The Hawk Portico 5:15pm
I Made A Bed
Of Crystal Sheets
& Strew Them Head To Toe
I Laid Across Them A Quilt
Of Rings Of
Pink & Green To Show
I Still Had Christmas
Somewhere Deep
Tried To Let It Go
But My Lover Never Materialized
— He’s Of The Mind —
Still, At Best, My Shadow
The Tomato-coloured Couch 5:10pm
We Are All Prophets
Seeing Our Futures
And Creating Our Ways
To The Regeneration
Of Our True Forms
In The Singularity
The Hawk Basement 10:22am
God is feeding off Me
eating Himself into My Heart
coercing Me, propelling me
closer & closer
to The Day of Desire
unleashed
–
through My Desire
set up by God
Twenty Years Ago
The Day of Reckoning
will unfold automatically
& I will not be responsible
for Its
Outcome
The Tomato-coloured Couch 7:00pm
Face To Face
with My Favourite Psychiatrist
I stated The Obvious:
“I can fulfil Your Ultimate Fantasy —
didn’t You say You wanted to be
Canada’s Greatest Psychiatrist?”
“That was just a manner of speaking –“
“Are You being Honest?”
“Joanna, You’re standing on The Edge
of a Cliff, looking down –“
I fell headlong into a morass
of psychosis, medication
& the strongest physical desire
I had ever known
for The Little Doctor
Who had embraced Me
on October 22, 1993
The Tomato-coloured Couch 6:35pm
She Fell In Love
with The Little Man
on October 22, 1993
–
when She felt a compulsion
to SAY something
& She didn’t know what IT would be
–
At Eight in the morning She went
to The Hospital where He was working
She asked for Him at The Front Desk
Another Doctor was suggested
but She refused, saying She would wait
–
after twenty minutes
She was directed to a little room
an examining room
where He stood before Her with folded arms
–
“I have something I must say –”
He tried to cut Her off by saying
“These things have happened before –”
“But I am compelled to say IT. I must say IT —
Would You believe Me, would You accept
What I have to SAY?”
–
He nodded & said, “Yes, go ahead, tell Me –”
–
Her Arms lifted up & out to both sides
as She was seated:
“There Is A God”
as She rose to His Unfolded Embrace
The Hawk Deck 5:35pm
After The Shower Of Lights
The Little Girl was not So Little
She had been struck over The Head
by A Very Giant Object
attached to God
& He wasn’t going to let Her away
so easily
That Night
after relatives and The Nurse Do Do
took Her to the hospital
where Her Mother had died
four days earlier
The New Big Girl was seen by A Little Man
Who asked all the right questions
& ordered a room
–
In That Darkened Hospital Room
in Shelburne, Nova Scotia
March 31st, 1993
The Little Girl who was no longer Little
saw floating in The Darkness
a loose brown cylindrical mass
which slowly opened from its centre
to reveal nothing less
than The Meaning Of Life
couched within a Joke of such magnitude
that only God could have thought It up:
You Are The Reason For Schizophrenia
She puzzled over this and questioned Her Sanity
& decided that if She could question Her Sanity
She was not “Insane”
–
The next morning, April Fool’s Day, The Little Man
came into Her Room
& as She tried to assume some explanation
as to what had befallen Her
The Little Man stood at the foot of Her Bed
& said, “You won’t find anything about this in any medical text books
but some people who have had these kinds of experiences
are called Seers.”
She Fell In Love With Him
The Tomato-coloured Couch 12:45pm
Sobey’s is a home-grown grocery operation
with A Parking Lot
as one of the most innocent
& unassuming
public spaces
in existence
(at least around here)
Unsuspecting Shoppers
push Their Full Carts to Their Cars
push Empty Carts back
to The Cart Corral
Which says “In The Event
of An Emergency
Gather Here”
What is Sobey’s
preparing
for?
The Tomato-coloured Couch 7:00pm
I Can Do Whatever I Want
I Can Write Anything
I Feel
I Can Write “I”
A Million Times
& Disregard That Man’s Word “ego”
Cancel It Right Out
I Know The Meaning Of Life:
I Have My Own Private God
A Beautiful Dark-haired Woman
Who Told Me In My Right Ear
“You Know
The Meaning Of Life
& So You Are A Star —
So Go To Sleep”
The Hawk West Desk Window 9:30pm
My Sun Has Set
A Thousand Suns Away
I Am Quiet
In My Heart
Leaning Towards The Grey
The Hawk Deck 6:25pm
My Husband said these words today
as He is a participant
in My Fate
but maybe I can be just
an observer
now that My Husband
Who still loves Me
can carry the weight
of the past twenty years
Joanna Gilman Hyde