An Endeared One In Extremis Poem by Bernard Henrie

1) My friend thinks I need a psychiatrist

The last time you telephoned I couldn’t help noticing
you had gone crazy.

The undertow that pulled us toward you is finished.
Your full Lotus on the couch is no longer funny,
you can no longer pass security checks at LAX.

Too many ideas and you don’t listen when others talk.
You kissed my wife but we patched that up.
You are my friend, I wish you would come back.
I wish you were only a bore, but we both know it's worse.

Can I do something? Loan money, drive you to a clinic?
Should I send your overcoat, take the Saab for service;
pay the gardener three months advance?

You asked what I hoped to gain by getting rid of you.
And you no longer use table manners, toothpaste
or toilet paper.

The Swahili costume you now wear does not cover
your genitals; if only we could start clean, study
Africa together, swim in the Mozambique Channel
like Dr. Livingstone 90 years ago.


2) I self-admit to a hospital

Snow you could not ignore,
unforgetable ice snarling in corners
and laying waste in bins of electro
shock machines, a white noise
of paper napkins and carpet slippers
in the dining room.

Warders patrolling the back bays
in two’s, their rubber soles sparking
on the green linoleum.

24 hour lights, the monotony
of the unmoving clock, lost time
and months with weeks taken out.

Picture drawing and clay modeling;
a writing desk with a licensed pen,
a letter to my mother knee-deep in her
sonorous spells; talking cures and hot
rock baths. The sleep and rest I summon;
the confusion I often feel.

My work in the kitchen where slick
shallots slide to the floor.
On the serving line I ladle white rice
in benediction;

my long walk among foreign people,
among foreign gods gone crazy;
I follow trembling.


3) I'm given a week of leave

When you interrupted I was buried
in a news item about myself.

The afternoon rain soaked Broadway
at 42nd Street. My jacket drips
English verse.

A summer lull hung over the taller
buildings, the windows looked down
quietly. The traffic rifled my pockets,
taxis washed clean as yellow tigers.

I will find you passing through
turnstiles and laundry rooms;
a telephone booth lights as the doors close;
I wait three hours, the telephone
rings anytime.