Iris Woodford
When it was called a Loony Bin
People going for ECT knew they’d be gagged
to save their tongues. They’d come back dazed,
emptied, but clear, glass-clear, inside.
“You watch a daisy,” one said – a kind of wonder
beating wings at the back of her voice – “First time ever –
watch one, watch one grow!” They came and went.
People on insulin treatment shuffled off early together,
still in their night clothes and slippers, seeking
a different shock, a new acquaintance with hunger.
They came back to tuck into bacon, eggs, soup-plates
of thick porridge, and burnt toast, glad to get it.
No one was typical. Most of us, watching them go, felt
thankful we weren’t on anything more than ‘tablets’.
But now dreams lengthen that polished corridor, long
as with mirrors reflecting each other down its length. And a tablet,
large as a child’s skull, slides along – weighty and smooth,
losing no momentum, with never a ricochet.
Page(s) 55
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The