The Dead Good Poets Society

*a friend of mine set up a local poetry group 'The Dead Good Poets Society', and once a month we meet and perform our poems, it's quite informal but lots of fun. The following are the previous poems performed.

What if you're wrong?
And I'm not ill at all
But still, you fill me so I rattle
From all these pretty pills you feed me like bird seed.

What if you're wrong?
And I'm not ill at all
And still you watch me from behind your protective glass
As though I'm some crazed animal who might pounce and mame without warning.

What if you're wrong?
And I'm not ill at all
And still you slash the layers of my sanity with jagged jaws for information I don't have
So sure the answers are concealed beneath the surface.

What if you're wrong?
And I'm not ill at all
And all your care and understanding do nothing more -than drive me mad
So that answers and pills and protective glass spout from my nose and bite you on the ass
With a print that spits "YOU'RE WRONG!"

(this was written shortly after a shock diagnosis of Bipolar disorder)

I forgot to miss you

It’s been ten months, and three days,
and four half hours since you left
And I forgot to miss you.

I forgot clear away your things
And still find a shoe beneath your bed
Where you left it,
never knowing the scent would ever intoxicate me
And now I’ve forgotten why I cannot move it.

I’m still sure I hear your calls when the air is still
And imagine the conversations we’d be having in the morning
as I try to start the car.
Shopping, so mundane that when a stranger brushes by
A smell, I turn, I see. I crumble.
Some unknown soul stole your scent is staring back at me
But still I’m clinging to his arm, so sure that this imposture must be you.

At night I wrap your jumpers around me
Still safe inside your invisible arms

And every year I still buy you a card,
Drop it into the sea
And wait endlessly for your reply.

It’s been ten months, and three days
And four hours thirty eight minutes
And I forgot to miss you.

(written in response to my father passing away)