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EXPERIENCES IN MENTAL HEALTH CARING |
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BARRY TEBB THE LONG GOOD BYE
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KITH AND KIN (Sixties Press 2004) CONTENTS |
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THE LONG GOOD BYE for Paul Danvers
“Were it not for the Abbey Road It might be a cottage on the moors” Gloria from “The News of the World” announced, Smiling approval at the overflowing books Tables littered with half finished poems Seven cats curled like serpents’ tails, Half open eyes, watchfully protective.
I, too, am here, a long good-bye, a rehearsed au revoir Brought full circle by your near death. Raw-tongued, dry mouthed, bleary eyed I woke at six thirty in the familiar unfamiliarity Of your flat. What troubled you enough to want To try and take your life? The half hour I crossed the road for help Was enough for the sudden impulse to take Eighteen tablets from their case of foil Until you had the sense to phone Colm, Our golden oldie over the water, Who talked you down till my return.
The impulse was sudden, before there were tell-tale Signs but now the tide of death Rolled on and up the unsuspecting shore. I could not pierce the thin transparencies of skin Remaining to hide your quest for death Like an old woman’s sudden embarrassed incontinence. “One moment I was alright then all the griefs Broke like the waters before birth, Our sons with all their troubles, The care I had that others took away The troll-like neighbour-landlord Who takes delight in pacing panther-like Upon your grief, tuning his vintage cars Beneath your window and your fragile sleep.
The message came down from psychiatry After the bloods “Take her home and Give her an outpatient’s appointment” No bed, nor examination even I wondered at the indifference of Camden care But too tired to complain I took you home.
The next day the impulse returned and the Care manager held you with his talk Till I arrived and decided I wouldn’t leave your side Until the wish and to die had died. Your flat on the Abbey Road, with it’s famous crossing Became my temporary home. I lay on the vast couch In a splendour of cushions, scarlet, orange, magenta.
I lack your touch with cats Who sidle to your lap and purr And Eydie licks your unwashed hair While Mozart like an exiled monarch Stalks his siblings with the hauteur Of an elderly castrato.
The room is bright with sun and books Lacan’s ‘Ecrits’ in a Rothko sleeve awaits me My couch, “Like Freud’s” you said, holds A passion of cushions in pastel shades.
On Saturday the clouds advance, the moors invite, I think we’ll chance a trip to Haworth in a week The bleak moors’ soaring birds will soon remove The bitter smell of wards, spring’s our’s alone, We will make poems from stone Put them on the net and page And let that grief go out and
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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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