The Shrink And The Brink Poem by RIC BASTASA

he has always an explanation for what we feel
what we are he says have roots and he can always trace
the reasons and from where we must listen
and then we can start living whole again

he knows how shattered are we and he has always
his incantations: Freud says this and Jung and Erica
and Erickson, and Watson and Pavlov
i sit on the couch and we keep on talking
i am in a trance and i go back to my childhood
and there he was the hand guiding me in this play
a reenactment that points where the real problem lies
incontinence, instability, bed wetting, sexual fantasies
unsolved fixations, the phallus and the vulva,
the fingertips and biting of the nails
slip of the tongues, he is so unforgiving
and then he scribbles a lot of things on paper
prescriptions for the day: a stroll on the beach,
a conversation with someone who died
a journey to a dream, a soliloquy, a dialogue
of the spirits of the trees and the mountains
the sea goddess, the nymphs on the flowers,
the fawns and the gorgons, the dragons and the cyclops,
medusa and the stones, i have all them in mind
my hands tremble, my feet are shaky
and here comes the shrink handing me the tablet
and the drink: you just don't die, you suffer, you must
embrace divine light, and be patient, prostrate,
sleep more on the couch, follow my hypnosis.
i like the composure of the shrink,
he is patient with my pretenses, ... at the brink.