Here is a cure for madness. The patient,
stupid with pain, credulity or
the random gaze of the mad, the distraught, looks
in our direction. He is being trepanned.
The surgeon, having pierced the shaved skull,
looks modestly away. A monk with a jug
of wine or of water and a nun
with a closed book gesture to the consultant
as if to say, “Thus perish all follies”.
A white horse gallops through an orchard. Sheep graze.
A distant gallows is occupied.
Where the landscape ends in blue hills, steeples
rise in an empty sky.
Note: The poem was originally published on the site in December 2011 – https://www.davidselzer.com/2011/12/
By David Selzer