Joseph Lisowski writes

FROM DEATH’S SILENCE [part VII]

SYMPTOMS

I am ill beyond means.

It is hard to accept

that I should go on.

I have no resolve.

I believe she lives

in the light of God's love, but oh,

I am so bereft.

If I could only forget myself,

or eliminate the sting . . . .

But time is a tireless curse,

and weakness is what it brings.

THIS CARIBBEAN DESERT

I am weak, superfluous,

like an oleander leaf

too long in drought.

I am beaten by longing,

limp by neglect,

yet still hang on.

A leaf that knows no fall.

This Caribbean desert endures.

Occasional roaming bands

of cold wind maraud

and shake its stem.

Rain comes quick, heavy,

at times swelling the soil,

stiffening the branch.

There's promise for a while,

a strutting of vibrant color.

What a delusion it is

that time lasts forever. 

What a lie we mouth

when it doesn't.

APOLOGY

It is not this

I need to say

but something that will burn

off the page, that will flame

spontaneous, final:

a daughter dead,

a family gone.

Voice is one betrayal,

all mischief but worse:

what I say denies,

gives lie to how I lived,

how I see, feel

others lie. It's all

one necessity.

So, it's not this

I want to say.

No word can resurrect

a child that's dead.

No word can cure

a curse no words have made.

MEDICATION

A good night's sleep at last.

First Florazepam then Prozac.

What does this have to do

with uncovering truth, curing grief?

It's hard now to care but I still know

something is on the other side.

Every cell falls limp, floats behind my skin.

I slowly walk from room to room,

take more pills and sleep again.

ONE REMEDY

Something is being left out,

something denied.

I lose the edge

that sharpens words.

No strong feeling demands

attention. All seems even,

a life in lotus eater land.

I am ashamed

it has come to this.

THERAPY

This morning my psychiatrist seemed

distracted, unfocused.  He drifted

in and out of my revelations.

The drugs he prescribed for me,

I suspect, are ones he's long been taking.

TREATMENT

With medication

thoughts become bent nails.

Nothing drives through,

makes a bind.

Hammer only glances,

bends them more.

The mind nods.

It's like wax dripping

on a finger.  First

a warm caress, then a cooling--

stiff, immobile, set to crack.