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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 12 of 12. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Atticus on July 21, 2004, at 18:41:28
Crocs, 1987
Reptile-headed hipsters
Clenched unfiltered Camels
In smug and cruel
Crocodile smiles.
Smoke crawled along scaly snouts
Under the pitiless white glare
Of sodium-arc street lamps
Arrayed along a curb
Littered with discarded
Hypodermics and condoms.I exhaled smoke
Into the damp night air,
Slouched against a wall of bricks
Stacked and mortared
Like the discolored, discarded teeth of giants,
Before crushing the spent cartridge
Of nicotine
Under a steel-toed motorcycle boot.
Acid-Addled Walter still kneeled unsteadily
Amid the puddles
On the alley's asphalt stage,
The vomit on his shirt
And jeans already dried and caked.
I lit another Marlboro to mask the stink
Of decay that seemed to emerge
With every labored breath he took.Random beads of jewel-like water
Clung to my black leather Buffalo jacket,
Tiny rainbow-hued prisms
That seemed out of place
Amid the scuffed sleeves
And unraveling seams.
A faint spray of ash
Tumbled from the glowing ember
At the end of my cigarette,
Dusting my Dead Kennedys t-shirt
With a fine coat of tainted snow.
Tendrils of smoke explored
The spaces among the eruption
Of spiked brown hair atop my head.
The music from the club
Throbbed lazily in my ears
As it made its escape
Through the fire exit.In the distance
A shriveled figure approached,
Appearing and vanishing,
Vanishing and appearing,
As she moved along the sidewalk
From one pool of light to the next.
Her five-foot frame
Inched slowly past
The glowing predator eyes
Of the herd down the street
With the palsied, leaden tread
Of doomed prey.
The flickering orange of their cigs
Moved to follow her progress
Like a swarm
Of choreographed fireflies.She glanced up into my face,
Her skin gray and stretched
Too tightly over her
Tiny skull,
Her arms bruised, purple,
Punctuated with the Morse code markings
Of too many needles.
I met her gaze
With the practiced jaded indifference
So prized by teenagers.
No more than 15, I mused,
She's no more than 15.A clatter from the alley
As Acid-Addled Walter
Tottered to his feet,
Toppling the lid of a garbage can
Onto the ground
During his uncertain ascent
Back into consciousness.
She jumped, startled, hollow eyes wide,
Pleading.
I held out my box of Marlboro reds,
Striking a match as she drew
The cigarette to her lips
With quivering hands, old woman's hands.She took a drag,
Then continued her tenuous pilgrimage
Past me and into the night.
What did we each see? I wondered.
Her past? My future?
I nodded to Acid-Addled Walter
That it was time to go
And we slid away
From the other crocs
On the concrete riverbank,
Saying nothing, thinking everything.
-- Atticus
Posted by karen_kay on July 21, 2004, at 19:22:22
In reply to poem ... Crocs, 1987, posted by Atticus on July 21, 2004, at 18:41:28
i don't feel so alone posting one too (that i stole... and i swear, i'm getting ready to set thta blasted anti-addiction button.. but i keep getting distracted! oh, and i really did enjoy the one you posted.)
here it is...
462-0614
I get many phonecalls now.
They are all alike.
"are you Charels Bukowski,
the writer?"
"yes," I tell them.
and they tell me
that they understand my
writing,
and some of them are writers
or want to be writers
and they have dull and
horrible jobs
adn they can't face the room
the apartment
the walls
that night-
they want somebody to talk
to,
and they can't believe
that I can't help them
that I don't know the words.
they can't believe
that often now
I double up in my room
grab my gut
and say
"Jesus Jesus Jesus, not
again!"
they can't believe
that the loveless people
the streets
the loneliness
the walls
are mine too.
and when I hang up the phone
they think I have held back my
secret.I don't write out of
knowledge.
when the phone rings
I too would like to hear words
that might ease
some of this.that's why my number's
listed.* i would have loved to have known hank, but i'm sure i would have treated him like all the rest of the women did. it's a shame, isn't it? besides, i'm a pill head, like all the other women he knew...
anyone else going to post one now?
Posted by Atticus on July 21, 2004, at 19:37:31
In reply to great!.... now,, posted by karen_kay on July 21, 2004, at 19:22:22
Hey, that's a pretty sweet trade. I post a little recollection from my days as a teenage punker who hung out with his friends in the East Village, and I get a piece by Bukowski in return. Nice. Atticus
Posted by Jai Narayan on July 21, 2004, at 21:09:15
In reply to poem ... Crocs, 1987, posted by Atticus on July 21, 2004, at 18:41:28
This is an excellent poem. It's well crafted and beautifully told.
I would dearly love to hear more.
You have quite a talent....
I hope it's published.
Posted by Atticus on July 22, 2004, at 8:56:07
In reply to well I hope this is published?????, posted by Jai Narayan on July 21, 2004, at 21:09:15
Thanks, Jai. It hasn't been published in paper form, but luckily, under U.S copyright law, as soon as I put it into a "fixed" form of expression (i.e. posted it on this page), I acquired copyright protection. I hadn't really thought about getting the work I post here published elsewhere, but that might be a kick. I should pick up a copy of the 2004 Writer's Market, scope out magazines that print poetry, and submit it to some of them. I don't really have much of a body of work built up at this point. I only recently started writing poems again after my hospitalization and outpatient treatment following a suicide attempt. The meds and therapy have finally gotten my mind to the point where I can access the kind of vivid visual imagery and memories that I conjure up to wrap the words around. Atticus
Posted by B2chica on July 22, 2004, at 10:33:15
In reply to Re: well I hope this is published????? » Jai Narayan, posted by Atticus on July 22, 2004, at 8:56:07
Atticus, just wanted to say that i'm VERY happy that you were able to get to the hospital in time no matter how it was done. I'm glad you are around to share your poetry.
-and i hope that your success of meds and mind stay.
B2c.>>I don't really have much of a body of work built up at this point. I only recently started writing poems again after my hospitalization and outpatient treatment following a suicide attempt. The meds and therapy have finally gotten my mind to the point where I can access the kind of vivid visual imagery and memories that I conjure up to wrap the words around. Atticus
Posted by Jai Narayan on July 22, 2004, at 16:49:33
In reply to Re: well I hope this is published????? » Jai Narayan, posted by Atticus on July 22, 2004, at 8:56:07
> I only recently started writing poems again after my hospitalization and outpatient treatment following a suicide attempt. The meds and therapy have finally gotten my mind to the point where I can access the kind of vivid visual imagery and memories that I conjure up to wrap the words around. Atticus
**Can I ask you some sensitive questions?
I will ask when and if you feel it's okay....Until then I want to say your poem is excellent. You brought me to the experience...I was walking down that road.
Posted by Atticus on July 22, 2004, at 19:38:44
In reply to Re: well I hope this is published?????, posted by Jai Narayan on July 22, 2004, at 16:49:33
Yes, by all means, ask away. I can't promise I'll be able to answer all of them, but I'll try. After all, if I really understood why I do some of the things I do, or why I write some of the things I write, I wouldn't need a witch's brew of meds to keep me (at least relatively) balanced. :) Atticus
Posted by Jai Narayan on July 25, 2004, at 20:13:38
In reply to Re: well I hope this is published????? » Jai Narayan, posted by Atticus on July 22, 2004, at 19:38:44
what is your diagnosis?
When did you first feel the coming of this mental/chemical challenge?
this topic is very dear to my heart.
So many of my family have been struggling with this all their lives.
I seemed to have been spared.
I am still looking for signs.I hope this is okay for me to ask?
Posted by Atticus on July 26, 2004, at 10:13:34
In reply to okay....here goes, posted by Jai Narayan on July 25, 2004, at 20:13:38
Hey, I promised to try to answer any questions you had as honestly and completely as I could. No need to feel any trepidation about asking, either now or in the future. :) First, my diagnosis: I have severe clinical depression (I think it's called "major depressive disorder" in medical parlance) with an associated panic disorder. I take a med cocktail of Effexor XR, Klonopin, propranolol, and trazodone. The illness first emerged when I was about 13, and I became increasingly withdrawn and melancholic. My parents (and I) just wrote it off as typical teenaged angst, but it continued to worsen, and I saw my first therapist around the age of 15 or 16. After I'd been in therapy a year or so, the symptoms seemed to subside (to my parents' immense relief), and I came out of dark. I later learned that my father was especially worried because there's an extensive history of mental illness in his family: he and all five of his siblings (three brothers, two sisters) have either clinical depression or bipolar disorder. And my dad's own father experienced alternating periods of depression and mania himself, according to descriptions of his behavior I've gotten from my aunts and uncles. At that point in my life, my mid-teens, I'd never been put on any meds yet. I still had feelings of being an outsider all the time. Even when I was part of a group, one part of my mind always seemed to be hovering outside the circle, dispassionately observing and mentally recording the conversation, sights, and sounds. Then I became friends with Walter (you've seen glimpses of him in the poems), and plunged enthusiastically into the nihilistic night world of punk. Suddenly I'd found a social circle and sub-society where my quirkiness, impulsiveness, and utter contempt for authority were badges of honor. This was a tough period for my parents, I have to admit. I starting smoking, experimenting with all manner of drugs, hanging out in seedy punk clubs until the sun came up, and generally being uncontrollable at home. But at the same time, I was at the top of my high school class of about 120 kids (mainly because the assignments were so damned easy that I could knock them out in about 15 minutes), and editor of the student newspaper, and got varsity letters twice in fencing. It was a weird dual existence, but as long as I did well in school and got into a good college, mom and dad were willing to put up with the punk. (They did hit the ceiling when I came home one morning with a tattoo after an all-night bender. So I reacted the same way any punker would; I got another one.) College was more of the same. I quickly fell in with the university's punk element, and Walter was going to another school nearby. By this time all the acid he'd dropped had done a serious number on his brain; even I could see the deterioration in his thought processes and hear the addled, hesitant way he always spoke, as if his thoughts were elusive and difficult to corral and transport to his tongue. So I steered well clear of LSD, if little else. Maybe all of this amounted to some kind of self-medication. Maybe I just thought it was fun. I'll leave that analysis to my pdoc. I did have a reputation for moodiness among my friends, and coming from fellow punkers, that's saying a lot. My junior year of college, I fell in love with Alyssa, who was a sophomore. We dated all through school and got engaged her senior year (much to her parents' dismay -- can't really say I blame them; I'm sure I didn't look like much of a hot prospect in their eyes). We got married the August after she graduated, and by '94, I was already a copywriter at an ad agency. My mercurial mood swings continued, but I didn't pay much attention to them. Overall, life seemed very good. By the beginning of 1996, though, I knew that something was wrong. I'd go to work every morning with this vague, unshakeable sense of sadness hanging over me. It built steadily until October, when I had my first full-blown panic attack and ended up in an ER, thinking I was having a heart attack. It felt as if a black veil was settling over my whole life, coloring my perceptions of everything. I stopped drawing. I stopped painting. I stopped writing, except for work. And work itself became ever more difficult because I just couldn't find the motivation to write that advertising drivel any more. I lost my job, and the financial repercussions from this really put a strain on my marriage. I started seeing a psychiatrist and a therapist, going frantically from med to med as our bank account grew smaller and smaller. I got another job, but that didn't help my marriage much. None of the meds -- SSRIs, tricyclics, antipsychotics -- was doing a damned bit of good. There seemed to be no end in sight to this dark tunnel that I found myself trekking through, and this was especially hard on Alyssa, as she'd grown up with a bipolar mother whose mania expressed itself as towering, irrational rages. I think, in retrospect, that we both married so young to get away from the mental illness in our respective families, but Alyssa hadn't signed up for a second tour of duty with a mental patient when she said, "I do." By '98, the marriage was over (which, needless to say, didn't exactly help my already rickety mental state), and I was two years into the eight-year battle with the now full-blown illness that culminated in my suicide attempt this past spring. So here I am, taking it one day at a time. The Effexor XR really has done wonders, along with the help I received while in hospital and during the intensive outpatient treatment that has followed. I'm still trying to make my family understand that this chemical imbalance will never go away, that I'll never "get better." The one undesirable side effect that this has inadvertantly produced is to make them treat me with kid gloves; their uneasiness is palpable, as is their fear of me, even though I've never manifested any violent symptoms against anyone but myself. My growing frustration with that, with being treated as an illness rather than as a human being with an illness, led me to write the metaphorical "Atomic Cafe" yesterday. I don't know if your sister ever felt the same way. I'd really be curious to learn how other people with mental illnesses who contribute to this page feel about this. On the one hand, I feel guilty for looking askance at the well-intentioned delicacy with which they now handle me; on the other hand, I'd like to be treated like just another member of the family. The illness hasn't crowded out all of my other qualities. Maybe this will change with time; I hope so. In any case, I can understand why you'd be vigilant for signs of mental illness in yourself; it only makes sense. But at the same time, try to be careful not to overinterpret the things you think or do; that can be a real trap. Right now, everything I do is being seen by my family and friends through the lens of the mental illness, but as Freud said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." Hope all this babbling is helpful in some way. ;) Atticus
Posted by Jai Narayan on July 26, 2004, at 19:40:36
In reply to Re: okay....here goes » Jai Narayan, posted by Atticus on July 26, 2004, at 10:13:34
Wow, thanks for sharing. I know it takes courage to write it all down much less share it with someone else. You are such a wonderful communicator....it's a treat to hear from you.
To give you some of my history. I lived all my childhood with mother that was ill (BP) from my birth on.
I know without a shadow of a doubt what it feels like to be vigilant.
I sense your family really loves you.
They want you to be okay.
Well count me amoung the many.. I really like you.
How old are your parents?
When is your birthday?
year, day, hour, etc???thank you for sharing.
You have come to the right site. I feel like Trinity in the Matrix.....escorting you around.
There are many wonderful and amazing people here at PB. You only have to share a little and they will respond. I dare say they would give you all the answers you need and want.
There are other boards that are here at PB.
Try them out....social, psychology, alternative, etc.
They are all really informative and like I said the people are amazing.
You can get so much information.
I'd love to keep in touch.
Jai Narayan
Posted by Atticus on July 27, 2004, at 7:51:19
In reply to Re: okay....here goes, posted by Jai Narayan on July 26, 2004, at 19:40:36
My dad is 64, and my mom turns 64 later this year. My birthdate was Oct. 21, 1970, at about 6:30 p.m. (even then, I wasn't a morning person). Although I don't believe in astrology, I guess I do fit some aspects of the classic Libra-on-the-cusp-of-Scorpio profile: artsy with some sting. :) Atticus
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