Phineas Gage's Satori

 

Phineas Gage was a working stiff who nonetheless

took great pride in his job, which was blowing things to Kingdom Come.

He reached age twenty-five, never having been depressed

or observably outre, but Poetry made a sudden entrance the day he forgot to run.

A mountain might be said to be the ultimate conservative,

a geological accountant or engineer, set in its strata, posture, and ways.

Along came Phineas with his Magic Wand, keen to make the Earth move,

but the Mountain objected and sent the steel phallus back through swain Gage.

"He's dead!" cried his crew aghast, but his vision was sharpened

by the implement through his eye, introduced to his mind in an instant.

Phineas sat up as if nothing were wrong and calmly opined

that he might need a physician for the crowbar suddenly extant. 

He died but only to who he had been before, well-respected,

industrious and measured. Over the weeks he spit bits of brain

onto foolscap as a sort of carmine ink and thus were his first poems invented.

Phineas found he could make them rhyme, sing, moan and rain.

Imagine now Phineas, drunk as an Irish pickpocket, grabbing at ladies

and spouting the most remarkable obscenities. Imagine him in the full vigor

of creative expression, novel thought, unfettered here-ness and the rabies

of Instant Genius blasting from every pore as if dynamited higher, bigger.

For a time, Phineas exalted, Phineas in bloom, Phineas transformed!

Then, through doctor's care and Normalcy's constant soporific embrace,

Phineas drifted from shining masterpiece to haiku to erasure poems

and became redacted from himself, dependable again, decorous, quite sane. 

_______

for desperatepoets "state of the art"

Notes: Phineas Gage was a railroad worker who loaded charges into rock faces where rail lines were to be built. He packed the charges well into the rock with a custom-made crowbar of which he was quite proud. One day the dynamite went off prematurely and sent the crowbar through his skull. Miraculously, he survived and was even sitting up calmly afterward, asking to be taken to a doctor. After a long and sometimes gruesome recovery, Phineas' personality is said to have changed dramatically, though he eventually returned to a more typical state. I have taken the liberty of making him a poet. A satori is a sudden awakening. 

And Now You Know.... The Rest of The Story

 

Somehow, the Modesto Mud Pigeons vault into second place in the Pacific Crust League baseball season of 1930.

A perennial doormat playing in a ramshackle firetrap of a ballpark and managed by an unstable loon called Double Hatchet MacGillicuddy, the team's fortunes changed when rookie phenom Handsome Henry Faraday arrived and slugged 42 home runs in 25 games, all while setting ladies' hearts aflutter.

Imagine then, how Double Hatchet and the soft-hearted ladies reacted when fire-balling Franco "Frank" Spizeymeatballi cracked Faraday right in the dome with a pitch! 

Down he went, and down went the Mud Pigeons with him, finishing a distant fifth as Spizeymeatballi's San Jose Hosers took the championship. :-(

Double Hatchet MacGillicuddy was last seen running amok on the Pacific island of Watyagonnadonow where he vanished into a grove of palm trees and was killed by a falling coconut.

As for our hero Handsome Henry Faraday, his head injury resulted in a new and amazing musical talent, enabling him to invent the electric piano--not popularized until some 40 years later--when his recording of a barrelhouse version of One Meat Ball unexpectedly (and posthumously) topped the charts, making Handsome Henry second only to Fleetwood Mac and Led Zeppelin in 1970's musical importance. 

_____________

for Denise's Six Sentence Stories. Key word: "vault"

Music: Tony Pastor One Meat Ball

Ass

The President of the United States has something up his ass.

He addresses the nation:

"I have something up my ass."

Someone shines a light.

"Can you see," asks the President, "what is up my ass?"

The President of the United States cannot find his head.

He addresses the nation:

"We have Antifa and radical Democrats to blame for this."

Still, there is something up the President's ass.

Surrogates clarify:

"The President has golden rose-scented freedom bombs up his ass."

The President of the United States cannot find Colorado or his ass

with a map and both tiny hands.

What could be up his ass?

A rocket, to power his golf cart?

A monkey, to whisper in his ear?

A member of Congress, in its cozy nest?

"I have something up my ass," says the President of the United States.

What could it be?

________

for Sunday Muse #110.

Mrs. Sartre At The Beauty College

I said to the stylist at the salon,
"All is darkness." 
From the pocket of her smock, a candle
with which she beat me about the head and shoulders.

"Behold, I give you light," she said.
"Crazy motherfucker!" 
Who hired this bitch?
Wax in my hair.
Will an indifferent Stylist mold me at Her whim?
________

for my BFF Hedgewitch's Friday 55 bash, and also for Play It Again (existentialism) at Toads. Also for day 12 of my 39 poems in 39 days.

Fermi LeBouche

Fermi LeBouche killed his wife. 
It was done thus:
"Here's what I think..."
"What you have to understand is..."
"So I told them..."

Neighbors noticed she seemed unhappy.
Then tormented.
Then dead.

One look at her lying there, bleeding from her ears
was all the gendarmes needed.
Fermi was arrested, tried and sentenced to the guillotine. 

"Monster!" cried the crowd.
Down came the awful blade. 
Someone grabbed Fermi's head from the basket.
"In my opinion...."
"Let me tell you something..."
"What you don't understand is..."

Fermi LeBouche's head kept talking.
It criticized the executioner's methods.
It held itself blameless for the death of Mrs. LeBouche.
It told a series of very tired old jokes and laughed itself giddy.

Month after month, his head kept talking.
"Why, in my day..."
"That reminds me of the time I..."
"If you want to know what I think..."
Finally, a soldier returning from the wars was riding on a wagon 
with Fermi LeBouche's endlessly loquacious noggin.
On and on, opinion after opinion,
story after story,
unsought advice after unsought advice.

They say that Fermi's last words were
"You can't kill Fermi LeBouche with that little thing..." 
but though he never admitted it,
he was badly mistaken.
________

for Camera FLASH!

 

Post Card

I wonder if this is normal?
If you were here, you would not care that the sheets were plain.
You would hold up your finger,
gently, testing me for concussion
and you would find me to be the same as I ever was--

unable to name the date, the address of this hotel,
or the President of the United States, but I never could anyway.
Oh, love of my heart,
he can't close such unhurried lips around that finger--
let alone each one in turn as the windows turn coral, then azure.

Where did you go?
I must have fallen asleep, and when I was awakened
by the hotel doctor and the day shift desk clerk,
you had gone. "Who?" they ask. "Who?'
Beautiful One, I can't remember your name--forgive me!
But I remember your bare hip, the rise and dip that God Herself envies.

I was made to leave the hotel, and the emergency room as well.
I bought a post card with a dollar I found nested in mud
beside a building in an unfamiliar neighborhood.
My hand, the one you held, the one you kissed and guided
between your legs as you spoke my name,

stopped, palsied, when I tried to address the card for you.
Where do you live? What is the name of the street
where you watch, every morning, the windows turning coral, then saffron?
How much postage will carry my heart to you, immediately?
Why can't I remember anything, darling, except that moment when I was happy,

as you stretched out, soft-skinned on top of me
and I knew everything, and nothing, and loved you so much?
_________

for "Kerry Says: Let's Send A Post Card" at Real Toads.  

Stunt Double

She calls sometimes--that's how I know she's in on it.
Her voice is nightblue and crushed strawberries;
when she calls me "baby", my true and sure gets a shiver up it.

Her stunt double makes coffee, takes the car,
fucks me, says we have to talk.
I know it isn't her.
I know the bloom from the stalk.

Stunt Double feels the cold in my kiss;
cries real tears from the plastic bottle in her head.
Stunt Double spreads her arms, says, "How'd we ever get like this?"
Like I know her. Like let's pretend.


I wait for the ringtone, a drop of honey from the bee that's gone;
nightblue and strawberries, helpless at her softest command--
there it is--I answer--a sinner for Gilead's balm,
when the Stunt Double comes in from the next room--


your phone held in her palm.
______

for Karin's "A Whole Lot Of It Is In Your Head" challenge at Real Toads.

Brain injury can cause a person to think that everyone in their life has been replaced with "doubles" who look just like their loved ones, but aren't. It's caused by damage to the link between visual processing and emotional response. If someone calls them on the phone, they recognize them, because it bypasses the damaged part of the brain. On the other hand, one can be in perfect health and know that the other person has checked out of the relationship.

 

Ms. S.'s Love Song

There are gifts and then there are gifts.
Daddy gave me mine when he let me have you,
though, honestly,
he gives me most anything I want on a silver platter.

Like the runaway train said,
it's all downhill from here, baby.
Shhh, don't speak--
you'll break the mood, like men always do.
I have plans for you.

Come with me, down to the river.
Are you feeling a little light-headed?
Having trouble keeping your feet?
Just stick with me, babe.
I'm gonna roll ya,
roll ya like your back ain't got no bones.

Here we are.
Let me run my fingers through your hair.
A little touch on the top of your head
and you know what I want--
down you go, sailor.

I love the way your eyes seem to look up at me
as your head dips,
bobs,
sinks,
sated and seaworthy,
never to be thirsty again.
_______

for Get Listed at Real Toads, with Ed Pilolla. I used "river', "break", and "downhill".

picture: Cristina Scabia of Lacuna Coil