Mc Fucking Crazy

Rain

Rain, rain, rain.
Gray, gray, gray day. Just a general cold and miserable day. Looking back, my introduction could be used as the beginning of a good poem. Hmmm, shit no. It'll probably turn into some flowery shit - roses and daffodils - and it'll turn into one of my sugar sweet poems. The ones that causes your teeth to rot, and your pancreas to shrivel up.

I write some only because my love for my muse makes me do it. I have to write them. They come fully formed in my head, I can't tell the muse that I have to throw it away because it's too full of saccharine. I have to give it to her. I have to write it down. I've learned how to suppress too many coming out of me. LOOK AROUND AT MY SURROUNDINGS. Or remember where the fuck I came from . That'll cure you of flowery writing in a second. You want to write about everything that pisses you off then, every thing that shoots up your blood pressure and Voila! There's the end of the flowery, candied, sugary poem.

It's not that I am against sugary poems, lord knows I've wrote enough to my muse, it just gets too many, too oppressive. They become bricks instead of flowers, and when you deliver, have mortar. I've built walls out of the bricks I bore, so who am I to talk? I stand accused of writing them too.

That's the problem now with my poetry. I'm off the streets, so it's lacking the acidic edge that it once had. It also lacks it's performance acting edge to it that I was picking up from my brother. I don't want to be remembered or looked on as a performance poet, that's not my way either. I had a period of limp wristed poetry, so like I said, I can't get on people's cases about that. But I don't want to be remembered for that either. I want to be remembered for poetry with an edge, but still poetry. I would like to be remembered for that thoughtful poem that pulled no punches, that struck square in the teeth, going back to the ways of my mentor, posthumously of course, Charles Bukowski. He was a brutal poet, but literally called them as he saw them. Everyone else that tries to imitate him is a cheap, second hand model.

That would be me included. But I don't give a fuck, as long as people don't expect me to read like a Baptist preacher from the rostrum. I would like it to be more like my personality, inquisitive, quiet, unassuming and reserved. But no, people want the action, the excitement, the energy of it all. I'm just not that flamboyant enough of a character, although hosting the SHOUT OUT by myself has loosened me up a little. I'm a little more at ease on the stage, so hopefully more of my personality will show through. And I have a forum to read my new stuff, which would be good to give them a launching point that I'm familiar with.

There is a commotion outside my door. More of Paula's crows. Paula has been acting a little different lately. One morning, last week, while crossing her in the hall I asked in passing: Good Morning Paula, how are you today? "Actually," she said in a whine. "I'm not doing too good to day." Which my canned response has always been - Sorry to hear that - and keep on trucking. Which I do.

Yesterday and today, groups of her friends have been ringing her door and talking to her at length outside my door. I hear only broken English through my door, and I'm not one to go and press my ear against it to hear stupid, silly shit. So, I stay on my computer, typing away peacefully, as the crows build and leave outside.

So, tonight I wake up about 10:00PM and go take a piss. The hallway is not as cold as it was earlier, and the bathroom is always warm, thank god, because of not having windows. I cross the hall to my room and there is a woman, short, dirty blonde, talking to Paula, who is not out of her room, but is instead talking through a barely opened door, as if she is talking to a group of Jehovah's Witnesses, crying her eyes out while talking. I mind my business and enter my room, slip off my coat and get back to writing. It's warm in my room all of a sudden. I wonder if the outside temp rose, or maybe the heat was turned on in the building? No such luck. Radiator's cold.

The commotion begins outside my door as I work on my computer and suddenly I hear the familiar squawk of a police radio. I mute my Internet radio so that I can hear better and realize that it isn't just one police radio, there are several. Something metal hits my wall from the outside. A gurney. She is told that the ambulance is here. Wow, something must have happened in her room. Maybe her husband suffered from some malady suddenly and had to be taken to the hospital.

She is outside in the hall, crying profusely now. "Leave me alone," she whines. "I'm not going." "Oh yes you are, miss." When I heard the cop say that, I jumped to my feet and put my ear to the door. I knew that there was going to be trouble. Awww, c'mon, you would have done the same thing, don't play holier than thou. Shit, I haven't had any excitement all day. This shit is BETTER than television, this fucking shit is for real.

Well, going on, she explains to them "I'm not going. I've already registered and am going to the psychiatric hospital on Monday. I don't need to go with you tonight." Here's the thing that I never could understand and that's how some people argue or disagree with a cop after they've made up their mind. The cop says to the EMT "Do you think she should go?" "Yes, she needs to be admitted now before she has a chance to harm herself." The EMT replies.

HOLY SHIT!! Well that's a wrap. "I am Bi-polar and I'm having a down time. I'm going to the psychiatric hospital on Monday and check myself in. I am not going with you people." The cops are thinking otherwise. "The EMT has determined that you are a threat to yourself ma'am. You're coming with us." Paula bursts into living tears now. Truth is, Paula is a big woman. Almost Samoan and as tall as a basketball player. That means, if the police officer is confident enough that she is going with them, there must be more than two, along with the EMTs who travel in twos (and one driver). There must have been a hallway full of police because she doesn't challenge them but instead continues to plead in a whinny voice.

"I'm sorry, Miss, you're coming with us." That's what I mean. Once they get the idea in their heads, you're GOING. Trust me. You don't have much of a choice then. Paula tries a new tack - let the crazy bitch out, screaming at the top of her strained lungs, "GET OUT! GET OUT! LEAVE ME ALONE! GET OUT!" Which I don't think did her much good because there was a struggle and the next thing I hear is: "Get out of my room. I'm going, I'm going. I just have to put on some clothes first. Get out of my room." The EMT, who is female, must have entered the room and they closed the door. I go off and fill my sink with dishes, water, and dishwashing liquid, until I hear her voice again. "I don't want to go," she cried. "I don't want to go. Like I said, I'm Bi-polar and these things happen. I'm sorry that I told my friends that I was going to kill myself. I was just talking. I'm sorry. I'm not."

Doesn't matter. The officer's must have flanked her, I hear their squawking radios all over the place in front of my door. "Come on ma'am," They say to her with a soft, firm voice, and they move off. Paula still complains as her voice fades down the hall with the squawking radios. In a moment there is nothing but silence. Paula is being checked in for observation. That's why you've got to watch your mouth in here. Watch what you say, because this is a nut house, and when you make a stupid assed comment like 'you're going to kill yourself', motherfuckers here take your ass VERY seriously.

They don't fuck around. That's why I live a quiet, simple life. I stay in my room, I don't socialize with the people in the building, I mind my own business. These things are important if you're going to live here.

What was I talking about earlier? My poetry having an edge? My life has sharp edges. I should be able to tap into that. Tap into my muse. Tap into my head. I can't think. I can't get Paula off my mind. Paula is going into observation tonight. Wow, that's deep. She was just talking about her wedding plans and all that shit, and now she threw a kink into all that for sure. She's going to be out of commission for a few weeks, if not months. Once you sign yourself in, there is NO getting out of there. You walk out the front door, there is an APB put out on your dumb ass immediately. You are going to stay in there as long as they feel that you need too, and that's always two weeks longer than you think YOU need to.

I'm just glad that this building is also residential and not a complete nut-house. Because, what would that say about me? A nut too? Losing my fragile hold on reality? I'm glad that I still have my brother to check me while I check myself, for mental slippage.

Paula's going IN. Wow. I wash my dishes.

Hobobob