SPOTLIGHT -
June 16th 2025
"As my daughter and I rehearse for the interview, I assure her no one asked me the cookie question..."
June 14th 2025
A psychiatrist thoughts for Father's Day.
May 15th 2025
Check out this year's Gerald F. Berlin Prize winner!
May 14th 2025
"And I feel closer to him than 50 minutes should allow, a puzzled sensation, I’ve known him all my life..."
April 18th 2025
Status Quo
A psychiatrist reflects on the status quo in light of the most recent tragedy....
Your Card Is the King of Rats
Is your card the king of rats? Is your card the queen of roaches?
Haven
As we cope with another tragedy, a psychiatrist reflects on the importance of a safe haven...
A Poem in which I Try to Express My Glee at the Music My Friend Has Given Me
"I hold a thousand kites in a field loosed from their tethers at once..."
Preface to Leaves of Grass
"This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals..."
Anatomy Lab
"By year’s end, brittle with guilt, we hovered over our hollow creation..."
Invictus
"Under the bludgeonings of chance, My head is bloody, but unbowed."
What a Psychiatrist Remembers...
"I remember perfumes and anxious sweat, who preferred the big leather chair and who liked to hide in the sofa’s corner."
A Quiet Life
"This isn’t as easy as it seems..."
Autobiography in Five Short Chapters
"There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I am lost... I am helpless."
"What a Psychiatrist Remembers"
"I remember sitting like my patients when time expired, entire lives grasped in a 50 minute hour..."
Dust of Snow
"The dust of snow, From a hemlock tree, Has given my heart, A change of mood..."
A Sobering Truth
“We are a tale of two Americas, searching for humanity to implore unity.”
"Anatomy Lab"
Shelter in Place
“Bringing us home, To ourselves, Our selves, Our bodies, our shelters…”
A Blues for Tyre
A psychiatric reflects on the latest news and remembers Tyre Nichols.
I Wish I Held My Father’s Hand
"I wish I could have caught his eye, delivered the silent message that I understood what he had to go through every day to keep the peace..."
Grief
“We are oceans, not boats.”
Ideas of Heaven
"My mother’s idea of heaven was a pulse, nurses in white spilling light across fields with hurricane lamps, bandage rolls, syringes, pain killers, stethoscopes, pressure cuffs, patella hammers."
Winter Evening Walking Meditation
“Breathing clouds at every turn, We hold what wisdom we must learn.”
25 Years of Poetry of the Times
Celebrating 25 years of Poetry of the Times with Richard Berlin, MD!
If You Ask Me My Name
"And if you like it simple, doctor will do."
Paper-White Narcissus
"There is no greater loneliness..."
“If You Ask Me My Name”
Welcome to 2023, the 25th year of Poetry of the Times with Richard Berlin, MD!
Running
A psychiatrist shares his experience of how running has been a constant for him throughout life’s changes.
Purposeful Light
“…The light of a new year.”
An American Sunrise
"We were running out of breath, as we ran out to meet ourselves..."
Positive Outcome
Even when facing the most difficult opponents, it's possible to win a positive outcome.
Coalescence
A psychiatrist reflects on his story...
The Tailors of Children’s Memorial
"It is Christmas eve and our patient lies on the table in twilight sleep..."