The Art of Losing Your Mind © 2015
Walk in the silent darkness
Where internal voices encapsulate and surround us
Where lives fragment, shapes waver, and worlds fall away
We go to a place where others cant follow…
When you lose your mind – where is it to be found?
When life has been dismantled, you find yourself broken and lost –
To inhabit that desolate place, one of all-out self-loss –
An experience that’s all around us, ONE amongst us and inside us…
To be stuck in a loop of distress
A living nightmare, when one is awake and yet buried
There is so much loss, so much sorrow
An existential scariness, an infinite strangeness –
both harrowing and touching…
These attempts to endure the storm… describe an internal experience –
A literal translation of the psychological, where your identity disappears
Just like ice melting away, into an increasingly shadowy interior
Language slips, words don’t fit
Here, there – a face with no name
A tragic loss, a looming fog… are all that remain
But then – an alluring thought!
The movement in the darkness
has a trigger, has a spark…
Damage can offer enlightenment
A profound loss – a consolation
Mad people can see the world in ways that the sane are blind to
ILLUMINATING…
The human condition
Sliding away from the buzz that enraptured,
where shapes wavered and boundaries ruptured –
a former drama made up of fragments,
One now joins together
No longer a clown in the circus,
one is now the ceremonial conductor
No longer dancing to a different tune or
of a disease that insidiously infiltrated these pages
Bit by bit, the mist obscuring the landscape now filters
A knowledge of losing yourself falls away – crucially
at the brink, at the edge of darkness
The burst of lucidity is like a sharp flash of lightning… it
SPARKS!… CHAOS into words –
former boundaries tell stories and impose a narrative
Time no longer slips away, like a
cancerous cell – dividing and mutating
INSTEAD it forms a story –
Beautiful, inspiring, exhilaratingly heart – breaking…
As in the first – a recognisable expression
One now SPEAKS with one’s own words
Former perspectives – move quickly to flatten
Now no sense is lost – the face, the self, no longer recedes –
No longer is gone… to a shadow –
No longer a struggle to make a meaning – one of any value
Out of the anguish, the decaying body and membrane –
from the convolutions of the brain…
the searing heat and the pounding rain…
Conspire with the light and oceans’ high tide –
Out in the garden flowers begin to bloom…
the empty space once on the page –
No longer filled with absence
Its no longer filled with
silence.
Although being a writer all his life, Richard C. Bower only went public with his writing as recently as 12 months ago, and since then has become recognised as a talented writer and poet. In this short time he has performed his poetry across the UK – including a number of festivals, appeared on London radio, had a short story considered for broadcast by BBC Radio 4, and has performed alongside such musical artists including The Specials, James, Roots Manuva, Ferocious Dog, Bananarama, The Twang and Eddie Reader et al.
In these past 12 months, Richard has been recognised and acknowledged by Nottinghamshire County Council as one of the area’s most prominent writers and poets, culminating in him appearing at a number of Nottinghamshire County Council events over the summer of 2015.
Also, within this short space of time, Richard has been approached by Lucy May who has her own Lingerie Brand, to create written pieces of ‘copy’ (erotic infused exclusive poetry, to give an insight into Lucy May’s world..!) that will accompany the imminent launch of Lucy May’s brand, and very first range of lingerie. Watch this space!
In 2016 Richard won a competition to have one of his poems published in a mental health collection called Madder Than We Look. In a separate project his work will also be included alongside that of Roger McGough, Jake Bugg and John Hegley for a ‘Poetry in Nottingham Art Installation’ later this year.
Richard continues to perform and can be caught at events, amongst others, promoted by the DIY Poets, and I’m Not from London (Nottingham) and Rite Trax (Sheffield).
Richard can be found on Facebook.
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