That inner life
That so preoccupies
Philosophers and poets

You think nothing of it
Having long ago installed the workarounds
But others who behold the livid scar
Walk away filled with pity or contempt

Trmblen srapina myuglok n trepan
Dirl santoe Kaerss dmonium zet treeflo
Na znong traylobied did crazoy
Crazoy fald da syncova drest
Baed nat suwle rebs ezbratd
Sor hnid b hdinne swich caer
Ne nat bim conzolodor fnteelijbl
Woy cirtus c zden mlchol dfit
Stael mlaut grendi cumwoflux
Say dwn ohne s xaltazn
Sya nitng oe cnuiefrom wund
Smetch caer sa tor nagarmitec
Iamb doss spilt sarapin trenmennle bor

And when the melancholy fit has ebbed
Shall I strut and preen for my good efforts
No I made no heroic achievement
And soon the next dark tide is sure to flow

Old DK is mad again
You can tell by the cute nickname
The third-person reference
But mostly by the pompous word for mental illness

Answered prayers provoke tears
As when I an avowed atheist
Prayed for madness
And the madness came

How can you be so fucking stupid
Note the second-person address
As to invite suffering like that
An obvious insensitivity to suffering

Because certain artists I admire
Were crazy people
Never mind the Keatses Dickinsons and Shakespeares
There is glamour I supposed in the lunatic effusion

And I have yearned for power
Such as is mythologized in the Satanic pact
Which will not be revoked
When you tire of it

Why do I publish these putrid stomach contents
Because I am stupid bad and insane
So that somebody says There there you’re not that bad
Only stupid and insane

The gentle rain falls upon the earth
Or the healing sunshine
Gleams on the faces of children
In my weakness I do not face these truths

It will be dead later today
Pulling itself along the sunlit concrete
To seek refuge under the magnolia leaf
Undeterred in its futile striving
Every stretch a loss of moisture

I was told I would sleep for two or three hours
But reports aver that in the event it was more like six
Not that it makes or made any difference
Sleep hardly identifies that interval of nothingness

With the application of the anesthetic
I thought as clearly as if speaking aloud
If this be death so be it
Sometimes they don’t wake up

Did I experience a passage of time
The onset virtually instantaneous
But the endgame gradual and slow
In and out of torpid semi-consciousness

The world seemed alive with urgency
That I must wake up
That I must emerge from
Not darkness but no presence anywhere

To call it an aquacultural pilot project
Would be to exaggerate its dignity
Not that research in aquaculture is all that lofty or profound
There were ponds
There were fish which would rise expecting food
And if you kicked the sandy dirt into one of the ponds
The fish would retreat into the murk
Thereby displeasing the proprietor
There were firearms to frighten off the wading birds
But so far as anybody knew
There was nothing to be done
About the frogs the turtles or the snakes

I was surprised to weep
When I learned he had died today
Someone I never met
A celebrity
Said to be an eccentric
Inspiration of my childhood
And of my decrepit old age

If you could look deeply enough
Into the surface of a brand new tractor tire
See through the highlights of the gloss
Then you might conceive of the blackness
Indwelling the many-peaked lip of the rhino-buffalo
The fallen head gigantic above the plain

A centipede crawled across
The hotel bathroom floor
This being Florida
And arthropods everywhere
My mind turned toward a private cliché
The classical doctrine of plenitude
Up and down the Great Chain of Being
Precursor to the theory of evolution
Gapless uninterrupted with no links missing
Such that between the armadillo and the aardvark
Must be found the pangolin
As the angels must reside between God and man
And innumerable ranks of angels even so
As between the armadillo and the pangolin
Must reside the fairy armadillo
An annelid with legs thought I
Somewhere between earthworm and earwig
And I was struck with wonderment
How had it prevailed against the insecticide
Endemic to human habitations
And with what temerity does man
Build a hotel upon the houses
Of armadillos and centipedes
And who beside this centipede
Perilously out of place here on the third floor
Will survive the scourge of toxicity

First thing this morning
I wanted to write my syllabus
I wanted to tell of reasons
And good in the reason-giving sense
I wanted to tell of value and judgment
Of dialogue and understanding the significance of facts

But instead my attention was captured
By a short-leaf pine and a pin oak
Rooted in the ground as one
Which I had never noticed in my neighbor’s yard
And admittedly separate boles split off
After the first three or four feet

But it definitely isn’t a pin oak
On second thought perhaps some sort of hickory
But the longer I looked
The less confidence I felt
That I would ever know
What in itself it actually is

Molecules of nitrogen oxygen and carbon dioxide
Impact the membranes impermeable semipermeable and permeable
Water droplets dust motes pet dander
Strike the crust of dermis
The backcountry lanes of sticky phlegm

Danger and the anticipation of danger
In a world sufficient to nourish
To make thrive flourish and fruit

Imogen carried close to make her drowsy
And with each circuit the carrier takes
A morsel of strawberry cantaloupe

No it would be too wicked
Even to imagine considering
After such a decoction of verities
In this long lacuna
Or perhaps briefer than you think

The novelty of nostrums
Of efficacy famed for
Tetter gout elephantiasis ringworm and tired blood
Cramp stone wind sand runs gravel and halitosis
Headache backache toothache neuritis and neuralgia
Thrush dropsy porphyria carpal tunnel and jake leg
Acne eczema and impetigo
Strabismus astigmatism myopia flashers and floaters
Corns calluses bunions and cauliflower ear
Vacillation of the heart
Congestion of the semicircular canal
Irritable bowel
Caked breast
Uncertain stomach
Deviated septum
Defiant sphincter
Enlarged prostate
Peritonitis gingivitis laryngitis bursitis tonsilitis and tinnitus
Piles impaction and impostume
Ganglioma glomus and schwannoma
Mole boil strain drip and clap
The sweating sickness
The dolorous removal
The French disease
The German measles
Mal de mer
The Spanish flu
Undescended testicle
Hansen’s disease
Hodgkin’s disease
Koch’s disfunction
The English disease
The Prussian croup
The profit motive
The laughing plague
The disease of unknown provenance
The greenapple quickstep
Detached retina
Dishpan hands
Cirrhosis of the liver
Loofy-goofus of the goofy-loofus
Kidneys of wheat
Hardening of the arteries
Water on the knee
Wart peduncle and ingrown dewclaw
Running wen weeping abscess and delirium tremens
Sir Peter’s quinsy St. Vitus’s dance Bell’s palsy St. Lawrence’s catarrh
And all the underminings of the physical frame

And further
The unwieldy catalogue of mythopoeic phantasms
Adumbrated by madcap stimulants and dull opiates
The panoply of psychotropic arcana
Nightmares mygrim hallucinations and apparitions demure or minatory
Kelpies banshees imps poltergeists and incubi

Yea these are the premises
In both the propaedeutic and the domestic senses
For which appertaining
A hogshead of cheese
A butt of sack
A bunch of Parma violets
An erlenmeyer flask of fading chartreuse
A demijohn of absinthe the Green Muse
A cask of Amontillado
A jug of akvavit
A dram of paregoric
Microscopy electrophoresis gas-liquid chromatography
Computer-assisted tomography magnetic resonance imaging and palpation
Electrocardiogram electroencephalogram sphygmomanometresis
Cast traction and spinal adjustment
Splints prostheses and ace bandages
Stents bypasses root canals and reamings of the prostate
Appendectomy and episiotomy
Phlebotomy and shock wave lithotripsy
Fractionated radiotherapy
Endo- and epicardial ablation
Dietary supplementation with vitamins and iron
Application of topical or general anesthesia
Transplantation of the heart kidney or cornea
Defenestration of the ear
Trepanation of the skull
Bicarbonate of soda
Milk of magnesia
Tincture of iodine
Elixir of Ishtar
Distillation of mummy
An ampule of ipecac
The brown scapular
The brown acid
St. Christopher’s medal
St. Valentines’ fig
St. Veronica’s napkin
Spinal tap
Scalpels retractors clamps sutures and toothpicks
Laxatives purgatives and cathartics
Bulks lubricants and osmotics
Puffs powders patches and pomatums

You must resist
Charge the towering bastions
Apprehend the evanescent trophy
Seize the contingent triumph
Or dwindle in the immemorial yurt
Or flourish indefinitely in the mirthful pillory
Take action lieutenant but not too much

What is this Higgs boson
Of which discovery you the scientists boast

The VU meter registers units of volume
What is this volume that it purports to measure

The instrument delicate as diatom housed in glass
Reacts to the most insubstantial of phenomena

What is that and what is that
What is all this really

And how did this come to comprise such beauty
And what art thou beloved of my soul

Competent well-educated
A technologist a scientist
She reserved those terms for her husband
Though well she merited them herself
Knowledge of and beyond
Education profession and babies
But she had trouble with certain words
Which she could not pronounce with conviction
Velcro condominium Chik-fil-a
New words not current in a youth
Of Great Depression and all-consuming war
But she was not stymied by neologism alone
It can’t be just intellect she said to me once
It can’t only be intellectual
Speaking of our religious beliefs
One could hear that she suspected
An r sound lurking somewhere in intellectural
Never specifying what stood beyond intellect

She had converted in order to marry
My Irish Catholic father
He boisterous and commanding
She retiring and self-conscious
Owing perhaps to the poverty of her childhood
A Protestant of Calvinist tendency
She took a dim view of many things
But she took me to hear the symphony
And when she would see her youngest brother
They would laugh in torrents of weeping laughter
Yet I never saw her weep in earnest
Her spirit strong and resistant
Her stoical body relentless
Long after her spirit had departed
Obdurate power within the withered frame
Her body refusing to surrender
Until like a fussy baby
At last it consented to sleep

What a flagrant rookie error
To imagine that the poetic frenzy
Should require the descent into literal madness
When poetry scorns the literal
As these leaden lines doubtless show

But the case is subtler than that
The prayer for madness a retrospective revision
Like the rationalization of the dream image
The ravening monster composed of socks
The looming shadow of a teddy bear

Thus the serendipitous discovery
That mental illness really did
Offer a wealth of conflict
Conflict being poetry’s mother’s milk
And can I reach for sanity and write a poem

I am but mad north-north-west
Hamlet: Act 2, Scene 2

Might one seek madness in the opposite direction
In the balmy clime of the south-south-east
Instead of Eva Marie Saint dangling from a president’s nose
An aged man might assume the posture
Of wild youth standing atop the golden hours

So easy to exaggerate the threats
Martin Landau’s sadistic shoe
Matter for the ticketed thrill ride
A taste for action need not require
Renunciation of a moment’s repose

To remember momentarily the unity of all being
To forego the diffident pose
And accept for a moment the miracle of the salt marsh
Of the soft green hills
Of the holy communion of family and friends

Not to waste in striving against strife
Conflict is all around no need to seek it
Error a mere epiphenomenon that causes real harm
The privilege of all who wear matter’s mantle
And blessed are the peacemakers

I have more memories than if I were a thousand years old
And thus I allow myself this gentle exhortation
Remember the stars that night in Virginia
The girl in the kimono that morning in New York
Allow me crazy to remember love

If I don’t get out of the sun right soon
I will die like my fair-skinned ancestors
At the end of a Viking’s pike

No poem will ever make a splash
No poet will ever be an influencer
No poet will ever be an acknowledged or unacknowledged legislator
No poem will ever improve the situation
No poem will ever kill me softly
No poet will ever die laughing
No poem will ever give the ultimate answer
No poet will ever ask the ultimate question
No poet will ever set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation
No poem will ever butter any parsnips
No poem will ever put a man on Neptune
No poet will ever predict the future
No poem will ever seize the day cast the die turn the corner or cut the Gordian knot
No poem will ever fish or cut bait
No poet will ever square the circle
No poet will ever communicate in vague or decisive gestures
No poet will ever form a more perfect union establish justice insure domestic tranquility provide for the common defense promote the general welfare or secure the blessings of liberty
No poem will ever achieve the texture of rich Corinthian leather
No poem will ever cultivate a garden
No poet will ever solve the problems with the wifi
No poem will ever enlighten the unenlightened

1
Hear and Obey

My Captain’s so mean on me
He says What are you deaf
And I say Yes sir that’s right
And he says Well you better get a hearing aid
And I say I already got one sir
And he says You better get a new one
This one ain’t working
He’s got all the answers

2
The Balls of Your Feet

My Captain’s always switching it up
He says
From now on we’re working from right to left
You runts are tripping all over each other
A week later he says
From now on we’re working from left to right
You runts are slow as Christmas
With him you got to be ready for anything

3
Pay Attention Think Ahead

My Captain’s always telling me
Think about the next step
So I didn’t finish closing the cap
When I set off the sprinkler system
That happened once before
When I crashed into the guard rail
I was thinking about the next turn
Because I didn’t know if it was left or right
Kept going around the exit ramp
Kept going around
Then I had to pay for it
But my Captain doesn’t care about all that
I’m mopping up the puddles
I’m filling out the accident report
I’m thinking about my complaints
How can you screw it up every time
You can if you’re stupid
It’s something I’m good at

4
Mind over Matter

My Captain’s a hard man
He says
You take a sick day you get a note from the doctor
Or don’t bother coming back
I say
I can’t afford no doctor sir
And alls I got is the pukes
And he says
You puke in the shop and you’re fired
So I guess I’ll quit puking

Oh that I could shed my skin like serpent
To emerge otherwise than who I am
Myself am hell
Myself am hell
The outer layer a mere epiphenomenon
And so to enact the fatuous regimen of self-improvement
Myself am hell
The third alternative would cause pain
To those who love him who is hell himself

A matter not of if but of when
The mockingbird faster than bird ever flew
Into the dark devouring embrace
The universal failure the universal sin

Entire systems devoted to denial
The armature already in place
Mechanism of consciousness
A dream of a dream of a dream

Well might you turn to the animal crackers
And invite the psychedelic breathing chambers
The frisson of free fall and deep dive
The whirr of zoetrope and automaton

Meanwhile back at the ranch
Dale whips eggs and waits for the boys’ return
And when they don’t
She hops on Buttermilk to effect the daring rescue

Solomon cuts the gordian child
Samson knocks the building down
They weren’t so innocent Samson protests
They approved what their governors promulgated

All your cleverness all your ingenuity
And erudite allusion contrary of invention
The foul rag and bone shop
Of the rebellious left atrium

The mockingbird’s call
A Bucephalus bouncing ball
A long tone and a trill
An old sweet song ornamented with bitterness

By the time I got the peaches home
One had been badly bruised

Is there a moral imperative for intelligibility
Does command necessitate commander
Dozvon effrenteos mragra pmisti effrent
Is the knee the contact or the space between

Cleave to and cleave apart
Suspicious acts suspicious minds
Ravel and unravel
Pass and Stow

Lenin said that marxism is the philosophy
In which nothing is abstract
He who has been gathered into the artifice of abstraction
Nothingness is an abstraction