The Hawk Corner Room 11:42am
The Time is Month !4!
since I cleared My Head
— a grey day in The Newest
Autumn of My Life
I can see The Particles
of Air
as I did when I was A Child
when I discussed this phenomenon
with An Isolated Friend
Who became
Our Valedictorian
The Hawk Queen Bed 4:25am
She greeted Me in ruffled satin
lavender and sleeveless
as She signed Her Self out
so We could sit outside
looking at the harbour
with tea and coffee
and the blue sky
where a flock of geese flew in V formation —
She pointed to where She had been injected
on Her Hip
for a thirty-day stint
of a medication She could not pronounce
and mentioned how The Head Psychiatrist
had called Her Name
and asked Her if She had worked
on a puzzle today —
back inside
She ate pink salmon and dill
for supper
and pointed to Her Self-cut Hair-do
Her Raven Hair
to say the fish was good
for Her Brain —
an oral dose of Seroquel
was brought to Her at the table
and My Beautiful Friend
choked it down
while The Nurse said
“It’s Your After Dinner
Mint.”
The Hawk Queen Bed 9:11pm
“It’s a shame She has no insight,”
said a psychiatric nurse to My Husband
one of those 23 years
when I was drugged
for the duration
of The Prime of My Life —
well today I have more “insight”
than all the staff and doctors
put together
and I got to have a manicure
in the company of My Daughter
attended by an eager Asian
named Cong Lee
Who asked Me
where We’d been shopping
The Hawk Deck 3:57pm
Once, on a Canadian Grey Hound
a man called schizophrenic
under a voice’s command
beheaded a fellow passenger —
was He on anti-psychotic drugs
only to be locked away forever
in a place for the criminally insane
and drugged and drugged
until He dies?
The Hawk Deck 10:10am
I have said Good-bye
to My Darling Cow Bird
Whose love affair with My Car Mirror
is gone
He bowed off with another
female two weeks ago —
I have said Hello
to My Husband
and will be hanging The Bedding
in Our Hot Sun
I will be playing
The Cow Bird’s Song
on an internet recording
for The Arrival
of My Children
one week
tomorrow
The Hawk Deck 4:04pm
Since that first spring of 1993
with a ten-minute diagnosis of schizophrenia
crowning My Head after My Mother’s Death
and a summer’s hospitalisation for depression
when a psychiatric nurse tried to assure Me
“There will be other summers” —
how could She have known
there wouldn’t be a straight one
until now, twenty-three years later,
when My Second Husband
allows Me to throw
My Bed-thrashing Knees
across His Hip
in the dead of night
and reads My Extensive Medical Records
on His Lunch Break
to find out what happened?
The Hawk TV Room 8:46am
I have added one line to “Just How Bad Was I?” Since I have been off the anti-psychotic medication Olanzapine for one month, and over the devastating effects of drug-induced psychosis which I had unknowingly been under for the duration of My “psychiatric history” of twenty-three years — I have only the beginnings of realization as to how much this has not only affected my life, but my writing and art. I have sincere appreciation for your readership.
Thank you,
Joanna
The Hawk Deck 7:19am
EYE have been held in a trance
by The Birds, The Rooster
Their Song on The Air
The Silver on The Sea
and My Successful Adjustment
to the sleepless effect
of going off My anti-psychotic medication
four days ago
The Hawk Corner Room 5:45am
I watched The Sun Rise
first a golden glimmer —
then it popped up
rising faster
than it seemed to go down last night
–
I am off the anti-psychotic medication
I took to sleep for twenty-odd years
& am waking earlier
but feeling
great
Sobey’s Parking Lot 3:55pm
Through roadside fields of Lupine
I drove My Manuscript
home
after saying Good-bye
to My New Psychiatrist
I will see no longer —
“How will You remain stable?”
She asked,
“EYE will be looking after
M(EYE) Self”
Joanna Gilman Hyde 