All Sanity Is Purple
written by: Jim Bellamy
The hash-pipe breathes, the cedars dourly sway
And so ‘Dear schizoid darling, I am afraid?’
Funny how bad the madness roams.
I could wend half of my brains, if I wanted,
Rolling in the bones unburied, canted
Over to catch the ribald of a fix
Which is bred and fled from a petri-dish;
Just think of all the rare minds that have flown
Direct into madness just by being drilled
With hawks and stasis, rather the fast thrills
of lamplight, or the noise of the moon
Looking up and up through the floes of the moon
Thinned to a prayer-harked praise.
This life, unspun, is madly instilled.
‘All sanity is selfish.’ No-one just now
Believes in the mind or the mental stash
Talking to God (who’s mad too); the big lash
Is the maddening of people who are nice to you,
Which means doing nothing, but somehow
Saying, ‘All sanity is purple.’ Are
These bad lines, then, vying for madness?
Vying for steeples and chapels that dig
Deeply for the ‘devil’ (who’s a mad bad ass)?
‘But try to feel, because, however sanely
Madness tries to show us how we should be
Appear infectious. A chuckle, too. Oh!
Only the young can be sanely strewn.
Their minds are shorter, shall be tamed;
Theirs is a floatless time. Now, see!
Sitting on the Ward brings us no light,
Brings us instead to darkest night.
Beyond the bones stand sadness and remorse.
‘This is the fucking truth, of course?..’
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
after Philip Larkin
- All Sanity Is Purple - September 17, 2024
- A Reptilian Discovery - June 7, 2024
- Hospice - March 19, 2024
