Biography

Gráinne Quick Humphrys was featured in the RTE two-part documentary ‘Behind the Walls’ by the late acclaimed investigative journalist Mary Raftery. In part two of the documentary she told the story of her son’s father’s 5 year incarceration in a maximum security forensic psychiatric unit in Cork city, Ireland. She has also campaigned for more humane responses to emotional distress.

Gráinne is a writer and singer songwriter. She has 1 daughter and 1 son. She lives in West Cork, Ireland. She has a degree in Theatre from Dartington College of Arts. She is interested in literary fiction and non fiction, poetry, music, dance, art, film, fashion, vintage dresses, photography, philosophy, family systems therapy, alternative health, yoga, traditional Chinese medicine, travel, comedy, home décor, cooking, spirituality, nature, the supernatural and Jungian psychology.

Gráinne is a survivor of extreme states.

Saturday, March 9, 2019

The Madness Factory


The Madness Factory

I grapple in the slaughterhouse of my soul, the human abbatoir
Madness is a bloody business like birth, primordial
I run through the corridors, blood on the walls
I wrestle with figures of darkness from the depths of my core
My life hurtles headlong and I am hurled into the abyss
I sit and watch the horror hell reel unfold
I line up in the madness factory, locked in
And wait to take uppers, downers, sleepers, smokes

Madness is like living in a Picasso
Surreal, distorted, unknown
I am a deranged Ophelia in the day room, damned
And handing out minutes instead of flowers
Am I a giant hallucinating head or am I a girl?
Mouths agape and souls on fire
Meet chaos and terror in my eyes
Inertia reigns in the madness factory, chattering
Where terrible truths can no longer live the lies

In the acute unit cul-de-sac
We all get the barbiturate blues back
When we kiss madness (those crazy lips) on the mouth
Until the madness factory spits us out, year after year
With diagnoses and certificates
We hit the street to crash back in, driven by destruction
We are cruising for a chemical crucifixion
Madness spins and gathers momentum
‘She’s had a relapse, a voice, a vision
He’s got his claws in again!’

Depressive, psychotic, neurotic, lunatic!
Spewing fear and fury in the snake pit
Warning high voltage!
I am a catastrophe in my nightie, stripped down to
Kill or be killed, madness doesn’t mind
Who does the time or who pays the bill 

Madness claims the empty space and takes up
Residence in my head
How the hell did the devil get back in my bed?

Artists live on the shores of the Great Unknown
Navigating it like tentative explorers in uncharted waters
Like archaeologists before a dig stroking their chins
Standing around the chasm where the comet hit
Observing the wreckage, like voyeurs
Map a waking dream in the madness machine
Like psychiatrists map the battle strategy out
Like war generals and imperialists of the mind
Creativity’s understudy awaits
Like a flame or a double edged blade
Like warrior poets and literary tigers
Turning brutality into poetry, prose
Painting the void
Eyes ablaze  

But I jumped in, devoured, swallowed whole
I stole the show!
Two nurses talk me down
And madness grins back, a toothless grin, from oblivion
Beckoning; wider, wider
Come on you bastards, you cowards!
Come on in!

Copyright © 2018. All Rights Reserved. G.Q Humphrys
 




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