Hell Hath No Fury: The Nexus of Artist and Anger – Prologue and Path: Upgraded Version

Once again, getting away from a poem allows me to revisit with fresh eyes...and notice a gap in the forest:  some colorful/controversial labels and metaphoric animals hanging on the family tree.  I hope a revisit to "the circus" is worth your while.  Oh yes...a few dramatic -- historic, metaphoric, as well as existential -- changes to the Prologue.  Enjoy!  Mark
~~~~~~~~~~

Hell Hath No Fury:  The Nexus of Artist and Anger – Prologue and Path  (Upgraded)

Prologue

From dawn to dusk…from dusk to dawn

Hell hath no fury like a “word artist” scorned.

The human stain tattoo…forever mourned

Invisible yet everywhere adorned.

No one plays “safe” when a soul is stormed.

Achtung…Posted:  Forearmed is forewarned!

Wanted:  A rebel with a half-moon halo

Who bathes (in) the dark side of dawn (?)

Will we soon forget that haunting silhouette?

The shadow with a crown of thorns.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Path

Through damned veins roars a river of pain:

Don’t ask, Don’t feel, and Do Not complain!

Red sky virus script corrupting the dreams:

Why just me on the bridge of Edvard Munch SCREAMS?  **

Smiling sun mask sets on a starry night ocean

Sinking in black nether world’s REM deep obsession:

A father’s withdrawal, more toxic than drinking

An ex-lover’s bailout; just tired of doubting.

You’re an artist, a word artist

Holding by a moon thread of sane

An artist, a pro and con artist

Alas, too late to trade in that brain!

Beneath the iceberg façade and frame

A frozen block – silent screams of shame

That over time – drip…drip…drip…starts to thaw

Revealing colors of “My Hundred Years War”:

From black and blue to shame-faced blood red

Still worse… when “brainbow” *** trauma’s “all in your head!”

But for that scarlet mark:  Damaged Goods

A muted puppet strung out on moods.

You’re an artist, by the hardest

Whose mantra pledge:  “Never again!”

A stubborn foxhole atheist

Cries quietly…now and then to way back when.

Speak circus memory…high-wired circuits’ menagerie

Ghosts of shock therapy and tightrope terror secrecy:

The “black dog” caves to hyena pack hysteria

Oh yes, Uncle Trickster’s lit up schizophrenia.

A saintly “Grandma” who lost both her legs

To diabetes and the medical dregs.

Spoke little English; celestial eyes lightened your soul

With this lion’s death…a wounded pride’s bottomless hole!

You’re an artist, will go the farthest

Blessed with light source radiance

Perhaps not always the smartest

But your words know how to dance.

Juggling rhythm and rhyme as is my will

Playing “the fool” on the cutting edge hill.

To most I keep pulling the scab off a wound

But I’m grafting your flesh; I will take my pound.

How do family Furies **** ignite blazing minds?

By choking a self in culture-myth binds.

My blind mind shaft drills down to strata subconscious

Freeing memory ores for sculpting and polish.

You’re an artist, a word artist

Spinning yarn to solid gold thread

A poetic alchemist

Bringing to light that which was dead!

The screen is the sanctum where I must confess

To root out my own and others’ b.s.

The pen as a sword carves the prophetic path…

A voice to escape the echo chamber of wrath.

Wake up!…There’s no Garden of Serenity

Hiding in shadows baring false modesty.

But psyche with child surviving the lashes…

A force field ***** Phoenix may rise from the ashes:

As an artist, a word artist

Surfing the wave of human sin

A conceptual polygamist

Strange bedfellows for a pragmatist

Doubling as quixotic synthesist or

Still down-to-earth illusionist…okay                     

Hypnotic psychohumorist ™

Touching sadist and the masochist

As the spirit world’s great exorcist

One who lives to lose as much as win

For s/he has climbed the mountain

And knows the Buddha’s grin!

©  Mark Gorkin   2016
"Shrink Rap" Productions

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

** Edvard Munch SCREAMS? – Late 19th c. Norwegian artist Edvard Munch's famous autobiographical picture, The Scream, is an expressionistic construction based on Munch's actual experience of a scream piercing through nature while on a walk, after his two companions, seen in the background, had left him.

*** “brainbow” – a neologism coined by Douglas Hofstadter & Emmanuel Sander, in Surfaces and Essences:  Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking, Basic Books:  NY, 2013

**** The Furies – In Greek and Roman mythology, the Furies were female spirits of justice and vengeance. They were also called the Erinyes (angry ones). Known especially for pursuing people who had murdered family members, the Furies punished their victims by driving them mad. When not punishing wrongdoers on earth, they lived in the underworld and tortured the damned.

***** force field – the space around a radiating body within which its electromagnetic oscillations can exert force on another similar body not in contact with it; a special charm, aura, or spirit that can influence anyone in its presence

Mark Gorkin, MSW, LICSW, "The Stress Doc" ™, a nationally acclaimed speaker, writer, and "Psychohumorist" ™, is a founding partner and Stress Resilience and Trauma Debriefing Consultant for the Nepali Diaspora Behavioral Health & Wellness Initiative.  A former Stress and Violence Prevention Consultant for the US Postal Service, he has led numerous Pre-Deployment Stress Resilience-Humor-Team Building Retreats for the US Army.  The Doc is the author of Practice Safe Stress, The Four Faces of Anger, and Preserving Human Touch in a High Tech World.  Mark’s award-winning, USA Today Online "HotSite" – www.stressdoc.com – was called a "workplace resource" by National Public Radio (NPR).  For more info, email:  stressdoc@aol.com.