POEM - MADNESS

Electric shock therapy, blue pills in white cups, every patient talking at once, screaming to the heavens, dodging invisible bullets, running down polished corridors under yellow fluorescent lights, doctors and nurses armed with syringes in pursuit, pomegranate seeds and banana peels stuck on the ceiling from ancient food fights, names and dates and slogans and threats etched into the white walls, madness from top to bottom – in the stairwells and linen closets and bathrooms, in the attic, in the basement, in the boiler room, in the dining hall, in the dayroom, at the bottom of the elevator shaft – madness of every description and degree, madness impervious to therapy, pharmacology or prayer, madness behind every pair of eyes, madness in the cheap seats, madness courtside, madness wallowing in madness, madness copulating on a long winter’s afternoon, madness embracing, madness holding hands, madness on the billboards and piped in on the radio, madness cloaked in a bishop’s robe, madness in the pulpit, madness in the pew, madness winking behind the Presidential Seal, madness on Mount Rushmore and down Wall Street canyons, madness bottled and sold, madness in the aisles at Wal-Mart, madness balanced on a winter wave, join the madness, embrace the madness, French kiss the madness, adopt the madness – nurture the madness in your own mad soul.