A BEATNIK DISCOURSE, etc.

2/15/17

SIDE BLOG: INTO THE PORCHES

The goat-georgic below is also the first entry in a new blog I have begun, Into the Porches, where the reader will find the poems I shall be sending, on a daily basis, to the White House. Not the protest poems you may expect, and surely deserve, but strictly dulce et utile, prodesse aut delectare, for it is to be sweet and useful, didactic and delectable, that one strives. TC

                                                  And in the porches of mine ears did pour

                                                  The leprous distilment

(Hamlet I.v)

been working hard on this one--hope you like it

NEWSFLASH

poems

now equipped with life-saving technology did I say poems

I meant drones 

damn

NO HEAD OF GILLES DE RAIS

He has absolutely no skill in defending himself. He moves about violently from one impulse to another, which destroys him.

I insist: this is a child.

But this child had at his disposal a fortune that appeared inexhaustible to him and nearly absolute power.

                                    --Georges Bataille, The Trial of Gilles de Rais

We will never see the satanic head or eye

of Gilles de Rais made fabulous in paint

or carving. All facets of his dream-world—

voraciously prismatic—are kept in the book of tortures

the vile bon-bons of his fancy

fell from his brain, to pulsate on his tongue,

wherever chapel boys swelled with song

in Champtocé, La Suze, Tiffauges, Machecoul.

Gilles derived from a long line

of war-lords

and rabbit-faced prodigies.

At his trial at Nantes he doubted not

to be convicted, then burnt, by temporal authorities

but nor to be forgiven by the Church,
which owed him much

& whose children he had raped and devoured

rejoicing

wherever chapel boys swelled with song,

in Champtocé, La Suze, Tiffauges, Machecoul.

Morning Poem 380 (Chet Baker)

fuck me that turnip is going to be president

of this shit

!

I am listening to Chet Baker just trying stay sane

tranquilize me Chet just enfold me

a little, in your gentleness

as if to say ‘Thomas,

you may be wrong about this’

Chet plays it cool

‘My Funny Valentine’ is sad

and cool on my forehead

maybe the fucking turnip

will be cool

maybe my head will make the

adjustment, the necessary reversion

to how things obtained

in my fascist years

(thanks, old friend,

for sticking with me through my fascist years)

when I too was a bloated, ignorant bitch-boy

who felt free, and happy just

to rock, to barf, to kill

in the metropolis

Chet you toothless junkie

get me out of this

11/2/2016

2 DOGS

my one dog is black
as the moonless night

my other dog glows
like the moon itself

especially now that
the other one is gone

ITEMS

WHAT FOURS

(after Jonathan Williams)

2 Architectural Postcards from Gatlinburg, TN

Dearest Christopher Madeline Sam

greetings from quite the

most hideous place have

every found self in

God Himself would puke

if that is his

non-existence were not completely

confirmed by very existence

of this cesspool of

vulgarity and mental desolation

please you must never

come here Love Thomas

*

Dearest Francie piece of

shit edifice on reverse

of this writing is

single handsomest structure here

by a long shot

Never come here not

even on your way

to Dollywood where you

should also never go

I mean it Thomas

Robot

You have a problem?

That’s not the right

tool for my problem.

Archilochos

Archilochos: hummingbird rising out

of Chaos  soldier-exile

poet-mercenary scrotum-scrutinist

shield abandoner du monde

Email from P. J. C. Field

My main reaction remains

what it was before:

entities are not to

be postulated without necessity

Happy New Year Peter

Merlin’s Mother

There is probably no

precaution one can take

against sex with devils

quite beyond the intellect

to predict the history

of hell necessitating sex

with devils and demons

I heard she was

insane and her eye

had a prismatic periphery

Dixit Elizabeth Stambler, Bard College, 1987

Keats did not believe

in God because women

had cancer how could

he or it ever

permit women to have

such a horrible disease

D. H. Lawrence

white trembly English girls

their sickness needs a

remedy or a final

finishment quite beyond imagination

have you built your

ship of death girls

time to build that

Penates

my god is the

tutelary god of statues

broken open by stupid

people looking for treasure

Copia

a cestrophendonē: an apparatus

for hurling stones, not

dissimilar from a funditor

but not a ballista

or scorpio. An harpē

is a sickle-bladed sword

larger than a falx

a five prong harpago

is an heinous hook

Note from Molly

Your Easter poem is

frightening very effective JESUS

tuna’s in the fridge

3 Medical Definitions

Opocephalic

A monster characterized by

fusion of the ears

one orbit and absence

of mouth and nose

Opisthonos

Arched position of the

body with feet and

head on the floor

caused by tetanic spasm

Tetrotus

Born with four ears

GREEK LESSON

Publication

'Regula Horatii, for Robert Kelly'

appears in the 2014 issue of Tribeca Poetry Review

with many thanks to Editor Kenlynne Rini.

Morning poem #5 / Potsherd # 1

"If the poet has not yet written his morning poem, then it must still be morning."

etiam in lingua Latina

ONOMASTICA EDITA

IN NOMINIBUS

IN NOMINIBUS SS. LARKIN ET APOLLINAIRE

t h e y  f u c k  y o u  up ,  y o u r  t v   s  h o w s

  o        a      r      p        a       n       h      a  a     e   i

  g        n      o      e        r       e       e      n    p    l    g

  a        t       f        r        t       d       l       f    p    c    m

  n        a      f        a       r       a        o      o     y   o     u

   s        s       t        t        i       y       v      r     d    m     n

   h        y       s       i        d       a       e      d    a     e      d

   e         i       u       o         g      t        b     a    y     b      a

   r         s       p        n        e      a        o     n     s     a      n

   o         l        e        p        f      t        a      d           c       d

   e         a         r        e        a      i       t       s            k       t

   s         n         s        t        m      m             o            k      h

            d          h         t         i        e             n            o       e

            o         i          l                                    t         s

                       w        c          y                                   t        e

                                  o                                                e        a

a                                               r        m

 t                                                          o

              n

    s

       t
      e 
      r


          s

  

to which you devoted

such attention

and the guts of many an hour

and so much forfeit innocence!

Before these programs curdled

their dead eyes still fixed on you

as their non-degradable

hypnotic

            literalism

as a corpse cools and congeals

cooled and congealed

            that happened

if you’re lucky.

For to count such losses

even to conceive of such 

damage

is the work of sanity at least

I think

as is the sadness.

AMENORRHEA?

While we're on the subject of Appalachian lunacy, check this plenteous list of what signified insanity in Victorian-era West Virginia, from Dave Tabler's bounteous Appalachian History site.

And what constituted insanity to West Virginia authorities in the late Victorian era? Marjorie E. Carr published a pamphlet in 1993, now in the Weston Hospital Collection at the West Virginia Archives and History, that tells the history of Weston. Her pamphlet includes the following from the first log book used at Weston (spelling & punctuation left as in the original):

REASONS FOR ADMISSION
WEST VIRGINIA HOSPITAL FOR THE INSANE (WESTON)
OCTOBER 22, 1864 to DECEMBER 12, 1889

Amenorrhea
Asthma
Bad company
Bad habits & political excitement
Bad whiskey
Bite of a rattle snake
Bloody flux
Brain fever
Business nerves
Carbonic acid gas
Carbuncle
Cerebral softening
Cold
Congestion of brain
Constitutional
Crime
Death of sons in the war
Decoyed into the army
Deranged masturbation
Desertion by husband
Diptheria
Disappointed affection
Disappointed love
Disappointment
Dissipation of nerves

Dissolute habits
Dog bite
Domestic affliction
Domestic trouble
Doubt about mother's ancestors
Dropsy
Effusion on the brain
Egotism
Epileptic fits
Excessive sexual abuse
Excitement as officer
Explosion of shell nearby
Exposure & hereditary
Exposure & quackery
Exposure in army
Fall from horse
False confinement
Feebleness of intellect
Fell from horse
Female disease
Fever
Fever & loss of law suit
Fever & nerved
Fighting fire
Fits & desertion of husband

Gastritis
Gathering in the head
Greediness
Grief
Gunshot wound
Hard study
Hereditary predisposition
Ill treatment by husband
Imaginary female trouble
Immoral life
Imprisonment
Indigestion
Intemperance
Interferance
Jealousy
Jealousy & religion
Kick of horse
Kicked in the head by a horse
Laziness
Liver and social disease
Loss of arm
Marriage of son
Masturbation & syphillis
Masturbation for 30 years
Medicine to prevent conception

Menstrual deranged
Mental excitement
Milk fever
Moral sanity
Novel reading
Nymphomania
Opium habit
Over action on the mind
Over heat
Over study of religion
Over taxing mental powers.
Parents were cousins
Pecuniary losses: worms
Periodical fits
Political excitement
Politics
Puerperal
Religious enthusiasm
Religious excitement
Remorse
Rumor of husband's murder or desertion
Salvation army
Scarlatina
Seduction
Seduction & dissappointment

Self abuse
Severe labor
Sexual abuse and stimulants
Sexual derangement
Shooting of daughter
Smallpox
Snuff
Snuff eating for two years
Softening of the brain
Spinal irritation
Sun stroke
Sunstroke
Superstition
Supressed masturbation
Supression of menses
Tabacco & masturbation: hysteria
The war
Time of life
Trouble
Uterine derangement
Venerial excesses
Vicious vices in early life
Women
Women trouble
Young lady & fear

link: APPALACHIAN HISTORY

Sources: http://www.trans-alleghenylunaticasylum.com/main/history3.html
http://www.lindapages.com/marshall/mental.htm
http://www.wvculture.org/HISTORY/collections/ms2008-085.html