Poem: Old School

 

Old School

 

spoiled dreams of teary patients,

unleashed vitriol, sexual or

infantile, and such exceeding

parental hate --

 

it gnaws on his own defenses

to break theirs, chafes his super-ego

to endure the labyrinths

of melancholic counterfeit --

 

lie after lie,

webs of tentacles which

tense as tight as they can

to deflect the agony of insight;

to shield the tender ravages

of some wrecked childhood,

cradled dear and fulsome,

deep inside memory’s womblike

nest.

 

the Id,

always a demonic glare

from its half-psychotic eyes,

which never reach the surface,

even when the last mask falls away,

dissolved and desolate.

 

how do i see that glare? he wonders.

 

it’s as if a pus of evil

crammed the sinuses of the human brain:

accumulated cannibalisms and

much worse perversions,

lascivious and incarnadine,

the whole of it striving to pretend

behind teddy bears and lullabies.

 

is every desire so retrograde?  he wonders.

do the curved plates of the human skull,

of necessity beyond cure,

embody some thorny bassinet?

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