A Poetical Interlude in the continuing Campaign Against Psychopathy

A Poetical Interlude in the continuing Campaign Against Psychopathy 

My poetry is at Shards of Verse  

This morning it occurred to me to grub through my poetry online because I vaguely remembered writing some poems, included in my poetic journalings, about Morgan and Craig before, during, and after realizing there was something terribly wrong with them and then learning about psychopathy, that light bulb moment.  

Now, I think of them as M, Psychopath and C, Psychopath, but this took a lot of recovery for me.   

This photo first dates from when M, Psychopath was still an adorable small child.  It just melted my heart every time I looked at her shiny face. 

 Reading it makes me realize how vulnerable people who love are to these heartless predators.We ignore the evidence of our own eyes.  Love can, truly, make you blind. 

I started writing poetry as a journal in early 1999. The first series of 127 poems, First Lilac Series - written for Dearest Pleasure, was written, in chronological order, from January 18 - April 6, 1999. 

Poems written before then come in two categories. BC (Before Computer) and AC (After Computer. Those written before I had a computer for my own use, not mostly used for generating mailing lists for political campaigns, begin in 1986. Those written before 1986 were generally found on the margins of other writing and on loose pieces of paper in storage. I was not good at keeping them, as the other side was generally useful as a grocery list.

After finishing my first series, Lilac, I just journaled them and cut off at 127, a prime number which has other significance to me.  Lilac was 127 poems in length, so that became my standard.  Lilac Series was followed by First Jasmine Series and First Violet Series.  I'm now working on First Rose Series.  These are in chronological order.

These few poems,  all written for or 'inspired by' M, Psychopath or Craig, Psychopath are also in chronological order.  The first dates from 1972.  Morgan changed her name from Carolyn when she was in her late teens and was born in 1967.  So when I wrote this she was around five years old.   

From: Before the Fall

32.  To My Daughter, Carolyn

I love you.

There is no range or boundary to my cherishing.

I love you now, as I did before - and as I will.

Time out of mind

On and never varying.

(1972)  

I read it to her once when she was grown.  There was a long pause after I finished and then she said, "That was stupid."  It was a long time before I read her another poem.

From: Before the Fall 

The year was  1982.  I was attending a party at Janice Vargo's house.  Janice is an old friend of mine from my active Libertarian days.     

 Craig was there and challenged me to Sonnets at Five Minutes in Celebration of the Statue of Liberty.   I shrugged.  "O.K., get the paper and pens."  No computers were present, this was the Dark Ages.  I started writing.  I wrote my first sonnet when I was eight and it became a habit.  

30.  My Lady Love

She waits beside a vast expanse of water

Her hand holds up the light of living day

And never will the justice in Her falter

And never will Her seekers lose their way

For justice is not made in court opinions

And truth is not defended at the polls

As into living rock we drive the pinions

That hold the deathless thoughts that are our goals

Does Justice need the heart of Her defender?

Will Her loving message echo into time?

Will our children's children yet remember

That those who cherish liberty are one kind

Liberty cannot be won - and never lost

Remember what it is and not the cost.

(Written in challenge to a duel of sonnets with Craig Franklin, 1982) 

31. A Sonnet Written in Challenge

She stands beside a darkened mass of sorrow

A distant hope of freedom in our lives

A hope that may be realized tomorrow

If we can only pledge ourselves to strive

That promise has been built into our futures

And forged in blood before our mother's birth

In knowledge that the cost can not be counted

Except by minds that understand it's worth

So watch the Lady with her lamp upholding

Salute her in your mind, if nothing else

For her pledge of hope is given us for molding

And each of us must do it for ourselves

The Lady is a promise we have made

And freedom is the value we must save.

(Written in challenge to a duel of sonnets with Craig Franklin, 1982) 

[C, Psychopath lost.  I wrote two in that time but did not mention it then because I did not want to hurt his feelings. He could not finish one and we agreed to extend time.  

But now I know he doesn't have any feelings which needed to be considered.  Being considerate of a psychopath is the equivalent of a fish jumping from the stream into the pan, with the fire blazing and a slice of lemon clutched in his fin. 

 C. Psychopath once told me he has to use his entire left brain to simulate human behavior. I should have started doing research right then, but we were already married.  He made the remark in 1995, far too late.  

While I certainly wish I had been less vulnerable the cost paid has motivated me to ensure others know the dangers of the psychopathic among us so they can protect themselves.

By the point, below, 1998, I had realized something was really rotten in Denmark but did not yet understand the neurological basis of the problem. This dates from the time, mid summer, after I had brought Arthur home from the Traumatic Brain Injury facility in Pomona.  From there, Arthur started at Solutions.  

Craig wanted Arthur dead because it would cost him less.  Morgan tried to oblige Craig, but failed.  That is a story for another day. 

The stages of grief are: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. I was still in denial and anger, lots of anger.  It was interesting to review the poems as see these reflected.

53. Dedicated to Craig Franklin and Morgan Pillsbury

- Two unsouled beings trapped in Self

I have been ground and milled out fine

For the least of my unmentioned crimes

For I refused to see the truth

And this crime stole all of my youth

I’ve been smashed and ripped apart

The substance fractured in my heart

Because I would not see the light

My soul was banished into night

I have lost all I worked to make

And ventured for my children’s sake

Punished for what I would not see

The ugliness engulfing me.

I found a home in his embrace

A sheltered place of measured grace

He battered my illusions then

He I thought an honorable man.

With nothing left inside of me

Empty, echoed, ravished, grieved

I stood up on my feet again

Felt life’s breath and said, amen.

From Jasmine Series

4.Fear and Pain that Still Detain

(Dedicated with complete sincerity to 

Allen Craig Franklin, 

my husband and abuser)  

Battered hopes and shattered truth

Begun with trust removed with lies

This the wretchedness of my youth

Distorts my life, unmakes, denies

Abused, a word that understates

The harshness of the world it makes 

Abused in mind, in body bashed

reproved by love that kills- but lasts

He came with smiles, seduced with faith

designed the ugliness of fear

An interdiction for all belief

that shackled self when he was near

Abused.  

Used, rejected, scorned, detained

denied the scope that life retains

Needed, sold to use again

a life that grows more ever grim

Abused. 

Battering on body, mind,

that fractures thought, my will and signs

Remakes the person who was me

into something that I hate to see

Abused.  

If you have not walked and known,

not tasted fear and so been owned

You do know where I have been

a place that holds no hopes or friends.  

You have not lost the inner scope

that held your course and gave you hope

You have not lived and breathed and died

in soul belief he would not lie.  

Abused and Freed

When grief is wrung, despised and gone

while still the spirit listens, longs

To hear the echoes that belong

to the voice that held that song.  

When I learned to see anew

that life could be again renewed

And shackles that had owned my bones

were broken by the life I'd grown. 

My breath was eased, in body, mind

The walls were breached, dissolved in time.  

I tasted, relished, lived and laughed

Freed of what distorted and grasped.  

Freed 

Manumission of emotion 

that can never compromise

The transmission which, evoking, 

fractured self to make me wise.  

54.Letting Go Illusions - To Craig Franklin

The tendriled tug of memories reproves my reasoned thought

Sharp and sweet that idylled time, devoid of all but drought

Sanctuaried, love made place

Where I have lingered in embrace

With that one imperfect, personed soul

Who spun out love in raptured flows

Of song borne thought entrancing, glad

Reminding, lighting, the life I had.  

Illusioned figment of my mind

Where only grief and sorrows bind

The soul seared silence that you left

Leaving me consumed, bereft.  

This, the logic of your acts

Stark and violent, ugly facts.

This the unmade years I'd given

Disposed and sneered, my heart so riven.  

That even logic turns away

When so little remains to do and say.  

My hand, that still, still longs to touch

Mind reproved, it winced but trusts

Because love filled, consumed, forgave

Till nothing there was left to save.  

Addicted to the thought of you

Now realized: who I never knew.  

So mind - release your argued wish

Logic, reason, delve and sheer

Revoke the memoried source, dismiss

The undone presence once most dear

Remove the Craig who was my heart

That I might breathe, live on, restart

The life I forged from living will

that pain in me be stilled, be stilled.  

72.Toxic Mind - Dedicated to Craig Franklin

Toxic mind with muted scope

consuming, clawing, gravid needs

Poison drips, extrudes and seeks

to satiate its unmet greeds

Toxic.

Blandished words that supplicate

Distorted images that incite

This, the fabric of the soul

This, that mind's most needed goal.  

Toxic. 

Manipulating all that's true

into what he wants to do.  

Fractured visions that can kill

when innocence believes them real.  

Toxic.  

No honored word alive in fact

No civil content to his acts.

No worth from life to live in time

No soul redeemed from all its crimes.  

Toxic.  

Post the warning for all to read

Do not let this monster feed.  

Of course, I kept forgiving M, Psychopath because the entire focus of my life was my children and their well being. Hope springs eternal, in the breast maternal. I studied psychopathy for over two years before the penny dropped and I realized M was one. Oops. Such a moment replays itself for quite a while, I found.

But it did explain the many things which had always puzzled me. Now, everything makes sense! 

The poem below was a wedding gift to M. M married Jay E. Gell on Valentine's Day, 2005 at the court house in Charlotte, North Carolina. The baby was born around four months later, on June 21st.  Afterward, Jay's erstwhile employer/co-conspirator, Robert Evan (Van) Hughes, took them out to a coffee shop. Then they returned to their trailer.

M, Psychopath does not appreciate poetry. C, Psychopath writes, but his psychopathy makes really good poetry impossible for him, those pesky emotions are just too hard to emulate in verse. It is slightly better set to music, especially if someone else edits it, plays, and sings.

From: First Violet Series

No. 122 Wedding Wish – Valentine’s Day 2005

Bouquets of bright flowers, 

  seasons of joy, 

all the gladness and sadness 

  that life will deploy. 

Rapture and riches, 

  magnificent days, 

all of the echoes 

  that love can display.

Borne by the senses 

  and held in our minds 

as part of the largest and greatest design. 

Wishes I send through the ethered reaches of space 

  too touch and to hold you in my best embrace. 

With love and hope for your perfect happiness today, Mom.

It really is good she married Jay. When you really know them they are perfect for each other.

No. 68 – Truth that Heals 

​

As coiled time unravels and the mind forgets to hope

The child within, embattled, can find enlarging scope.

Travails and anguish hone us, as comforts fails to do

Fined down to new awareness, we live out what is true.

​

Iconic forms and patterns, forged from time - encapsulated meme 

Is also the long story which humanity must dream 

​

The moments so remembered, bringing insight and delight

Carrying in their fabric a baptism of the Light. 

​

In forms and fact embellished, as legend and as truth 

This, the lineage written, on both our age and youth. 

​

Meeting in the matrix, where nothing's as it seems 

Lessons, half remembered, hold the power to redeem.