Poems About Madness Poem by Patrick Rylands

Here I am as usual, seeking out poems about madness
An alternative to gardening my way to an imaginary escape.
Once I walked on the lawns, peering into the empty faces.
In lost afternoons I mapped the route from sluice to orange juice.

People collect strange things and I chose to hoard madness
From Sexton to Plath and back again, I arranged the asylum queens
Into those who tried to articulate their doom and those who simply knew it.
I waited for the doctor to wake me into a state of insanity.

Twenty years have elapsed and I feel that madness has passed me by –
The smiling lawns are deserted now, the corridors are in disrepair.
I have been trapped inside a life of tedious normality.
Waiting for the blessed release, the chance to write poems of my own.