Beware the Poetry
Part One

 

 

 

[snake, jaws wide open] Unhinged Mind
by Bill Nordahl

Some years ago

I was told

that I had unhinged my mind.

I found

that they had decided

I had unhinged my mind

in a paranoid-schizophrenic sort of way.

I learned

that the punishment

for unhinging your mind

in a paranoid-schizophrenic sort of way

was anything up to

life imprisonment

in a "mental hospital"

while your mind was drugged to a dead stop.

Recently

I saw on TV

a snake who had unhinged his jaw

to swallow a huge rat.

I worried about that snake.

I hope he realized

how vulnerable he was

lying there with his jaw unhinged.

I was afraid that some huge beast

which the snake had never even known existed

would come along and swallow up that snake

while he lay there with his jaw unhinged.

The next time

I unhinge my mind

to absorb a concept too big to be easily swallowed

I am going to try to find

a safe place

to hide

where the conformity monster won't get me.

 

See another poem to beware.

This poem is copyright Bill Nordahl, 1994.
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