Villanelle: Mornings; Darkness Visible

Mornings

My wife wants coffee. I get up. It’s cold.
I plug the coffee maker in and wait.
I don’t need mornings to know that I'm old.

My joints no longer do as they are told.
The smell of coffee tells me I’m awake.
My wife wants coffee. I get up. It’s cold.

A little sugar and it’s good as gold.
I’m a cold fish and coffee is the bait.
I don’t need mornings to know that I'm old.

We never listened to what we were told,
How age would change us, age would desiccate.
My wife wants coffee. I get up. It’s cold.

It’s pain and wisdom that will be unscrolled.
One feeds the other as we dissipate.
I don’t need mornings to know that I'm old.

This lifelong sentence will never be paroled.
Come join me, we can have a grim parade!
My wife wants coffee. I get up. It’s cold.
I don’t need mornings to know that I'm old.


It was 47 degrees in the house when Kenyon woke me at 7:30 this morning for his constitutional. I don’t mind the cold so much but I noticed it was colder than it had been. Later I rose and made coffee, the subject of today’s villanelle, and turned the heat on up to a blistering 57 for Kathleen. She complains that it is not only cold but damp here, and it is. I tell her that’s the price of living in the coastal redwoods.

My mood seems to be holding at neutral, thanks be to God and medications, and it’s so strange waking to myself. As my older brother likes to say when I come out of one of these down cycles, “Welcome back.” There is a villanelle by Roethke I love called “The Waking,” for any interested. Next to “Do not go gentle” by Thomas I think it’s the best villanelle in the language.

While depressed there was nothing beneath my solar plexus, just a vacuum or a cardboard imitation of feeling like a person. Now beneath my sternum is a feeling of Craig—-I can love again, appreciate natural beauty, caress my dear wife, make jokes, have ambitions, work without a sense of hopelessness, in a word, live rather than barely exist. In my humble opinion as a manic-depressive, the feeling of self is much overrated, as are all the positive emotions. In deep depressions there is a complete loss of self and no memory of how it feels to be oneself. Those who have not gone through this cannot understand. I always recommend William Styron’s Darkness Visible to any who are interested in the illness. He is more eloquent than I. When you come back to yourself after a depression, truly, it seems a miracle.

Rodent Neutral,

Craig Erick

Villanelle: Redwoods; Rodent Neutral!

Redwoods

Cathedrals come to mind when the soft light,
Refracted through the needles like stained glass,
Leaks down from these great trees from a great height.

Their bark is thick and grooved and will not blight.
Their fallen fronds, acidic, allow no grass;
Cathedrals come to mind when they shape light.

I look up and the tops are out of sight.
My mind cannot encompass their great mass;
Light leaks down through these trees from a great height.

I love an oak, I love its tortured might;
Maples burn gold and rose when leaves must pass;
But they are not cathedrals to the light.

Straight as a rod, vertically impolite
To man, who feels a bug beside their mass,
The light leaks down through these from a great height.

I want to stay here like an anchorite
And worship at their base while all things pass.
Cathedrals come to mind when the soft light
Leaks down from these great trees from a great height.


Like yesterday, it’s a good sign when Dr. Chaffin writes about things outside himself. In general I am no introvert, but depression forces me into a smaller and smaller space until I’m afraid to speak with my wife, until making coffee becomes an overwhelming burden.

But you have been there with me, and your support—even if only the knowledge that I am being read, that I am not simply a mute smudge on the windshield of the universe—has meant a lot. (Did that last over-the-top trope remind you of Roc McKuen?)

My new psychiatrist was quite knowledgeable, to my relief. He is the second psychiatrist I’ve seen in my life who knows more about medications than I do. In view of my recent improvement since doubling the Seroquel, he opted not to change a thing, but asked me to return in a month or call him if I start to cycle down again. What’s interesting is that in this small community I remember him from the men’s retreat. There I told him that he emanated the most joy of anyone I met at the affair; he just smiled back. As I said to Kathleen, a happy psychiatrist is either very healthy or in denial. I think my new shrink is actually healthy. Amazing. So few psychiatrists are. Naturally, as that rare, truly competent doctor, to get an appointment with him takes over two months. But he has a walk-in clinic when he is on call, and that’s how I was able to see him.

Not much else to report. Kathleen is under the weather but I am never allowed to give details. She has a stronger sense of privacy than I. My sense of privacy has been blown out by multiple hospitalizations and events, if I described them, that are beyond embarrassment. What otheres think of me is none of my business. I tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may.

I have a better poem on redwoods than the villanelle above, and I’ll post it below. In shape it resembles a redwood by design. See the poet George Herbert for more such poems.


At rodent neutral?

CE

Red
wood
Standing
on the burnt
tripod of your
fire-hollowed base
like a Saturn rocket
waiting for launch,
your faraway limbs
radiate like bent spokes
bearing needles tighter
than a comb’s teeth to hide
your crown like the face of a god,
just as you hide the sun
from the laurel and the fir.
What light you spare
won’t penetrate the bleached
rust carpet of needles below where
blue jays strut, squawking indecorously
beside your unearthly stillness.
Your peat-red bark is grooved as if
some prehistoric cat had clawed it lengthwise.
Your roots, big as pythons, suck up the silt from
all those moss-furred wrecks that splinter
into orange sawdust, your ancestors.
Without them you’d go hungry in this rain forest
flushing minerals faster than roots can taste.
Only the outermost of your two thousand rings
is alive, a thin cylinder of cells
wrapping your heartwood
like foil. Your strength
comes from your core
and your core is dead.
Your seeds, smaller than
a fly’s wings, share
a lotto’s chance of sprouting
in your shade. More often
your own shoots encircle you
as you die to feed them,
rising in a cathedral
cool and still and vertical
around your stump’s altar.

(published in Mi Poesias)

Villanelle: Things I Love; Mood Improves (shh!)

The Things I Love

The things I love define me, more or less.
I love the Simpsons and pistachios.
I love to watch my one true love undress.

Her living sculpture summons my caress.
I love her curve of hip, her Irish nose.
The things I love define me, more or less.

I love basketball, wine to excess.
I love the violet hour at day’s close.
I love to watch my one true love undress.

I love my daughters, proud of their success.
I love my grandson in his dirty clothes.
The things I love define me, more or less.

And I love poetry, though I confess
I find much of it nowadays otiose.
I love to watch my one true love undress.

Under melancholy’s fierce duress
I grip these things more tightly than a noose.
The things I love define me, more or less.
I love to watch my one true love undress.


I don’t know if today’s poem qualifies as poetry, as it is deficient in tropes, but even if only verse, it is authentic. And that’s what good poetry must have; not truth per se but authenticity. The reader must feel convinced of the poet’s experience, or narrative, in his very bones. Otherwise it’s just another bad television show.

As you might deduce from today’s subject, my mood is improving since my antipsychotic was doubled three nights ago. Antipsychotics help re-set the brain, much like ECT. They put the brain at rest. They help my focus when I’m ill, so that I can attend to one thing without the overwhelming anxiety of everything else.

The depressive often feels responsible for everyone and everything, feeling guilty that he can’t set it all right. This is a Christ-like narcissism, as this presumes one should be good enough to take on everyone else’s sin. It’s part of the illness. Then there is the irony that most depressives, while depressed, can do very little, nevertheless have crushing expectations of doing more than is humanly possible. This is why acceptance of one’s depression is paramount in enduring the illness, because depression is like a tar baby—-the more you fight against it, the deeper you’re sucked in.

I have an appointment with a new psychiatrist today. I hope he’s more knowledgeable than my last.


At 2 kilorats and rising (shh!),

Craig Erick

Villanelle on Obesity; Depression and the Lizard Brain

21st Century Plague

Watch out: obesity is on the prowl
And like the Blob will subsume all your sume;
America, don’t just throw in the towel!

Designers love us skinny as a dowel.
It makes us easier for them to groom.
Watch out: obesity is on the prowl.

Somewhere I hear a supermodel’s howl
To find a single french fry in her room.
America, don’t just throw in the towel!

New laws against trans-fat evince a growl
From those who love fried chicken’s rich perfume.
Watch out: obesity is on the prowl.

We need to scrape our arteries with a trowel
And sweep our livers with a statin broom.
America, don’t just throw in the towel!

Is it our fault there’s more to feed the bowel?
We’re only victims of the calorie boom.
Watch out: obesity is on the prowl.
America, don’t just throw in the towel!


In depression minor issues become major ones and long-term problems become immediate crises. When I crossed the border from Mexico in February of this year I weighed 245, which made me technically overweight but not obese. In no time at all I blossomed into my present weight of 270, the heaviest I’ve ever been in my life. When I get the courage to look at myself in the mirror after a shower, my appearance gives me cognitive dissonance: I can’t believe I’m that fat. My belly protrudes, the definition in my arm muscles is barely discernible, and the new padding of the groin makes some items look smaller.

When I talked about this with my pain management doctor in April, while deeply depressed, she said, wisely: “That’s the last thing you need to worry about now.” Indeed. But that doesn’t make the depressive mindset let go of the issue. In depression we play with our defects like cats with dead mice. We pick at them like scabs. We revolve on a carousel from one defect to another. Here’s a list of some of my specific self-accusations in depression:

1) You’ve never done anything in your life.

2) You’re so fat how could anyone love you?

3) You’ve done nothing about retirement, do you want to be penniless?

4) You don’t deserve disability; you’re a mooching fraud.

5) Why don’t you go to the gym? Why don’t you swim?

6) You drink too much and it’s ruining your brain. You’ve permanently damaged your brain, especially with all the medications you take.

7) You’re a wimp to take so many medications. Why not just flush them and tough it out?

8) You’ve blasphemed against God and are beyond salvation.

9) Your children don’t care about you because they don’t call.

10) You call yourself a poet but you’re a fraud. You have three unpublished manuscripts that nobody wants. You’re afraid to get out there and do the real work of competition because secretly you know you’re not good enough. Poetry is a thin excuse to keep you occupied in your no-account life.

I could probably list a hundred of these and it would not be enough. When self turns against self it’s as if a stick were whittling itself-- whittling, belittling. All this is what I call “the chatter of the lizard brain.”

In depression the primary problem is mood. The depressive mood arises from primitive brain areas we share with reptiles. Thus our frontal cortex, the seat of thought, is directed by the lizard brain to spew all this self-denigrating chatter, because if only our accusations were true it would explain our depression and satisfy our need for causality.

In other words, in depression, the lizard brain is the horse and the frontal cortex is the cart. You can’t fight your lizard brain. It’s too primitive. Treatment requires medication, supportive therapy, and time, and if this does not suffice, possibly electroconvulsive therapy.

Some depressions are not just biochemically based, but mixed with psychology. In these cases cognitive-behavioral therapy can be helpful. But to a pure biochemical depressive, like a bipolar I, talk therapy can actually worsen the symptoms. After all, you have a new person to disappoint: your therapist. I’ve never had strict cognitive-behavioral therapy, but analytic therapy and ego-centered therapy have definitely made me worse. Anything beyond supportive therapy I find damaging. A biochemical depression is probably the worst time to try to make changes in your personality.

Back to obesity. I’m on medications (antipsychotics, lithium) that cause weight gain and fluid retention. The antipsychotic also takes all my stamina away, so I gasp going up stairs. I’ve found it terribly hard to exercise on my present medication regimen.

Like all fat people, I hope someday to be thin again, as I have been the majority of my life (until my early 40’s after failed back surgery). But as my doctor advised, it’s not something I should worry about now. For now I do two things: 1) try to accept that I’m sick; 2) try to stay busy. While writing this I’m doing the wash, for instance. Afterwards I have the kitchen to clean up. Then I want to start writing my book review, and later, perhaps, work more on my html course. That I can do these things shows that my depression is not as deep as it could be. Indeed, I could pass for normal.


At 2 kilorats,

Craig Erick

Infinite Split

Who is that third who always walks beside,
After the second speaks inside your mind
And, split into parts, you can’t decide?

The chatter in your brain’s on override,
Your thoughts repeat themselves and then rewind.
Who is that third who always walks beside?

Observing you observing you as guide
Brings others on like an unholy wind
And then, split into parts, you can’t decide.

You chant a Buddhist chant to quiet the ride,
Still, you proliferate, needled and spined.
Who is that third who always walks beside?

One voice becomes ten prophets multiplied.
You sue for peace but all are nonaligned.
Besides, split into parts, you can’t decide.

Your second comes to mourn by your bedside.
Your third, vomiting selves, follows behind.
Who is that third who always walks beside?
You, split into parts, cannot decide.


(Those conversant with T. S. Eliot will notice I stole a verse of his from the fifth movement of "The Waste Land.")

It’s a mistake for a poet to comment on his work, but I’ll make it; I like today’s poem, especially as it takes up the question of mental chatter I discussed briefly yesterday. The terrible thing about self-consciousness is that the awareness of self can be split into a seemingly infinite throng of observing selves, co-selves and anti-selves. If you listen to them you will not be able to do your best work or even achieve intimacy with another human being. But the ability to abstract ourselves is also what makes us human. We can choose consciously while animals respond by instinct and trial and error (never mind the chimpanzee with the twig and the termites; generalities always prove exceptions).

In my best Zen moments I don’t play the guitar, I become the guitar; I don’t cook, I flow with the cooking; I don’t shoot a basketball, the rim sucks it into the net. Such unity of consciousness and activity is rare, though Yogis tell us it is possible to be present most, if not all, of the time. Paradoxically, I was present as I wrote today’s poem about not being present.

Recent experiments have added the elephant to the chimpanzee as two animals who, with investigation, come to realize that their image in the mirror is only an image. (I believe there is a third animal in the group but I can’t recall it.) Thus an elephant can use a mirror to direct its trunk to grooming its neck. A cat, on the other hand, may confront the image aggressively, and, discovering it to be harmless, think no more about it. In this act I think the elephant shows mirror-consciousness, but I doubt it exhibits self-consciousness. To be self-conscious means to think in terms of ‘I.’ Once that line is crossed you end up with that human problem: the disintegration of the ego into alternate selves.

Imagine the relief of being only thing-conscious like animals. You have no word for food; there is a scent that directs your brain toward it, and then you deal, perhaps, with aggression and competition to obtain your food, but you never sit back on your paws and think about how best to approach food and whether you’re good at it or not. By trial and error behavioral improvements can be made, but they are not rational. (Whenever I put forward these ideas, some animal lover will invariably take me to task, but I think assigning an identity to an animal, usually a pet, is mainly an anthropomorphic projection.)

Some believe the Fall was a fall from thing-consciousness to self-consciousness; in the moment we remarked upon ourselves we became separated from “God” and ourselves. In evolutionary terms this would be seen as an advance, not a fall. In any case, when there is no conflict between being and doing, one is likely enjoying mental health. And to be present with one’s doing certainly helps with avoiding one’s undoing.


At 2.5 Kilorats,

Craig Erick

Sonnet Sunday: The Memory of Man; Religious Psychosis

The Memory of Man

I saw two prides of sea lions on the rocks
Across a cove filled by a clear green sea.
I was alone. I sat there harmlessly
While pelicans flew by in ordered flocks.
I posed no danger, but the sea lions’ young
Looked warily at me with huge dark eyes
Of deep translucent black, and their surprise
Was soon confirmed by action. A pup hung
From the rock’s edge, then plopped into the sea.
His mother followed and the other young
Followed behind, while one male, unimpressed
Stayed on his back, lounging in luxury.
I wondered why the beasts became unstrung
Then recalled guns and clubs and all the rest.


Yesterday was a bad day. I had at least three weepy/weeping spells, two of them on the cliff across from the sea lions that made for the sonnet above. What really made me cry was the idea of God and an attempt at prayer. I have such feelings of rejection from the Almighty, and the idea of approaching him fills me with such a sense of unworthiness I can’t begin to describe it. I feel like a bug under glass, but smaller. It’s a feeling of primal abandonment which likely goes back to infant bonding issues with my mother, and is subsequently projected on that great screen, God. It’s a grief over a vacuum that persists from my adolescence and young adulthood. Back then I was such a fanatic I felt I had to have a message from God to do nearly anything of consequence.

For some strange reason I received the impression at the age of 17 that God wanted me to become a doctor. When I didn’t get in to medical school the first year with a 4.0 from UCLA, I felt betrayed—“Look, God, I’ve done all this work for you getting through college, working three jobs and the rest, and then you thwart the ambition you gave me?” I later realized this was the sin of presumption. But just when being a doctor began to make sense in the third year of my psychiatry residency, I fell into a severe depression that caused me to drop out. There went my hope to make something of being a doctor, something I could bear, as psychiatry dovetailed with the humanities. After this debacle, my primitive thinking was: “I tried to do God’s will, but he screwed me.” How could I be so special that God would screw me? All this demonstrates the narcissism of the depressive. When an infant does not have enough human bonding, he makes up people in his head, and his life revolves around his head instead of society. To the degree you were isolated in your earliest years, to that degree will your head fill with chatter as a substitute.

I know that my feelings toward God are opposed to Christian theology, but I can’t help how I feel. If I have a relationship with God it must be infantile on my part. Especially in depressions, prayer only makes me sadder. Yes, I did pray for myself yesterday. There’s no harm in that. But any emotional wholeness from a perceived contact with God is something I’ve never experienced. I wish for healing, of course, but at my age I settle for acceptance. This is how I’m built. My emotional wounds go way back to infancy. I project them on authority figures, even an authority figure presumably on my side.

Mental illness lends itself to hyperreligiosity and religious psychoses, in which I was an avid participant, though to be fair, I didn’t know of the illness that possessed me until I was 30.

One more thing: When I am well I like to say, “It is not I who have a relationship with God, it is he who has a relationship with me.” Let the burden be on the Almighty. He can take it, one assumes.


At 3 kilorats,

CE

Villanelle: Parasitic; Discourse on Depression

Parasitic

Beyond the darkness lies more dark and pain.
Where marigolds preened, a black orchid blooms
Just like the parasite inside my brain.

This business with myself is so inane.
My heart is human ash among the tombs.
Beyond the darkness lies more dark and pain.

Who goes there? Who would shake my window pane?
Is it the wind or just my tangled looms?
I fear the parasite inside my brain.

My humanness is really inhumane.
I coil on myself inside this room.
Beyond the darkness lies more dark and pain.

I called you, Jesus, through this bloody rain.
Forgive me, I did not mean to presume.
Am I the parasite inside my brain?

The darkness is a tunnel inside a train.
The train is trudging slowly towards my doom.
Beyond the darkness lies more dark and pain
Just like the parasite inside my brain.


I want to be honest, but in the act of writing despair seems briefly arrested. Then I would not call my state despair, exactly, which implicates the heart and will, only clinical depression. Yet clinical depression leads to despair, which can only be defined negatively: without hope, helpless, without recourse, bereft of comfort, and so on.

When my mood is normal (may it be again!) I feel like myself. In depression I become my anti-self. Whatever I do is pointless; those who love me are deceived; I have made nothing of my life, indeed, have no life, and nothing I can do will change this. I constantly berate myself for perceived failings. And this from a Lutheran who supposedly believes in grace, “God’s unmerited favor toward us.” In depression I’m sure that God made a mistake, that in my case it doesn’t apply. I don’t feel loved by God yet I believe God is love. I am not comforted by Jesus; I can’t relate to him at all, indeed, have always had tremendous trouble with the second person of the Trinity. It is an article of faith that Christ suffered all our sins and griefs on the cross, so surely his suffering included clinical depression, but that doesn’t help my depression. It just makes me feel more guilty, as if I’m failing God by not believing. I think about going to church but know in this state I will misinterpret everything as a demand and leave church feeling more guilty than ever. In depression you question your core beliefs, and my faith is certainly one thing eroded by depression. This is no suffering to make me a better person; this is the extinguishing of personality itself.

There is a sense in clinical depression that the pain of the moment is eternal pain, that one has always hated oneself, that it has never been any different. Because I have had a few days of relief here and there, I am lucky to remember that it doesn’t have to be this way. In saying that I have hope. It is intellectual hope based on past depressions; I have always, eventually, come out of them, and I have been most helped by medications and electricity. Activity is good as well; simple tasks like washing the dishes. I am not so bad that I fear my inability to wash the dishes, each dish weighing a ton as my hand shakes with the fear of not being able to do them. But I have been there. I have been at 8 kilorats and it’s not pretty.

I feel the need to justify my existence every day, but the paradox is that nothing will justify my existence. I worry about old age, my body is tired and my joints ache, I am more than unhappy, I am abandoned. I know the form of my depression goes back to infancy, but that does not change the state of depression or explain its occurrence. One must have genetic predisposition to become clinically depressed.

Have you ever felt utterly alone, like a smudge on a windshield, like a microscopic dot in infinite darkness? Have you ever suffered constant accusations in your mind telling you all was for naught? Have you been nauseated by food, taking pleasure in nothing and wishing only for death? If you’ve had such symptoms for a week straight without relief it qualifies as depression. It used to be four weeks, then two weeks, and now the APA has decided the requirement for treatment is only one week. One week can be an eternity.
Right now the one thing I look forward to is seeing a better psychiatrist, although there is no guarantee I will be able to see him come Wednesday, as he will be on call for emergencies and may not be able to stay in the office. If that happens I will no doubt think that’s exactly what I deserve, that it’s hopeless anyway, that no one can help me. But I know better. Those who follow this blog know that I experienced a few kilobunnies several weeks ago, only to fall back in the pit.

As an aside, yesterday’s poem was roundly condemned by my editor and wife, and I couldn’t agree more. In my present state I think most of the poetry I’ve ever written should be thrust into the fire. Then in depression one can have no objectivity regarding anything about the self. I had the same experience as a practicing doctor, fearing everything I said was nonsense, that it was a miracle no one perceived me as a fraud and that I did not harm anyone while practicing in a psychotic depression. At that time work did not make me feel any better or worse, so I continued to work. When a crying spell would overcome me, I’d slip in the bathroom, cry, use Visine, and wash my face with cold water. I did that for more than a year, day after day. The only relief I experienced at that time was while driving. Something about the motion was comforting, and it was the one task I felt I could still do.

I want to render thanks to Jennifer, a friend of Kathleen’s, for giving me a pewter bunny to remind me of the possibility of getting back to kilobunnies. The rabbit now sits on the windowsill now next to a picture of me and my youngest daughter, where I am glowing with joy. And I say to myself, “Who is that man?”


At 3.5 kilorats,

Craig Erick

Villanelle: Kenyon; Update on Depression

Kenyon

My dog limps, so I wrap his leg with tape
His aging has accelerated now.
It’s months, not years, until his great escape.

My wife, she weeps to see him in such shape;
I miss the playfulness he used to show.
My dog limps, so I wrap his leg with tape.

When he sleeps I don’t know if he will wake.
To die asleep might be the kindest blow.
It’s months, not years, until his great escape.

Sometimes he stares out into the landscape
And stops as if confused, and I allow.
My dog limps so I wrap his leg with tape.

When he squats to poop, his hips will shake
Making it difficult for him to do.
It’s months, not years, until his great escape.

Is it too soon or late for God to take
This creature we so loved from here below?
My dog limps, so I wrap his leg with tape.
It’s months, not years, until his great escape.


Not much to report today. It’s raining here. After the rain a mist will rise among the redwoods like the forest’s breath. The smell of wet trees and earth is the smell of life as much as the ocean’s, though I have long favored the ocean.

My medications have numbed me to a degree, but I can still feel the pit that is my heart under the mist. I try to be useful each day, though there is no pleasure in it. When I prepare to take up a new task, however mundane, my anxiety rises and the chatter of self-denigrating voices begins. I wish I had a nickel for every time my brain told me I’m worthless.
My psychiatrist talks about self-worth as if I only had to inhale it. He has no gift for those with severe affective disorders; talk therapy does no good, however skillful the practitioner. When my mood flips I don’t need it. When I’m in a down cycle, I’ll listen to nearly any suggestion out of desperation, even though I know only time, medication, or ECT will work in my case. Luckily I have a tentative appointment next week with a psychiatrist better versed in managing medications. Perhaps he can make the adjustments I need.

This sputtering depression is now seven months long, my longest since 1996. How I wish I could feel hope again! At least I have, in this most recent dip, been able to feel love for my wife. She is my anchor. If it were in me, I’d get well for her tomorrow, because she sees both me and Kenyon suffering and sometimes she can’t bear it. I’m tearing up as I write this, because one symptom of depression is sorrow over one’s effect on loved ones. You want to spare them the pain. This is a frequent justification for suicide in the depressive: “You’d all be better off without me.” In actuality this constitutes a narcissistic lie, and the act of suicide, outside of a terminal illness, is the most selfish act one can commit. Yet in the deepest of depressions it takes a powerful moral core not to give in to the option. I’m not troubled by thoughts of suicide as much as I was when I was younger and depressed; back then I had to wrestle with the question daily. Now, by long practice, it rarely enters my mind with any force. I have foresworn that option, one benefit of a lifelong struggle with this disease, which has over a 30% lifetime mortality if not properly treated.

Happy thoughts for a Friday, right? But I doubt people don’t come here for happy thoughts. I think they come to read the truth as best I can tell it, or possibly to sample a poem (though in my exercise in form I may at times be writing only verse).


At 3 Kilorats,

CE

Villanelle: Wounded

Wounded

I know this clotting wound will never heal
But I can keep it clean for you, O Lord
Until the resurrection makes me real.

You rose with all your wounds; it’s no big deal
To fall on ploughshares and discover a sword.
I know this clotting wound will never heal.

The tragic movie spins from reel to reel,
The audience either suffering or bored
Until the resurrection makes them real.

I tell my wife, “Don’t ask me how I feel.”
Pain is less when pain can be ignored.
I know this clotting wound will never heal.

Minds are meant to know and lips to seal
But if I were an apple I’d be cored--
Until the resurrection makes me real.

I look inside and watch my blood congeal.
I know my way; it’s neither from nor toward.
I know this clotting wound will never heal
Until the resurrection makes me real.


There is a danger in villanelles of sacrificing substance to suit the form, and the required repetition can turn an average line into a bad one. But I won’t comment on today’s effort. It’s the effort that matters.

Kathleen returned to work yesterday and returned in a good deal of pain, but there are more workers in her area so she didn’t have to work as hard as before. She wears a back brace now, which I think is more helpful in reminding a patient of proper mechanics than any direct benefit. I tried a number of back braces when I still had hope for improvement. Yesterday my doctor suggested a long-acting narcotic for my pain but I told him I’d think about it. I must see a qualified psychiatrist to consult about my medications before I add another for mere physical pain, which is, as I have said before, not comparable to emotional pain. Perhaps the flagellation practiced by monks eased their spiritual pain more than denying the flesh. Pain can be a welcome distraction from depression because it seems real.

I should practice my HTML today, but unfortunately I haven’t been able to figure out how to log into my website from here. The course scares me because I’m a novice and have so much to learn. Then I remember that’s how I felt in nearly every course I’ve ever taken; I feel anxiety until I master the subject, so I try too hard too early to understand it all.

I don’t feel very chatty today.


At 3 Kilorats,

CE

Villanelle: Not Alone; Dog Doo-Doo

Not Alone

Walk with me, Peter, we are not alone.
The time has come for all good men to shine.
There’s nothing more for which we can atone.

Demosthenes would chew upon a stone
To make his speech a little more divine.
Walk with me, Peter, we are not alone.

Our life requires us like a miser’s loan.
Who makes more of it than a crooked line?
There’s nothing more for which we can atone.

Although I wish my earthly span were done,
The salmon finds the river through the brine.
Walk with me, Peter, we are not alone.

The phoenix burned his past, now he is gone,
The sphinx misunderstood for all this time.
There’s nothing more for which we can atone.

Who were the monsters living in your home?
Childhood is peopled with their kind.
Walk with me, Peter, we are not alone.
There’s nothing more for which we can atone.


I received no suggestions for a new form so I thought I’d tackle a villanelle today. It proved easier than I feared, but I doubt I can write one every day for a month. Then I doubt a lot of things about myself right now. But I would say that form is good for a depressed poet. It gives one a structure with which to begin. And one line builds toward another, and soon you have a poem.

It is not surprising that many here send me their good wishes and suggestions for my illness. That is the compassionate side of human nature which we all treasure. But in truth I would rather hear comments about my verse, as that is something outside of me. That we can discuss without the “me.” A poem has to stand on its own. And in writing I forget myself for a time.

Kathleen went back to work today, despite the fact that I think her back too bad to do such work; she has a bulging or ruptured disk at L5—S1, with changing sciatica. She was, however, determined to return on her scheduled date. I hope she does not come home in agony. She can be very stubborn about things like this, and I hate to see her in pain.

I almost threw up this morning. I had to prepare Kenyon’s food, a mix of wet and dry food, plus add giblets and juice from last night’s chicken as instructed by Kathleen, though I was forbidden to give him the neck. The sight of congealed, yellow, floating chicken fat in a cold soup, which I poured into his dish (he ate all his food), was sickening. Afterwards on our morning walk he had trouble evacuating completely and ended up soiling his long golden fur with green. I had to hose him off when we came home. His anus was particularly sensitive to the procedure. I hope I haven’t grossed you out, but it is important for me to write about things beside myself.

So dear reader, I bid you adieu—or a-doo-doo as it were.


At 3 Kilorats and holding,

CE

Sonnet, "Anxiety;" Depression Worsens

Anxiety

You know it in your stomach when you wake,
Almost like hunger but a different feel--
Like being driven by the winds of hell
Forward and forward and forward until you break
Or want to break, but anxiety won’t allow
A total breakdown, it would lose its grip.
Content yourself with the almost trembling lip.
Know you can live in any time but now.
Time future runs ahead, you eat its dust;
Time past is pure regret, paralysis.
And all your hours of self-analysis
Can never re-create a basic trust.
You wonder if as an infant it was better;
Not if your mother raised you by the letter.


Three steps forward, two steps back, so it is in my sputtering depression. Yesterday I took a turn for the worse. I don’t know why. My medications didn’t change. I suspect the change to standard time had something to do with it, as contrary to the usual symptoms of depression, which get better at night, mine got worse. Driving home from my html class I really felt like weeping but what for? For bad chemicals? They don’t deserve my tears.

I had planned to go fishing today but don’t feel safe in leaving home. It’s good to be near Kathleen. Oh, I can take the heroic route and force myself to fish, but there would be no pleasure in it save the knowledge that I can do nearly anything while depressed, but I know that already. It’s just a matter of the psychic price one must pay. Often an activity can briefly lift you out of yourself, which is good, but my computer class last night filled me with anxiety about all the things I don’t know and how hopeless it appeared that I shall ever be able to construct a rudimentary web page.

I’m tired, I’m confused, I fear falling down the mineshaft again. I’ve never had such a rocky recovery from depression. Usually I just flip out of it when the meds kick in. I’m tired of living with it. I’m tired of anxiety and hopelessness. I’m tired of getting my head above water for a few days and being dunked back into it. Depression truly sucks.

I know it’s Halloween today, which marks the end of the month, a month in which I’ve written a sonnet nearly every day as part of my mental toilette. Perhaps an interested reader can suggest whether I ought to persist in sonnets or change the form for November. I am not trying to write great poetry, simply a sonnet a day to bolster my sanity.


At 3 Kilorats,

Craig Erick

Sonnet: Not Poetry; Ms. Contests

Not Poetry

Another manuscript goes out today
Of my best poems. The orphans need a home
More permanent than all my journal play.
They need a book that they can call their own.
The stigma of self-publishing is gone,
Or so I’m told by those content to print
The exhalations they insist are song,
Not fearing their own talent counterfeit.
But I persist in contests. Why I do
Is either born of stubbornness or hope
That some fey judge will grasp the master clue
To verify my genius and my scope.
(This sonnet isn't poetry but verse,
A morning discipline that I rehearse.)


As the reader may see from this desultory sonnet I am not much inspired today, and in casting about for a subject I chose my preparation of yet another manuscript of poetry to enter in a contest, the T. S. Eliot prize. If there’s ever a prize I’d like to win, this would be it, as T. S. Eliot has been a pleasurable obsession of mine for more than three decades.

The ms. I’ve been putting together flaunts the custom of my other three, (only one of which has been published as a book). There is no theme, no divisions, no attempt at a unifying rubric for the collection—I just chose the best poems I think I’ve written on any subject and put them in alphabetic order with a few modifications.

With the completion of this entry, given the title Unexpected Light by my editor, Kathleen, I now have three different manuscripts floating around in Contest Land. As each of these contests receive 500 or more manuscripts, on a pure statistical basis I have an 0.2% chance of winning each of them, though I hope my talent and hard work might boost me to the top 100, increasing my chances to 1%. What makes such contests so hard to predict is the changing judges. Dana Gioia and Diane Wakowski are going to bring very different sensibilities to judging, thus the winner, once the mss. are narrowed down, will be that lucky poet who pleases a poet with a body of work and unavoidable biases.

I know my poems are fairly retro, as most of them make some kind of sense--though not all. In the Post-Modern wasteland my work may appear as a discarded McDonald’s wrapper useful only for the delectation of a seagull. But on I go, and I have never so aggressively pursued prizes in my life as I am doing now. I will keep entering until I run out of money or they run out of patience. Meanwhile there are other avenues of publishing to explore, but I hesitate to self-publish, because that makes one ineligible for many more prizes, like the Pulitzer, which I no doubt richly deserve for my contribution to seagulls.

Moodwise I’m still fragile; the change in time doesn’t help, with the early darkness: “I have been one acquainted with the night” –Frost. I am better, certainly, but still suffer the mad chatter of my anti-self telling me that I’m no good. This only has power over me when I’m already anxious or fearful, and I get so tired of the record I want to put a corkscrew through my ear and grind my brain to soup. But Kathleen wouldn’t like that, and besides, Thanksgiving’s coming up, so I’ll desist for now. Brain gravy just ain’t popular.


1.5 Kilorats,

CE

Sonnet Sunday: Hearing-Ear Dog

Hearing-Ear Dog

I watch her watch him with a heart of grief,
Confirmed by copious tears near twice a day.
Death’s slowly coming, nothing like a thief
But obvious and clumsy, in the way.
Kenyon goes blithely on, although his hips
Tremble every time he tries to stand.
If dogs were boats he’d be a foundering ship
Half sunken, soon to beach upon the sand.
We’ve taped one foreleg, it seems to help him walk
Though walking makes his respirations soar.
She’d like to keep him tied up at the dock
But there’s no rope to hold him anymore.
He is her service dog, the two are one.
Who will hear for her when he is gone?


For those who followed our adventures in Mexico, where Kathleen and I both ended up in jail in fighting to retrieve Kenyon from the grip of our greedy former maid, today’s sonnet is familiar in subject. Kenyon’s in the winter of his years now, and sometimes it seems a weekly proposition as to whether we may have to put him down. Believe me, we are doing everything in our power to keep his quality of life at a level commensurate with being alive. Besides the pain medication he takes, we frequently take him swimming, which he still does unbelievably well, chasing his bottle through river and ocean currents as far as sixty yards and faithfully bringing it back to land, where he drops it like a trophy after we praise him.

He is such a noble animal, partly because Kathleen raised him from a puppy. Their bond gets stronger every day. Kenyon will hardly leave her side anymore. I used to let him out in the morning, but now he won’t come down until Kathleen wakes. I don’t know how he holds his bladder. Unfortunately, when he goes out now, I have to follow him, since a neighbor returned him the other day from the treacherous two-lane by our house where she found him sitting in the middle of the roadway. The old boy gets confused. His hearing is poor. His vision is slightly better, but also on the slippery slope of decrepitude.

Each day Kenyon goes on is sweeter for the paucity of days he has remaining, but his approaching fate rips Kathleen’s heart out. I’ve never seen a human being so bonded to an animal and vice-versa. Then bonding with animals is one of Kathleen’s gifts. As a deaf person her sense of touch and observation of visual clues in animals is astounding, and they respond to her like no one else. I hope someday she can find work in handling animals. As I’ve said before, the only thing better than being Kathleen’s husband is to be her dog. I cannot fathom the depths between them, just watch in wonder as she brushes Kenyon’s coat, which is, incidentally, still shining.

As for my mood, the reader has no doubt observed that for two days I have been writing about things beside myself, which is an excellent sign. But I am still in somewhat of mixed state; I am anxious about nothing and my head is filled with self-accusatory chatter to which I must sometimes say out loud, “Fuck you!” As long as one recognizes the voices to be not-self but unfortunate childhood programming, acceptance is possible, however difficult. What choice do I have? My father was a belligerent asshole and my mother was a repressive perfectionist. Add the manic-depressive gene to the mix, from both sides of the family, and you have a recipe for disaster. Nevertheless my three sibs and I are all doing well. That says something about the resilience of the human spirit.


At 1.5 Kilorats,

CE

Satan the Cat: Sonnet, "Thinning the Pretenders"

Thinning the Pretenders

Don’t bury me in sawdust, it's flammable.
Cremation should be straight. I need dirt
In case I’m someday famous. I have no will
But if I did I’d give you my last shirt
Like Jesus would. Shirt off the back and welts—
Flog me with your superior reticence.
Borrow the clubs and the spiked belts.
Tell the police there was good evidence.
Plato endorsed the poets’ persecution.
We could use some persecution now—
At first the whippings, then electrocution
Would rip the laurels from most poets’ brow.
We need a thinning of this bastard art.
If you won’t die for your work, well that’s a start.


Today’s sonnet I tried to begin as dissociative as yesterday’s, but alas, I was forced by long habit to make some sort of sense out of it, which makes it a Post-Modern failure. Don’t get me wrong: I tried to let it disintegrate but I’ve been writing too long in the mode of communicating meaning (which for lack of a better term might be named “The William Stafford School” here in America) to dissociate on cue. I get the feeling the Brits have not gone to the lengths we have in deconstructing poetry, but I’ll have to query my Brit poet friends to be sure.

I attract black things: especially ravens, and to a lesser degree, crows, seem to follow me around, and though I suspected this was a psychosis long ago, Kathleen has assured me that the phenomenon is real. What it means I don’t know. I know they don’t feel antagonistic; it’s more that they’re watching. And who knows but an angel might take the shape of a raven? To be fair they could also be demons. And I’ve just noticed it again, so “black is back” may be a good omen for my depression.

And another sort of black has come to me. Three nights ago a cat came whining at our door and with Kathleen’s permission I let her in. She is a large, black, sleek, domesticated pussy with white only on her left rear toes. She acted as if she’d always belonged here; she leapt right up on my lap and made it difficult for me to type on my laptop. She sampled Kenyon’s food, then went by him to try to rub her back against his muzzle for pleasure. Kenyon didn’t move. This audacious cat obviously has had previous contact with dogs. She’s the kind of cat that just takes over a room. Kathleen hopes we can keep her but I think she cruises the neighborhood for the best food and attention and returns to her owner. She’ll lie on her back and paw at you to rub her. Like most cats, she’s in charge of all living contact. If she deigns to sit on you, well good. I call her “Satan” but Kathleen doesn’t like it so we’re open to another name. White-toed devil? “Satan” sounds so much like a sleek black cat, and has the added advantage of desensitizing us to a loaded word.

Incidentally, I went to my first movie since moving to the Northern California coast. “The Departed” was excellent. I think Leonardo Di Caprio by far did the best acting job; I consider his performance Oscar worthy. That boy can act. If there are any doubters, go watch “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” again.


At 1 kilorat,

Craig Erick

Sonnet for Poets; Comment on Post-Modern Poetry

A Sonnet for Poets

The voice I seek to voice is only sand.
Look now—the Devil wears a tricorn hat.
Napoleon on amphetamines. Remand
This suspect to that prison, this or that.
Merlin made an elephant of a toad.
Bless the small finches! All the tan oaks
Are dropping acorns on the asphalt road.
No dog. No cat. The poets get the jokes.
Oh, a blue martini wonderfully stirred.
When then ile fit you. A cranberry Cape Cod.
The glass is sweating so the ice is blurred.
I believe in the Devil but not in God.
The couplet should make something of all this:
Dunk your head in a vat of hippo piss.

My mood seems to be improving, so I let today’s sonnet disassociate in the Post-Modern tradition. And I want to say this, and mark my words: It is easier to write obscurely in a dissociative, Post-Modern fashion than in a traditional fashion. Narrative is hard work; so is unity. When these are removed, a sonnet can be composed much more quickly, while a free verse poem finds its own propulsion and the only readers that remain for this fiasco are poets and aficionados—the state of poetry today. Robert Pinsky tried to ameliorate this cultural trend by making a record of Americans’ favorite poems. I do not believe Charles Olson or Paul Celan were represented.

William Carlos Williams averred that “The Waste Land” ruined poetry because it came too early for proper literary development. In other words, it was inevitable but it came prematurely; it was a futuristic anachronism for the state of poetry at that time. In my essays on Eliot, available at The Melic Review, I repeatedly make the point that there has been nothing really new in poetry since “The Waste Land,” which contains everything from lower class chatter to nonsense sounds and a sort of false erudition. This doesn’t mean there have not been great stylists since, like Thomas or Larkin or Roethke or Strand, only that there were no rules left to break. Thus I am free to write a sonnet today whose puzzle for the reader is the reader’s puzzle and not mine. It is not my job as a Post-Modern poet to make sense, only to make a few connections between images and emotions. If this is how you like your poetry, fine. I just want to emphasize that much of what parades as new and original may in part be a blind for pure laziness, an unwillingness to learn form and clarity before galumphing about in the disorganized cupboard of the poet’s mind.


At 2 kilorats but feeling fragile,

CE

Sonnet: "Night Life;" Reality TV

Night Life

I’m trying to get the energy to sleep.
I must be upright if I brush my teeth.
My clothes are piled beside me in a heap.
If I don’t brush I’ll wake up with bad breath.
The television holds me in its grip
But not for long. That cauldron has no power
To glut my eyes with shit at this late hour.
I’ll turn it off as soon as I get up.
Get up. That is the problem. I must move
From this soft mattress to the icy squares
Of cheap linoleum, and I must prove
I’m mobile, conscious, present and aware
When all I want is to spoon my sleeping wife
And euthanize my pitiful night life.


Today’s story brings us to a cultural divide I had not crossed, for which I thank my brother, Clay Chaffin, for an introduction.

When “Survivor” came out in the late 90s I missed the boat. I instantly realized that “reality TV” was scripted so that spontaneous action could only occur between strict parameters, already established by the production company. And should the spontaneous action fall short of expectations, they could always re-shoot it. I became so contemptuous of the craze I found series like “Law and Order” more real than “The Apprentice.” Thus I didn’t watch a single reality show until I was visiting my brother and he insisted we watch “The Apprentice” one night, which mildly amused me for an hour, though I would have preferred to watch something else.

In my recent and ongoing depression Clay advised me to watch “Project Runway.” I was desperate enough to do anything, and so I did. And lo and behold, I loved it! It has been one of the few blessed things that can call me out of depression, however briefly. And why? Because Project Runway gave me the distance I needed to avoid emotional pain and still gain some entertainment.

When you’re deeply depressed you are sanded raw and you want to avoid overidentification with the feelings of others, whether real or imagined. You do not want to be seriously interested in a human drama, it is all too painful. Since I care nothing for fashion, I could enjoy Project Runway at a comfortable distance, observing the participants (whose lives are fashion) like bugs in a jar. Funny bugs. Entertaining bugs. Oh, I had minor preferences among the participants, but it didn’t really matter who won. It was all so comfortingly trivial, like having an ant farm.

As Homer Simpson said, “How can you not love television? It asks so little and it gives so much.” I’m with him on the “asking little” part. That’s what I want of life when I’m depressed. I don’t want to watch a good drama. I don’t want to read good literature. I want fluff, fodder, things that don’t engage me in any fundamental way. All else is suspect. Here’s to trivial reality shows as a help during depressions.

At 2.5 kilorats,

CE

Disgruntlement; Sonnet "Crutch"

Crutch

I like to drink my brandy mainly straight,
A rock or two to cool it, a small glass,
No snifter, I don’t need to demonstrate
By swirling and sniffing that I have class.
I think I drink less when I drink it straight.
To weaken it with cola or ginger ale
Tends to make me underestimate
How much alcohol I will inhale.
I wonder, what with all the medication
I’m taking, why I need another crutch.
I’m far beyond the help of education.
I drink because I drink, and I drink too much.
Suffering is served straight without a mixer.
Is that why I dilute it with elixir?


This morning I have that disgruntled feeling that no matter what I do it will be unfulfilling and trivial. I’ve already deleted most of what I’d written in today’s post that reason. It’s a feeling of restlessness, of casting about for the next thing, then discarding it for lack of interest; of taking up a task only to quit halfway because it seems pointless.

This is a state I have recorded before in these pages, which often presages an ascent out of melancholy, for which I obviously hope. That I can hope puts me at no worse than three kilorats. At four one begins to lose hope; at seven all hope is a cruel joke; at nine the only hope, which is not hope, is a hope for death.

As I have said before, I have never had a major depression that sputtered so in recovery. Part of the reason is medication. When my pain management doctor puts me on oral narcotics I find them hard to resist, as being out of pain is wonderful. Nothing else has ever worked for me. But if I go off them my mood plummets. This has happened twice in these seven months, and I’ve sworn never to take them again for that reason, as physical pain is infinitely preferable to emotional pain, in my estimation. But I’m human, and as the poem above explores, open to temptation. Anything that may temporarily improve my mood, or ameliorate my physical pain, is hard to resist.

This writing about myself is tedious. But it is a discipline in my depression, and however trivial I regard it, it is not nothing. While occupied with my post I don’t hear the voices arguing in my head and I don’t have the space to hate myself.


At three kilorats,

C. E. Chaffin

More on Depression; Sonnet, "Resisting Melancholy"

I wrote a long blog entry this morning then lost it as my connection disconnected. I should know better, as this has happened before. Best to write your blog entry in a word document and afterwards paste it in.

Like this minor stupidity, we too easily forget the dangers of the past unless forcefully reminded again. It's human nature to need a two-by-four on the forehead to get our attention, why Jesus called us “sheep.” Why didn’t he call us pigs? Pigs are smarter and better symbolize our fallen nature. And why not cows? Because sheep are renowned for being dumb, dumb, dumb. How they survived for domestication is a question for previous predators incapable of herding.

I also rattled on about depression, talking about the 10 Kilorat variety where one is reduced to a microscopic dot of pain, self-despite and self-loathing, with an unquenchable thirst for self-annihilation. In that state you are truly better off dead--without others around to remind you of the possibility of a different outcome (in which you cannot believe, they must believe for you). After today’s sonnet I’ll post a poem that comes from a much deeper depression than that with which I am now afflicted.

One does not beat depression, one survives it. If you have any thought in your head about your “triumph” over depression in the past, it is a dangerous illusion. The wolf is always at the door. Don’t mock the Devil, he’s listening. Keep passing the open windows. (I speak only to serious depressives when I say this.)

I always thought it ironic that when I went to AA for a time, it was all about not drinking or taking drugs. When I attended DMDA (Depressive and Manic-Depressive Association) it was all about taking drugs.

But here’s another thing: About 60% of bipolars also have a substance abuse problem. So it’s about taking the right drugs, but this statistic shows that the right drugs are often not enough. And if bipolars use common drugs like alcohol or marijuana to partially ameliorate the pain of depression or the excitation of mania, who can blame them?

Alcohol worked for my father until he was 62; when it quit working he killed himself. He would not or could not face the diagnosis he’d received while hospitalized in the Air Force as a young man. And so it goes. But even more so.

Here’s today’s sonnet, followed by another poem written in deep, deep depression.


Resisting Melancholy

You are a mailed fist around my heart.
Metal against flesh; now who will win?
I am forsaken by the healer’s art.
My medications multiply like sin.
It’s only by acceptance I resist;
To struggle is to fall into your trap,
Mistaking us for equals. In the mist
Of madness I would lose you like the clap
But it is not that simple. No infection,
However terrible, could freeze my soul
And sand my skin until there’s no protection
And make a million fractions from the whole.
Through infinite divisions I endure.
You’re not the power that you thought you were.


At 3 Kilorats,

The Usual Suspect

Depressive Recidivism; Sonnet, "Mastering Melancholy"

Depression is a terrible thing, but a sputtering depression is new to me. Usually I rise out of the Slough of Despond all at once, spread my wings beneath the sun to dry, and take off. But this depression, which I date back to April Fool’s Day (how appropriate), has been sputtering. I get out of it, my record being ten days, even have a day or two of kilobunnies. But I descend again.

Manic-depressions are the hardest of all depressions to treat. I’m on six medications. If I were still living in Long Beach I would have opted for outpatient electroconvulsive therapy by now. But without medical insurance, and here in the boonies, it is not a possibility.

Many mystics talk about “The Dark Night of the Soul.” No doubt those more spiritual than I have come through darkness to a new understanding of light, but my experience with depression since the age of 13 has taught me that it is a serious illness which must be treated aggressively, and that each time I suffer a depression it seems another part of my soul has been taken. The great insights I get from depression sound like this:

You’re worthless how could you be on disability you should be practicing medicine you’re a leech on society your poetry is of no account you will never be recognized your life is a total waste why are you even alive you stink up reality with your narcissistic pre-occupation how can anyone say they love you it is all a lie you are a living lie you call yourself a Christian but you don’t go to church and you drank too much last nigh besides you waste time watching TV you have no plan for retirement you live hand-to-mouth you’re pitiful why does God even allow you to stain the earth?

Except it’s much worse than that. That’s what antipsychotics are all meant to treat, the psychotic inner babble of the depressive, a faucet that cannot be turned off without help.

I’m not saying I haven’t had to have treatment for acute manias in the past; I have. Yet for most manic-depressives the ratio of depression to mania is at least three to one. And manias are almost always followed by severe depressions if left untreated.

My crying jags began while visiting my daughter and grandson over the weekend, and per usual they came in the late morning and late afternoon. Weeping while depressed does calm the system temporarily, but I find it actually increases depression since there is nothing real to cry about, thus crying reinforces the black mood instead of ventilating it.

Having said all this, territory most of you have traveled with me if you have followed my blog, I refuse to give in to depression in any ultimate sense, the subject of today’s sonnet.


Mastering Melancholy

You are the demon that I know so well,
So intimately even my wife can’t know.
I’d tell her if she could. She knows your spell
And how you turn a living man to wood.
Mere wood is better than your torturings,
The way you saw me always against the grain
For the most friction in your butcherings
Leaving a raw vacuum of pain.
There’s no negotiation, nothing to mend.
My resin bleeds for no one; I am lost,
Lost in the darkness of your great pretend.
A terrible joke it is, and at such cost.
But you won’t master me; I master you
By doing nothing more than getting through.


At 3.5 Kilorats,

CE

Mr. Faust--He dead.

I was able to get the computer repaired for $106 after ripping the phone jack out of it accidentally. The shop couldn't fix it; I would have had to send it back to the factory; but for the above price, I got another card with a phone jack that slips in where my wireless card also goes. So my Guiness Record for continuing sonnets continues.


Mr. Faust—He dead.

The kettle barbecue is slick with rain.
Redwood fronds surround it. Up above
Clouds feather in and out; white pinions strain,
Give way to sun and cover it as they move.
My heart is open. I have no regrets
Worthy of crucifixion. I am whole
And wounded. I have paid off all my debts
Though not a betting man. My given role
Of doctor, teacher, writer, I accept.
We all must own aspects we didn’t plan for.
No one grows up wanting to be a janitor.
I have no reputation to protect.
My former dreams of prominence now amuse me.
No seraphim in white could disabuse me.


It's my birthday tomorrow, the big 52, no more excuses, I'm playing with a full deck. A little melancholy today, maybe 0.5 kilorats.


Thine in Truth and Art,

Craig Erick