Companies love misery,
Suck lucre from plagues.
In hotel lobbies,
Life coaches schedule miracles.
Score more goals, they urge;
Surrender to the
Moment’s power of here and now ̶
As if creatures don’t.
International
Famous gurus swash-buckle
Their way inside heads
Like hitchhikers’ guides
Or galactic Gibranic prophets.
There’s nowhere to hide.
Jeremy Kyle
Sorts simpletons out, gung-ho,
On television.
Doesn’t he? One-man
DSMIV, and much much more,
Suggests the blurb.
Professionals, ‘client-
Centred’, judge suitability,
Engage on their terms.
Disturbed, one flew over
The cuckoo’s nest, long-jumping
Electrocution.
A plain ‘how are you’
Forestalls elaboration;
Close counsel is hugged.
New Age bad language
Abounds from self-help mongers.
In wings, Big Pharma’s poised.
What would Lao Tsu say
To koans proliferating
Like primed cluster-bombs?
Or Thoreau, retreating
Not en masse, a la mode,
But discrete, alone?
Not everyone can
Master motorcycle
Repair, or wants to.
Be scotching them we
Must, Yoda’d caution; dart the
Forces of Darkness.
Thinking positive,
Python-esque, is pushed: how come
We’re still not there yet?
Smack ‘em back to flat;
Set to zero, starved, empty ̶
Need’s where profit’s at.
Manufactured need,
Dimming in the name of light.
No. Turn back. Go native.
© Caroline Hurley
Is the practice of self-help helpful?
Caroline's poems have been published in e-magazine, The Electric Acorn. She recently returned to post-graduate psychology studies and has also written a novel, short stories, and both a stage and screenplay.