I have wandered. Walked a circuitous path through madness
I know there is no romance in madness, no art in it
I now stand in sanity, more or less, understand where I was, then went
Stand with side effects from lingering symptoms, from the pills I need
Pills that keep me on this side of normal, with you, with where I was
Though simple effort still taxes my will, stresses my avolition
With a modicum of happiness breaking through the forest depression deep
The circuitous path I wandered out of to here, with you, with where I was
Not the manic elation I knew for a decade, nor a decayed will
When I couldn’t move, motivate myself, simple effort was enormous
Ambition used to mean what healing means to me now,
I know now why Tristan and Isolde required connubial conjunction
I know the swoon of Tristan’s potency into Isolde’s salvific potions
The solipsistic isolation Isolde solved in her era, saves me with solutions
Potions, herbals that brought back my heroic effort to get out of bed
To make another poem, words wound in sane sense not just to joust,
Vainly at windmills mindlessly spinning in vorticular winds, flailing,
Failing mind, falling into delusions, furtive stabs at shadows of reality
Breaking word sequences into nonsense and here is no art, no romance
Now in pills and many therapies, I invoke the soul of Lady Isolde’s salves
Potent restoratives who would potentially invoke my psychiatrist’s laugh
My psychiatrist, who doesn’t know, as I know, ethereal healings,
The anaesthetic pulling of my will into that simple activity, effortless,
As it used to be, an hedonia in doing, pleasure like happiness piercing
A clearing in deep forest darkness, depression’s deep gloom, like gladness
Like pleasure, like love Lady Isolde holds for prowess, like Lady Shakti’s
Chakras subsume susumma’s breath, and prana is clarity of mind, too
And spirit is psyche, ch’i, psychiatry is a chiasm of daemonic possession,
Desperation deposed—psychic chiasm, peripeteia in an ill-written script,
Light breaking forest gloom as in a clearing, a breath of fresh air
Inspiration of hope. Stilling the spiralling like blown windmill blades
Spinning into a profound nowhere, incoherent words wheeled into order,
Wielding truth’s double-edged sword about it all, well-being, wellness
Wellsprings of hope, strength of will, wandering back, back to you,
To where I once was, departing the wilderness, wildness, the windmills’
Fiendish, whirling perseverations stilled, standing in sanity, more or less
I have wandered. Walked a circuitous path through madness
There is no romance in madness, no. No art in it
Not as there is art in sanity, in the sound of sense, in sound sense
In the sound of words making sense, and life as a living poem, making.
I did not choose to compose this poem, to wander that artless path
David Fekete 