20150630 (OCD)

Russian psychologist Bluma Wulfovna Zeigarnik (1901-1988)

It ain’t easy being me

Not with this self-imposed rule

Of writing every day. Not that I 

Can’t fill a page with gibberish

I’m sure readers think I’ve already

Shown that many times over

It’s the contention that I can say 

Something meaningful wise clever

Like a dog with new tricks

An inexhaustible font of sparkle

Prideful the good sisters would decry

This need to show off Ahh Bushwa

Get off my ass you second-raters

Who’d tie my hands rather than

Applaud my trying or maybe it’s just

Bluma Wulfovna Zeigarnik again

Showing her hand as she so often has

Since I first learned of the mysterious 

And daunting Zeigarnik Effect 

Subjects were given a wide range of tasks

Some they completed and randomly 

Some were stopped before they could finish 

Tested later about the work

They better remembered 

The incomplete ones than those they completed 

No matter which tasks they were

Bluma is that why I can’t forget the boat I couldn’t make

Or why Helen Mary who refused every plea

Will linger until my memory dies

Why the sting of coming in second remains

When the exhilaration of every first 

Has long been forgotten

At least we’re not conscienceless psychopaths

Who swing willy-nilly from this to that

Piling up waste as their predilections

Waver meaninglessly

No we O-C-D-ers must count to eight

Must first go back to the dead ones 

And seek expiation which never can come

It’s as if every day we still bear the burdens

Of the weeks of the yesterday’s yesterday

As far back as it goes

No wonder we tire before we set out

With half our minds roped to old boulders

Good old Bluma you never caned

Those who didn’t finish so why

Don’t our internal apparatchiks 

Just stamp our papers and let us go on

I know I’m missing 6-14-28

And that’s just for June

Forgive me cruel mistress 

Bluma Wulfovna Zeigarnik

I honestly wish we’d never met

c. J.S.Manista, 2015