Beyond Bedlam poetry of the mind

TODAY
By Angela. S. Hart


Today I put coffee powder in the washing-machine
Married the goldfish
Borrowed a fiver off my teddy-bear,
And spoke to my friend Alex on the telephone.


REACTIVE DEPRESSION
By Mary O'Dwyler


The World is crying
Sobbed a broken umbrella,
Under the weather.

From
Beyond Bedlam
Poems written out of mental distress

A collection of poetry to mark the 750th anniversary
of the founding of the Royal Bethlem Hospital (the "original"
Bedlam), Europe's oldest mental health institution, to raise money
and to promote a more positive, informed and compassionate understanding
of mental illness.


Edited by Ken Smith & Matthew Sweeney / Anvil

Tribute to Anita Berber

Anita Berber was a dancer in Berlin in the 1920s. She claimed fame and notoriety with her dances like Cocaine, Morphine, Suicide or Astarte, that she performed together with her partner Sebastian Droste. Painter Otto Dix created the famous image of Berber in her red tight "Morphine" dance costume. Through her daring and innovative style she became a pioneer of the so-called Ausdruckstanz (expression dance). Anita Berber died before her 30th birthday in Berlin (1928).






Photos: © Sandra Pfeifer / www.raw-art.net 2007 Paris


MORPHINE danced by Anita Berber MUSIC by Spoliansky


A crystal- piercing cry A delicate sound
And singing Poems by Verlaine
Venice and the gondolas
Srabaya And Java
Strange flowers And greenhouse plants
Painted people And listless sounding bells
So far So distant Merging...Breathing...
An old baroque chair ...Hands
They fold And stretch
Black Velvet soft panthers
And it smiles Like sphinxes
It is a painting
And the deadly yellow-green poison covers everyting
Yet her cry pierces
And the sound clinks and rattles
A baroque chair with hands

THE SEVEN ADDICTIONS AND FIVE PROFESSIONS
OF ANITA BERBER
Weimar Berlin's Priestess of Depravity
Mel Gordon / A Feral House Book






Photos: © Sandra Pfeifer / www.raw-art.net 2007 Paris