TAP 38C(3):11 (2004)

From the Unconscious

Eugene Mahon is a child and adult psychoanalyst who practices in New York City. He has published articles on many topics, such as: screen memories, childhood mourning, dreams, Shakespeare, Anna Freud, the evolution of psychoanalytic technique, and humor. He has also written a number of “psychoanalytic” plays, broadly ranging from subjects such as architecture, and psychoanalysis to creativity. In these plays, he has used the narrative device of imaginary dialogues between Freud and Fliess, Bion and Samuel Beckett, Sigmund and Anna Freud, and others. Some of his poetry has been published in The Bulletin of the Hampstead Clinic and The Bulletin of the Association for Psychoanalytic Medicine. He has also written a fable called “Rensal the Redbit,” which was well received in the Psychoanalytic Quarterly.

I had the pleasure of reading a number of Mahon's poems and thoroughly enjoyed his broad range of abilities and strong poetic images. Using incisive language, he has an ability to quickly find his way into the heart or center of his subjects, which embrace classic images from literature and mythology, the intimacy of psychoanalysis, dreams, and many powerful, central human experiences.

titleDREAM

Beside me
A shaking,
A dream shivering.
A piece of the night
Cornered inside you
Like a wounded animal.
I reach in.
Your flesh bars the way.
Shut out,
I can feel
The thunder of an ocean
I cannot see or hear.
Only morning
Will bring the halves
Of us together,
As words
Split the dream in two.

titleCONSCIENCE

Did it swallow
My tongue
And foist another's
Voice on me,
Myself an exile
In my own skin?
Does the stranger
In the mirror
Speak for me,
Or has reflection
Bent the light
Against me?
Where is the sun
That greeted newborn flesh?
Has blood
Lost all direction
In a heartbeat,
Finding only meekness
At the wrist?
Who speaks for me,
Myself
Or ghosts
That stole my name

Sheri A. Hunt, M.D., is a candidate at the Seattle Psychoanalytic Society and Institute in both the adult and child training programs. A published poet and member of TAP's editorial board, she welcomes readers' comments and suggestions at .

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