Patient S.F.

In Hampstead, London, a solemn man sits
with his hands tucked into the folds of his vest.
A heaviness of expectation rests upon him,
bowing his shoulders and straining his legs,
legs which were never quite freed from stone.

A square dais holds him up to the world.
It has seen the comings and goings of time,
the ebb and flow of high Freudian thought.
Still it stands, scarred by the claws of wild things,
a crumbling throne for a forgotten king.

The letters of his name are stamped stolidly
onto the rusting, tarnished marble,
the FREUD overshadowing the sigmund,
the myth overtaking the man.
A man who saw humanity for what it was:
a pitiful, hungry creature in search of the
unattainable, stifling its own screams
after catching a glimpse of paradise lost.

“You promised me then not to forsake me
when my time comes. Now it is nothing
but torture and makes no sense anymore.”

Freud, in death, found a treatment
far surpassing any he could devise.