SNOW CAP

By Lydia Kirschenbaum

Even with all my anxieties

the world does not erupt

but keeps on churning, slow

and heavy, every morning

arriving, for no one and for

everyone. Late January,

I wake up to thick snow; I

who try so typically to

predict everything, who

forgets to look without only

seeing, until it demands

itself, simply, upon all

that we claim to be of our

making. Cars and streets

and buildings, overstimulation

of places to be- it’s true how

in our busyness we go blind.

But today the snow sits

over all of it, as if reclaiming

a moment, a city, a certain will

to be. I would like to burrow

myself in the white cold

because I know the world

would not come looking,

because really that would be

a relief. But I am more human

than I asked to be, full with

grief and craving and singing.

I have not yet learned rest

like the night at sleep. And still

there is snow. It is already

almost February.

THE ORIGINS OF ANXIETY

By John Gallas

Plunk - 

so down-dips, under the weedy water,

a Tufty Scoter ...

I’m on the red log bench at Quarry Pits.

Just watching stuff. Quiet as a cloud ... 

And now I’m left alone with only 

the Tufty Scoter’s perfect ripple-rings

widening on the silver pool ... bobbing 

the crystal-wort in whispery waves.

Nothing ... still ... still ... 

All my unconsidered hours 

fall into haphazard while, 

lightsome and mirror-topped, 

Quarry Pits shuts down the quacker somewhere 

beyond the calculations of my heart.

I hum a song, but it all goes wrong.

Then I rip open my bag of crackers

and gobble them in a mess. 

The wort weeds bob and wave. 

I’m wondering what in the world

does do

that duck. 

But crackers, songs,

invention or surmise ...

I just can’t get it right. I’m jittering 

on the bank bench in something like a funk.

Their footsteps faded at my door.

Their Ogre nightlights burned till dawn.

Their kisses not worth waiting for.

Their buses late. Their curtains drawn. 

Splot -

the waters burst with a little, glassy breach

and the Tufty Scoter slaps up right in front of me 

and says wack. 

The sun sinks in clouds: the pool is a mirror no more.

Good. I put my cracker-paper in the bin. 

The duck turns and paddle-fades

upon its unreflecting skin.

FROM NEOLITHIC SPIRALS TO A HOPE FOR ETERNITY

By Cristian Horgos

Neolithic spirals carved on megaliths all over the Earth

They symbolized immortality of each human birth:

Tarxien in Malta or Newgrange in Ireland

Castelluccio in Sicily or La Zarza in a Canary Island

Ancient man profoundly believed in different kinds of afterlife

That nobody could stop with a coup of knife

For millenia and millenia

He meditated for it by the fireplaces before chimenea

He longed for it intensely and prayed for it

The demand for Heaven was imprinted in the brain's knit

Thus the dough was baked for something never seen

Something as extraordinary as the first living cell and gene

The brain, with its unlimited potential that is truly viral,

Has created an aura or an energetic spiral

And all the spirals started to interweave into a super-vortex

Like the Spirit's Tree that unifies each Avatar's soul and cortex

Maybe it sounds just like as a myth about gorgone

But just as the brain created, out of need, each new organ

Think about the mouth, nose, ear, eye ...

There is no need anymore to say to your old parents 'good bye'

This is with respect to the Darwin's Evolution Theory

Is it for you enough, really?

The energy spiral arose from its spiritual desideratum

So there is no real ultimatum

This spiral survives the moment the hearts stop

Requiring a way of thinking's swap

And shines in Carl Jung's idea of synchronicity

Bringing more hope and felicity

Instead of meaningless life and anxiety.

PAR-ANNOYED

Anthony Ward

I hear canned laughter from my televised mind,

Where I imagine they’re watching me,

Their grotesque countenances like demons

Bleating the bleeding obvious

As I entertain them.

That’s right!

I’m an entertainer.

Amusing people with my act.

Seriously funny,

I’m their sense of humour;

Nothing more than a joke. 

Because I’m different

They mock me.

Because I’m interested in things they don’t find interesting,

They laugh.

Because I wear clothes they wouldn’t wear,

They find that amusing

All delighted by my appearance. 

Except this isn’t a comedy

It’s is a tragedy-

A real drama.

Their humour spreads like a tumour through my mind,

Destroying my sensibility.

Creating such discomfort,

That my confidence deteriorates,

And my esteem shrivels. 

Rather than take the popular route,

I go out of my way to get round them,

Hoping to get back to myself.

While my personality wanes-

My strength ebbing away ...

My heart dripping like water in a basin

Echoing the empty space

That was once a cathedral

Brimming with vaulted thoughts;

Now nothing but a ruin,

The travesty of the man I’m yet to become.

A complete wreck,

With them as the windscreen.

Something I have to go through

Before I get to where I’m heading.

In their own words, writers and poets write about their own personal journey with mental health.

Ten amazing writers and poets talking about their own personal journey with mental health.

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