How do you agitate the psychiatric martini glass?

I went to a poetry reading ready to agitate.

I wanted instigate change.

I wanted to rearrange. 

But I let the organisers know I was coming
 

And what I wanted to do,

So I thought they left me out

Of the big martini glass

That had all the names to be drawn

For the open mic night…

Until the MC asked if it was time

To put in ‘these two now?’

Meaning me and my lover, I suspected,

Who the organiser may well have thought

Would be in cahoots with me.

So I got put in the glass

And my name was drawn out

And I was given the microphone.

It was late and well after the precious

Psychiatrist had featured at the gig.

Couldn’t upset his

Vomiting out of derogation

By my reminder of his crimes.

Woah, he might get nervous

And muck up his performance.

Which was already full of muck

Because it was about his profession!

Him teaching people to communicate?

Him teaching people to listen more?

Did he want to listen to me

Or any other people abused by psychiatry

That have the ability to speak out?

Of course not. The smug smarmy

Bag of ugly went out to smoke

When I read my poem.

Couldn’t recite of course,

Because my brains have had a blast

Of nasty neuroleptics for fourteen years and that’s

Changed my natural knack of remembering lines.

I find it hard to live in a society

That cramps my voice

Yet allows psychiatry to speak out

Its horrible eugenics doctrine,

Its crimes I have known and felt for so long.

Don’t people know how offensive

The terms psychiatrists use are?

They hit me hard every time they’re uttered

With threat, judgment and trauma flashback fear.

Don’t people understand that these terms

Are used time and time again

To threaten, abuse and vilify?

I don’t mind what sort of nonsense

Someone wants to talk, be it even pseudo-science,

But if you use it to justify the crimes,

Of your profession and lie about

Benefits of your chemicals

On humans who tell you again and again

That they do not want to be harmed

By these substances, then, well then,

You’re one big bag of ugly muck

And if you can’t stand up on stage

After I have spoken, well then,

You’re a lot less than me,

Because I could stand on stage

And deliver after that bag of muck

Got up and did his derogatory drool,

His psychiatric statements that make racism

Seem like Pollyanna in a wheelchair.

Because we should all know racism is wrong,

We should shouldn’t we? We do. It’s policy,

It’s against the law to be racist.

But does everyone know psychiatry is equally,

Equally wrong, if not more so, because,

Psychiatry tortures on a daily basis

Every hour, every minute, every second,

In Australia, in Victoria, in Melbourne

And in many other parts of the world?

But we can’t call it torture,

Even though it is torturous,

Because there’s a loop-hole that says

This torture is medicine and it’s for the best,

To help and to care and besides,

Psychiatrists are doctors

And a doctor’s motto is to do no harm.

I’d like one day for that word, psychiatry,

That word to be spat out so hard against

Those who use those statements to harm.

I’d like to have it so that one day

If a person called you a damn psychiatrist

You’d understand they mean no compliment,

They’re telling you that you’ve been

Hideously slanderous and could be

Sent off the field for your words,

Bleeped off radio and television,

Called into court…

One day I see these things happening.

Until then it is my lover and I who are

Rudely left out of the big martini glass…

Only able to agitate when the night is old...

Or so it is I seem to think... as I sip a memory.

When there is no time to laboriously stir,

Apparently agitating a martini is the best way,

Rather than shaking it up and bruising the spirits,

Which I’ve probably done now! Ouch...

Got to be careful I what I think happens,

My lover says, it may not be as it seems,

That my accusations are considerably defamatory,

And that we were in the glass all the time

And the MC was talking about some other people

Whose names had been left out.

I slug that down and think: bitter eh? Bad taste!

I’m not much of a drinker anyway

And dash the rest down the sink.

Discrimination in the poetry scene?

Too rough, way too rough for poetry,

My lover makes far more sense...

Okay, okay, I may’ve been wrong

For thinking such stuff like that

In the past, that, yeah

That, but even back then when
I thought like that for a longer time period,
I never deserved to be

Tortured with painful chemicals for that.

Everyone makes mistakes,
Not all of them are as bizarre as mine,
But everyone makes mistakes.

Got to get my spirit levels right though

And not mistake eyes for ice

And community for carpentry tools

And drinks for balance,
Even though that's the symbols
Of the feelings mixed up in the martini.
But seriously, I've got to never make the mistake
Of saying something is when it isn't,
Like that psychiatrist did,
Or I am as bad as him
Repeating old lies about medication 
Being very effective and helpful
And people's thoughts making
Less sense than pseudo-science,

Making up disgusting bruised drinks

Because the words repeat and repeat,

‘Shaken, not stirred’ and meaning

Meaning something mean, some thing

Other than the order for the bar.

 

Something poetry hits with its farrier.



                       go to: Strengthen Our Voices 2013