Ward Stories - Winter 2013

A column organized by Dan Frey, Interim Poetry Editor

This edition of Ward Stories features poetry from a couple of sources. We feature Claudia Krizay, who sent us a number of poems and images of her art via email. We include her potent poem on the experience of the ECT (electro-convulsive therapy) patient with an image of her art titled “Scared.” We also include an untitled piece by Stefanie Tomasello, an adventure in visual art that will make you want to take up the craft yourself. You can read Stefanie’s personal story in this edition.

ECT

By Claudia Krizay

In this moment I feel as if I am falling,

Into a prison from nowhere,

I see my shadow arabesque as

I watch my reflection appear

In a river of never abating madness

Hiding from all that is real,

Moments have passed since I lay upon

A cold metal table,

Drifting off to sleep, and

Upon awakening

I remember nothing, except for

The sensation of falling

From nowhere into nothingness

As I watch the sun rising,

Outside of a picture window,

I find myself alive in some different place in time.

I feel my heart pounding

As if it were trying to escape

From a prison of iron bars inside of my chest, as

My brain spins about

As if it were riding a horse on a merry-go-round,

It’s motor somehow

Rapidly accelerating

As that horse bobs up and down

Exacerbating my fear

I hear myself screaming

In the midst of deadly silence

The sun has now risen high over the mountains outside.

Within my utmost fantasies,

I am climbing my own mountain,

Hoping to reach the sky although

I cannot escape that merry-go-round of terror

Except that I know now

I cannot hide from all that is real,

I shall never touch the sky and as

I find myself falling off of this make believe mountain

I can see my shadow more clearly and

As I fall into a river of my fantasies,

I swim to the bank of this river from nowhere,

Leaving the madness behind

Untitled

By Stefanie Tomasello

She layered her soul, ultimately not knowing who she was

She clings to strength, ultimately surprised by her words and cause.

She looked with her eyes,

Kindly imaginative and vital for her confidence,

She’s always questioning her riveting life dance.

She charcoaled her way back to her soul, in a place as sour as a persevered, odd trance.

She continued to electrically get everything off her chest and stood for something more than what she knew. Colored her way through life with a colored pencil or two;

Sharpened shavings piled up, She digs deep to have the charcoaled black scent imbedded on her hands. Hoping the left-over color will seep through the pages of her mind on pads. She thickens the movement of her pencil through the gliding of her positioned fingertips; reserved only for the tearful, colorful misfits sips, always teaching herself never to ignore the extraordinary use of playful sharpened tips, almost like a whip of courage from the inner strength of her plentiful spirits kept down below in her soul slowly embracing life as a departure for a new world as a new cherished and vagrant whole.