Reasonable Delusions of a Religious Nature

1983 – 1985

I   Not sleeping – searching

Reality or phantasmagoria,

desperate love on a rented bed.

Insanity or elated perception,

a numbed litany that will be said.

Lie that winter freezing

on oil stained concrete.

She would not let you in

nor anoint your wearied feet.

Dreams escape from night time

persuading you to begin

to see the visions from without

as the visions from within.

Lyrics spiral from your head

and you tell that they too would see,

but your mind is jammed on 45

while the world revolves on 33.

Thirsting for guidance at 4 am

you tear the news from blinding twine.

This will be your medium

now you are drawn to the divining line.

 II   Looking for Jesus

Stare naked-eye the fire-ball

that glares from summer skies.

Stabs of needle-flash explode

and damn your welling eyes.

Share your marijuana

with a whore who feels the pain.

She really needs a needle

in that dark and creeping lane.

Pour away your poems

to a drunk who shares your beer.

Wash down the waste of words

when he listens but cannot hear.

Shake her from a sorrowful sleep

as she must rise then pray to see

the up and coming miracle

of Jesus on the late night TV.

 III   Stations of the Cross

Create the word and action

of the actors on the screen.

Puppets speak your saving thought

and you decipher what you mean.

Burning your montage of Mexico,

the mourning radio rumbles

the horror and fault of a second quake

as prophecy builds then crumbles.

Build an altar with your Bible

and sacrifice with flame.

You wonder as it goes up in smoke

just who in Hell to blame.

Your life becomes a metaphor

in a game you can’t deny.

The hill is your Calvary

so you walk weeping to crucify.

 IV   Escorted to Jerusalem

Spit syllables at your father

and blaspheme the missing Lord

in the antiseptic stench

of some sterile casualty ward.

Wake up in an ambulance

moving somewhere they wont explain.

Escort lights pulse blues ahead

and charge the wiper-scourging rain.

Pause in a half-way hospital

and repel the dribbling syringe.

Feel the weight of mocking wardsmen:

needle stabs to makes you cringe.

Strip past your nakedness

once they’ve pushed and shoved you in.

Squat in the blurred baptismal bath

while some angel records your sin.

 V   With the devils

Scream at the threatening needle

as they hold you down again.

Gag on your spastic tongue

and shudder in epileptic pain.

Scream too loud once too often

and be bound for the blackness cell.

Thump cement and howl at walls,

sit and shiver in soundproof hell.

Pester that nurse for more

than your hourly cigarette.

He’s had it up to here with you

so this time feel his threat.

Parade from doorless showers

in your pyjamas for the day:

the mismatched communal costume

for this acute, imprisoned play.

 VI   Mainstream communion

Smile weeping in the Rec Room

as music sings your fame.

Each new lyric is offered

in devotion to your name.

Queue for mad-house confectionery

fed from gleaming stainless steel.

Pick-me-up on obscured mornings:

at night-time so you-wont-feel.

Attempt to read her letters

through dazed, dilating eyes.

You cannot write the answers

as you know that someone lies.

Walk rigidly with Parkinson:

you are dealt another pill

to counter common side-effects

of chemicals that hold mind still.

Slouch the light-time in a stupor

in between the times you are fed.

You wish to obliterate the hours

before escape – a ward 12 bed.

 VII   Acts of the Apostles

Listen to the farmer

as he preaches the Holy Word.

He only spits out retribution

but that is why he’s heard.

Furtively inhale the weeds

collected on shepherded walks.

Peter says they’re just like dope

and more tumble-dry as he talks.

Observe straight-jacketed Magdalene

spray the nurse with mashed cuisine.

When untied she beats her pretty face

in Kenmore’s unmoved canteen.

Watch Matthew once more try suicide

as he adopts his familiar pose.

He stares out the blackness window

with a cigarette lighter stuffed up his nose.

Try to talk to Thomas

fresh from an ECT blur.

Believe the tell-tale dribble

and his mouth’s paralysed slur.

III   Spring Songs

You look into a mirror

and recollect a face.

Confess your grand delusion:

leave this unholy place.

Promises of Armageddon

to be unleashed when you were dead.

The asylum had been your shelter:

the atoms split inside your head.

Read six sane years later,

‘How we just missed World War III’.

This was your mad delusion.

Is it truth that you now see?

Each spring-time sense the surge

of see-saw swings to be swung:

tranquilise sensation

so these spring songs can’t be sung.

_________________________________

first published (in part and as separate poems)

THYLAZINE  #12/07   ISSN-1444-1594
The Australian Journal of Arts, Ethics & Literature

https://web.archive.org/web/20100416150936/http:/www.thylazine.org/

Photo. by Author – Balgownie, 7 April, 2020 (prior to an admission to Sutherland Mental Health Unit)