POEMS WRITTEN AFTER STUDYING SCHIZOPHRENIA
Before this picture, both people hated each other. They were accidentally thrown together for it. But a miraculous change took place. In the picture, they feel as if they are a picture, a complete thing. They’re aware of all the edges of picture and they accept them. Right after the picture they left.
*
When I try to light a match, I do not take the matchbook. In spite. I do not profit from the knowledge of the open matchbook or strike the right side. I strike the broad side and Oh God it takes so long to try, given the lighted match, candlesticks, every time I lie. Give me a face to see with. A trial in spite of the fact that I know the match is not lit, every time.
*
At 3am they found you—barefoot, your long trouser cuffs tucked under your heels. You were wandering the train station all night, all night wandering on scraps of blank paper. You didn’t have a ticket. Excuse me sir. Do you have a ticket? You need a ticket in this station. So they took you to the table, (we should have wiped the table before we laid you there) and they laid you there. A kitchen table. Took off your cloths. They were holding their breaths, holding your hands, fixing electrodes into your head, on the anus. You were a teapot, Artaud: poured in, poured out, screaming! you screamed your tongue on your brain. Blue lips, blue skin and the blood flowed back to you—like going home—so we went home. When you woke you told them the world was round. Indeed, we agreed. The world is round.
*
It’s an apple, sir. I can tell by its ripeness. The kind I plucked from the orchard as a boy. I don’t know why it’s moving. Apples never moved. But it’s done Sir. Done. These baskets of apples. They make me old. Rounder and dead.
*
I loved my mother. She was just like a mother to me.
*
I was on a quest to imagine the other. I was trying to imagine their bodies, trying to filter their bodies into one idea, to grab at them, re-tool. Trying to locate a body to inhabit, to use my new GPS, to be becoming, every body as every body, to body myself to sleep.
*
He lays distally (very still) as the drugs go cold
across him. His ears pop and the balance
stones roll. It’s a simple fetter.
He’s been here before.
The drug pushes through his body
like a ship. A thing
of froth around his mouth,
nose, sphincter.
*
This is the world
in the shape of a butterfly
putting the world together.
*
Artaud is wearing his Danmar Seizure Helmet with full face guard.
This helmet offers excellent protection from head injuries caused by drop attacks.
Disadvantages of this helmet are
- it is quite heavy
- it is very expensive (Cost: $400.00)
- it is kind of odd looking
*
Anatomical means lie down. Meaning,
what’s left of the man runs
We slip a table underneath the new
world—flag it. Meaning the light swings
like a tooth. Meaning, with pins in it.
I mean lungs eyes livers bladders
like so many fish, a century
of names, and humans
to think about, so many humans.
*
They’re half-winged. Gagged with wings. They suck wings out of their cups. Trash them, take them out of the trash, and throw them away again.
I can hear the flapping—it deflects on the ceilings. The white padded walls, covered with wings.
The singing’s extraordinary. There’s no time to hear it. The wings say yes and no simultaneously.
*
Ordering is important. But also, the lack
of order when something
represents what it was ripped off of—
*
My wife is a fraud. A robot controls her. I tell her a joke and the robot moves her mouth—it sounds like laughter. She brings me a cup of milk and I say “thanks.” Her robot says “you’re welcome.” Her robot cooks eggs for breakfast. The eggs aren’t real—I don’t want to eat them. Her robot makes me eat. I say “those were good eggs.” She says “thanks.” ***
*
He lays awake touching all over. Fingers sift through his intestines, eyes, mouth. Thousands of fingers, like ends of anemones. And his hands—if they’re still hands—eat up.
*
I feel it ticking, ticking, racing! Too fast to be a man’s—a woman! A greasy woman or maybe a fish.
*
It’s an apple. I can tell by its ripeness. The kind I plucked from the orchard as a boy. I don’t know why it’s moving. Apples never moved. But that’s done, Dr. Done. Those baskets of apples. They make me old. Rounder and dead.
*
A sheet of paper is a sheet of paper. Magnetic paper. It’s sticking to me, like it wants me to read it.
*
They remove his clothes and put him
ass-up in the lawn. They flank
and check for hours.
*
We pinched his face in our fingers. Held the impression of skin in our fingers—when we stopped it, it stopped too. It was breaking through. Even Artaud agreed: It was a mild form of imperialism—but also an exchange. I was cupping his ear in my hand—the sound of paper, paper burning, and what would be nothing. Our tender ambassadors filled the room.
*
I remember cupping his ear in my hand—I whispered to it. Into the ear in my hand, I whispered indecisively.
*
When you need a specimen,
any specimen will do.
*
It looks like a regular room, but space moves
in it. The walls flip over. And windows push light
across the floor, no floor, no.
*
If you look close at my grandmother’s hands, you’ll see the intestines she knits into sweaters.
*
The elastic of Still
Its indirect reciprocity
Mass Reflexes.
Double Region Reflexes.
Excessive Perspiration.
Bladder Evacuation.
The joints Still
Tag you it
*
Even at full size, they refuse to be born—
curled in large sacks that hang from the ceiling.
I have a heart to hold them on my lunch breaks, rub ones
that are almost ready. They say “light! very
light!” laughing their asses off. They take some
of the longest walks.
*
Stuffed with newspapers.
Styrofoam.
Bubble wrap
*
Walt Whitman is strewn all over my body. Nerves. Hands. Hair.
Everything’s everything, bright as a sunburn.
I go throwing sparks, what—anything really—
ever at passersby.
*
When they lop off my head, I’ll beam from the neck like a flashlight.
*
When I die, it will be like a stop sign. Like stop said.
GLOSSOLALIA
nonsensical or invented speech resulting from a trance or schizophrenia
Air is Taught All
Day Cart
Lay Con
Bawd Ill Air
Play Toe
Are Toe
Bur Owes
Van Go
Fuck-O
My Call and Jello
Dove Inch He
Niche Hah
Bin Ha Mean
Ball Sack
Do Chomp
Bore Hey
Hey Gull
Bad Tie
Came Us
Adore No
Serve on Teas
Call Ridge
Dry Fuss
Flow Bear
Hi Digger
Care Keg Guard
Book Cows Key
De-Lose
Can’t (British pronunciation)
****Earlier version published in Sawbuck 1.8
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
This is interesting. Are you familiar with Louis Sass’s look at Artaud in “Negative Symptoms, Schizophrenia, and the Self”? Would love to discuss further.