John Conway 1 January 2019

       

             (John Conway 1981)

                      (Self-portrait 1981)



I'm flipping through a
Manila folder's
Clinical
Notations,
     -I'd asked for some type
     -Of drawing paper,
     -Got a small,
     -White, square, sheet;
Sitting across from
A thirty-one year
Old, newly
Admitted,
     -Left hand steadied sheet,
     -Right studied bottom
     -Reckoning
     -Perspective;
Male resident, with
Prior psychotic
Episodes,
Diagnosed
     -Inmate hung bootleg,
     -Haunted poster on
     -Production
     -Line railing;
Manic-depressive,
An alcoholic,
'Distraught,' low
Self-esteem,
     -Trance blinked eyes reclaim
     -From fine-tooth combing,
     -Gold, to mud,
     -To saddle;
Height, weight, vital signs;
Medications; blood
Work; observed
Behavior,
     -Sobbers and saviours
     -Mined seams with pickaxe,
     -Stripping out
     -Physical;
Empirical lob,
Coordinated
Hand to eye
Precision,
     -Scrawled, empathetic
     -Conceit abandoned
     -Restraint's glossed
     -Refinement;
Confined within boxed
Self-definition
Jettisoned
Allowance,
     -Dissonance ravaged
     -Face, rendolent of
     -Feverish,
     -Nightmare sweats;
Screened fenestration
Wagered emotive,
Internal
Combustion,
     -Diurnal, guidebook
     -Imprimatured, plunge
     -Struggled in
     -Surfaced pain;
Sluggish brain paddled
Hockney pool deep end,
Naked, an
Afterthought,
     -Figured in, safer
     -Thought than drowning, head
     -Held beneath
     -By unknowns;
Cold turkeyed liquor's
Bloated encumbrance,
Wrung out the
Welcome mat,
     -Endured extended
     -Stay's reduced playlist,
     -Tepid by
     -Pet Shop Boys;
Rapid rejoinder
Bets the farmed out tones'
Collective
Enhancement,
     -For whom the ghouls gel,
     -Phantoms liquify,
     -With pulp art
     -Conviction;
Staff dereliction
Curbed therapeutic,
Creative
Impulses,
     -Beatific curled
     -Sub rosa, compelled
     -By Attic
     -Ritual,
The Hippocratic
Brotherhood enshrined
Afflatus
As sacred,
     -Lines raked, lateral
     -Passes of bare hand
     -Through breaths shared
     -Atmosphere;
Plans aired from dumpster
Papered over the
Currents from
Corpuscles,
     -Plein air surrendered
     -To cellar's ankles,
     -Spotlights on
     -Paint chipped chair;
Subterranean
Grate glimpsed filmstrip stalled
Between stops,
Hot shoe flashed,
     -Blue transposition
     -Mapped white ground, umber
     -Fronts traipsed through
     -Refraction,
Overhead, penlights
Studied reaction
On PERRLA
Rotation,
     -Sclera billeted
     -Abstract dilation,
     -Cranium
     -Globular;
Dabbling dilettant
Where fluid, challenged,
Overturned,
Undercut,
     -Gangplank shimmied, as
     -Drift fluctuated,
     -Plucked peacock
     -Feather, blood;
On wing and a prayer
Attack hit the mark,
Side effects
Supperate,
     -Free edge permeates
     -With dried arrangement,
     -Cure naive
     -Corroded;
Relief heralded
When cartographer's
Perspective
Exacted,
     -Tea leaves read- mountain,
     -Journey of hindrance-
     -Bracketed
     -'Ascetic';
Travel light, wearing
Leather boots with thick
Soles, compass
In pocket,
     -Use diuretic,
     -To piss on all the
     -Naysayer
     -Travelers.

1 January 2019