Reckless

Reckless

 

Foods never mix on my plate,

sidewalk cracks never see my soles,

glances never lock my lowered eyes.

Yesterday in my day room

some ladies on the television

said I must be reckless

sometimes,

so as not to miss the fullness                                                                   

of life.

I am very pleased with myself today,

but not wearing any underpants

feels kind of funny.

-Jerry Wendt 2012

 

Thoughts turned to ponder the mentally ill mind.  The visions of the old asylums with patients sitting in day rooms for eternities with only a  ghosty TV and their own thoughts. Could not have been less therapeutic.  It is such a bleak picture that I wanted to grasp it somehow.  I tried here to encapsulate it in my own inadequate mind buy adding a twist of humor... humor that is totally lost on the speaker in the poem who is just desperate to reach out and try to touch "living" This is a very powerful poem to me. -JPW