Healing and Hypnotherapy Volume 5, Issue -3, 1 September 2020 | Page 18

It takes the three some time to board the bus

what with the flames

and water and ice
But when they finally climb the stairs and take their seats

the driver doesn’t even notice

that none of them has paid
because he is tortured

by visions and is wondering

if the man who got off at the last stop was really being mauled to death

by wild dogs.
This poem not only shows the inside of Denver Butson’s mind, but also tells
something about my mind, as a person who likes this poem. I think this
poem is a great example of how beneath the surface of everyday
interactions, everyone has their own distortions, deletions, hallucinations,
and negative hallucinations. Perhaps my liking this poem, which I
discovered years ago, was an early indicator of my future career as a
hypnotherapist.
When it comes to poetry each person is allowed to have their own unique
experience in it. Someone else might say that “Tuesday 9 a.m.” is symbolic
of a crossroads in his/her life, or that it reminded him/her of family. Another
may call it a cautionary tale about public transportation. The kind of poetry
your clients gravitate to and their experiences in it can give you a lot of
information for the hypnotic part of the session. For example, if my client
said she was the woman at the bus stop who was drowning, I might put her
on the well used imaginary staircase, but going up—out of the water, to
higher and higher ground.
Poetry as a Secondary Induction
“Poetry, like music, is to be heard.” – Basil Bunting
Gone are the days when you may have had to sit in a classroom and torture
the meaning out of a poem—do they still do that in schools? I hope not.
Poetry does not exist simply to convey meaning. The paraphrasable
meaning of a poem is less than the poem itself. The sounds are where the
meaning is just as much as the words. And if you have ever been to a good
poetry reading, you know that poetry can induce hypnotic trance. The
maternal lulling patter that I call “poet voice” is similar to hypnotherapist