Bruce Majors

DEPRESSION

Awakened from bad dreams,
climbing up from sweaty sleep,
suspended between one ailment or another
and this longing to be someone else.
Transient, complex morning dilemmas.
Misunderstandings.
And my alcoholic monkey
tied up in blue, tethered by a lunatic––
all these anxieties,
shadow bags dragged
all day long.                            The moon hides blue,
                                              stiffens darkness.
                                              Cracks in the floor broaden,
                                              water pipes rattle somewhere below.
                                              Many days spent crawling
                                              through the subterranean light
                                              of my room.

Bruce Majors grew up in East Tennessee, graduated from Tennessee Technological University, and retired from the Tennessee Valley Authority. He has published poems in Arts and Letters, Pinesong, The Distillery, River Poets Journal, Number One, and other literary journals. My collection, The Fields of Owl Roost, was named first finalist in the 2005 Indie Excellence Book Awards.