Psychotherapy And The Status Quo

Early in therapy, a young woman I treated for depression described her ideal relationship with a man. “If I had my way,” she said, “I wouldn’t do a thing, except clean the house and talk on the phone. He would make all the decisions. He would pick where we go, what we do, who we see.”

Wild Heart

Walking alone through a wild land, our perceptions soon alter. We begin to experience the earth anew, know the very place we stand as the source and locus of our own rediscovered wild heart.

Our Rag-Bone Hearts

Richard was introduced to mental institutions when insulin and shock treatments were in their experimental heyday. Inappropriate and excessive use of these treatments dealt him the blow ensuring that he would never again plead for his home or protest his lot.

Jane’s Letter

Jane lingers in bed beneath the veil of the mosquito net and listens to schoolchildren slosh their clothing in buckets of water near her window.

Rituals

Every night Lynn cooks onions for supper: liver and onions, onion soup, onion rings, hot sausage grinders. Every night, amidst the smell of onions, Jerry removes pieces of the kitchen’s blue-flowered wallpaper, exposing patches of green paint and gray paste.

The GirlsClub

I’m depressed. My girlfriend left me. Then I got cancer of the colon, so I had to have my large intestine removed, cut out, the whole thing, gone.

The Great Army

When I was a child I used to beg the Old Buddhist to tell this story over and over again, especially the descriptions of the soldiers.

Storm

It was too hot to do anything except wait for the heat to end, wait for rain. Wait on the red brick porch, down at the end of our street where the road made a wide, looping turn, disappearing into a tangled mess of kudzu vines.

Late Round

Selected Poems

Selected Poems

Insomnia

On The Question Of Redemption