<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In walks Randle<\/strong><\/p>\n He tells me his name is R P McMurphy. But Zahid\u00a0 is no Chief Bromden. There\u2019s no Billy Bibbit But Randle will make the best of things, He\u2019ll soon lose his spark when the drugs kick in, \u201cAh, Juicy fruit.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mark Connors<\/strong> is a writer from Leeds. He has been widely published in magazines, webzines and anthologies in the UK and overseas. His debut poetry collection, Nothing is Meant to be Broken, <\/em>was published by Stairwell Books in 2017.\u00a0For more info visit www.markconnors.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In walks Randle He tells me his name is R P McMurphy. He has a pleasing air of dissidence but bears no resemblance to Jack Nicholson and Hollywood stars don\u2019t have Leeds accents. It didn\u2019t take him long to settle in: he pulled a pack of cards out in the day room, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17216"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17217,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17216\/revisions\/17217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nHe has a pleasing air of dissidence
\nbut bears no resemblance to Jack Nicholson
\nand Hollywood stars don\u2019t have Leeds accents.
\nIt didn\u2019t take him long to settle in:
\nhe pulled a pack of cards out in the day room,
\ndrew a crowd with his shuffling technique,
\ntalked four service users and a support worker
\ninto a game of Trumps after tea,
\ntook Zahid under his wing, started calling him Chief,
\ncaught the eye of his new nemesis,
\nNatalie, the not-to-be-messed-with ward manager,
\nwhile he juggled oranges throughout The One Show<\/em>.<\/p>\n
\nto lead astray, no Max Taber saying: Play the game!<\/em>
\nNo Charlie Cheswick throwing tantrums
\nbecause he can\u2019t watch his native Burnley play.
\nThis is a ward for the over 65s
\nand the basketball court is a car park.
\nEven if he did succeed in planning an escape,
\nhe could only hire a narrow boat
\nand the fish are crap in the Leeds\/Liverpool canal.<\/p>\n
\ntry and smuggle in a bottle or two
\nwhen he\u2019s off close obs, get a little party started.
\nHe\u2019ll try to bribe night shift staff to turn blind eyes
\nwhen his friend with benefits comes to visit
\nfrom the High rise flats of Lincoln Green.
\nHe\u2019ll order twelve pizzas in his adopted name
\njust to see if the guys at the take away fall for it.<\/p>\n
\ntake part in whatever activities they throw at him,
\neat his three squares a day, leave some on his chin.
\nBut there\u2019s always a chance he\u2019ll spring back to life,
\nbounce back when the light returns to his eyes.
\nIt will take more than drugs to take McMurphy down
\nnow lobotomies are frowned upon.
\nAnd he\u2019s good for the other service users
\nof a modern day mental health unit.
\nHe\u2019ll shake things up a bit. Make an impact.
\nTake Zahid. He hasn\u2019t spoken in six weeks
\nand I just heard him say:<\/p>\n