3 poems by Jasper Glen

Shell

Outside the motor field: sallow colour
And greasiness of the skin.
Dead earth through pavement
A gas station becoming prairie again.
Left instructions: cash price 1
All American dollar echoing
Of the face; rouge and mottled
Low pulse rate, shallow pressure.
The long shutting-off,
Emotionally cool outlook 
Tower, and dark hills talk
A broadcast of dead radios.
Fixed ideas; states of violent
Excitement, the artists’ flow
Wrought by process. 





Clouding of Consciousness

Called on to respond to a complex 
Situation, the patient is likely to be 
Slow, show perseveration in thought
And speech. Judgements, also, 
Will be less balanced and less adequate. 
There’ll be an equal difficulty in mobilizing
The memory store; in all states of
Clouding, select the mode of
Figure-formation. A state
Of reduced wakefulness. 
This is the cardinal symptom.
Conrad likens the patient’s state
To a theatrical or film performance. 
All thresholds are lowered. 
The figure-background is blurred. 
The patient loses their freedom,
Becomes a passive victim of forces. 





Water Depletion

Water depletion in shipwrecked 
Sailors, and in men lost in the desert
Leads to hallucinations and other
Delirious features- ‘Serious 
People become sombre, others
Exhibit a hollow vivacity’ (Black et al). 
Kant gave 100 such patients
Sodium amytal, to access their
Mental states, he found many
Completely disorganized, 
Others empty of content
Like ‘On a whitewashed
Wall there is movement
Of grey and white lines
At different levels, a
Latticework, moving
From left to right while
Movement continues,
A picture forms. One of
The larger shady spots 
Becomes a house, like
A castle, with windows.
An entrance, a drive
From the gate, a pond
In front, the castle being
Mirrored in the water. 

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Jasper Glen is from Vancouver, Canada. He holds a BA in Philosophy and a JD. His poems appear or are forthcoming in A Gathering of the Tribes, Amsterdam Quarterly, Apricity Magazine, BlazeVOX, Cathexis Northwest Press, fauxmoir, NiftyLit, Phantom Kangaroo, Posit, Sein und Werden, Streetlight Magazine, Tofu Ink Arts Press, and other journals.

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