Poem Oggle | Kay Reed

Kay will explain to you as soon as you meet her that she is a mental health patient and has been for much of her life.

A very intelligent, articulate woman, Kay has spent a long time fighting mental illness and now fights both mental and physical disabilities admirably.

But while Kay has also fought her own demons she has strived to help others who may be affected as she has been herself. Kay is a champion for all mental health patients and as she is so articulate, she finds that she can write down deep, insightful words which can be heartbreaking to read but also inspiring.

Kay is raw talent, a mental health patient who spends her life trying to help others like herself who can find themselves racked with emotions so profound that to find an outlet such as Kay has herself is beyond their reach.

Kay feels strongly for those not given the treatment they need and also feels for other people who fight for causes, as she does, hence her poem on the tragic death of Benjamin Maloise the South African Poet.

Kays work gives an insight into her life which is awe inspiring to those who read her writings both prose and poetry. Watch her world unfold, sometimes beautiful and sometiimes so harrowing it hurts the reader, but joy shines through at the oddest times and brings a smile into the gloom of the suffering of many people, every one of whom Kay wants to help. Because of her need to help others Kay is at present working on a manuscript entitled :-

'Breaking the Chains, A Victim of my Own Psyche'

which involves her own journey towards resolution and healing.

Thank you for joining us and allowing us to read your work Kay.

A Photograph

A photograph

Of a mother and child,

Fondness that eludes me,

Her indifference as far

As I look back.

Bonded by secrets,

Deceipt and pretence.

Her narrow outlook

Slowly crippling her

And spilling over me,

To almost hex my

Silent free spirit.

My first mistake of many,

The debt for her, settled

Only by that final parting

Quickened by sacrifice

And pain

Handed down through time.

For me, the debt yoke

Has never been appeased.

She has been dead to me

For an eternity.

Now stillness sails

The sea of life,

Deep as the ocean bed.

Once waves ebbed,

Flowed and flooded,

Consuming me with

Fear and rage.

A bad girl trying to

Justify her existence.

Hide me away beneath

My Grandmothers'

White cotton death sheets.

Maybe then all

Will be revealed.

To All Women

Should we climb the rooftops

Of every town, of every city,

And shout,

Would they hear.

Should we gather united

Throughout the land,

And stand,

Would they notice.

Would they help.

Do they know.

Do they know anything.

Anything at all.

Home recovery, Untreated post-operative breakdown.

Benjamin Maloise, a South African poet, was executed 18.10.85 in South Africa....

A poet died this very day

In some distant far off land,

Where blood spills free, persecuted flee

The almighty oppressors hand.

Sometimes alas, they catch the mass

With guns and masks and might.

They beat and torture, kill at will,

As if it is their right.

These are the days when madness reigns

This fertile native land.

Black blood runs red, the people led

The freedom of the band.

Crowds gather round outside that place,

Seek comfort in their grief,

They wail and chant, and chant and wail,

In horror and disbelief.

Benjamin Maloise died today

Despite world-wide opinion.

The man is dead, this poet red,

Alas not our dominion.

Persecuted all his life,

The colour of his skin,

He died a wealthy man this day,

His rights the fight to win.

For Keith - On Love

Hold love gently cupped in your palm.

Do not clench your fist

Lest you crush this most precious gift

You do not mean to harm.

It is there by the grace of God

To be cherished above all else.

Hold it ever so gently,

Gently cupped in the palm

Of the hand.

Kitty

In my hand I hold a photograph

Of a man; not a stranger.

Haunted eyes lost in a lined face.

But the image is not familiar.

Time grows into memories,

Even a childhood

Racked with illness, sadness and loss.

Hers was the ultimate sacrifice,

Doomed to a young death,

Although sudden and tragic.

For he was yet young, frail and reliant.

And she was his rock in a ravaged youth.

Sometimes, I glance not too obvious

At those sad eyes and I ponder if

He still thinks of the one he misses,

The one who could love him

As only she could.

He felt safe then

With her.

Now in later years

His eyes haunt me

For the unmatched love I offer,

And the love he can never give

Because it belongs to her.

Where's My Pants?

'Mam! Where's my pants?'I hear him cry.

'They're in the cupboard', I reply.

'I can't find them!', soon he shouts.

I feel like giving him a couple of clouts.

If it's not his pants, it's his socks or shirt.

It's out for a pint and a girl to flirt.

He's nineteen on Thursday, eleventh of September.

Thank goodness, I think, I dread to remember,

All of the years gone by so fast,

He's all grown up now; it's all in the past.

Soon there'll be no more, 'iron this' or 'iron that'.

I've rights you know, I'm not a doormat.

So open your eyes and you will see,

Your home's not a hotel. Look at me.

I pray for a son who's now a man.

He can do it. I know he can.

One day he'll move out from the family home.

In the big wide world he'll wander and roam.

Then he'll settle down with a wife of his own

And I'll look at him, and suddenly, he's grown

Into a man, not a boy as I remember.

He's nineteen on Thursday, the eleventh of September.

Written for my son Paul

Why?

Dawn's chorus beckons me,

Sunrise colours an empty sky,

While my world sleeps nearby.

Dew's pearly grass under bare feet,

Prop up a lifeless form,

God grant me peace this morn.

Give me power in my bones,

And serenity in my soul,

Strong, yet broken by life's toll.

Outstretched, I see his hand,

I stand still as stones nearby,

While a familiar voice cries. 'Why?'

Reflecting back to 1985 - Untreated post-operative breakdown

An Unnamed Poem

Rivers rage in the day's meanness.

Emotions ebb and flow.

Somehow I am appeased.

Better this than fear......

As it was then.

From that night's doom,

I thought I had moved on.

But today,

Fragile as a petal,

After the rages of yesterday,

I stand unconvinced.

Endless time has passed,

Yet I am still there.

Thank God, now, for me

Rage owns more comfort than fear.

Pain!....Go away!

Not today....please!

Maybe sometime, somewhere else.

Always is a big word. And difficult to comprehend.

Eternity?....No!...

No thank you.

Set me free

From that place called history.

Release me from that rage

That contaminates my life.

Please God grant me peace.

Even now.

Even tomorrow.

30.11.03

On verge of relapse during reduction of medication at home

The Picture

For the first time

I see a picture

Of a life and

It frightens me.

Someone once said,

Your children

Must never know

How you feel.

One more secret.

They began

Somewhere

In a distant

Childhood.

Now a maze

Of secrets

That make up

Who I am.

A hidden life

Never lived.

Someone

No-one knows,

Not even me.

My pen reveals

Bits here and there,

Fragments

Of past denial

Too painful

To face then.

Now reality

Shocks a once

Disturbed mind.

But this is a

More confident fear

Than the other one,

The one that

Nearly destroyed me.

These days,

Not quite as bold

As the Phoenix,

You know,

The one that

Arose

From the ashes.

A life of secrets,

Not to protect

As I believed,

But to protect

So many people

Who harmed me

And walked away.

Their debris

Created a life

Lost to me.

Where do I

Begin.

Derwen Fawr

Those were easy days on the eye,

When beauty spilled over the countryside.

As a child I could hear a cry,

And echoes called across the valley,

Come! Come!

Wild Honeysuckle and roses hedgerows dressed.

Winberries, blackberries filled mam's pies.

With happy memories I am blessed.

And echoes called across the valley,

Come! Come!

The land was as wild as the river

That snaked before the 'row',

Where rats played and trout slithered,

And echoes called across the valley,

Come! Come!

This dream was as real as a lie.

Stars shone through a hole in the roof,

Pans placed aptly kept me dry.

And echoes called across the valley,

Come! Come!

Night was as black as a witch's cloak.

Bats played in the great oak's boughs,

At my window tapping twigs broke.

And echoes called across the valley.

Come! Come!

T'was then dads worked every day

To keep their familes well,

While mams cleaned their lives away.

And echoes called across the valley,

Come! Come!

Robust children to the village school

Saw bluebelled fields through child eyes.

To leave all this I'd be a fool.

And echoes called across the valley,

Come! Come!

My home was condemned when I was ten,

No toilet, hot water and wet.

My paradise was too soon to end.

And echoes called across the valley,

Come! Come!

We moved a few miles away,

To a house, not a home.

I used to look back each day,

And echoes called across the valley,

Come! Come!