Lyrics, Linguistics, And Lexical Genius

[Don Lambo]

Lyrics, Lingustics, and Lexical Genius: Musings From The Mind Of A Mentally Ill Adolescent

This is a collection of my poetry, most of which is about my time moving from mental institution to mental institution

---

I saw it written upon the wall
Scratched in blood; sullen-red
Thin lines had dried; its tears did drip
Down it’s words; what it said

She saw my passion turn obsession
And stood idly by
I examined the quote from a kneel
For his pain I did gently cry

Why did their love denote such hurt?
She was surely no average soul
And by its location it was clear
That love had taken an aching toll

I wept for loss, I wept for love
Impossible to rise above
The pall of passion in a lonely sky
The one whose words they were was I

---

Sorry the last poem was called "I saw it written upon the wall"

St. Paul’s

The boys in Armour are smoking pot
While the Con girls stagger drunk to class
In the place where sophistication can be bought
And childhood comes to pass

Cliques are set by family wealth
Be it old, new, or none
Money corroded my mental health
Until my time there was done

In the library where minds are bright
A student passes a lustful glance
At a girl who takes all her studies right
When she’s not studying his pants

As we sit the mighty Harkness round
He feigns a dropping pen
A not so subtle snorting sound
Tells us where he’s been

When all the teachers have taken bed
The upperclassmen rule the dorm
Newbies have heard what the rumors said
How they initiate the lower Form

I still remember my time there fond
At the herald to Harvard, Princeton and Yale
At the campus built around a pond
Where everything’s for sale

---

The Hair I Found Upon My Collar

The hair I found upon my collar
Was too long
My head was not its origin
I examined the specimen
That hung from my finger
And concluded it was hers
I ordered my mind to search
For the moment

She waited on the unforgiving stone bench
And the wind plucked it
As I bent down
To place a kiss on her brow

Her hands clasped her face
As she wept for her trying day
The burden crept shoulder to neck
And weighed down a strand
Until it dropped onto the spot
Upon which she found solace

In the theater
We weren’t watching
Because the feature presentation
Played in each other’s eyes
We applauded with our lips
But after the show
A mustang lock wished to stay

My mind returned empty handed
However he didn’t quest in vain
I thanked the lonely hair

---

The Voices?

He’s not alone in his mind,
More ill than my own
Where his departed mother pined
In a corrupted unknown

She beseeches to be reunited
Through unholy deed
By the voices he was indicted
To emotionally bleed

---

Where Illness Beckons The Trees

Don’t come with me to the place
Where illness beckons the trees
Where your sapless skin will ache for embrace
Of a sating summer breeze

Where love blooms quicker than the vegetation
In which love has been known to fall
Sparse, if ever, grows this scarce sensation
Quickly to whither, or never at all

Stay home because I need time to close
The wounds the sutures left behind
Only time and doctors and sober prose
Are my furtive cures; undefined

Just exhale, because time’s not on my side
As I build a ladder to the moon
I’ll illuminate the night sky while I make the tide
And I promise I’ll come home soon

I’ll rewind my clock-hands and sing a song
As I sneeze away the sands of time
To clean my slate, and right the wrong
Of my actions between the rhyme

Step forward, those whom I pity most
To you, I offer a solemn hand
Here are all in sorrow engrossed
But in consonance we stand

A parting word to those who suffer
And through a grift of mind endure
The path to healing only becomes rougher
If you’re running to find the cure

Many miles of the mind I strode
Before light from the end of the tunnel shone
And although it was a lonely road
We never walked alone

---

The Human Metronome

Back and forth and back again
Redolent of the thoughts that taint my brain
Indolently walking off my pain
Back and forth and back again

Passing trite paintings of identical flowers
Passing by seconds and minutes and hours
I tell myself I’m not insane
Back and forth and back again

I’m doing laps like Michael Phelps
I hope this medication helps
Just illusionists like David Blaine
Back and forth and back again

Mother arrives for her brief visits
Not to stay for more than sixty minutes
She begs for longer but asks in vain
Back and forth and back again

I’m only here because they’re afraid
Of what I almost did and what I said
Until I’m safe, here I’ll remain
Back and forth and back again

---

Those For Whom I Have The Most Pity

It’s those who discount the mundane
Those who scrap for tenacity
Those who barely remain
For whom I have the most pity
I, sufferer of unremitting melancholy still
Can glean golden moments from the imperfect day
And the aggregate of small joys does distill
My soiled mind; cleaned away
But she, and them, and they who despair
They’ve earned my sympathy through their strife
I stand idly by; I wouldn’t dare
To arrogantly impose on another’s life
The beauty of semantics in our sublime existence
Prevented entrance by one’s own resistance

---

I Suppose There’s No Escape

Welcome to my cell
It’s spacious
Bestowed by my doctors
so gracious
A caterpillar worthy of a furnished cocoon
With room to spread my wings
Trite but tasteful enough décor
Desk, bed, dresser, chair; nothing more
My clothes overflow the hamper
Like the head spilling over glass lips of a pint
I keep them away from their designated box
Underwear and socks
I can only wear them once
But shirts and pants
I’ll take a chance and don them twice
My bed is half made
The other half is still lazy after the night shift
Reminiscent of dinners with her
A rolling dress
Draped over her thighs
But not covering her long arms that would
Sneak under the table
To grip my welcoming hand
If just for a fleeting moment
Because princesses keep their hands to themselves
Mother wouldn’t have approved
When my sheets are pulled taught and neat
I’m brought back to nights when the queen was away
And the princess could adorn herself in dancing garbs
Unsuited for family dinners
But suitable for our endeavors
I suppose there’s no escape
Even in looking at that most standard
She’ll find her way back to my mind
Like her hand found mine at dinnertime.

---

Her III

I forgot where I was going
and fell into her embrace
Each tooth of her tender smile was showing
As I feigned a lack of grace

The fall may all have been fabricated
And I think she sensed it too
But still it sparked a storming sensation
That we both knew to be true

It afforded a touch skin to skin
On the bed of ground where we lay
And with boyish guilt I glimpsed in
on a moment many moments away

---

Thats all for today. Much more to come.

[billy]

Hi Don Lambo.

great to see you posting poetry but if we were to give all the poems you posted serious crit or feedback it would take a long time
can you put them up one at a time please and that way people can concentrate on the job in hand. you'll find that because many people only have limited time for feedback they could get passed over. I'll give some feedback on the first poem in a short while.

---

I saw it written upon the wall cliche
Scratched in blood; sullen-red
Thin lines had dried; its tears did drip dripped instead of did drip
Down it’s words; what it said

She saw my passion turn obsession
And stood idly by
I examined the quote from a kneel
For his pain I did gently cry the wording sounds forced. (unatural)

Why did their love denote such hurt?
She was surely no average soul
And by its location it was clear
That love had taken an aching toll

I wept for loss, I wept for love
Impossible to rise above
The pall of passion in a lonely sky
The one whose words they were was I

i see the intro and have to ask if the serious crit is where you want to show them. the reason i ask is that critique given to personal poetry often gets an unwanted reaction from the poet .

one of the main problems with the piece is cliche. another is that it tries to overly poetical. it need more substance. use more images, show us what happened.

thanks for the read.

[Don Lambo]

Hey man thanks for the crit! I appreciate it
I'm wondering how I can make the first line into something that's less cliche...The reason I wonder that is because I literally did see this written on the wall of a psychiatric hospital. When I looked behind my dresser I saw something written in blood. Should I make that more clear in the poem?

[Todd]

Maybe simply condense to:

I saw it scratched in blood

And work from there.

[billy]

Todd shows how you can condense a line which also takes out some of the packing, (excess words)

if that's not your cup of tea, just write it in your own words.
if you want to use the word wall you could say;


Scratched in blood; sullen-red
on the wall behind my dresser

there are many way you could write it.

[Todd]

Nothing is wrong with using the word wall. The question is why is the wall important to the piece? A question to answer for everything you choose to use.

Just some thoughts

[Philatone]

hey don!
taking a look at the first poem; i think the others would get the attention they deserve if they were posted separately. i don't want any piece to get short-changed.

haven't had a chance to look at other comments, so at the risk of being repetitive...

I saw it written upon the wall
Scratched in blood; sullen-red
Thin lines had dried; its tears did drip
Down it’s words; what it said

..."writing on a wall" is not really a new topic. I'm gathering that it is supposed to be literal, so maybe a synonym for "written" or "wall" could help keep the reader from connecting it with the old saying. also, after an opening like "I saw it written upon the wall", I expected to see the actual writing. What I got, instead, was a description of the writing. I'm not sure if the delay is really needed; it struck me as a lot of excess description. again, just my own take--i think saving the description for later would make the work more powerful--it does seem like you have an eye for it. "What it said" feels a bit too direct

She saw my passion turn obsession
And stood idly by
I examined the quote from a kneel
For his pain I did gently cry ...i get the need for rhyme, but the inversion of the sentence felt a bit awkward. perhaps for the actual quotation, you could use italics or quotation marks, just to show a separation

Why did their love denote such hurt?
She was surely no average soul ...but how do i know that?
And by its location it was clear
That love had taken an aching toll ...so writing on a wall shows a lot of pain? i'm not convinced...yet. i feel like i'm being drawn into assumptions, but i don't understand where they came from

I wept for loss, I wept for love
Impossible to rise above
The pall of passion in a lonely sky
The one whose words they were was I...i like the idea a bit more than the execution. there is just too much twisting in and out of clauses, pronouns, and grammar. it takes a bit too much effort to get at the meaning.

i see a lot of ideas, and i like them. that being said, i think the desire to convey emotion has taken the piece a bit beyond what the actual language can do. telling the reader what to assume lessens the impact of the words; letting a reader draw his own conclusions is what creates the impact.
i hope some of this is helpful and useful