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They started with his toes.
He said, “Hey, whose are those?”
They went into his feet.
He soiled them in the sticky street
Without noticing. They took his groin –
In mid-laugh, now, he found her
annoying.
And then they won his bladder:
The former emptying the latter,
He panicked – saw a napkin and darted
for it, but found himself
nothing-hearted.
So he put it back on the table.
And tried to leave the hand, but wasn't
able:
“Excuse me, is someone missing this?”
But that was not his voice, nor this
his
Vision from atop a soggy gray suit –
An image becoming less acute.
And then they took his mind.
“Look here! A man's left himself
behind!”
Dissociation (psychology)
ReplyDeleteDissociation is a term in psychology describing a wide array of experiences from mild detachment from immediate surroundings to more severe detachment from physical and emotional reality. It is commonly displayed on a continuum. The major characteristic of all dissociative phenomena involves a detachment from reality – rather than a loss of reality as in psychosis. In mild cases, dissociation can be regarded as a coping mechanism or defense mechanisms in seeking to master, minimize or tolerate stress – including boredom or conflict. At the nonpathological end of the continuum, dissociation describes common events such as daydreaming while driving a vehicle. Further along the continuum are non-pathological altered states of consciousness. – <>
*Thanks to Hans Richter (leg man & dangle hand) Robert Capa (Ingmar Bergman), Ellie (fly free), WhyDoChildrenSteal (cloud of scars) & Megan (grain pour) for making his collage whole.
I am incredibly surprised this poem does not have more comments. I have a sweet spot for psychology so maybe that is why this poem sparked my interest. I am slightly confused by the collage. In my opinion the people in the collage seem the opposite of detached. They seem to be thoroughly enjoying their surroundings. They seem to be in the moment and experiencing everything around them. As for the poem, I love the nursery rhyme feeling. It creates a ironic tone as it is linking dissociation with childhood. I also enjoyed the structure. It adds to the slightly uncomfortable tone as it is not perfect and organized. It accurately represents how someone with dissociation would feel. You would understand what was going on but not be able to make sense of the things around you. Your life would feel disorganized as you would be so detached from your surroundings that you would rarely bother to plan or keep track of things. I thoroughly enjoyed this poem and the connection to psychology.
ReplyDeleteI tried to make the collage convey a woman's spirit bursting out away from her in a flurry of detached limbs (leaving something cold and alien behind).
DeleteIn this poem, the main subject is being separated from himself, at first physically and then moving towards mental separation though the cause is not of his own choice. The rhyme pattern of the poem being AABBCC creates a step by step feeling in which the reader senses that “they” have a plan in which they accomplish each step one after another. I thought that this poem is about time and the existence of every different version that has existed of one’s self. The poem starts with the taking of the toes, I imagined this as a person walking and with each step they leave apart of them behind, just as with each step they become a different person. Its not necessarily the idea that someone is changing but rather that they are leaving a past self version of them behind whether they realize it or not. I think that in this poem, that the man doesn’t know how to react to him changing as time moves on. I took to understand that “they” represents all the past versions and thoughts of himself. And although the current version of the subject is against leaving, the past auras know that leaving this version behind is the only way to move on to something else.
ReplyDelete^ (see my first comment on the post.)
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