some times i remember too much ...c'est vrai.

Chuck...you're so brilliant...xox

Perhaps historic preservation is too good for this place?

I think I remember reading about that place. Nice job on the poem!

OOooooo. Scary!
I know Haldol all too well. Killed two good friends of mine. slowly.

I hate when my only response is "wow." But there it is. Wow. Incredible writing. ~r

I hope thy don't try to find me a room there

Haunting, Chuck. Sometimes the ghosts do stir.
♥R

The haldol (or thorazine, etc.) shuffle.
Sorry you have this in your memories Chuck.
The place needs a bulldozer..

"some patients, some staff"

I hear that. I suppose it's not possible to do what you did and not get scarred by it. A noble pursuit, all the same.

I've been researching old mental hospitals for my Memoir (yea, I know) and this was on point. I especially liked "some patients, some staff all of us in checkmate" Like when the inmates are running the asylum. This was great Chuck.

Memory can be a difficult mistress.

No doubt that place houses many ghosts. It is spooky looking and ominous. If this place housed you once long ago, it does not hold title to your incredible energy and presence here. The past is the past.

These images, from your words...wow.

and a Molotov cocktail to go ...

This was excellent Chuck, my favourite of yours so far.

Psst. You can tell who the staff is, they have keys. Good post.

Well done. I worked briefly in a VA psych unit and recognize this.

that chilled my psyche!

Nicely crafted -- you are very vivid, yet never lose control of your descriptive narrative (not always an easy thing to pull-off).

I spent many years managing an agency that provided therapeutic community based care for substance abusers but right from the get-go I always recognized that I was running a cut rate non-union state hospital for the self-medicating but I thought it was better than leaving them on the streets or in stir. Was I right about that? I'll never know.

Really great poem, Chuck. I'm glad you're back and I wish you would post more often.

Brilliant write and I wholeheartedly disagree with those who say it should be gone. I love these old buildings... the memories remain anyway, and they serve as proof it happened. A reminder of our desire to warehouse what we dont want to see or deal with. These lines are outstanding...
"I close my eyes and remember doing time on One West,
navigating the chessboard floors with the bipolars,
schizophrenics, paranoids, cutters, perverts and isolators —
some patients, some staff, all of us in checkmate. "

Very scary, these memories, very well visualized and expressed. Hope I never find myself in this hotel...

but we can try to fight where our mind goes, we are not helpless

personally, I found that I would remember even minor mistakes forever, and still feel shame when recalling them; someone said, the past is over--it does not affect me anymore--
I thought, I am going to declare myself free from my past--it doesn't reflect me anymore It no longer has anything to do with me

you've written about this time in your life before and I always am very intrigued by it...would like to hear more - your ending was stellar.

Chuck your memories of the "H" Hotel should be turned into a book, a best seller. Excellent post!

Programmed to receive, eh? If you haven't read Shutter Islandyet, Chuck, I would suggest putting it off until a very warm and sunny day. This has..brrrrrrrr...atmosphere.

Somewhere I read
watch cap weather
daylight savings time
again next week
dignity, discipline
love, justice

Hauntingly beautiful...a difficult impression to bring to such a topic. Just totally lovely writing! R ~Marissa