Lost in a wistful arbor, where malaise blooms,
Mists flower in hypnotic bleak violet dusks
Shades of brooding melancholy
Bruise my treasured bouquets of dreams
And plod through ponderous mists
In metamorphic doldrums
Cold inertia spirals into lamentations,
Midnights drugged with stupor
Lean heavy on my homeless hermit heart
In withering labyrinths of tangled voices,
Atonal buds of plaintive paeans,
When pensive lethargy pierces dawn.
My rose, in apathy, sees no reason to bloom
As shades of gloom birth shadow seasons
And pale fretting’s unbroken gaze dulls dawn’s hues
Clouds of sighs ravish new shoots
Born in sweet trances of possibility -
Each breath a tedious indecision wrapped in enigma.
Dullness shrouds each new growth in greyness
A slow march into inertia’s bower of cathexis.
Psychic energy that is misspent on an idea,
perhaps an object, and often on a person,
is referred to as a cathexis, an action
to satisfy an urge or need that can worsen.
In his explored psychoanalytical theory
of personality disorders, Sigmund Freud
theorized about this rather unhealthy drive
in which a life can be hindered or destroyed.
He believed that psychic energy is found
within the id, the ego, and the superego
The id directs a person's most basic needs,
deviating reality, but just how far will it go?
To satisfy the fanatic compulsion it craves
it can throw someone's energy into disarray,
This personality disorder is totally cognitive,
borderline psychotic, leading the mind astray.
Ego cathexis is a median nature of narcissism
causing a break down of stored up emotions.
Anger may occur, irrational to say the least,
often filling the brain with devious notions.
May 9, 2023
Pick-A-Title, Vol 36 Contest
Sponsored by Edward Ibeh
Chasing stars
Aligned with brilliance
Forging hearts
In stormy signatures
Rain falls as reverence
Wetting the face of forgiveness
Extinguishing the fire of this soul’s madness
That drifts into the midnight hour
Where darkness searches for light
My blood flows red and alive
Awaiting
May 1, 2023
Pick a Title, Vol 36
Sponsored by Edward Ibeh
faithful + libidinal
misbehavior is alien
one above is inside me
spitting it out is nauseating
a withdrawal from swallowing
from something I once did I once
I said, I never did at all, I never did at
kneel only for aim do not enrich
yourself, keep cathexis in the cathedral
crucifix your eyes on don’t be cross don’t
obsess but be obsessive it plays inside me wrong
it’s wrong repress rep re
you’ll grow but not up, never
up or downtown you’ll be found and be wrung and the
latter is always Eros making you fall into a trap so you’ll
reach that rung late
to exist is to choose, make your choice choose don’t lose
your faith but bottle up libido, bottle up til you are old enough
to drink it, til you are old enough to exist, cough it out now cough
Cathexis
I see you silhouetted in a vague haze,
On the far end of this breathing hallway,
Way off in the strange distance there,
Amid the suffocating cigarette smoke,
And the obscene wallpaintings,
Of nude pale women wearing necklaces,
Reposed motionless on verandas by the Seine.
Then, I look and see you squatting there,
Under the tinkling chandeliers,
Aglow as with a halo,
Sainted only when wearing white lace,
As you are now, goddess of mine!
Shhh! Listen!
I hear violins outside, two or three of them,
Playing Traumerie in the rain.
Come here, and let us explore with blindfolds,
This side room of esoteric pleasures.
Shhh…It is unlocked, and there are pillows inside,
Numerous soft cotton pillows,
Piled wall to wall, up to the knees,
And the elbows.
Come here, goddess of mine,
And let us dive into this tundra
Of plush velvety incinerations,
This mind field of amazing meltings.
Love is not a feeling. Love is an action, an activity... Genuine love implies commitment and the exercise of wisdom... love as the will to extend oneself for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth... true love is an act of will that often transcends ephemeral feelings of love or cathexis, it is correct to say, 'Love is as love does'.
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