Today we’re pleased to publish a poem by a friend from Australia.
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Mental as Anything

by Melinda Burke.

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Now it isn’t easy, one’s elevator

Doesn’t go all the way to the top floor;

Others say we are “a few kangaroos short of a paddock”,

Or maybe even “a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic”;

Yes we are proud enough to own, I guess

The title “mental as anything”.

So why do so many in the community

Stand by and stigmatise us, the “mindfully challenged”?

And why do you the Governments sit idly by?

And why do you use the money taken from our groups,

Mental as Anything, Mindfully Challenged,

For sporting venues, roads and rich houses too?

Why do you all sit around your dining tables, TVs

Idly watching the reports?

How dare you all think we are unimportant at all.

When all we are asking, in exchange for your sanity

Is money for extra hospital beds

When we come into Emergency;

And yes, maybe money for housing.

How dare you think we are not important?

But if the carers can’t fight for us,

And those who support the mindfully challenged can’t back us,

Do we all have to don the straight jacket

While fronting the government?

. .

Melinda Burke, mindfully challenged.

Dec 2012

Adelaide, Australia