Fish

I wrote this poem about losing my mind when I was about nineteen.

Oh yes, you know me,

I am waiting for something holy

And for something true.

Behold the mad!

Here they stand

In groups, not holding hands.

My father’s house

Is two up two down.

I have been told to mind the store

And the walls are beginning to get me down.

The big clock frowns

And, in patrician manner, asks,

Just when I will see sense?

And just how long

I think I can continue

Sleeping with old Father Death

And reaping the rewards

And talking to myself?

And if I nip out for a cigarette

What time do you call this?

He asks,

I don’t know, I reply,

You’re the fucking clock.

And I long Oh! I long

To take the clock

And break the clock

And fake a suicide.

I don’t know, detective

Perhaps he just got tired of it all -

The endless fucking ticking.

So he leapt from the wall

He wrenched himself free

from physical space

He turned up his face to the stars

And threw up his little pointy hands

And lay there, gawping, like the wee fish he once was we once were.

You do know,

The exact time of the crime

And that must be,

At least

Some use

Call a priest.