Check the charge nurse’s mercy.
Inflamed lunacy concedes,
and if there is food . . .
Confronting pleasures dismissed
concrete sustenance,
and now I hunger for real
in midnight’s moment for sleep.
Pardon anger’s zeal
to repeal your dignity.
You cannot betray.
It is I who chose to lay
my soul open for Compton.
Come sit for awhile.
Quickly file those vile reports.
Burdened minds want ears
to hear truth from human lips
that kiss infants and read verse.
Curse the cerebral,
the aloof intelligence,
buffered from struggle.
Forgive my curt blasphemies
and record my words, Matthew,
The Good Doctor wants
this twisted cripple’s song sung
among the learned
regal minds of man-made law
to assess my human flaw.
Might I still be free
to run at large and alive
with insanity?
I’ll greet The Inquisitor
to procure my rights of flight
from ordinary
complacent, menial chores —
Constricting cycle
of getting, feeding, fucking,
sleeping, pleading for passion.
Ten, caged days forward
I’ll forge toward dissected truth
and lay bare my life.
Key-bearing, Locked-Gate-Keeper,
Open the public ledger.
I’ll wager freedom
or personal doom that looms
over defiance.
[Hearing Testimony One]
“Kevin Jacobs never tired
of playing the hurt Esquire;
so, when we were through, I’d pursue
his high brow psychotic quagmire.
My colleague had books to review
while I’d nothing pressing to do,
but investigate crazed debate.
I brought him some left over cake
with a warmed piece of pepper steak,
and, as always, made my request:
The meds were safe and for the best,
but his guard was never at rest.”
[Kevin]
Always the company man
loyal fan of current thought
fraught with conviction
that all convention is truth.
Matthew, you’re unreal
sealed from plausible appeals
that reveal veiled redemption.
Your food scraps nourish
but chemo-crystals pervert
his subtle waifs’ work
when moonless sky’s thick still pitch
cloaks the menacing wide eye
that seeks sleeping prey
behind one’s protecting walls
where our children lay.
Confronted with enemies
hidden among your trusted,
when horror’s faint creak
summons the alerted ear
to hear silent fear,
and disturbed innocence flees
the comfort of bed flannel,
which dark shadow stalks?
Which form pleads for protection?
Which splotch must you kill?
I want no synthetic pill,
ill conceived modern magic
to subdue chaos
that grabs hold of tragic souls.
Let my madness reign.
Refrain from polite dispute.
Avoid my deranged rebuke.
[Hearing Testimony Two]
“Your honor knows endangerment,
focused malignant will intent
on mutilation and mayhem.
His eyes were clear, precise agents.
I’d hate to be his enemy.
Obviously, he’s not healthy,
but unless we force compliance,
unless we curb his defiance,
he’ll remain socially untamed.
Our cowardice will be the blame
. . . . .
[Kevin]
Plato’s cave-shadows bore more
transformative silhouettes
vignettes of half truth,
uncouth coquettes of frolic,
mute communicants
that shift their pliable shapes
for every protrusion found
or concavity.
But aren’t I in confusion
sorcery’s victim?
These head haunting images
Bleed like Eastern illusion,
yet dance the voodoo
in shamans’ huts where they breed
in magic made free.
Matthew, they jumped from my walls
enthralled with new dimension.
Unleashed, flat deceits
are now full bodied phantoms,
black, licorice sweet,
emancipated demons
with tasty salivation,
nimble nymphs of play
whose prime, swaying hips sashayed
toward quivering flesh
and cleaved civilized shackles,
chains to restrain rival views.
[Hearing Testimony Three]
An obvious psychotic break,
and make no mistake to forsake
the tragic, disconnected mind,
to permit fits of wit to fuse
with stubborn, unreasoned conduct
constructed from a world of myth
worshiped as infallibly real,
is liberal zeal at its worst.
[Kevin]
When Day’s last hues skewed
toward red and orange-yellows
and workers drove home,
I sat behind scratched oak marred,
scarred by some long gone clerk’s toil,
an old massive desk
redeemed from the city dump
for ten dollars cash,
a trashed lump of defiled wood
fully despised for its wounds
suffered in service
under opulent disdain
for hard labor’s pain,
a one time teeming tower,
vivacious habitat — Gone !
Felled ancient elder
stripped of bark; sliced into slabs,
sanded, stained and sealed,
procured and placed as first face
in the corporate foyer,
will greet foe and friend
with five by eight pristine feet
of slow to grow oak
embalmed and proudly displayed
with deep rich hue polished bright.
Power’s perfect gate,
straight, squared lines and sharp edges,
wounds bare naïve thighs
which pledged congenial reprieves
from ridged frame’s innate strain
in want of soft curves
seen with hard tempered, sly eyes
keen to win favor
and savor delicate flesh
fresh from school, brimming with life,
that blurs business minds
from strategic words that blind
self determined wills.
Skilled in slight, subtle pretense
that fills yearning souls with hope,
but extracts expense
beyond the scope of payment,
he feigned his restrain
for innocence’s stained silk sheets
willing to give him pleasure
with her curvatures’
delicate, wispy brushes
across pectorals
tense and tingling, waiting,
wanting, needing explosion
into exhaustion.
Male prowess evaporates
in Woman’s embrace.
Bound around by arms and legs,
We, cold-tempered brutes, yield ground;
yet the sun rises
and from Night’s transient womb
All brutes are expelled