| An Evans Experientialisn Guest Site Dedicated to the work of the Liverpool Poet Back to Home
|
|||
| The Poetry of Nicholas Hancock The Poet of Despair Published by The British Hancock Society with the permission of the author. |
|||
 
|
|||
| REFRACTION IN REVERSE I Entering the Prism To D Ward, Psychiatry, Harry came, hair bouffant and red as a robin's breast; he kidded the nurse, wouldn't give his name and a Valencian guy called Paco, obsessed, who was admitted on a failed suicide with an ink gun. "No, I no do Rorschach Test!" Clive strode in, blond as gold, a hand inside waistcoat grey, thought he was N. Bonaparte - having whose haemorrhoids he couldn't ride. Kevin from the Sligo Hills was taking old Clive apart, whacking the man's palm like a wild manic in deep despair. "Clive, me dear ol' feller me lad, curse you for your heart!" Now came a fellow with flowers in his hair - Toby, his five o'clock shadow quite blue, thinking that Harry and Paco might jeer. Joe the Emperor asked, "How do you do?" Empress Julia (also Joe) said, "Fine. Take me to the pills-for-patients queue." Then came Indigo Jones reeking breath on his wine, and he told the in-patients his measure of life. "By the spirit of whisky, I swear I've drunk mine." II Coming out on the other side Now Joe and Clive are on chlorpromazine; their heads are low; they stare at things unseen through D Ward's windows at a dreary green while Jones and Paco feast on phenelzine forgetting in loose slippers what they've been, eyes cavernous, their bodies stooped and lean, and Kev and Harry's benzodiazepine shuts off all will and gives a mask serene to hide their void; and Toby's no more queen of blossoms, for he's on clomipramine. |
|||
| BACK TO TOP OF PAGE |
