Bring me no dark.
I am of good supply.
No painted smiles
or bogus bonhomie.
In visits past
I have seen,
in your well meaning fakery,
knitted brows in unguarded moments.
No need to work that hard,
my dearest.
If you are in shadow,
or even if not,
just sit by me.
Warm me.
Say little.
I do know you.
We have history.
Just touch.
Only touch.
It may be that we two
could shine a light
of sorts,
in here.
fuzzy food in fridge
flushed today
smell lingers
can it be washed away?
desperate house plants
bought with good intentions
gave up ghosts through kitchen window
carcasses remain
breakfasts of cold toast and peanut butter
outside, a sanctuary of thistles
inside, the dark imbues the body bones
absorbed in daily doses
just enough to quell
thoughts that foment rebellion
these I gave to you, I think.
my remembered lover
my old optimist
my partner of journey
my willing prisoner
spurn me now
for I have killed you
the worst of all crimes
a spirit stilled
melancholic
My old father-in-law, now gone, was someone I knew for the first thirty years of my marriage.
It does take me a long while to get to know anyone, and vice versa, but, as I grew into his ways (and he became more comfortable with mine), we got along fine. There was my city boy naïveté for him to chuckle about, and I enjoyed the many parables that he related to me (true or made up) from his own street-wise life. I think he was always testing me to see how much bullshit I would believe.
The last couple of years of his life saw him in a steep decline. He began to have difficulty walking, and could no longer drive, but still wanted to pursue some of his favorite activities, such as looking through second hand stores to find some little trinket to bring home to his wife (who would usually spurn it anyway), going visiting, and prowling the flea markets and garage sales.
It fell to me to taxi him around most of the time, and I didn’t mind, because we kept each other good company. Getting him in and out of the car, unfolding his walker, shuffling through the stores etc. at his slower pace taught me some patience, and showed me his love and his own patience with his wife, who was well into her struggles with Alzheimer’s disease.
We were far apart, distance wise (hundreds of miles), but as her parents’ health declined, my wife and I visited at least monthly. Sadly, her Dad began to lose interest in his gadabout lifestyle, and started wandering in his conversations.
When he and I were alone one time, he told me quietly that he had been having frequent dreams about the Devil, that he had a sense of being constantly examined by the Evil Eye, and that the Devil had shown him all of the misdeeds in his life, and was “expecting him” soon. In the most recent episode, he was being chased around and around his car by “a short little bastard with red skin, horns, and brass buttons”.
I said to him “you’ve been watching too many cartoons”, whilst in my own mind I was pretty unsettled, despairing for all of the blackness of his visions, for the loss of his carefree self, and for my wife’s emotional state. It wasn’t long before we took him to the hospital for the last time. The physical ailment was bladder cancer, but he had long since given up the game, spiritually.
In those days, mental illness wasn’t a subject for open discussion. Now, as I am approaching my seventies, and for the last couple of years, I’ve experienced the creeping insidiousness of the black thoughts, and have come to know it for what it is. I’m on the run, as he was, in a way. Recognizing what is happening (thankfully), and trying to stay a step ahead through therapy and (hopefully) wonderful medicine.
Still lucid enough to put something like this together, and to take a little joy from it.
God bless all of you out there who are rowing the same boat.
I had the darkest dream last night
It pinned me to my bed
A humming buzz of blackishness
was leaning o’er my head
Its eyes were but a sickly gleam
Its curtains brushed my chest
Its leathered hands upon my mouth
my heartbeat did arrest
My hands and feet were flailing fast
to break this evil dream
I shouted out, but only cast
a smother-muffled scream.
a squeezing of the throat it gave
I thought I would be killed.
but morning broke this devil’s cave,
this darkness, unfulfilled.
Sorry. Not a story for bed time.
Have been in the bad place for a few days now with depression. There’s the cue for you to abort this reading, if you like……the picture is not of me, but of my phantom friend.
If you’re a kindred spirit, you might identify with some of these:
Sleep (fitfully) for ten or eleven hours
Waken for a bit, realize you need one more, then drift back.
Shuffle to kitchen for coffee, which clears the fog somewhat.
Eat some little thing (for “energy”, not appetite)
It does not work as promised.
Back into bed, this time with the door open. Two cats join you.
You think “Shit, I can’t do this”, and force yourself into the bathroom for a shower.
Brush your teeth, a must. You never skip this. Not yet.
God damn, I really need to shave. I look like shit. But not today. Tomorrow, I’ll do it.
I think of getting dressed, when the back story about shaving hits me.
The first person that I shaved, other than myself, was my father. In his 70th year, he was dying of pancreatic cancer. Before I go further, I will say that all of the caregivers I have met are worthy of high praise. Nurses especially, for what they do, their long hours, and their continual need for more help.
Dad was always a stickler for his appearance, but once he started to decline, of course he could not take care of himself. I asked a nurse one day if I could give him a shave. She was apologetic that they hadn’t done it in a few days, and was appreciative of the help. Looking at his jaundiced eyes without crying was difficult. That was the last shave he ever got.
My younger brother, about whom I have already written, died in his home, where we had set up a hospital bed at his request. I had stayed there for several nights, when his partner asked me if I could give him a shave. The same eyes studied me with regret and tears. I wonder if he knew who I was.
At last, my old father-in-law. He lived far away, and we used to visit once every month or two. He always made sure that he was presentable when he knew we were coming, and that included a shave. There eventually came a time when he had lost the will and the strength to do it, and I once more got out the hot cloths and warmed up the shaving cream. This third set of hopeless eyes was almost too much.
Now, I have given myself a figurative slap, and said “God dammit, you’re not there yet. Do the fucking shave!”
Nobody’s going to catch me looking like hell, and staring out of those 8-ball eyes.
Selfish, maybe. Running scared, maybe….but I would not want to inflict those moments on anyone who still loves me.
I learned in high school math
That it could be proven, with numbers,
that motion is impossible.
It was called Zeno’s Paradox.
It went something like this:
A man running to catch the bus at a certain time
would first have to run half the distance,
then half of the remaining distance,
and so on, and so on, ad infinitum.
He would never get there.
Some days, I am that runner.
Knowing there is a “bus” to catch,
Every day, every day, ad infinitum.
But I am tired, and sad, and poor in spirit.
The stodgy determined part of me
is a little sick,
but, like a voice crying in the wilderness,
it says I must refute Zeno.
His paradox was meaningless numbers
that could be proven wrong, just as easily.
And, as everyone knows, motion is a fact of life.
I lie in my bed, in the late morning,
and say to the now distant voice:
See? I have already done the impossible!
Each day I move, I do, I rest, I do again.
Ah! Do you! ( It says back.)
Try! Try now!
I say I must rest for a little first….
there is chuckling.
Then, there is something like paralysis of the will.
I want to weep from frustration,
but I must rest for a little, first.
Somehow, I get the upper hand in this wrestle.
Shuffle to the shower, start to shave.
What for? (I think, or hear). I stop halfway.
The sourness of doubt slinks back.
If I could just rest for a little bit first.
Coming back to myself, I am somehow in robotic mode.
Finish the shave, get dressed, carry the laundry downstairs.
Back upstairs I go with the load from the dryer.
Stopped halfway in a spiral of hopelessness.
The Runner. The Runner. This is impossible.
If I could just rest for a little bit first.
Zeno has won today.
Ah, child of the dust,
how shall I tell you?
Come, please, and play my strings.
For I am mute. Absolute.
I want to be heard,
but the weight is the word.
Please, sit.
Rest.
Bring your patience.
Inspect.
See.
Care.
Is there not some residual worth?
And now, you must tune.
Though you know me not,
in weary sighs I will tell you how…
The two highest are of a single strand.
They can speak beauty, poignant and piercing,
played with a bow.
The two that are next are of wire finely wound.
They speak of wisdom gained, lessons learned,
kindnesses felt and given.
The two that are last are more heavily coiled.
for they bear the most weight.
They speak of things sad, and of guilt and betrayal,
of regret, and of harrowing penance.
Pluck them slowly, with soft fingerpads.
If any should break at the peg,
stay and warm me.
Let the sting subside.
Rid me of the useless member.
Play me again, with your love,
and know that, now, it matters not.
Father, please deliver us
from precipice and pit.
From devil spawn carnivorous
that eat us, bit by bit.
Pushing as we’re slipping back.
We hear the mad refrain.
The landscape of the tamarack,
the black and inky rain.
Today, we are shopping.
I have been well for a long while now.
It was planned.
I am with you both, my dear ones.
But, since awakening, two cups of coffee ago,
I am thrown back to blocked feelings of desperation.
We are in a milieu of throngs.
I seek equilibrium.
There are smiles of kindness.
I meekly try for the same.
Some hold doors for us.
But some give snotty stares if we stop too long.
You sense disquiet in me.
As I grapple, and strive for the least embarrassment,
your own self assurance is melting down.
You require of me simple things.
Which color should I buy?
Where do you want to go for lunch?
My robotic answers and failure to smile
reflect poorly upon me.
I am selfish.
I cannot rise above it.
Please, just lead.
I will follow.
I dreamt this morn’ of fences
They’d been put up while I slept
But the fog obscured my senses
And I stumbled ’til I wept
The urge was strong for going on
So I got up and I leapt
O’er barb-ed wire, until the dawn
Its promises had kept
The fog had burnt away from there
The barricades were clear
The wind was passing through my hair
And freedom was so near
“Awake me not”, I prayed to One.
(The Spirit in me now)
“I’m almost there, I’m nearly done”
Then lost the will, somehow.
This thing within my soul has made
The devil grin with glee
He’s scripted well this whole charade
To gloat his victory
Awakened was a new resolve
That I’d not lose the fight
The clock, its circle would revolve
And I’d join the dream next night
Aremyfeetofftheground 