Limericks about Origins
Limericks about Hope in Times of Coronavirus
Mental illness and poetry, they go together like child abuse and super villains. Maybe that’s why my parents tried to talk me out of pursuing the life of a poetaster. In any case, I knew the job was dangerous when I took it. And though the career has been less than illustrious, I can thank my stars that I haven’t turned out to be the next Lex Luthor or a modern day Sylvia Plath.
In order to cope, and to help understand the incomprehensible, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time among the mentally ill. I’ve also written an inordinate number of limericks about mental illness. That includes everything from garden variety depression to psychoanalysis. I’ve even reconsidered the somewhat lost art of phrenology.
Cross Examination
Like a figure from Kafka we go up on Trial
Sentenced to question our selves for a while
Prepare your defense
At another’s expense
And spend all your days in a state of denial
Blues for Lacan
The post-Freudian school has got nothin’ on me
And still they extract an exorbitant fee
But sometimes I think
I’m in need of a shrink
Perhaps we can blame existential ennui
Post Modern Angst
Psychoanalysis flattens your purse
But inner impoverishment does something worse
Conform to conventions
Ignore the big questions
As the road to enlightenment runs in reverse
Under Observation
There’s a thoughtful young maverick with multiple heads
Arrested one day by a couple of feds
In a stolen a Mercedes
He mowed down three ladies
The time he got nervous and went off his meds
Deep in the Fog
One day’s a bullseye, the next one’s a miss
The capstone of that or the bottom of this
But I can’t see tomorrow
Beyond the grey sorrow
While leaning in over the gaping abyss
Head Games
On the field of phrenology I’ve often opined
Scratching my dome like a thick melon rind
I’ve heard all the lectures
On cranial textures
The shape of your skull tells me what’s on your mind
The Labyrinth
There’s an obstacle course taking place in my brain
With mirrors and mazes that drive me insane
I long to abscond
To the greater beyond
And escape from this prison they call the mundane
Passing Fancies
Psychic vicissitudes working cross purposes
One thought dissolves and another one surfaces
Feelings are fleeting
So watch as you’re greeting
The many sensations that consciousness furnishes
Manic Panic
From the absolute ebb to the uppermost pinnacle
With mood swings galore my condition is clinical
A moment’s elation
To hopeless negation
The state of neurosis has rendered me cynical
Exceeding Ambivalence
Beyond the ambivalent naughty or nice
Pursuing the virtue and chasing the vice
Resist the dichotomy
Slicing the lot of me
Live every day like it’s worth living twice
The Support Group
I’m new to the group, it’s my very first session
My friends call me Fred and I have a confession
I squander my time
As I ponder and rhyme
And I’m desperate to cure this unhealthy obsession
More poetry concerning psychiatry
Trying to wrap my head around the modern day epidemic of mental illness has not been easy. I’ve seen too many victims and too many crises to simply turn a blind eye. And while trying to avoid the common mistakes of projection and transference, I’ve undergone a good deal of contemplation. Sometimes I thumb through the DSM to calm my nerves. But more often, I just write.
DIAGNOSTIC MANUSCRIPT
A mental disorder could mean many things
From the forms of dementia that ageyness brings
To a wide range of symptoms affecting your mind
And the DSM says that they’re all well-defined
But the lines can’t be drawn with such clinical ease
Till the seventies gays had a serious disease
Now manic depression includes many cases
Where mood swings occur on a regular basis
And major depression can strike even worse
So some women like to keep pills in their purse
The SSRIs can work wonders for some
While others prefer to use whiskey or rum
But dangers are common with self-medication
So I endorse mindfulness: that’s meditation
If Prozac provides you with less than a cure
The Benzos (for short) are what many prefer
As they often have sedative, calming effects
And not just the ones that the patient expects
It’s a remedy helpful for those feeling blue
With frequent relief for anxiety too
Obsessive compulsives make orderly plans
And some of them like to keep washing their hands
But others they can’t even make it outside
They’re overly nervous with so much to hide
The spectrum can vary from minor neurosis
To the absolute zenith of chronic psychosis
But neurodegenerative cases are tough
In which mood lifting treatments are just not enough
Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, tragic indeed
The fragmented mind of a person in need
A whole ‘nother class of a mental disorder
While some of us straddle a tenuous border
Uncertain if treatment is really so proper
‘Cuz if Psyche’s insistent then why try and stop her?
Further Reading
If you liked these limericks about mental illness, you’ll be sure to enjoy:
- Limericks about Challenges and Obstacles
- Limericks about Darkness and Sorrow
- Poetry about Anatomy and Physiology
- What is a limerick?
