Reanimated Lavender Granola Switchblade Nun rides again.

Monday, May 8, 2023

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. 



10 comments:

  1. Another poem that only you could have written. An amazing tale, even more so that it is based on a real event. I loved the closing stanza where his poems fizzled into haiku, then erasure poems. Lol. I am so tired these days, i feel a bit like him myself.

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  2. Marvelous strange account of wounds which shaman us and poetry to shame the chorus. A state of the art poem is then a javelin's backhurled shadow. So well done, friend.

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  3. A topic only you could mine for so much gold, Shay, and with such delicate but definitive explosives. The actual facts in the story are stranger than any fiction and as weird as only the most out there poetry could imagine, a la Poe with a Victorian satirical savor you twhirl like a parasol of sarcasm. You know I especially loved those last lines of Gage's descent into poetic damnation--erasure poetry indeed. Another skyrocket of a poem, flaming us all into the shade.

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  4. "he spit bits of brain / onto foolscap as a sort of carmine ink" might be one of my favorite lines you've ever written. However far past anything anyone would ever think to say, this is a crowbar blowing our minds.

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  5. I knew it. True poetry really does come from getting knocked in the head. This was so cool to learn about, and to read about, in your magnificent, liberty-taking, storytelling way.

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  6. Cold steel through both eye and brain to bring about a glimpse of enlightenment is weirdness personified and most remarkable. Here you tell a tale of the spectacular nay miraculous and leave us to ponder the mystery of blows to the noggin. I am reading a book at the present, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
    by Oliver Sacks, which also delves into such worlds with astonishing results. Brilliant stuff.

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  7. I’m sitting here imagining the moment the mountain spat the beloved crowbar back through Phineas’s no doubt surprised brain. Rather deflating. A humbling experience. Perfect for Satori. What an enlightenment you’ve given him! Explosive and brief… Love it.

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  8. I’m sitting here imagining the moment the mountain spat the beloved crowbar back through Phineas’s no doubt surprised brain. Rather deflating. A humbling experience. Perfect for Satori. And what an enlightenment you’ve given him! Explosive and brief… Love it.
    (Sorry if this is posted twice Shay… the first time I tried, it disappeared… I suppose this one might too.)

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  9. Goodness, Shay! I am so behind with your poems! I'm going to give them my quality time over the coming days. This poem is such a wonderful character profile, and I love how you took liberties to twist up his story, especially this stanza:

    "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."

    And the final stanza too is a lovely finish. I always learn about fascinating characters through you! I hope you and the dogs are well! :-)

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Spirit, what do you wish to tell us?