These sonnets are no great shakes but they are honest. I write them for my sanity. With revision some turn out to be keepers. But if confession is good for the soul, these are good for me. One note on the poem: the "lizard brain" is my term for the primitive brain, the prosencephalon and mesencephalon, the amygdala and the pyramidal system, those parts of the brain that are responsible for the fight or flight syndrome as well as persistent unbearable moods over which the higher brain, the cerebral cortex, appears to exhibit little control.
XXVI
The demon dog that nips my innocent heels
Has jaws more terrible than any lion.
He savages the lizard brain that feels
Helpless to ascend a distant Zion.
O holy city! Descended from the stars
With giant gems as doors for habitation.
Imperishable city! Boulevards
Whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.
But here I sit, encased in flesh and bone,
A man bereft of faith, in love with death,
So desperately, yes desperately alone
I'd trade my soul to breathe a dying breath.
Depression is a killer; spare my heart
For New Jerusalem, for a new start.
6 Kilorats,
CE
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Unexpected Light
Selected Poems and Love Poems 1998-2008 ON SALE NOW!
I like the concept of the lizard brain; and the contrast between the 'holy city' and the lonely wanderer who cannot connect to it as a source of life/hope.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Twitches, so good to see you around, the advice on the license was good, glad some portion of this "therapeutic poem" connected with you. I would apologize for my ongoing state but that's ridiculous. I want to get well more than anything, but I have virtually no control over my mood at present, so my attitude is to accept my illness and wait and hope for the medications to work. Being bipolar really sucks! But all of us have crosses to bear.
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