mental health poems

Care Less

A jabbering group of
Immaculately appointed
Tourists steps off
The luxury coach that’s
Carted them through
The objectionable parts
Of the city to the
Retail village built
For just this purpose,
Where unsmiling locals
Wearing fake costumes
Peddle inauthentic wares
To the delight of visitors
Who couldn’t care less
About their plight,
How phony this all is,
As they steal another
Soul through their cameras.

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Remains

A rivulet of fetid water
Winds its way through
Garbage-choked dirt alleys
Walled in by smoke-filled
Tin shacks crowded to bursting.

What remains after
Everything was sucked out
By self-important predators
Whose lust for money greatly
Exceeded all other impulses.

Self-Adulation

It’s clear that
All that is happening
In that predatory mind
Is a miserable plan
To curry favor,
Establish dominance.

The need to be loved,
While overlooking the
Unpleasant flaws of
Reality, paramount,
Only self-adulation
Featured on the menu.

Manipulating the limbs
Of cold mannequins,
Unfeeling eyes staring
Blankly, no connection
To actuality, only
Temporary gratification.

Never Considered

I can’t say that
I ever thought he’d
Be the same as me
But I must admit that
I never considered
The possibility that
He felt nothing inside,
An animated creature
That behaves only
According to its latest
Whim, whatever it desires
At that particular moment,
With no regard for
Anyone who might be
In the vicinity.

There Will Always Be Poverty

With a shrug of
His shoulders he
Says that there
Will always be poverty,
And, unknowingly, with
That one pronouncement,
Millions, billions, of
People are relegated to
Being poor, simply
Because this one
Woefully misinformed person
And everyone like him,
Have bought into the lie that
It has to be this way.

Circumstance

They handed him his
New lock and combination.
He walked down the long
Hallways searching for
His designated spot,
A lonely number in a
Sea of bodies
Oblivious to
His circumstance.

Slash and Burn

Having been dispossessed
By a callous regime,
She devotes much of
Her energy to devising
A philosophy of
Absolute selfishness.

Some are resilient,
Striving to help people not
Suffer the same fate,
Others lash out in a
Maelstrom of misanthropy,
Slash and burn inhumanity.

A zero sum game —
Only one person wins,
No caring or collaboration,
Empty worth defined by
How much stuff you can
Amass at others’ expense.

Lord of the Manor

Sitting around
A lavishly decorated,
Candlelit table after enjoying
A decadently sumptuous meal,
The exquisitely rare
Dessert wine is announced
To collective glee,
The lord of the manor is
Overheard intimating that they
Must have done something right,
The servants refill the
Glasses without a word.

The Way Things Are

The seething indignation
He feels in his chest
When someone is cast
Aside by some heartless
Bully who can’t even
Care enough for himself
To feel anything for others.

People condescendingly remind him
That this is the way things are,
Cavalierly ignoring the innumerable
Examples to the contrary,
Where people of conscience
Rise above self-interest and
Care for each other.