Thirty-One Couplets to Celebrate World Mental Health Month
by John Kendall Hawkins
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It is World Mental Health month. O happiest day!
love is in my old heart and just won't go away
.
the happy UN was set up to stop world war
but men fist-yell at fences "your mother's a whore"
.
if i were any happier i'd have to scream
like a jet fighter strafing my favorite dream
.
I long to be out on the street in mid parade
catching high thrown festive girls longing to be laid
.
I'm wound up tight and long to release my pent up
pantheistic visions last seen in the Lent cup
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It sucks to wake up and know you're still Catholic
in a world aching to bleed, without love and sick
.
Can I long be here if I'm playing The Moody Blues?
Me tears go swimming, lorn begins to ooze
.
So many people dying of stigmatosis
pointlessly waiting for a burst of fresh roses
.
When I read the latest reports of UFOs
I want to put on me bra and wear liederhose
.
I almost got to Africa to teach the trees
how to recover from the honeyed kiss of bees
.
There are jungles of color, rivers of desire,
ayahuasca waiting, root dreams, lay by the fire
.
I'm wracked by conspiracy theories masked as Truth
just show me the devil and I'll go all Babe Ruth
.
Got disembodied voices in my old man head
it's f*cking Gregorian, and then Grateful Dead
.
There's nothing I'd like more than a warm milky breast
to comfort my old age blues, mom's have stood the test
.
You can rorschach your life away. Please be careful
of what you see in things, who you give an earful
.
I myself see monsters everywhere; in the malls
it's Dawn of the Dead salesmanship right by the balls
.
I miss transubstantiation in my lost loif
Aussies question my Credo: You call that a noif?
.
bumbleclot my way to frozen ceremonies
that celebrate our crowned Love Lord's last agonies
.
Come the animals fresh from the thawing tundra
methane gas blobs rise in tiger fields Down Under
.
If I could smile each day the number of times I pee,
then I could say the revolution's worth it, see?
.
What have I learned since black and white Hank Williams days,
except to yodel well and drink drop-dead Kool-Aids?
.
O my thoughts must now crawl across a mind field full
of Improvised Expressive Devices (puns, bull)
.
Where is the Law in this strangest of most strange places
full of humanity and ripping off faces?
.
I may start my own religion, though late in life,
God's dead, so pantheism's out, but I've got a fife.
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Find myself dealing with my fear of the Other.
Don't wanna leave feeling no man was my brother.
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I'd like to buy the world some coke and harmony
but there's just too goddamn much ice cold varmintry
.
You wouldn't believe the rat-like voices they use
to say Pass the salt of the Earth. Orwell abuse.
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Kennel-heads barking dog mad foam beneath the moon
and howl, You wanted this! Like Nazis, silver spoon.
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It's late and I'm late for my entanglement class
where black matter matters and the world's seen as glass
.
I've really not thought of doubt or desire today
for this flaw I will no doubt pay and pay and pay
.
It's All Hollow Eve! Time to celebrate the spooks.
When they come for your treats, will you put up your dukes?
.
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* I hope you have not been triggered by this poem. Please call your local I Got the Blues consultant if you experience fear and trembling. It's free.
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