Anatomy of Depression and other works by Megan Burns
Megan Burns holds an MFA from Naropa University and edits the poetry magazine, Solid Quarter. She has been most recently published in Callaloo, Constance Magazine, and YAWP: a Journal of Poetry & Art as well as online at horseless press, shampoo, trope_5, Exquisite Corpse and BigCityLit. Her book Memorial + Sight Lines was published in 2008 by Lavender Ink. She lives in New Orleans where she and her husband, poet Dave Brinks, run the weekly 17 Poets! reading series.
Anatomy of Depression
the design of medication
a bargaining measured out in doses
for clarity
time as an exchange for when
or else as well metrics the measuring of ingestion
and blood streaming, for intake, for absorption
a difficult destiny
flagged response
"You have nothing to hold on to" (Notley)
in one solution, it's a way of being
handed more
move as to what would be norm
I dream of a theater where I know we will be locked in. I know that the lights will go completely dark, and we will be trapped and executed. This plays out in several endings. In one I am clearing all the exits of chairs so that we can escape. I say it's for the fire exits; they can't be blocked.
In one I see the fire exit being closed and locked. I rush to it to demonstrate that it is locked and demand loudly that it be opened for our safety. It is imperative that I stop this before the lights go out, and chaos ensues. The audience I feel is on my side but they sit patiently waiting.
In one I go out the fire exit to see what is going on; everyone is dressed as movie theater employees. It is hard to tell who is to blame. I decide to arm myself; I find a fuse and an extra light bulb. This I will use when the lights go out.
The lights go out, and I use the fuse. We are still locked in, and it seems that bad things will happen in the light. The children have been poisoned and are going to kill us. Now we armed with blunt objects and have to fight back. In order to avoid killing the innocent, I scream that harmless people should scream "good." Apparently, the dangerous children cannot yell out "good," and so this works.
"This is what you learned from those drugs,
you say" (Notley 8)
imagine some point of departure
"There is that that" (B. Iijima 22)
the world as ordered if you depend
on your mind for translation
sit down
if you recognize these thoughts as other
or if you deny easily that
which could be defined as disturbing
melancholia
a romantic indisposition
I believed I had a right to my wrong thinking on some level.
it was mine and to be defended
imagine: healthy
as a species of flower
as a turn in the weather
as a geographical pinpoint
as a location found by vertical and horizontal planes intersecting
it's one thing to speak of what is misfiring
and another to locate
here in the deep, deep recesses of porous organ
half able to function coherently
what half is left and is this accuratewhat percentage and on what days and on what dosage
Are you beginning to divide
the notion of trust?
animate object: as other that lives in me
inanimate object: as quieted by this medicine and
put to sleep, a wild animal stuffed and mounted
glassy-eyed wonder
of how it arrivedgenetic
as a gift from those before me
a realm of suffering
to greater clarity
here is the diseased mind realm
am I making too much of it?
I'd hate to draw attention to it, the gaze then lends it value
but to ignore-does "not seeing" mean… what am I afraid of is that
the reader will think it is simply the vehicle for my desire, for my
identity but I am the vehicle, I'm certain, that it has gotten in
along beside me
where are we going?
a small insect blows onto the open pages of Brenda's book
lands on "Rare held over world"
from here on Folsom Street
I can see Jack Collom bringing in his dirty laundry
define the hidden: as dirty laundry
skeletons in the closet
dirty skeletonsbone left
(dirty organ)skeletal: tactile, able to walk out on its own
laundry: tactile, able to be cleansed
this as a map of hope in revelation
mind as imaginary, as illusory, as porous
the examiner knows that when you open the skull
the brain can crumble within seconds
upon losing its container
upon touch
fragment fragile fingered mush
must be poisoned further to provide the perfect specimen
formaldehyde, spun in a web of fluid and glass
suspended and sliced to millimeter
slid onto thin sections of plastic and caught under the magnifying glass
this sheer exposition
what went wrong?
even then how to connect dead tissue to the imagination
to the cellular experience
to see how the drugs changed the identitymy place in the world
the amount of space I took up
the gap left that haunted me
where the I I was not fell behind
but followed meI can see her out of the corner of my eye.
who said this?
"I'm not too gone to be
healed, am I?" (Notley 46)
Being healed is a misnomer.
Health in that sense is not
something attainable.Remove heal from thy language.
Insert "contained"
Insert "changed"
Insert __________
My second opinion was the same as the first.
"You'll probably have to be on medication your whole life."
what is the length of it?
my own will
what is probably?
a nowhere land
define "you"
define "be"
define "have"
as have and have not
life sentence
as punishment
as debt paid to society
as order given as opposed to death
death sentence: I suicided
life sentence: I medicated
if I was writing this inside I might have permission to cry but I am outside near a tree, talking people, cars, bikes…there is no permission here. No space for dramatic emoting; remain contained, not leaking, not draining out.
examine crying
as related to depression: that crying is a symptom, a sign, a mistaken attachment
I have never been partial to tears, my own or others.
too disruptive, too lengthy, a discourse
find that part of me
or part of the disease
is inappropriate
emotionshow to learn a correct means of expression
what is happy? what is sad? what am I feeling? Is there a word for it?
to want obliteration
to be astounded
to love intimately and still be remote
wavering inconstant doomed
terrible ego of the depressive
to some degree it must wrap itself up in that ethereal, non textual state
like a strand of DNA, depression and ego dance around each other
bound and inseparablelook at me/don't look at me
save me/ I'm invisible
Seedtime
While the earth remaineth,
seedtime and harvest…shall not cease
-Gen 8:22To begin as a tale that decides its own meander
and:
while whispering this breath pressed
while this place vibrating spring-abuzz
as rain filled gutter keeps beat
drown of airy sound
dear vestal virgins of amusing grace:
kept secret that leaks
river peaks by days and dates
brackish release into estuary called lake
cream of the sandwiched land by water is door
barely escape
tied to the levee, a sacrifice of no face
riddle this elated change
and so:
where the bird alights-reddish feathered breast
not the elusive sunset tanager nor the ivory-billed woodpecker
beak full of muddy water and
dead feet
are you, too, bound by a promise
to the body, the one eyed side seems to ask at awkward anglethis child slips dirt encrusted fingers into mouth
glub, glub what animal is this?
while the sun shifts
while motion is girded by light and distance
while love lays down below these flattened sheets
settles in as bygone days riddled with holes
caterpillar mouth sliding along purple cabbage leaves
compost where worms thrive, the shovel doubles
them and half writhe, half stop
nested calling bird peers down on opened earth
the safest home not collapsing
dig in the trench ripping as a traveler
further southward
Rustle and Form
time + poetry = love
-j.godardoutrun days blossoming venture
of this I sing, trampled deep pathsand set down where water cares to harvest, golden
bowl of most longed desireto jump face forward, a response of confused gestures
tell me again how it was in the beginningand how it is now nor ever will be
how usual to lie covered in the brick faceonce splitting home behind the stretched screen
entranceway-an illustrious tradesmallest creature taken back into the fold
digress and make time as an amended juncturean inviting crescendo
how swelling is measured in hand widthscome each morning its dawn
come each night a nightwhich always leads to cruelty
a desperate wisdom nodding towards
an open doorlet the cicadas sing of misadventure
let the cattails swirl as wind lipped folly
Healing Sound
a sequence flowing downward as water
pooling in the broken sidewalk's crevasse
mud, sweat, tears and urine
dead hand smells-voice barely able to whisper
its own ordering: I'll make you
any deal about disaster
a coin spinning in mid air
stop video that captures both sides
as if holes can be separate
the density and the lie
for all this shared pain, impossible to believe
other people aren't more familiar
split in two as cut fruit: blinding bliss and discarded
rind sliced away
walk among the soaking ruins
the one window you have learned to call from
found shut and nailed to the sill
await here in sorrow's passing
weather proof
proving without a scalpel
wonder can still be divided
Post-Katrina Interviews, Pt 1.
this is Vice Admiral Richard Carmona, United States Surgeon General
That the rotation is at maximum precision and the revolver handed over. That a platform is the beginning of an alibi. That there is no recourse is both and undeserved, and yet the truth is that many species of rooted things did flourish in the aftermath. That this is a language not foreign to any soil, and planting as one does the surface matter is no substitution for grace.
I'm happy to be with you today to address some of the issues that have come up after Hurricane Katrina.
In the misspelled misnomer where we fall into the discussion; an audience without any clear motive sits expectant. Happiness may be another granted motion. Can it be sent to the desperate and seeded. How did the islands all become shingled? It's a shame that there are so few pictures as it appears tragic. Your happiness must somehow mitigate disaster.
My guess is that the most common sickness we will see is mental health over the long term.
I am thinking now of a number. It cannot be relied upon to give accurate descriptions. It can serve as a place marker. This design is intricately simple. In the subtraction for what passes for humanity, we absorb the runoff. The split oaks will be carried off, and implied in this act is care as opposed to what will be left here in the following years. You can learn all these procedures from watching TV.
But once that is all under control, the psychological impact of this devastation I think is going to be what impacts us most.
What I find inaccurate in this assertion is the idea of control divided by the illusion of us. Us is a nowhere land where no boat can dock. Us is the presumption that a boat will arrive in the night to cart you away to safety. Control is what lies beneath you in what was home. Us is the silence of your city slowly disappearing. And the impact of this is not something us can speak of.
[we are] working with the community to be able to make sure that everybody has the mental health support that they need to get them through these difficult times.How to ratify this statement to the faces of the sick and abandoned beneath the bridge in their "tent city" camped in the recesses of what looks like a city I once knew. This is a statement of degrees where tears land on debris piles, and so constructs this dismal return to our absented normalcy. I've forgotten the notion of belief. What you promise is more than I can take. Where a line of young trees is planted lies the memory of loss. In the swollen gap, the worn and tired sink.
-Quotes from an interview with the Surgeon General Sept. 9, 2005 discussing health effects in the aftermath of Hurrican Katrina and the failure of the Federal levees.