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Poetry: Carol Batton
Underneath the rainbow
Underneath the glitter –
Underneath your marvelous pills
It couldn’t be much shittier.
August 2002
I’d rather be alone
With a schizophrenic,
Than a psychiatrist.
1998
We are ‘A’-list to our friends.
2005
Thoughts on Thoughts.
Your greatest fear
May never come;
It may never, have ever,
Been likely, even;
For little thoughts,
When given room,
Are bound to lend,
Themselves to doom.
1998
Weed killer?
I can’t find It in these Instructions –
(I know it’s not for Trees).
I’ve looked everywhere, for Reasons,
And comforted the Seeds.
I can’t see whey it’s needed,
For the murdering of these.
Dear God, who created Them,
Which flowers are the Weeds?
Dear God, who created Them,
Which flowers are the Weeds?
9th June 2004
Without the bird
the feather flies
along the ground.
September 2002
We and the Ducks
Crying out for a destination –
We cry out uncertain
When we are ‘between lakes’.
23rd August 2002
My hair, has signs it is unhealthy!?
(Isn’t it dead already)?
September 2002
The Outsider
The artist was considered
‘on the margins’.
(We sit and we study
what the artist,
scribbled,
in his margins).
27th August 2002
What is it like in psychiatric hospital?
(Even the Occupational Therapist is bored)
August 2002
Work Ethic
“Can you do more than you can, today?”
September 2002
Infatuated
Now I’ve got this infatuated
he could also say,
Oh! and by the way,
“I’m a Martian Turnip”.
How Romantic? –
A “Martian Turnip”.
18th August 2002
Love Time
I split my time between
the local mental hospital
and the literary coterie.
Between mucking in with the homeless,
and talking to musicians in coffee bars.
Between yelling and pacifism.
Between poetry and tears.
Between reading and writing.
Between you and me.
21st August 2002
Speckled Woodland: (Butterfly)
Basking by bud,
And flittering by;
Although some say: -
“Your belong up high”,
This I say, of the ‘Breath of the Sky’,
(of you – the Woodland butterfly),
“Oh! Beautiful beast
of the Flowering grove”,
’You flower yourself
If the truth were told.’
July 2002
The City Council Quote
Is it true, (the lie),
That the city’s ‘health’ is measured by
“The number of cranes in the sky”.
Because i think it is measured by
how long it takes
For someone to come, when you cry.
26th July 2002
Female
His eves are more intimate than sex.
His eyes are more intimate than God.
And I expect that pregnancy is not sexy
not really
12th August 2002
Help
‘Mental Health Difficulties,’
is what you get,
when you have been
honest with a psychiatrist.
10th August 2002
Manchester has…
Manchester has a prevailing wind
And Manchester has extra –
We have prevailing cloud and rain,
et cetera, et cetera.
18th July 2002
Actually, we learn more about God –
outside of theology….
In the hours it takes to
name the moment.
In the face of the Sky,
wearing tomorrow’s clouds?
In the long grass,
that has its flowers too.
In the slightest hint of colour in
the white petal.
In the child trying to touch petals
and faces.
In the stream reaching the sea,
Without ever once coming in to land.
In the bud –
We have not noticed forming.
In the call of the moment –
That lasts beyond the day;
In the answer of the year –
That was only momentary.
God – in the breathing of success….
(and the gathering of failures)
In the sacredness of the unsayable;
In theology we do not see it said.
25th August 2002