Breathless

~~

BREATHLESS

On a warm summer’s night you stand there shining your new hairdo dark and slicked down over your brow metal regaling you lips and diamonds in your teeth so sweetly you smile silk scarf at your throat you hold the butcher man’s door open wide so I can come inside and buy red meat for my soul you say softly that meat is good for your heart blood is good for your soul  as you take my hand and kiss the veins on the inside of my wrist white and thin white and thin was Marie Antoinette’s neck as she knelt with her head on the block white and thin till the blood fell and the blood ran thick blood is good for heart you say death is good for the soul.

From Homage to Eveline, published in Hecate,  2010 Copyright Mary Pomfret

            

Mental Health

Mental Health

Like convicts in shackles

they walk with a shuffle

speech staccato

they spit out words and teeth

dentists are for the middle-classes.

pliers do the job and are cheap

Medication keeps the head voices quiet

strait jackets no longer necessary

submission comes in a syringe

or a pill bottle.

smiles when they come,

are fleeting

disappearing quickly at the recollection

of not having asked permission.

spontaneous acts are not allowed for

community treatment orders protect

people from themselves

Long as you take your meds

don’t talk too loud

don’t take up too much room,

don’t pick up butts in the street

don’t scare children and old ladies

then you can live out in the community

- with the rest of the mentally well

Institutions are a thing of the past,

aren’t they?

Copyright Mary Pomfret Published in Windmills 2011