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NB: old thing
...
We walked a mile
In Mormon silence
The doctor and me
In the mad house grounds
I told a joke
But Kilbride didn’t laugh
It transpired too late
He was a protestant man.
Saint John’s looms large
And unfriendly
A dirty, down-at-
heel Dunsinane,
Beset by scarecrow cedars
I am a reluctant stoic,
Practice
Non-consensual
Heroism.
Saint John’s door is an empty hearth
A dark cold grate where a fire went out
The windows are sightless and sad
The white-washed brick-
work pitted and leprous
The whole façade is
A fallen face
Angry with unintelligence.
I live here now
Where ugliness squats
Concocting its victories
And we who have become lost
Feel fear
Fear in its worst form is misery magnified.
We walked a mile
In Mormon silence
The doctor and me
In the mad house grounds
Saint John’s opens outwards
Like a get well card
Like a breast plate unfastened
For autopsy
The great iron gates
Make me think of
Saint Peter
If his job were to keep
People in and not out
Not even the plant life
Humours me
Death did me no favours
In his last-
minute shirking
Something else sees me through now,
Something cold to the touch.
We are all canted
Toward the infinite
We should address ourselves
To that
Saint John’s shakes loose
The formality of
Standing still
Bares its barred windows
Like teeth
Shows its true face.
I am outnumbered here
By adjectival embarrassments
They give their
Professional reasons
For something they
Cannot hold
In their hand-
They do not understand
They only overstand.
We walked a mile
In Mormon silence
The doctor and me
In the mad house grounds
Before returning to
Inconclusive rooms
To apologise
To the unmade bed
For dreaming only
Briefly
Saint John’s swallows me
To sleep, story numb
Grieving my missionary precautions
The loss of my killing coping.
Doctor Kilbride,
His magnanimous waxing
Slight and false
In the fasting drum of
My inner ear
Gives me good advice,
Sound and meaningless
Puts me in my proper place
I smile, faintly
For the war he’s won
Without knowing
And ‘cause Saint John’s at least
Is better than jail.
------
The human race, the only race I know where everybody loses.
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small reunion
