(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
