Rick speaking: After listening to some old Loudon Wainwright III, I became inspired. Here is what I have so far (it's the chorus for which there is, as yet, no verse)...
Yes, I'm bipolar
I got Patty Duke Disorder
It's not Lou Gehrig's disease
That hits in your knees
This one gets you above the shoulders
I was a kid when it first came to light
I was seeing things that just weren't right
I was hearing stuff no one else could hear
They thought I was on drugs or had way too much beer
They stuck me away with a bunch of addicts
Bad part was, I took no drugs... it was sad...it's
Plain as the cycles of my life
Clear as can be to the woman who was my wife...
(Chorus)
The ups are too good to treat with my meds
The down times too bad to even lift my head
Half my time great, half worse than hell
Took the docs twenty years to finally tell.
They gave me pills for all manner of sickness
From brainal arthritis to terminal quickness
Told me I'd be bad off for the rest of my days
But they never figured out the way the truth plays
(Chorus)
Now I'm a middle-aged kid with a big old gut
My kids are embarrassed by the way I cut up
The folks at my workplace avert their eyes
For fear I'll loosen their thinning disguises
So many of us out to help fix the world
Trying to do it alone, the banner unfurled.
Spend time with the gods, and time in the pits
But we sure know how to lighten up the mix
(Chorus)
Now, the tale I have told you is all true, ya know
There's lots more where I have come from
Get ready to turn the keys over, and get outta our way
The bipolar nation is taking over... today
((Slower...))
'Cause we're bipolar
We got Patty Duke disorder
You can stop all your pleas
and get up off your knees... ((pause))
We'll rule gently and keep meetings shorter
Copyright 1997, Bridgeware Music
Rick Hamrick
(A TRUE Hamrick: never met a cynic he didn't like)
Its me, full-blown in madness redefined.
Warped in mind, weft unfinished, gotta get
the selvedge sewn before i'm unravelled.
Get your needle out---tapestry, not sharps
please. Blunt needle pricks I can take
but not sharp points bringing blood.
Stich me gently, blanket first to hold the edge.
How about a few satin to give back some feeling smooth
and a few french knots to make me prettier still.
No cross stich, such a waste of thread...well, maybe
a herringbone or two to cover space. And please, put
that rug hook away...got too many big holes in my fabric anyway.
Get me patched and pretty, tapestry for the wall.
Hang near the entry, conversation for all.
Old and dirty stories told by wrinkles and folds.
Ann was sipping a cup of tea while she looked out across the meadow. She was curled up on the couch in the porch of the front part of the old house---the house which had been in her father's family for almost 100 years.
Thank God she didn't subscribe to the famous author Thomas Wolfe's philosphy that you can't go home again. When she had become so ill there was no other place to go.
It was October, eight months following the severe episode of manic depression she had come down with that year. So much had happened to her but she was grateful that at least, after 58 years, she knew what her true battle in life was about---being bipolar. Now, she could heal and in doing so, just maybe she could help others through writing about herself and how the illness had affected her life.
It was opportunities offered on the Internet to have her work published that excited her the most. She could finally say that it was good to be home!
Ann
Written October - 1997
By: Jerry Fletcher
Dimlit and darkened, mindless this day.
Shrapnel encircles my unawake brain, leaving edges of pain.
And desire, yes, desire for death
for death to drag me near
drag me to the fire,
the fire that glows in the pit,
the pit of my beast,
drag me near, near enough for one quick roll
