They Seek to Devour Me

Saturated by the sourness
Of bitter lemons. We are partying
Again. Once a decade I acknowledge
My academic acumen and, not content
To let other devils devour them
I feast upon my own accomplishments

While my guests are content
To feed only on me. They do not see
The mountains I have climbed
The hoops through which I have jumped
To seize the academic’s greatest prize:
Security of tenure. They only see here and now

They only see me in my long, white gown
Inebriated, swaying back and forth
A kind of sleepwalking ghost
For it is my body, not me
Who plays host, who greets the guests
Twinkling, like a crystal chandelier

Conspiracy Against the Laity

I have lost count of the number of times of the number of times I have been in the psych hospital only to have to explain the intricacies of an illness that has only be recognised fairly recently: schizoaffective disorder. It’s been recognised in the US for years. Here it used to be regarded as an unfortunate occurrence of schizophrenia and  bipolar affective disorder. These poor souls were doubly affected, doubly cursed. Sometimes our double affliction was dismissed entirely. Now, all is well and we are fully paid up members of  ‘the mental illness club’ I’d like to know why it took the boffins so bloody long to see what most of us had seen for years. Maybe its time medical researchers started listening to patients. It makes George Bernard Shaw’s (well, who else) maxim that ‘the professions are a conspiracy against the laity’ seems truer than ever.

The Scholar

I do not deny your intellect
It is a knife that carves
That cleanses, that purifies
You shunned aristocracy
In favour of the grandiosity
of academia. You embraced
Profundity. You are feted,
Lauded, praised and applauded

You were promised fortune
But instead you chose
To spend your days
Traversing old and hallowed halls
Deep within ancient
And blistered walls
Choosing to ignore the calls
To profit from your knowledge

You unleashed those ideas
Once tucked away in some
Secret vault deep within
Your capacious brain
And for that you attracted
An avalanche of acclaim
But those who praise you
Have not seen what I have seen

They have not been
Where I have been
For decades we have talked
In feeble candlelight
Years pass and we still inhabit
This detached and distant planet
Revelling in our academic eccentricities
Ours is a subtle complicity

You rise, you fall, you capture me
You pull me beneath a turquoise sea
You exploit some weakness within me
I was caught up in your dragnet
And yet, and yet, the waves still leap
As with gritted eyes I greet the morning
The nights are endless. The days are long
You are a bad egg. I know that now

I caress your pale and speckled shell
I break you open. Your spirit seeps out
‘The stench, the stench,’ I cry.
I have witnessed your worst
I have seen your inner scars, your warts
Your puss-ridden sores and at night
You scour the streets, hunting for whores
And yet I still love you to your rotting core