20150703 (identification)

Cleveland State Hospital on Turney Road near Broadway and Miles

His shortened pant leg exaggerated

His staggering step as we drew nearer 

I could see his unshaved face 

Set in a hostile stare straight ahead

I offered Good Morning he stopped

Dead in his tracks without answering

Over my shoulder I saw him resume 

Soundless once my dog passed him by

Unkempt bedraggled not stoned or drunk

He looked half my age

With an extra ten years for his troubles

Drug addiction drink mental impairment 

Sometimes nowadays losing a job

A catastrophic upheaval one year later 

You’re a permanent mess

Maybe the leg thing was part of the story

Some accident birth defect possibly

Always kept him behind 

In adulthood it finished him off

I don’t remember how it was that I visited

Cleveland State Hospital 

Turney Tech it was casually called

Sprawling mid-Victorian campus

Whose huge dark red stone tower 

Could be seen from its twin 

The Garfield monument miles to the north

Founded the Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum

In the ‘thirties and ‘forties it was our Bedlam

Rife with horrific negligence abuse

Mismanagement only somewhat

Relieved during World War Two

When conscientious objectors

Mennonites in the main 

Were assigned there as aides 

I don’t recall fences photographs

Reveal park like grounds where perhaps

The doors were always locked

Looked like a school served as a prison

It was not discussed in polite conversation

No one spoke of visiting and the mere mention

Sent a visible chill through the faces of listeners

Closed in ’75 razed in the ‘nineties 

Today it’s home to new ticky-tacky 

Hardly less scary than the buildings before

A lot of the inmates returned

To their families homes managed

With newer meds home care

Supportive short term stays

At the hospitals remaining

And the rest went to prison

So this guy this morning is doing well 

For his case and out on a walk

An escapee who needs to return

Somebody just a bit off his meds

Like so many others wandering about

We have several care locations nearby

He is totally harmless if a bit off-putting

To soccer moms and ladies who lunch

The psychiatric cases who terrify me

Are the ones in the senate the house

On TV fomenting absolute madness

More wars intervention whose words

Spawn more heartache slaughter

Bloodshed and sorrow

Than these poor beaten souls

Who only grumble and wobble

c. J.S.Manista, 2015