The Irish Advocacy Network  Ltd.,                

Home   News      Discussion    Poetry & Writing   Events     About IAN     Contact Details      Links

Poetry: Vincent

 

The Asylum

Up the well-trodden path, I tread,
Lonely, lonely how I travel
And thoughts of yesteryear are with me up that sloping hill

Who is he? Who is she?
So young, now beaten to senility

Where is the doctor for I too have a problem?
He merely smiles and says,
“Keep taking the tablets”

The halls are bare and as long as long can be
And where will my destination be?

And screams of torture ring out
Which seem to say -
“You belong to me.
This is the House of Madness.
You belong to me”

Patients pose the question,
“Are you really one of us?”
And I am puzzled, no mesmerized and shook.

Is this your story?
Your life’s young book unfolded.

The mist surrounds.
The Big House swoons and sways in unison with their pain.
No longer mad
No longer sad
But merely part and parcel
Of what we all usually call
The other side of the track.



Evening in Prison

(Written whilst in Borstal in Wormwood Scrubs, London, 1967)


Evening time is here
And slowly the Sun gets dimmer in the sky.

The shadow on the wall begins to fade
And all around the sound of men’s souls is deafening.

In each cell lies a man.
Each pondering what is ahead
Over his own private, yet distant horizon.

All thought of time goes
Flowing by like water,
In your waterfall.

Evening time in prison is worst
For at that time all of one’s past life
Comes flooding back like a waterfall.

And the beating of your heart is like
The water splashing and spraying
To the craggy rocks below
With a mighty crescendo

And all thought of time goes
Flowing by like the water
In that waterfall