The Tomato-coloured Couch 1:11pm
I live with A Demon
of My Own Creation
caged above Me
in My Living Room
He is black & dirty
with giant bird shit
dripping off the upper right corner
of His Chicken Wire Cage
first laid across Him
on the 4th Floor
of Cooper Union’s Foundation Building
where He came to Life
never to speak — only to glare
with His Brilliant Eyes
down upon His Audience —
Yet Today He Speaks!
Through Me as I speak out
for The Creature of My Fierce Fear —
My Fear of being locked in
or up
or out
as I have been locked inside
psychiatric wards
for years on end
I am OUT NOW
& I can speak My Mind
no matter how It comes out
I AM BLACK JESUS — but
not because I am dressed in black
I AM BLACK JESUS — because
I can speak
for My Desperate Crow — d
The West Desk Window NOON
I am naked as I write
just out of The Shower
after rowing 2,234 metres
on My Concept 2 Rower
— My Very Own C2 —
to write that I am thinking
of You
The http://www.livestream.com/occupynyc People
bundled in Your Coats & Blankets
against the odds
(though My Last Check Written
to Cooper was all evens)
I see You on Your Live Streaming
& offer My Support
from My Home
here on The Hawk
if there’s anything I could do for you —
now I’ll get dressed
Joanna Hyde Art ’83
The West Desk Window 9:00pm
This Evening My Daughter drove off
with Her Boyfriend Tyler
against a backdrop of sunset
gold & amethyst
like My Mother’s antique ring
worn by Eliza for the first time
— She asked if She could wear It —
said She would keep It
in a blue velvet box at night
& that They’d be back from Halifax
on Sunday
Last Night I slept on The Hide-A-Bed
in Eliza’s Corner Room
My Husband was coughing badly
so I got up & out @ 11:00
to open The Hide-A-Bed
& make it up with cheap Egyptian sheets
& a satin cover I made in My First Marriage
never used
I pulled up the shade Eliza always has down
& lay on My Hide-A-Bed
looking up to The Sky
awash in star glitter
In a Barrington Passage car park
I listen to 90’s on 9
“That’s Me in The Corner
That’s Me in The Spot Light
Losing My Religion”
— I listen to 90’s on 9
to reclaim the decade
stolen by My Mother’s Brain Tumour —
is this another Dead Mother poem
or My Reclamation
of What I’m OWED?
Making up for months & months
of psychiatric hospitalizations
of years of being so depressed
I couldn’t take care of My Children
of writing a 364 page Manuscript
— The Encapsulation —
only to gleefully shred It
— every copy I possessed —
on a sunny June afternoon
fifteen years later?
The Hawk Kitchen 10:22am
I see My Rings stacked
up on the tail
of a ceramic cat
poised at My Kitchen Sink:
My Big ? Ring
& My Wedding Rings
Hunter bought Me years ago
eyed by My Daughter
from Time To Time
— I know She would love an engagement ring
from Her Very Serious Boyfriend
& if She got one
would that assure Me
She would not be as promiscuous
as I was?
Would She be as happy
as She could be
& for how long?
–
With The World Waiting For Her
at such a young age
could She be
a Cape Island House Wife?
Though isn’t that what I am —
secure in My Maturity
happy in My Place?
Joanna Gilman Hyde 