Dream colours fade to silhouette

and flutter to the safety net;

he mumbles up the morning curses:

God and Psychiatric Nurses!

The voices that debilitate

exhorting him to masturbate;

compliant forms that bend devote

and gently take him by the throat

and suckle at an ample breast -

yet women show no interest,

no fumbles in the dark with frocks:

better off inside a box.

 

Commiserate, console and joke,

the outcome is he wants a smoke.

Some make him wait or make him wash

before he gets his daily dosh:

he may react with fortitude,

more commonly he will be rude.

"It's a barmy house", he mocks,

"I'm better off inside a box!" 

 

A consequence of being ill

(real or not, think what you will)

is treatment with a white tablet -

the more you tell the more you get -

and then another for the shakes,

this one can relieve heartaches.

Cyril takes them all, he's sure

that medicine is the only cure.

Sometimes he seeks to scare us, he

embarks on acts of heresy:

"They do no good these pills I pop,

I hear the voices jeer non-stop.

They say I should be in the stocks

and that I'll end up in a box."

 

Counselling does not persuade -

he will not wear his hearing aid,

but left unto his own devices

Cyril contemplates the choices:

swallow pills and swallow pride

or face up to the world outside.

The world outside is full of knocks -

better off inside a box.