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EXPERIENCES IN MENTAL HEALTH CARING |
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DAISY ABEY SEARCHING THE BEYOND and Other Poems |
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KITH AND KIN (Sixties Press 2004) CONTENTS |
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DAISY ABEY SEARCHING THE BEYOND
Thirty years you walked down this steep hill To the Newsam Centre for the mentally ill From Eton, Balliol’s classical drama And Shantiniketan’s Bengali tongue Where you became a six language master.
In a sharp change of direction or misdirection Within obscure delusions and illusions Into an inaccessible depth of darkness A day like this of midsummer light Your own imagination whispers.
Unaware of being the most ill on ward one Shattered by pulsing waves, violent volcanoes ‘Jesus gone, Big Bang soon’ frozen between aeons of Prevailing emptiness, fears for life, an eternity of Escaping avalanches, searching beyond, beyond…
Unable to come to terms with the child I had known Who has gone with the wind, no trace where it had blown And as infinite stars are born, shine and burn A tree caught in the eye of a storm not fully grown I stand by a locked door not knowing which way to turn.
ALICE AND NICOL WARD
Emergency alert at half past three On Alice Ward in the Royal Free One patient held hostage by another Barricaded into the kitchen.
Twenty eight riot police with shields Lined up behind the swing doors ‘I am Jesus Christ You are my enemy’ he cried.
‘Free your hostage or we arrest you’ ‘I am divine and you are sin’ ‘Come on Mr. Brown, put your knife down’ ‘I am Jesus so I give in’
In the chaos someone screamed A woman had locked herself in the bathroom Slashed her wrists with broken glass At five past four the red lights flashed.
A patient wrapped in a bathrobe Paced up and down the ward A nurse rushed to stop a fist fight Over a phone call at midnight.
The windows all tightly closed A dainty drizzle blew in the wind A poet stared at Hampstead Heath Through the darkness.
MADNESS
I see you, metallic merman Translucent as I approach Petrified bones, bloodless veins A forced forged face.
Surreal incredible skies Hold impenetrable borders Crash in vortices A charging unicorn.
You spin whorls of waves Constantly changing direction In terminal time-warp The cosmos shatters.
A scarecrow on stilts Turns its bold blind head In a sky green as a tulip Ringed by red rain.
Focus visions to silence Watch mirage horizons Agitate infinite space Factions of madness war.
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One Carer’s Story - Barry Tebb Schizophrenia - A Carer’s Journal - Mike Schizophrenia – A Mother’s Story – Georgina Wakefield My Journey Of Sadness – Stan Hagon The Voice Of Carers – Amanda Cummin Yemeni Carers’ Stories – Debjani Chaterjee Beyond Our Reach, But Not Our Love – Brian D’arcy Carry On Caring – Emily Machin & Lucy Machin Enigma And Other Poems - Georgina Wakefield Killingbeck Drive – Brenda Williams Searching The Beyond And Other Poems – Daisy Abey Sharp Edge – Daisy Abey The Long Good Bye – Barry Tebb Looking Back – Barry Tebb Nameless In Camden – Brenda Williams Autobiography – Simon Jenner The Sick Image Of My Father Fades – John Horder Are You A Carer? Caring About Carers
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