient hand moving the cars door

Haltingly back and forth

I mesmerised by a tattoo on that withered arm

As I gaze I know

 

I was in the needles

Floating in the dyes and pigments

Entered into that skin in rapid repeated vibration

 

No this can not be

I am adrift lost I! I!

Must try to think

It must be the drugs they have administered

Can drugs invoke lost memories

From when I may not had human form

 

Where can my fucking reason be

I in fact only recognise the image of the inking

Having seen it once in a tattoo’s shop window

 

Everything fades calmly

Languidly to a void

Light fallen from the abyss

The chasm of my sight

 

Closing my eyes tight

Screaming my insides out

Then opening my peepers

I look to the sky and wonder where she’s landed

 

Astonishingly when I now look to where she was before

She is standing there smiling at me

A cup of tea in her hand

With her other hand she is stirring the cup

 

XY looks to her and at first barks his words

 

“Fuck me XX does all this not hold your interest’’

“This is your job your here to assist me”

“Indeed one day you may have my position’’

 

‘’Anyway for now lets play the game”

“The game we are paid to play”

"Just feign interest that would work for me”

 

“Remember you need money’’

“For your nails and clothes’’

“Yes yes yes most important things I think you need’’

 

“I have a firm idea of how I want you to dress’’

“A look of innocence with excitement elements”

“Elements only known and arranged for me oh what joy’’

‘’You must remember all the time your only on trial’’

“It’s all up to me”

 

‘’Well if you play your cards right“

“And right now your holding a good hand”

“Your fortunes your fate may change”

“You might be able to leave your dingy rooms"

”Why I’m just rattling around in my big house alone”

 

“Ever since well! we don’t need to discuss that!’’

“Just be nice to me ok”

‘’I have the need to be treated pleasantly’’

‘’I’m most generous when I am”

 

He taps the pockets of his pants

First the right then then then the left

He speaks firstly

 

“I have many varieties of drugs”

 

Then from the other pocket the sound of purloined jewellery

He flexing himself

Jangling his pocket

 

‘’ I know many Fences’’

‘’Aware of their weaknesses psychologically’’

‘I have my ways that make them pay top dollar’’

 

All the time XY is speaking

I am dripping and dripping madness’s

And have been trying to slip the knots to no avail

 

XY now moves a little away from me

And looking at me madly presses the remote controller

 

The bottom of my gurney sits inches from the floor

From that floor vapours now arise

Strong nebulous hazy vapours

Containing a brume of psychiatric symptoms

All overwhelming what’s left of my mind

 

Schizophrenic tormented hallucinations on me

Occurrences within events widening out fearfully

Everything is turning inside out and fraying reality

There is no ending then suddenly there is!

 

I now laughing manically

At the saddest though that I forgot

Or was it some deeply repressed guilt

That disturbs me

I must I must

I Have! to remember what

 

Without warning the hooks return

Letting my gurney down to return

Right side up

 

Then the hooks travel to the end of my gurney

They then lift the trolley up again

This time I am hanging upside down

My mind inches from the floor

 

Upon me now

Horrid Cotards syndrome

I have no heart floating

Within my stinking putrefaction

Empty Dead I am and have always been

 

An unknown unwanted memory

In the tremors of frightened moments

Abandoned bare a decrepit corpse

My inner organs having long fled

Not enough left to even to be the saddest of ghosts

 

XX and XY saunter up to my upturned trolley

They lift the gurney off the hooks

My gurney tumbles to the floor

 

XX and XY

Give it now a little push

The gurney glides to the centre of the corridor

The two orderlies slowly approach me

One from each side

 

They begin to Prod the side of my head

XX speaks in sweet words

Softly tapping my head

 

“It’s all my dear’’

‘’It’s all in your head’’

“All that has happened to you”

“So far is our glorious treatments’’

“Our beautiful drugs with your’’

‘’May I say and I’m new here”

“Vivid visions”

 

“Wonderful aren’t they”

‘’Medications tailored for your very self”

“Much research has been done on your type”

“Of course you are a original’’

‘’But you are also apparently of a type’’

 

“XY told me on my first day’’

“He loves to see creatives mentally squirm”

“And if some are helped well and good”

“HaHa ha”

 

“It’s all to be found in your Mind”

“Yes I was told we probe sometimes too deeply”

“It’s probably worth the risk”

 

‘’We are only here to help you’’

“Really I’m just new here”

“I’m still by intuition”

“Saying the things you might need to hear”

‘’Help you to find balance some inner acceptance”

 

Then seeing XY is looking obsessed with his watch

Shaking it lifting it up to his eyes

Agitating in the air again and again

All the time paying no attention to XX

XX puts her mouth close to my ear

She whispers very lowly

 

“I’m only really here”

“Actually for the cash’’

”XY is known all around this town”

“That fucker has big money’’

 

“I’m going to fuck him get his keys his bank details”

“Then murder him’’

“My mother is going to assist me”

“We have been planning his ending for years”

 

‘’So many lives he with joy has destroyed’’

“Those slippers on the addictive slide”

‘’A heartless annihilator of the down falling further”

“He must must be stopped”

 

‘’Mother said to me to be on the lookout for a man”

“Some muscle for our future capers”

‘’And one who may know how to lose a corpse’’

“Why not you?”

 

“Look at him that great deranged oath”

“He really thinks I’m interested in him’’

“He revolts me”

 

“It’s money I want”

“I’m going to be filthy rich’’

“If you ever get out of this’’

‘’I’d love to see you’’

‘’I love your face’’

‘’You could write your poems’’

‘’They might help ease my karma’’

 

XX bends her head down and kisses my forehead

 

XY speaks he seeming has not heard or seen this happen

I am aware of it but I can not react

 

“Problems with the batterie I hope”

“It’s a brand new watch”

“Can you fucking believe it’’

“Paid a absolute fortune for it’’

 

“All my thievings for over a week”

“Only the drug sales I was able to save”

“I’m not going to crack my immense nest egg just yet’’

‘’I’ll retire soon I know I look wonderful for my age”

 

“To live the life of grandeur I’ll need all I’ve hidden away”

‘’If it wasn’t for the hospital drug sales’’

‘’I’d be on the streets not selling but searching with a knife’’

 

“If that bastard sold me a lemon’’

“After all I’ve bought from him’’

“I’ll fucking maim him’’

 

Turning his attention back to XX

He speaks

 

“I probably shouldn’t have told you about my stash”

‘’But I feel we are going to very close”

‘’Fawn and flatter me be servile and all will be fine’’

“Don’t get any ideas about robbing me”

“Remember I always carry a knife’’

 

“Actually I am quite fond of you”

“Remember I never let go of what i want””Never”

“If you have any ideas of not being nice to me”

“Remember the knife’’

 

“Wait”

‘’I may as well tell you I know your certificates are fake”

“Your Mother has been one of my lovers for many years’’

‘I keep her like so many others drug addled’’

‘’Addicted to feed my own sweet addictions’’

 

“I make myself sick with laughter at your schemes’’

“You think I don’t know of your plans’’

“It interested me how you would play it all out”

 

‘’But listen I’ll let you off for this “

“Beware and I so mean it”

“One chance for chances sake”

 

‘’If your not careful and contrite from now”

‘’You yourself will end up on one of these trolleys’’

‘It could easy get my fun there’’

‘’It’s up to you sought of’’

 

“By the way there’s nothing wrong with my timepiece”

“I have the hearing of a bat I heard your whisperings”

‘’Most amusing you really are a vixen’’

‘’I shall completely relish taming you’’

“You will get no rescue from him”

“Not that you need it you’re future is nearly assured”

“He on the other hand is joining the doomed”

 

“Now lets get back to work’’

“It would do no good for the supervisor to see us lounging”

“I’m already on a warning”

“This employment gives me a great cover”

 

There fingers prod harder and harder

Until XY stops prodding me and slaps the side of my face

And with his pinched mouth

Leering at XX speaks

 

‘’Have no more concerns’’

“Lets stop”

“Why waste our energies?”

“Save them for more more personal encounters’’

 

XY looks to XX and gives a lascivious wink

Rattles a awkward laugh

XX squirming her hips lewdly

XY continues

 

‘’He’s one of those sought’s’’

‘‘Really beyond our treatments this one’’

“Look at his visions no peoples poet there”

 

‘’He like some has broken the connection the link’’

‘’Between grand expression and madness’’

“Between clawed into life wondrous imagery

“And senseless endless delirium’’

 

‘’I can see in his eyes he’ll shortly have the Poet ticket’’

‘’On his bluing toe’’

“The drugs should kill him soon”

‘No one will call here looking for him’’

 

Moving away XX looks deep in my eyes

And speaks

 

‘’We shall leave him here to later’’

‘’The Asylum has closed now for admissions’’

‘’All the patients clutching the air drugged to oblivion’’

‘’The doctors I’m sure have strong drinks in their hands’’

 

‘’When we return’’

‘’I know many dank dark alcoves’’

‘’We will push him to the darkest of the asylum’’

‘’Leave him there for the body snatchers’’

‘’Or the hungry rats’’

 

‘’I’ve shunted many poets artists and writers’’

‘’I’ve left there’’

‘’Who acted out the experience of Icarus’’

“The wax and wan of their facial expressions”

“I well remember”

 

“Their features melted like a candles tip”

“Them in their flaring imagination’’

‘’Under a blazing ‘sun’ ‘’

‘’Of their own creation’’

 

XX turns to face XY

He speaks

 

“XY we could not help them’’

“Every therapy was given”

“Every drug every jolt”

“They were ruined before they ended up here”

 

“To often in their life’s their needs were sated’’

“But the fate the rub of the great giver’’

“It will always eventually give too much”

 

‘’Doomed to fail in our treatments’’

“XY’’

‘’They are just delusional examples’’

‘’Of Plato’s ‘divine madness’ ‘’

 

‘’These great exploration voyagers of thought’’

‘’Doomed to scuttle their own ships’’

‘’Named as always ‘the Muse’ ’’

‘’Rudderless and holed they cannot go on’’

‘’They break apart’’

 

‘’All great writers and artists are neurotic by nature’’

‘’Universal psychological truth filled liars’’

‘’Haha ha’’

 

‘’They would always say something’’

‘’As I was walking away’’

‘’That they implored me was most profound’’

‘’In that darkness after tightening the straps’’

‘’I’d leave them alone muttering’’

 

‘’I give their clothing to the homeless’’

‘’Or if it takes me’’

‘’First dibs for the street children to sell’’

 

‘’Dear XX’’

‘’Lets hide ourselves away in the X-ray bays’’

‘’And radiate our forms together’’

 

I looking past them

They have lost interest in me

Spinning me down the corridor

XX gives me a last surreptitious wink

XY yells at me to

 

‘’Go Fuck Mystery’’

 

Then my attention is quickly drawn to a older women

She in a strong retaliation stance of a moral assassin

In a composed gloved hand she is holding a pistol

She is hiding under a disused trolley

Covering herself know with a sheet it slowly falling

 

As XY and XX pass the trolley

A silencer shot is heard

XY is hit in his stomach

His surprised eyes darting not believing

 

XX and the older woman move the trolley close to XY

He reeling in pain staring eyes frozen in shock’’

‘He collapses on it whimpering .....

 

‘’Pity’’

‘’Sympathy’’

‘’Mercy’’

 

He screams over and over again

then

 

‘’I am the same little fragmented boy’’

‘’Who was made to sleep on a lonely broken bed’’

‘’Sleeping with the cackling hens’’

‘’In a draughty chicken coop’’

‘’After whirlwinds of thrashings’’

 

“Through the rotting slats

‘’With One arm and one leg scrapping the filthy floor’’

‘I Wrote over and over words’’

‘’Words of maltreatment and pain in the fowls droppings’’

 

‘’Pain that transformed me easily into endless senseless rages’’

‘’Knowing all I ever had to give the world’’

“Was deeply imprinted horror and cruelty’’

“Knowing what I take the most is advantage other overs’’

 

‘’I have now had a metaphysical experience as I may be dying’’

‘’Born in my bleedings a perfection of thought”

‘’I the inessential hunter killed by innocent prey’

‘’A beautiful final balance’’

 

‘’But if there is the slightest chance of salvation’’

‘I must I suppose die in truth’’

‘’I am actually a child from a very loving home’’

‘’Arms always around me always enchanting me’’

‘’The sweetness of everything drenching my youth’’

‘’Every chance offered warmly again and again’’

“Photos of myself and my siblings festooned the walls’’

 

‘’But truth must be told’’

‘’A rotten branch on a healthy tree will never bare succulent fruit’’

‘‘It’s putrefaction that is my real pleasure’’

 

“That control that nature has claiming all with decay”

“That’s the control that I wanted to have to enact’’

‘’To degrade to atrophy my lovely addicts’’

‘’Putrescence on scrawny legs they be’’

‘’I see them furtive on the street”

‘’It thrills me to see even their shadows are fading”

 

‘’They return again a little more damaged’’

‘’Again and again their need of drugs ages them’’

‘’Causing their downfall impairment is as decomposition’’

“I am as nature the scavenger destroyer’

‘’It is the greatest high’’

‘’And if and when I recover’’

‘’I will surely kill the both of you leisurely’’

 

XX and the older woman holding the gun together

Shoot him repeatedly between the eyes

 

They then propel his deathbed fast down the corridor

As it passes me it bumps the side of my trolley

Like a dodgem car

XY’s projected blood drops splatters

My body and the side of the trolley

 

As my gurney rotates

Blood drops now centrifugal fling in the air

My mind is spinning

Round and round spiralling

Drilling the gurney through the floor

Then as if by brake it halts

 

In the distance I hear XX speaking

 

“Mother we have done it’’

‘’That fat bastard is dead”

‘’He thought he had me on the run”

‘’That I would be his eager slave’’

 

‘’No more of his devilish malarkey’’

‘No more unfortunates will feel’’

‘’He’s fetid weight and sweat’’

‘’What a trick double hoax on him the dangerous pervert’’

 

“And you have all his keys passwords’’

‘Fabulous and bank accounts emptied’’

“His car outside waiting for us”

“His secret stash in the boot”

 

‘’Why shouldn’t us Mother as we be liberators

‘’Be rewarded with beautiful cash’’

‘’And we fucking are’’

 

“He never knew what hit him”

“You did engrave the bullets’’

‘’With the symbol of moral revenge’’

“Absolutely love that detail”

“Mother I thought I found a grand fellow for us”

 

XX looks back at me

 

“But so unfortunately he will soon be dead”

 

They have left but they soon return

I see them cleaning their prints off the gun

Both making their way to my gurney

XX lifts my hand puts the pistol in my hand

 

Closing my hand to grasp the weapon

My fingerprints now singing guilt

The Mother takes from her pocket

One of the monogrammed bullets places it in my pocket

 

XX again kisses my forehead

Places the smoking gun under my pillow

Then they both leave

 

XX speaks as she leaves

 

“I told you Mother he was the fellow for us’’

 

Stifling coughs sulphurous and metallic

From the smoking gun

I am now held close to the wall

Held gripped by restless spirits

Those who never escaped

Never walked out away from this Asylum

Sufferers of unspeakable acts

They overfill my ears with their sad terrible tribulations

 

Those who were shattered by fear

Who died holding nothing

Not a loved ones hand

Or if wanted a crucifix or a knife

In hysteria laden derangement

 

They begin to transmute

Their paranoias

Delusions

Their psychopathy

 

Using their madnesses

Changing their encompassing chaos’s

To fingered movement

Trying to unshackle me

 

Emotions fall over my bound form

From desolation I feel now their given kindness

Ecstasy raptured euphoria

Elating me

Away from this nightmare

Then i cannot feel them

I’m back to nothing

The wonderful spirits are gone

Left quickly as if they fled in fear

My restrained body left behind

 

There is a terrible silent stillness

Deep primal agitations unleashing in me

I feel myself fracturing apart

Like a lonely plaster statue

Being slowly crumbled by its own stone hand

 

Then the impending noiselessness cracks

A calamitous din seeping into my cerebellum

Great thrusting dissonances of dread

 

Now prancing into the corridor

From the inhuman vacuum of patient isolations

Screeching litanies of lobotomies

Entering in ironic pride affectation

Come the Barbarous Spirits

The passed Attendants Doctors and Nurses

 

Sparking shock treatments embers

Small fires ablaze on what is left of their uniforms

The endless shaking of chains

Now the cracking sound of their bones as they stumble in

Billowing in with metallic aromas from the bleeding’ s

Filth from the purging’ s encrusted upon their bones

A halo of Metrazol therapy syringes

Above their bony cruel heads

 

I make a move for the pistol

It falls clattering to the floor and fires

The stray bullet creases my forehead

Creating a blooded minds eye

 

They throw me hardly onto the tranquillising chair

I feel multitudes of skeletal hands on me

All over my body undoing my restraints

Their bony fingers pulling me up

To sit me on that horrendous throne

 

I hear myself scream

 

‘’Leave me be’’

“I a Poet”

‘’I had a horrendous head injury’’

‘’Something fell on my head’’

‘’I’m not lost to madness’’

‘’It was a meteor’’

“It fell from the moon’’

 

The evil skeletons are not listening

They are strapping me tightly to the chair

I see them drawing up using immense rusty syringes

 

I must escape

Even if I must lose my beautiful body

 

The moment petrified

I enter its Time

It’s indefinite sequenced progress

Penetrating its irreversible existence

I embrace it

 

From the past through to the present

I now stand just before the future

Of each single seconds passing

Awaiting

 

Away from the Asylum the world

Standing on a cesium atom

The periods of radiation corresponding

Speaking to me

 

‘’There always is hope’’

‘’Of a safe second ’’

‘’For all who have the need to be born’’

 

I buoyed by those words

Over and over again

With different life spans suggested

Experimenting

A Rebirther

 

In self blinded observed disregard

Of my spirit

Of my wellbeing

Of the implications of my presence




ROBERT (ROIBEARD) SHANAHAN

 

I am a poet playwright and a painter

A storyteller

For me all there really is

Is Compassion and Expression

I described myself once as a...

‘Grand Lector of Apocalyptic Utterances’

 

I live in Tasmania

I am from the Irish diaspora

My family from Cork

I have had my prose published in Australia

Ireland in ‘Outburst’ magazine

Numerous times in ‘Life Encounters’

India in ‘Setu’ poetry magazine

One of my proses was awarded high commendation

In the W. B. Yeats poetry prize

‘Violence at the Egg’

Was read out in the National Parliament of Australia

 

 

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