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Insanity’s Invocation


11.19.18 Posted in today's words by

J. Scott Price’s most recent poem to appear here was “Required Reading” (October 2018).

Insanity’s Invocation
By J. Scott Price

Sitting with today snuggled in my lap,
I’m reminded of the time when my mind
went away for a sabbatical
from reason, leaving me stranded
in a land where reason was a shade
of blue I could not smell,
normalcy a taste I couldn’t touch,
decency and civility two pillars stranded, standing
on smoke supporting only airy ashes.

My mind took a break, the break then took my mind,
and sanity took a lover and checked in
for an extended stay at a seedy motel
across the tracks from the nice part of town.

Eventually, that changed,
the break kintsugied. Perhaps
I simply went for a walk, but
it could have been skywriting from a broomed former beauty.
Maybe I just lay down to read, or heard the words
from a genie escaping something once shiny,
or, in hindsight, maybe I
just made up some tale to explain what made no sense,
and a creation story that doesn’t matter in the least.

What does matter is,
when the sabbatical came to an end,
the final invoice was slipped under the door
and could not be ignored. Its tally dug deep,
deeper than the Nazca plains, or a child’s plastered hand print,
or the chiseled, shadowed cracks on long-life cheeks
that leave no doubt of the truth they contain—
Your life, I was informed, did not get better just for you to enjoy.



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