In The Mental Institution On St Patrick's Day
First published in Peeking Cat Poetry Magazine (2015)
Well, firstly I recommended the straightjackets
be green, even if by rolling outside on the grass,
a bit like the paisley hospital gowns
with pictures of quaint flowers drawn on.
Then I cried for some beer and hurdygurdy music,
the folk tradition being the core of my heart
and singing for therapy having only one side-effect,
namely self-infatuation, or
an inflated opinion of one’s own talents, in song.
I did a lady’s hair, did it in braids as she drank potion
and read from her bible the truth of St Patrick’s
(that was the part called Revelations)
and out popped a well-preserved flattened four-leaf
clover, when she turned the page, still reading of pastures
and wind, celebration and thanks;
as her face wrinkled gently, showing years of displeasure
at how her doctor was a dickhead because he knew nothing
about a woman’s sensitivities.
—Well, so was James Joyce,
the Irish writer, I argued, whose entire book
flagellated like an orgasm in macrocosm (or in parts).
Then a bloke stood up to me and said we should take it on outside,
and I felt small, giddy and rather foolish, blowing everyone a kiss,
but said I’d already been out there, and should be kept in—
and tipping my midget’s tophat, like a fidgeter,
I left this company in as polite a way as possible...
​
Marcus Ten Low
Bachelor
from my book (1999)
Sir, you were proficient,
Dedicated, understanding learning’s psychology.
Gut plainly whistling,
You trundled along greeting many boys, winging angels.
Next your rising showing-singing bellows
And reverberating laughs composed your allotment of fun.
Extensions to the camaraderie
Were formed of raw sex puns and your protruding glee.
On all sides was the evidence
That you were worthy and the evidence was indifferent.
Within you were a gentleman’s laws,
A tight mouth and integrity. An adamant pointing-out of superfluity.
Sir, you always attended the concerts
Attended by a few parents. This was futile.
And my cute taciturnity
Agonised you: I could even hold my own in a conversation
But I would be more favoured.
And, after the contorted weeping of a man, a mouse’s eyes.
​
Marcus Ten Low
Late Morning In An Apartment Bedroom
from my book (1999)
Air-riding scrapes and churns
And sunlight’s fixed grains of distilment
Upon the wooden floor and coarsepapered wall.
I lie facing the open window.
The neighbour’s clothes plunged and hauled in a waterbucket.
The downstairs pianoforte’s stolid-thrust arpeggios and mingled tunes
Do not obscure a small boy’s sure and single cough.
Just there, the slithe of my rubbed feet.
The dull, hard footsteps through the corridor never approach my door,
And my sight returns to the bedsheet
And rests at a fixation of my gaze.
It must once have been drenched in strong-smelling
And stubborn detergent, a smell that mingles
With the enduring whiffs of feet and flowery flatus.
​
Marcus Ten Low
Occupying Thoughts
from my book (1999)
You leave the pianoforte
Whose keys you thumped until the heavy chords drowned through your ears
And this way you subdued the thought that Daddy’s gonna bash you.
You’ve come and picked and chewed all the plums except the last from the tree,
Whiffed the retchy garden odour of autumn’s sunlight on the compost,
And asked yourself what made a certain species pensive.
You wrote an earnest letter
And then ripped it to pieces. Noisy cars passed the house in the night
As you kept to yourself in your room not your own,
And plugged your ears at last with your favourite track, because it’s old.
You’re seat and almost whirl on the wheel-clattery swivel chair,
And at your elbow remains the red liquid-crystal-display alarmclock,
In the time before you tire. You shuffle novels on and off the shelf.
And in the dead of night,
You went up to the boy and told him not to change
Because there are people out there that don’t know who they are.
With dirty clothes on the floor and schoolwork on the desk,
You left your room and told him to wait there,
And went and munched on toast from yesterday.
​
Marcus Ten Low