One Poem by Annette Towler

 

Lacanian Rhythm and Blues

The door is closed and the machine outside buzzes to the beat 

Of a noise cancel gramophone 

All I can offer you is a listener 

With a heart that beats to the soft quiet sounds 

Of Lacanian rhythm 

And a touch of blues 

 

The dream is in technicolor 

Although your preference is black and white 

Because in the old screen version 

The villain is obvious 

It is not you or I 

But the silent shadow of M 

Nosferatu, the count 

Who sucks out your feelings from the 

Heart that holds you tight 

 

I listen to your words listening for the slips 

Playing Lacan, the clinician’s muse 

Who sings the love song of an angel 

 

Because I can give you nothing 

And what I can give you, you don’t want 

All we can do is dissect the dream together 

Create a tapestry  

A carpet of connection, creation, the  

Universe hears us, wrapping you close in the angel’s wings.

*The poem concerns the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, who was a student of Freud.

Annette Towler was born in England and moved to the United States in the early 1990s. She enjoys her job as a therapist and in her spare time she likes to run. She lives in an old house in Milwaukee and has a sweet cat called Marsha.