Lament

By Briony Bax

Briony Bax leads the reader through the brutal world of mental illness and specifically an account of an individual's journey with schizophrenia. A world where sections, court rooms, locked wards, tribunals, and assessment centres form the backdrop of the daily living of sufferers and caregivers. Through honesty and testimony, it shines a light on the disastrous effects of government austerity measures on the mentally ill.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rough Trade Books
• Release date: Nov 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9781912722839

Briony Bax

BRIONY BAX is a poet and editor. She’s edited Ambit Magazine since 2013 and her poems have appeared in Ambit, Meat, Herrings Anthology and New River Press Anthology. She is the poetry editor for The New European. As a social advocate she’s the Founder of The Orphan Support League in the USA and has volunteered at the Saidia Children’s Home in Gilgil, Kenya for the last 12 years. She sits on the Board of Trustees for Theatre Ad Infinitum, Saidia Children’s Charity, The Wells Maltings Trust and serves as a local councilor in Brancaster Staithe, Norfolk.

Book preview

World War III

One minute you were dancing

then standing in court

with your hands trembling

babbling to the judge about how you joined the SAS.

You took one too many chances.

Your deck of cards collapsed at 21.

No vingt-e-un as you were dealt your hand.

Your pocket ace was only a two.

You lay in the single bed.

Helpless and curled, weeping,

hair matted like a lost puppy,

hands clamped over your ears to stop the voices.

You never thought you’d be hunted.

Stalking the hallways with a kitchen knife,

your dark eyes darting in the forest

of headlights that dash through the front window.

You never felt you were safe.

Listening devices were buried in the chimney stack.

Signals from Radio 4 about the destruction of the world.

Your Jesus hair smelt of roll ups.