TAP 48D(4):27 (2014)

From the Unconscious

John Samuel Tieman, Ph. D., co-chairs APsaA's Schools Committee. He authored an award-winning chapbook of poetry, A Concise Biography of Original Sin, published by Bk Mk Press of the University of Missouri at Kansas City. His scholarly essays appeared in Schools: Studies In Education and his commentaries regularly appear in Vox Populi, a forum for the discussion of contemporary politics. This academic year marks his 40th year as a certified teacher He currently teaches in the St. Louis Public Schools.

Ash Wednesday

You will cast all their sins
into the depths of the sea.
Micah 7:19
like the old Jews in the neighborhood
once a year I carry my sins in my pockets
I cast them into the Mississippi
where I confess
to writing more poems than prayers
to losing my faith to a silk nyloned thigh
to ignoring the moment between dusk and night
to defeating dreams with my sleeplessness
I would absolve myself if only I could remember
all the murders
instead I cross my brow with the ashes
of all the angels I cremated

—John Samuel Tieman

Sheri Butler, M.D., is an adult training and consulting analyst and child consulting analyst at the Seattle Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. A published poet and member of TAP's editorial board, she welcomes readers' comments, suggestions, and poetry submissions at .

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