Multiple Personality Disorder a Poem in Dialogue

By Barry Pomeroy

Multiple Personality Disorder is a dialogic poem told entirely in free verse. It consists of six entities. Five of them are portions of the principal personality which have fragmented as a result of duress, a similar causation to that theorists suggest brings about multiple personality disorder.
These six distinct characters are the original self, Bear, who is pulled from one crisis to another by the other personalities and is unsure of his own volition in this estranging world where he meets his fractured selves. The Caveman patiently waits on the hill at the entrance of a cave for a summoning to deal with violent situations. Sun, a dog, represents emotive and visceral living, and therefore has a role in bringing the self back to normalcy. Biss is the friend who has his own fears and stresses about daily life, and Bjorn exists only to cope with the savage loneliness of the self’s life, and as such, wanders throughout time and space, a character of forlorn and savage anger.
Lastly, the Figure is an enigmatic force, as much ghost as the structural underpinnings of the mind itself. Early in the poem it can be seen only on the periphery of vision. Only later do we realize the Figure has its own scarcely understandable agenda, and that the other characters are subject to its cryptic whims. The Figure is the most frightening of the group and its surreptitious manipulation is what drives this narrative of self-exploration and admission of psychological distress.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barry Pomeroy
• Release date: Dec 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311831576

Barry Pomeroy

Barry Pomeroy is a Canadian novelist, short story writer, academic, essayist, travel writer, and editor. He is primarily interested in science fiction, speculative science fiction, dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction, although he has also written travelogues, poetry, book-length academic treatments, and more literary novels. His other interests range from astrophysics to materials science, from child-rearing to construction, from cognitive therapy to paleoanthropology.

Book preview

Multiple Personality Disorder

and its Accompanying Disorders

By

Barry Pomeroy

Multiple Personality Disorder is a dialogic poem told entirely in free verse. It consists of the interactions of six entities. Five of them are portions of the principal personality which have fragmented as a result of duress, such as theorists suggest brings about multiple personality disorder.

These six distinct characters are the original self, Bear, who is pulled from one crisis to another by the other personalities and is unsure of his own volition in this estranging world where he meets his fractured selves. The Caveman waits patiently at the entrance of a cave for a summoning to deal with violent situations. Sun, a dog, represents emotive and visceral living, and therefore has a role in bringing the self back to normalcy. Biss is the friend who has his own fears and stresses about daily life, and Bjorn exists only to cope with the savage loneliness of the self’s life, and as such, wanders throughout time and space, a character of forlorn and savage anger.

Lastly, the Figure is an enigmatic force, as much ghost as the structural underpinnings of the mind itself. Early in the poem it can be seen only on the periphery of vision. Only later do we realize the Figure has its own scarcely understandable agenda and that the other characters are subject to its cryptic whims. The Figure is the most frightening of the group and its surreptitious manipulation is what drives this narrative of self-exploration and admission of psychological distress.

Table of Contents

Multiple Personality Disorder

Transformation

Caveman

Bjorn

Sun

Figure

Biss

APPENDIX

Casting Back

These Images That We Bring Back

I Am Sure

Written With Us In Mind

Multiple Personality Disorder

Bear: I address all of you now,

this strange family

that necessity has created

ripped by will and out of need

half-formed from a past darkness.

Bjorn,

deliberate nemesis and stranger,

that behind his confusion

between the years flashing by

and a vision of distance,

walks a tormented beast,

measures his days as footsteps,

never a word uttered to his face.

Or this half-born creature,

caught in a fixed dream-like stance,

crouching through that long night

and against its aching spine

a shiver of the prairie wind,

listening with animal ears

for footfall or crack of branch.

How many times in dream

and with fearful consequence

has he helped me to send that hatchet

to its frightful rest?

Sun,

that white, wolf dog,

at once murdered and abandoned.

Called back from death

to wander massive and fierce

far below on the plain,

a recognizable print in the snow.

You I have used also,

your even gaze and unshakeable affection

not once turned to mistrust.

I can hear you speaking low amongst yourselves

and with eager mutter

self-transform from awful thought

heinous vision.

Can hear you argue and disagree

in bitter and contemptuous voice,

some harsh, misunderstood message.

I confess that in these open hands

could lie most foul murder,

however justified.

And I admit that it is fear

that dares not send you to your end.

In silence and in awe you sit before this Figure

and from its inarticulate cry

formed by something less than a mouth

you learn some dreadful word or phrase.

And intruding upon this frightful scene

comes this laughing, superstitious soul

that chance and a moment’s negligence

brought into this spectral family.

With broad and general gesture

his single offered greeting

acknowledges the part you have played

in helping to preserve and build

this structure and familiar mind.

It is time now,

with this mixture of fear and self-hatred,

that you my still-born family

must complete this transformation

and help me beat and thrash my way

through this lorn and empty land

that is my home.

Transformation

Bear: Bjorn,

how appreciate these long years

that trail like dust from your footsteps?

How explain that every lonely mile

saved me that weariness?

I fear your sudden understanding and bitterness

at this full or lack of life

you could have led,

not scraped by my caring fretful hand

across a blank unyielding page.

How with choking throat

do I deliver thanks and gratitude

for this part you have carried

and with your great and bitter strength

do still struggle forward through the night?

How will you forgive me

that with fearful nod and glance

I met you

and as you passed

kept silent and to myself

these words that could explain

your life and doom?

How break you from this pattern

of loneliness and dire reflection

as you take more than offered load?

What message have you understood

at the knee of that dreadful mentor,

its open mouth and featureless face

a language you could learn?

How meet you these other members

of this transfixed family,

held by will or incantation,

backs bent to the endless labour that is my life?

What words do you divided souls share in common

that you could comprehend

this Figure’s sound and meaning

and fulfil its hidden prophesy?

And you, Caveman,

after twelve years of crouching there,

with growl and wretched ache of back

do straighten and find your path

down the hillside to the plain.

And in the dull wind of dawn

gather stick and herb

and build in your violent way some structure.

Your deep and constant mutter

a message

as clear as caught in stone

of the coming of this company.

What gift can I give in thanks for this way

that you have waited on the cliff

for my call or frightened stance

to send you hurtling through the years

to do eager and bloody battle on my behalf?

What can be offered in recompense

for this way I’ve used your strength

so I could stumble through my life

heedless of this consequence?

How repay you for this fire

you have kept forever burning

so that when I come wandering wounded

through the dusk to that warmth

we may talk of conflicts won and lost

while you, with tongue and stick

clean the poison from a gash?

What constant shift of thought

reflects and plays within that mind

and do you sometimes wonder

what drives your hand to its bloody work?

Wonder why all you have loved and known

have come and gone

with you entranced by my distant scream?

I have sent to you

a family for this life that you have lost,

such a family never gathered in your time or mine.

A great wolfen creature

that even now does bay upon your trail,

that scents in the night wind

your lack of voice.

And Bjorn comes also to this meeting,

a distant shadow drawn to your fire

in need of healing,

for I have harmed him deeply,

sent him cursing and lonely through the world.

Sun,

what can I tell of you

who leaping high from rock to rock

in the end out-distanced us all?

And with your cheerful grin

did wreak most murderous vengeance.

Turning sudden and with trepidation,

I have seen from far away your eyes watching,

your clear and empathetic glance,

sympathy and support.

You are the only one in this casual grouping

that life did not deform and contort

until your sudden and suffering end

and final murder.

And from that land

that you alone have travelled,

what news do you bring us,

some paraphrase or rhyme

you have heard spoken by that beast

that I next confine and describe?

I can see you even now

your blank and empty face