Haldol is a psychiatric drug
for mental illness
that I am on,
and when it is mixed
with Zen,
a peculiar thing happens
in that everything
that Zen says to do,
I do the inverse,
so if Zen tells me to not think,
I think twenty-four hours a day,
and if Zen tells me
to eat health food,
I eat bologna sandwiches,
and if Zen says "No alcohol!",
I drink beer,
and if Zen says "No smoking",
I smoke two and a half packs
a day,
and if Zen says that everything
is impermanent,
I think
that everything is permanent,
and if Zen says
to quieten the mind,
I listen to a thousand voices
inside,
and it makes me happy,
and so,
there was beat Zen,
where anything goes,
and there is straight Zen,
where nothing goes,
and then,
there is haldol Zen,
where we go
in a completely different direction,
so, the moral
of this story is
you must find
where you're at.

Love is a drug.
It's a depressant, stimulant & hallucinagen.
Love is an anxiolytic & antipsychotic,
It's a mood stabilizer & antidepressant.
Love is the treatment for my instability.
So where is my ******-pharmacologist?
Where's my script for rose-colored glasses?
Doesn't he see that I need my Klonopin;
My Zoloft is running low.
My Haldol is depleted & my Adderal is out.
I'm shaking with anxiety
My depression's dragging my down
To the depths I just escaped.
I'm seeing things that shouldn't be.
And I'm running in circles, too afraid to stop.
Where is my ******-pharmacologist?
Why won't he give me my daily dose,
One simple touch to give me sanity?

1.

I’m told it’s a “living thing”, a given thing and, moreover, is a terrible thing to lose. ‘Nuff said, ‘kay?

2.

What was she doing at the reception? Why was she so envious of his riches? How many drinks under her belt since she started on that glass of wine she‘s holding in her hand right now? So possessive.

I always seem to run into her at the drug store. I wonder what kind of medication she takes. Some incredibly strange desire to know this floats through my ghost. Some generic anti- depressant or maybe something stronger, along the lines of thorazine or haldol. A bizarre sense of arousal consumes me as I fantasize about popping those pills with her. I don’t care what kind they are…if they cure what ails her then they’ll probably take care of what’s wrong with me.

I remember…it was just a week or two ago. Once again I bumped into her at the drug store. She was looking good. Real good. The prospect of reading the labels on her medicine bottles was overpowering, finally knowing the names of the many prescriptions she had filled once every month.

My plan was thwarted, however, when she ordered a soda. I never did find out those drug names, but I learned something which I felt could very possibly change the odds of she and I hooking up. And that is this: her favorite flavor is cherry red.

I don’t think she has a boyfriend, but there is this guy who is always coming around for no real reason. He seems to think that he’s her old man. I often pretend that I believe it as well. One night the three of us went to a karaoke bar. I got just drunk enough not to care if I made a fool of myself having fun. The other two in our party had no problem nominating me for the opening act.

I walked behind the booth and introduced myself to the DJ.

“Yo, yo,” he said, after I told him my name and shook his hand. “I’m DJ Crackhead. Steady chillin’ and ill feelin’, I got the wax and the tracks if you got the crack, Jack. Now get off my back ‘less you got somethin’ you want to karaoke to.”

“Actually, I do have a request. Do you see that hot little red head in the ******* tank top? The one sitting next to the pimply faced weasel? Well, I’m wantin’ that dame for my own and I need to lose him. I need to shout out respect to my ***** and be dissing this dweeb at the same time. Can you play some Stones? I’m thinking ‘Satisfaction’ or maybe ‘Get Off Of My Cloud’?”

“Gee, G! I can float them joints easier than the pope be funny dressed. ‘Get Off Of My Cloud’, baby?”

“Only seems fitting. Let’s do this, Rider!”

As the short, sharp beats of the song bring down the house, to thunderous applause I strutted to the microphone. “People!!! All 6 of you! That’s not counting the bar tender or the wait staff, so we can’t really count this as the largest crowd we’ve ever had attend one of our shows. But I’m gonna tear the rood off this sucka’ with a brutal Rolling Stones tune I’m gonna send out to my gal’s old man, Jimmy!”

I wailed the hell out of that song. Jagger would have been proud of me, that’s for sure. He would have invited me back to the limo to maybe mainline a little smack with him. Everyone in that place was getting into it, but not Jimmy. Oh no, not Mister Jimmy. You could tell he was getting into the song itself, but not the singer.

As the song faded out I returned to our table, sweat dripping off of me like raindrops that fell into her wine glass. Wiping myself with a napkin, I turned to her and asked, “Did you like that one, babe? Did that spectacle turn you on?”

She replied, “O God, yeah! Yeah on both counts!” She leaned towards me and whispered in my ear, “You know, if we could ditch Jimmy I would sure be up for some kink-a-dee-kink. All the time you sang about “not hanging around” and how “two’s a crowd” on your cloud, I could only think of this leach. You’ve got to help me, sweetheart, you’ve just GOTTA!”

“I’ll do what I can,” I said quietly, then turned to Jimmy. “ Well Ol’ Jimmy, Ol’ Jimmy “ Boy, what did you think?”

He looked me square in the eye. I knew he meant business. You could tell by the squint in his eyes. He blinked once and said one word…”Dead”.

3.

Did we really count to one hundred? Why were we counting and perhaps even more important, WHAT were we counting? Why did the object being counted need to be counted to? Was 100 the exact count? Could we count further than 100? Did we have to keep counting even if there are only 79 units in total? Can you explain? I can’t.

4.

You got a big mouth. You know that’s an undisputed fact. When it comes to informing the town about the fine details of my alcohol problem…well that‘s where I draw the line. You are one hypocritical, self-serving, self-righteous biddy who doesn’t know when to shut up.

Everyone knows I’ve been drinking and foolin’ around. The Lord knows I’m sinning and God knows sinning ain’t right. But we’re gonna chat it up tonight, and if you want to see a change of attitude and tone, well I suggest that you stick a sock in it.

5.

Chewing on a piece of grass.
Walking down the road.
Wishing on a falling star.
Waiting on the early train.
Aging with time
Alligator lizards in the air…

Interlude.

All is quiet, save the ringing in the ears. The darkness envelopes me completely, I’m lying in it’s arms. Insatiable demands we’ll make against the wisdom of the Overlords. Who see it through those eyes that criticize all they don’t understand. They don’t understand me or you. You or me.

6.

Sometimes I just like to sit back and take in a good nostril or two of pungeant skunk stank. Years have come and years have gone but one thing has remained…I ain’t a-offended o’ the smell o’ Pepe LePew.

I don’t know but that my opinion might change if one o’ them little rascals were to saunter up to me and spray his stench on my leg. The buck will probably stop there.

But anymore that stuff just reminds me of the killer bud.

7.

The wolves ain’t the only critters howlin’ at the moon tonight.

That’s what she told me as inspiration swirled down the drainage ditch into the vat of apathy.

“Jump in, Jim, let’s go for a swim.”

She took off her clothes and I couldn’t help but stare.

I didn't choose to be son of a scared Jew
and angry Irishman

who never laid a hand on her, even when
she turned the butcher knife on him

when he tried to stop her from slashing
her red wrung wrists

this spectacle in plain view of 5 children for whom "woe is the world" was daily refrain

I recall Father's blood trail on the concrete between our house and the neighbor's, a surgeon not expecting a bleeding Sunday guest,

but my mother's madness didn't rest on the Christian Sabbath, nor on her own

after that, the shrinks did their magic: Mom did the Mellaril march, the Haldol hop, the Stellazine stomp, and the less alliterative Thorazine shuffle

none of those chemically induced dances did a thing to increase the chances for my mother's salvation

soon she was behind the locked doors of "Ward 30," where I visited and Mom told me she had found Jesus

a befuddled revelation since I didn't know she was looking for him--her kin had hung him from a cross and taken the heat ever since

the doctors released her to the street, where she made misty retreat to the hills of Saint Francisco's bay

though she found faint solace in Pacific waters, she would never again see her sons or daughters

half a lifetime later, I found a long lost cousin my mother agreed to see, though not with me, for I was too much a reminder of scars which never heal

she sat with Mother near the end of days, sharing silence, the scent of Salisbury steak, and a view of the distant shore

as my patient cousin rose to leave, my mother finally spoke of a sea she watched turn from cerulean to indigo dusk

childhood beaches my mother did recall: the castles she did craft, the crawling ***** she did follow, the sun bathed sand where she made her bed

far from the one where she now lay, the one in which she would go smoothly into the night, perchance returning to blue waters, where hot blood trails cannot follow

in a pale green room,
one sat, rocking slowly, an improvement,
the white ones said, but catatonic
was not a word she knew  

another crouched in the corner, also swaying to and fro
her Haldol doubled the week before, so she stopped scratching her legs  
but not before she had carved a Picasso on her thigh, a Dali on her calf  
****--there were no “cutters” then, black clad children who needed razors  
we had our own claws

my cell mate rocked too,
in her sleeveless jacket, by the window,
where the mesh cut the afternoon sun
into dappled diamonds on her frock      

the oldest woman in the world
crawled the linoleum highways counting each square
spouting off formulas, to prove the universe had order
though she did not have to say much to convince us
this was eons before “chaos theory” and we knew all the butterflies
flapping in all the world would not make a sound  
their vibrations scarcely noted, and no hurricanes
would emerge from their winged tempests  

I rocked too, and ****** my pants,
because I could, and if I did not, the white ones
and the zombie zoo doctor god, might decide  
to release me to the warped world, where
I would be expected to never rock again,
where there would be no queen counting squares,
where the clock would try in vain to measure the sun
and the scent of ammonia would be replaced
by nothingness

each night
he would enter his boy's room  
Bobby's tomb, he had come to call it  
and turn the TV off  

before remotes, 24/7 programming
and the infomercial, plump with desperate promises
the tube gave a final hail, the stars 'n stripes whipping, the national anthem screaming, and an anonymous promise
to return tomorrow in a perfect world

it would not be perfect for Bobby,
no matter how much thoughtless Thorazine,
hazy Haldol, or mesmerizing Mellaril
they shoved down his throat

now and then
before flipping the **** to off
he would sit with his sleeping son
stare into the screen, listen to its hissing;
he would swear he saw something  
in the gray ocean of static  

not trillions of senseless electrons
busy bouncing, but a lone sailor, rowing away
in a foaming sea, riding raging swells,  
bound for a black horizon

one his tormented son
had reached long ago

The Bible has some interesting characters.
We can see in stanzas and rhymes
How they might have received some help
If they'd been living in modern times.

Lot, for example, had a drinking problem.
The man got drunk and slept with his daughter.
Actually with two! Advice to Lot:
Go to A.A. and stick with water.

An inferiority complex
Must have driven the angry Cain.
No matter what he did, he always
Seemed to incur God's disdain.
  
In searching for pairs of all animals on earth,
Noah's compulsion crossed the border
Of what today we would call
An obsessive-compulsive personality disorder.
 
Saul had to be extremely bipolar.
Talk about mood swings! On different occasions
He tried to **** David, who luckily escaped
By the skin of his teeth and with no abrasions.
 
If someone--like Solomon--had seven hundred wives
And three hundred concubines, we'd tend to say
That he had a number of serious issues,
But we don't want to go there today.
 
Moses talked to a burning bush,
Samuel and Elijah heard voices that told them
What to do. Now we’d say they
Were schizophrenic if voices controlled them.

Harod was really into himself;
He had to be highly narcissistic.
When Paul was persecuting the Christians,
His behavior was rather sadistic.
 
Without A.A. or psychiatrists,
Or drugs like Prozac, Zoloft, thorazine,
******, Haldol, Abilify, Lithium,
Seroquel, Xanax, Paxil, and clozapine,
 
Our Biblical characters were on their own--
To fend for themselves to carry out their mission,
Without medical insurance and someone
To say, "Get thee to a physician!"

- by Bob B

▝ ▙  We are being fooled & manipulated. Anorexia nervosa (fear/phobia of food) is a sub-clinical symptom of pellagra (a vitamin B3 deficiency). No amount of encouragement, or self assessment makes any difference. All pellagrans (those suffering from pellagra) suffer through the 3-D's: dementia (psychosis/depression), dermatitis (skin inflammation) & diarrhea. Buy a bottle of vitamin B3 (also known as niacin), and take 500 m.g. with each meal (never on an empty stomach). Buy flush-free niacin (a "niacin flush" entails a false allergic reaction of itchy, red skin that lasts 15 minutes).  You can't over-dose on a B vitamin as its excess is excreted in *****. Vitamin B3 turns *** somewhat orange. 90% of Americans don't get enough B3. You have to supplement. Try it. It'll end your insomnia too. You'll be dreaming in vivid color within several days.

Megavitamin Therapy for Psychosis by Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D., F.R.C.P.S. (Can.) Twenty Years On Orthomolecular Therapy
On December 8, 1976 Mr. CR, age 25, arrived in my office. He complained that he was much better than he had been but that there were days when he was nervous and depressed. Six years earlier he had become very depressed. He was treated with electroconvulsive therapy receiving about 11 treatments. His memory had been bad before the treatment and was worse afterwards so that he could not remember what he had been like. But most of his depression had been lifted. He married a few years later. His wife told me that his episodes of depression had been getting worse. During these he would become quiet, and obsessive. He was still taking Haldol regularly. He added that he had, in the past, believed people were staring at him, had suffered visual hallucinations and had heard voices but had not experienced these perceptual changes after his treatment. He had been started on large doses of the B vitamins, with zinc gluconate and brewers yeast. I added niacin 500 mg three times each day after meals and advised him to remain on his Haldol 2 mg daily. One month later he was normal.

I can't walk all the way to the river again, never again, never again
there is something in the junipers of my mind
haunting from the edge of the dark spot
light dots or maybe haldol, spells in chemical form
a swarm of bad tidings, we keep on surviving regardless
Until one day you don't anymore

Peeling down the walls, climbing our way into the sewer
Plastic manure, a harvest of good intentions unspooled
Eyes glassy, mouth drool, haldol pools in black cavity tooth
Ruthless at root, pulled up like catclaw in Skull Valley
Another faulty thought process, burnt, drifting through days
Looking back on the ways I dirtied my soul, soil in flower pots
The river is running high, it will be dark soon
I wonder in which room of what ward I'll die in
Medication vacation, turn it all off, lights out
Something in your hand, cold and turning, screaming silently
Something in the way the birds are flying, falling
Flip open another pack of careless filters
Exhale another hour
Time passes like rain showers on mountain peaks
Crashing through the Aspen
Chasing cutthroat trout

The only blade I fear is the one that I wield
A single stroke and my fate is sealed
Hold up false hope, impotent shield
Casually spread my bones in untilled fields
Digging in my heels,
  it feels like I'm losing you
Digging out six square,
  soul bruising blue
Brick slit *******, courtyard contortions, fountains of weeds
Walking in ovals, squares
Blackboard becomes the backboard of your distorted dreams
Haldol turns evening beams to fireflies
Staring out the window waiting on my brain to fry