Sunday, May 31, 2020

Poems from the Back Ward: Poem 1




This is a new series that will focus on people who work or worked in the psychiatric field. I worked as a mental health counselor at McLean Hospital for 36 years.  During many of those years I ran poetry groups for psychiatric patients in different settings. Here is a poem I wrote about watching a client at a Boston hospital. Send your poems to dougholder@post.harvard.edu --with a pic of yourself, bio, and poem--in one email.



ANOREXIA



Just a skeleton of herself.


Her teeth


A row of rot.


Her stringy arms


Starting to rival


The width of the


IV tubes.


But she is happy.


Smiling at the


Happy horseshit of the TV


Her cheeks sucked


To the bone,


A woman


With the voice


Of a gasping, callow child


Asks, clutching the phone:



“How many calories in a scone?”







1 comment:

  1. So intense and so incredibly sad. Brilliant in its simplicity, Doug.

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