POETRY  -  
​     WITH THE THEME OF WORK    

If you ask them what they want most    -    photo by Weebly.com                                    

Day Job
by Steve Surryhne

1.  Hard Work

​​If you ask them,
the chronically mentally ill,
what they want most—it is
to be able to work, to hold
a job, to get off SSI, to be useful.
 
Virginia Woolf hated her manic episodes
because they interfered with her writing.
Likewise, Van Gogh despaired most
when his bouts of depression
prevented him from painting.
 
Their illnesses were not the sources
of their creativity, but obstacles  
to their ability to work,
artists being workers above all,
and art being hard work.

​2.   The Extra

​J.B., a throwback to the sixties,
in granny glasses, long unkempt hair,
resembling, somewhat, John Lennon,
a schizophrenic, for whom
the clinic is an island of stability,
a sanctuary and a community.
 
Today he plans to apply on the set
of a movie being made in the city
for a job as an extra, but he's anxious
​that he doesn't have proper clothes,
 
a suit and a tie, and maybe he should
cut his hair? Look, I tell him,
just go as you are, you're
what they're looking for,
 
local color, you're perfect
just as you are, and they're going
to want you in the movie! Forget
the haircut and the suit.
 
Of course, he got the job,
J.B. was perfect just as he was.

3.  Tenderloin Clinic Outreach Team

On an outreach to an SRO hotel,
the manager having notified us,
a client is having a hard time
and is barricaded in his room.
 
The residents gather in the lobby,
we can feel the heavy vibe,
we're getting hostile looks, 
I hear some saying: “Cops,
they cops? plain clothes?”
 
Then the word goes around:
“No, mental health, not the police,
they're mental health.” And the air
is cleared of tension, the vibe disperses.
 
They know the troubled person
will go to the clinic with us,
maybe to the hospital, but not to jail.
 
In that moment I knew
this was my work, to serve
this community, to make
a difference and have it recognized--
 
to be useful.

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​Steve Surryhne was an Associate Lecturer in English Literature at San Francisco State University from 1993-2012. He is currently semi-retired and has recently returned to writing poetry. A native of San Francisco, he was a baby-beat in the sixties, knew some of the beat poets and is now a neo-beat. In his alternate career, he worked in Community Mental Health in San Francisco from 1979-2012. He took first place in the Jack Kerouac Poetry contest in 2015 and has published in The Blue Moon Review and Interpretations. He is currently working on a project with a photographer friend on poem-texts and photos. 
​

Other Works in this Issue: 
Poetry:
If a Body Catch a Body

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