lies draped over the bench’s wooden slats.

A long-forgotten art brought back to

lack-lustre life

along the boardwalk.

•

This wrinkled pre-aged skin,

pricked in not so neat lines

each track a stop on the journey

that brings their nodding half-lives

to the boardwalk.

•

The coke and ice-cream hit, not for their

uncared for, condemned kids

but to feed a sugar rush,

stave off that comedown

on the boardwalk.

•

The methodone, a sop

to replace the brown heroin

that once kissed their veins,

kicks in as they shadow walk

to the boardwalk

•

Calloused, cracked  skin spreads

factor 50, to protect the delicate

casing of their ravaged organs

as they lie, replete,

along the boardwalk.

such a thin, translucent sleeve;

the light of your life beams out.

•

Your eye: a spotlight on mum and dad

as they sing to the beat of

your pulsing heart-rhythm.

•

You illuminate this space

like no cut diamond could:

a light on this world.

light ebbing through closed lids

as will o’ the wisps steal away dreams.

Nothing, everything, is as it seems.

I could be.

In that moment,

in that light,

in that dream.

I am.

riding bareback down the mean streets of Crumlin.

Tying up their horses outside the Village Inn saloon

as they mosey on over to Borza’s corral.

And after chasing the Drimnagh posse back over the badlands

they rest their horses on the communal green

and let them graze as they dream

of being the last gunslinger in town,

facing down the bandit pistoleros from Dolphins Barn:

this is their patch, their Law to lay down.

These boys becoming men;

start out on the outlaw trail

end up as drug mules, dead,

or banged up in jail.

as musical notation on the quay.

Those sleek, mussel shelled torpedoes

ready to cleave though

wavewalls, green  and white-tipped,

chasing schools of quick-silver with

hand-strung nets tuned to their scales.

Rhythmic fingers conduct these vessels

in ancient songs that harmonise

with an underwater chorus,

carrying the music booming deep through the years,

where the call and response of the tides

meets the Blasket sound of memory.

When do we get there?

Soon, soon. We’ll get there soon.

And what do we do there?

We’ll see, we’ll see.

The road went on. And, having no choice, so did the man and the boy. The road contoured round the rising hills like a hand gliding over a lover’s breast. In the far distance, a sunbeam broke out as if on day release and plucked out diamonds sparkling in the sand banks. The gleam couldn’t last and soon the gloom crowded in on the land again, the once lush fields brown and ragged like a sepia photo of tenement streets.

I’m getting tired now.

Don’t worry, its not so far. I think I can see the turnoff.

The road dipped, a polite bow before rising toward the horizon where further down a turning showed itself, shyly peeping from behind tall granite gateposts guarded by griffins prepared to shriek at unwary interlopers.

I don’t think I want to go there now. I want to go home. Please. Take me home.

We can’t, remember? I told you that. We talked about this only last week, don’t you remember?

Two magpies launched themselves from the trees, laughing in unison while the hooded crows looked on muttering oaths at having their silence disturbed. The trees swayed in the wind, holding up their branches as if to shield themselves from a punishing blow.

I’m scared. I want to go back. Take me home. Mammy will be missing us.

Ssshhh, ssshhh, don’t get upset. Wipe your eyes and blow your nose. It will be alright, don’t worry. Everything will be fine. Besides, Mammy isn’t there so we can’t go back.

Why not? We could always go back before, couldn’t we?

Not this time. This time there can be no going back. But don’t be scared, I won’t let anything bad happen to you.

The sound of gentle crying accompanied them as the road turned off onto the gravel driveway. The large house looked on in disapproval as the car drew up to the granite steps leading to the dark canyon beyond the oak door. Two starched-white nurses helped the old man up the steps.

Bye dad, I’ll see you next week.

The boy jumped back in the car and drove away.

Almost 20 years ago, I checked into St. Vincent’s Psychiatric Hospital as an in-patient. Already looking at life through the fog of depression and depersonalisation I didn’t want to lose any further touch with reality and refused to be put under any drug regime. Surprisingly enough, I wasn’t strapped into coat with buttons on the back and my therapy mainly consisted of talking which – for anyone that knows me – was excruciating. Word association games became the opening gambit of most of my sessions – but I got bored easily and these disintegrated into a sort of Two Ronnies sketch. But there were times when I was swimming in some deep emotional pools that I even wished for a dose of Prozac just to numb the pain. There were other times when I was asked to present my case to a class of student doctors and, looking back now, I realise that doing something so public at that stage was not a good thing, at least for me. My psychiatrist tended to treated me as a person but most of the students saw me either as a footnote in a series of case histories or, even worse, as someone with a particularly contagious disease – it’s a bit unnerving to see 20 pairs of eyes all staring at the floor.

What really kept me from disappearing any further into my own private cloud were two occupational therapists on their first assignment. I know that a psychiatric ward wasn’t the first choice for either of them but their sheer energy, enthusiasm and desire to make a difference meant that they saw us as individuals and not cases to be treated. They were able to drag us all down to the therapy room, even the most catatonic and, believe me, there were some patients that would make the Easter Island statues look manic. The therapy room was designed as a space to keep your hands busy and your mind calm – bit like a monastery. We made things – there was weaving and I probably know more about macramé than I ought. We had relaxation therapy, to this day the sound of the sea makes me both want to nod off and to kick a hippy and if I hear any more whale songs I’m joining the Japanese fleet. But the most useful part, not just for me, was the group sessions. Unlike the anally-retentive students, most of the patients shared their pain – from the manic, tourettes induced, expletive-ridden shouts to the mumbling, stumbling, half-whispers and grunts (mostly me).

And then there were the group outings. It wasn’t quite a McMurphy hijacking in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest but the number 7 bus into town on a Wednesday afternoon became our own version of the Great Escape, although I’m not sure how comfortable the other passengers were with getting up close and personal with this sort of care in the community. I remember we saw Ghostbusters in the Savoy after a show of hands in group therapy, “who wants to sit in the dark and laugh at Bill Murray telling dick jokes?” The more neurotic of us huddled down in our seats, cowering at the overacting and when the Marshmellow Man appeared there were shouts for mammy (probably mostly from me). Although, there was the time that a couple of us led a breakout after tea one evening, crossing the Merrion Road to the M1 pub like some scene from a Woody Allen sketch. It didn’t take long for the staff to find us, mainly because the bar staff spotted our hospital wrist bands, that and the fact that one of our more paranoid members locked himself in the bathroom (not me this time). Funnily enough, it was shortly after this that a few of us were released back into the wild and only had to turn up on day release. And, thanks to the caring staff, I left there with an ability to cope and two hand-made stools.

There are no easy answers when it comes to treating mental illness with drugs. I don’t use them and don’t think I need to but I saw some seriously disturbed people who wouldn’t have been able to get out of bed without some sort of medicinal intervention. But I also saw people who were given the totally wrong drugs that made them infinitely worse and set back their recovery in a big way. I think, in general, that we are over-prescribed drugs (and I know a couple of people in the pharmaceutical industry, so apologies for trying to reduce your profits) and sometimes it’s a bit too easy for doctors to issue a script for a pill. That said, the Irish Times piece is timely and hopefully will contribute to a broader debate on how we should treat people with mental problems. The first thing we need to do is treat them like people.

all sound sucked out of the bowl

that seemed to turn slowly on a potters wheel.

The tension inside matched by the suspense

of the moment as the world watched, motionless.

The shaping of a base medal into a symbol

began with the crack of the starter’s gun that

echoed down the track to a past where

crosses burned surrounded by white sheets

and slaves were bred for sport.

A mere nineteen seconds

but the victory wasn’t complete

until a gloved hand pierced Aztec air

and, with its power,

took away the breath of the world.

who comes to mind as you look at the flames?

Is it Nietzsche’s Superman, staring at the abyss?

Or is Descartes recalled

as he thinks therefore he is?

Do you live by philosophy and

die by the thought?

Who knows how many battles

Sun Tzu actually fought?

And when the argument is over will you ex-Hume

the dialogues and Burkian rants

or merely contemplate, like Buddha,

and dismiss the rhetorical Kant.

come from a lattice of lumpen black plastic

daubed with white symbols scattered

randomly. I try to shape and order

its chaotic structure and make sense

of an insentient polymer that can

transform words into images,

tabbing across the screen like a crab

skirting the foreshore.

This keyboard types feelings not words.

I press four times for love, more

for regret and sorrow. And happiness?

Well, often that is too much effort

and anguish seems easier to impart.

But sometimes, sometimes these keys

are like magnets for steel-tipped

fingers and a world appears,

black on blank.