I recently started a group on HypnoThoughts dedicated to discussing hypnosis and poetry, and wouldn’t you know it but the topic has been coming up more often in other discussion threads there now. Kinda.

As an example, there’s a thread discussing and debating the desirability of making people fanatics about the changes they’ve made through hypnosis, with a lot of people cautioning against it because of the negative connotations of the word. And that’s a valid point. However, hypnosis is partly about reframing. Changing “My husband snores and it bothers me” to “My husband snores and I feel good because I know he’s there, alive and with me,” for example. 

That reminded me of a poem I wrote a few years ago for a poetry challenge at Wild Poetry Forum. The challenge was to write a poem in praise of something society viewed as evil or undesirable. We had a specific model to follow (a poem someone else had written doing exactly that). Here’s the poem I wrote (after the break):

For the Psychopaths

I want to sing
a paean of praise for
the psychopaths, those

who blaze their own trails
through the darkest night;
without a single guide, they

hack through the chaff
of others’ inhibitions
and find their own

morality. They are not
afraid of ridicule, of
setbacks or laws; no,

they scoff at such
inconsequential things.
To them, I would say:

The world is dark,
the world is dark and
we cannot find our way

without blazing trails and
cutting the deadwood from
the path. The world is dark

and we must be tigers, burning
bright in the forest of night;
we must burn bright.

We must have confidence.
We must learn to have faith
in our ability to find the way,

to stand on our convictions
and fight against oppression
despite what stands in our way.

© copyright 2005, Joshua Johnston

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