More links and poems accepted

31 3 2010

I have Awen and Carillon magazines to thank for accepting three and two poems respectively, and Global Tapestry Journal, Fire and Quantum Leap to thank for their interest in seeing print outs of the website contents, computers crash, isolated parts of the Uk can't be readily linked to the Internet and some editors just like being independent. I'm obliging when it comes to print outs, no use hiding my light under a bushel after all it's readers I'm interested in, anyone interested in poetry and finding out about schizophrenia is a friend of mine and the people one is surrounded with by the accident of geography aren't necessarily interested in either in fact would run a mile if threatened with a dog eared manuscript, as they always seem to expect themselves to be whether or not I've ever advanced with flashing eyes and an armful of closely written leaves of paper! The way the imagination supplies vivid and frightening images where something unexpected but unknown crops up is fascinating, I suppose it's the old fight or flight reflex, expect the worst of that rustle in the bushes at night when you're by yourself, but the wariness in people's faces when I say I write is quite daunting enough, let alone offering more information about an illness every thriller writer published has taught them to expect a sadistic serial killer of in a sufferer. I saw the same when my daughters were at university faced with a text to read, I used to say pretend it's someone really nice who is going to tell you intriguing things, just to get them into the right frame of mind to approach the new text with anything like an open mind. That's the key, we never approach something unknown with open minds we are busily worrying about just what threat it represents and calculating how soon we'll have to sprint in the direction of away and are armed with knee jerk reactions where we've been taught to fear.

That's general, what John Wymondham's Chrysalids would call behind thinks, what I do dislike and disdain is the not in my nice world attitude I've met with people I went to school with on Friends Reunited. Spot of frankness and honesty? Write that so called friend goodbye, lots of the people I'm surrounded with by accident of geography have that same attitude, oh we're not like that and if I happen to be like that in despite I'm fearfully isolated because you don't invite your local friendly schizophrenic to go shopping or meet for a coffee or a beer, you want to relax. Why you still can't relax is beyond me but I loom large in the imagination as the vividest of threats and as someone you have to gird your loins to encounter, apparently shopping and stopping for a beer are things I'm not supposed to want to do, nor to get in touch with past schoolfellows.

One curious bonus, and it is a bonus however tasking it may turn out to be, is that people assume because schizophrenia is serious, I'm the right person to contact when things go pear shaped, like a parent dying or a mortal illness being diagnosed. people I thought have no time for me have contacted me when the very serious if not mortal threatens and I've done my best to rise to the challenge and be a staunch friend and comrade. I buried a lady who had become my best friend by virtue of letters exchanged as she fought cancer, back in October last year, when Sadie knew how desperately ill she was all my weirdness was no longer weirdness but a courageous point of view maintained in the teeth of dreadful possibilities, all the dreadful possibilities I might seem to represent were become her familiars and she wanted my friendship and mediation. We exchanged every confidence we could and I wrote every week until Sadie's death, just silly things and exciting things I noticed around the borough and it's both silly, sordid, brave and exciting enough. People will tell me things when driven hard enough, it almost seems they think they've descended to my level, but they look to me to negotiate that level and their trust reminds me of the trust we enjoyed between ourselves in psychiatric hospital, that's something real I can understand and respond to gladly. Mental maps are funny things, everything that most puts people off in my diagnosis most draws them to me in time of great need, despite the best efforts of thriller writers ands the media or even perhaps because of them, when the direst things are immediate possibilities you want someone you assume is already used to it!

Best wishes, Anne Rees.

ANNE'S BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER

18 3 2010

Beyond the bedroom windows were rooftops strung with wires
purple cloud-maps buoyed up in a hot pink radiance,
in the living room below me were my family,
noises boiling up the stairs, the sunset
behind the roofs and wires was vividly immediate.
I stared at it I held the madness in
with a terrible effort, I exercised iron self control
my brain was a total internally introspective thing,
I didn't some and I was silent, staring.
If my absorption broke I'd burst in smithereens
spout dreadful gouts of stinking blood I would go horribly mad.

The locum doctor disapproved of my self diagnosis,
was frozen faced at my frightened tears. I told her what the matter was,
she squatted on the hospital admission I needed like a toad
cold, wet-skinned and unmoved, blinking, watchful of my weaknesss
her power made her hostile, she was determined not to yield an inch.
What friend could I tell? The media makes madness terrifyingly sensational
with a fiery Gothic winged mythology, it sells papers, sells TV.
It didn't scare the doctor who finally admitted me, he was compassionate,
he telephoned and urged, and overcame, the dilatory,
had grasped it was an emergency and he secured help for me:
still thrillers, TV and Hollywood accuse the mad of unspeakable crimes,

the wicked get rich and flourish like the green bay tree.