New Poem: FRAGILE

 impressed with your confidence 

 but wasn’t alert to your shades

 of discomfort discontent dissociation 

 just thought you’ll have a good life

 doesn’t matter if I’m not included 

 years later, didn’t expect your obituary 

 read the funeral home website guestbook 

 plenty of condolences for your partner 

 but only three people mourning you

 >

 wish there had been more true friends you trusted

 to confess I’m in misery I’m broken I want out It’s too much

 and have them drop everything to come to

 your side and help you find ways forward

New Poem: MADE FOR THIS

I was shaped too well for the lockdown life
Kept away from bad influences
Held back from after school jobs
Ordered to be studious
Hit with a plastic ruler at 10
Slapped over and over at 17
Because my valedictorian speech was short
Meaning I didn’t try hard enough
So I gave in and made it longer
>
Learned not to argue
Viewed the world as adversarial
Saw things my parents’ way
There were good days wrapped in cotton
At least until faltering in college
Then anger because I couldn’t balance
Work with a new appetite for play
Sometime in the spring of 1979
They gave up on me
>
Shy child as teenager
Emotionally 14
At the age of 21
More talkative as an adult
Who loved to read books and newspapers
Didn’t know how to read other people
When you can’t and won’t listen
You’re usually on your own
>
Opinionated in middle age
Too much so, certain people said
Someone who never knew me
Once let me know I was
In his mind a witless friendless
Talentless [word for feces]
>
Older now
Was increasingly stay-home
Even before the plague
Have a wife and cats
(So I did something right)
Plague makes me scared of lots of things
Especially not passing the virus to them
>
Hoping for gradual return to daily life
Set free whatever better self that remains inside

FREE ASSOCIATING ON ROBIN WILLIAMS AND DEPRESSION.

Observation on mental illness from GUARDIAN article on Robin Williams.

All illness is a great leveller, but none levels like mental illness. It remains the poor relation of medicine. Research is paltry. Therapies are halfhearted. Drugs are primitive. But addictive and depressive illness seems to probe deep into the relations between individuals and those around them. It is the crack in the window that can seem beyond mending. The sadness of the clown goes beyond irony. It is one of the great mysteries of life.

The above quote is from Simon Jenkins' GUARDIAN article on the death of Robin Williams:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/12/robin-williams-sadness-clown-addiction-mental-illness?CMP=fb_gu

Selected Robin Williams films, by category.

Surprised and saddened by the passing of Robin Williams.  For relative newcomers to his three-decade-plus filmography, here's a list of noteworthy theatrical and TV movies:
FAMILY ENTERTAINER: POPEYE (1980)--the Robert Altman musical with Harry Nilsson songs--esoteric but worth watching for Williams' rapport with co-stars Shelley Duvall and Ray Walston.
HOOK (1991)--as an adult Peter Pan in Steven Spielberg's  take on the James Barrie original.
MRS. DOUBTFIRE (1993)--a tremendous hit in its day; the divorced-dad-as-pretend-Nanny tale caused Williams' career to shift for a few years in the direction of "entertaining kids intelligently (then-wife and producing partner Marcia Garces)
COMEDY and DRAMEDY: Williams' prime period for these genres was in the 1980s:
MOSCOW ON THE HUDSON, THE SURVIVORS, THE BEST OF TIMES, GOOD MORNING VIETNAM, DEAD POETS SOCIETY
ANIMATED VOICE-OVERS: The two most representative examples are ALADDIN and HAPPY FEET.
DRAMA: GOOD WILL HUNTING, THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP, SEIZE THE DAY (Fielder Cook's 1986 Saul Bellow adaptation for PBS--where Williams held his own with fine supporting performances from Jerry Stiller and Joseph Wiseman), THE NIGHT LISTENER, INSOMNIA, ONE HOUR PHOTO
INDEPENDENT FILMS: Haven't seen Bobcat Goldthwait's dark farce WORLD'S GREATEST DAD, but Williams received some of his best late-career reviews as the title character.