Prologue to Sleuthing the Numinous:
Sleep Deprived Poet Seeks Relief from Muse on Amphetamines
Dear Tony, kindly forgive
my distracting a dying poet
from more pressing matters…
But I’m a big fan of yours. And at
times even consider myself a bit of a
poet too–or at least, someone
Who often thinks in 3 line stanzas.
I’m writing because you’ve been in
my mind
In a very strange way ever since a
mutual friend mentioned he would
be visiting you.
It led me to read your most
recent poetry collections
–which in turn created quite a disturbance.
For ever since, some kind of
faucet opened in my brain that has
left me flooded by poems.
It’s unrelenting. It doesn’t stop.
And weirdly, some even bear titles
that seem channeled by you.
And since you seem partially
responsible, I’m writing you in the hope
of any help you might offer.
For the dilemma I’m suffering is:
Once the faucet’s turned on, how do
you turn it off?
*
In truth, I’ve often failed at
finding the off-switch
–at least with the things I love…
I can go on binges that
don’t seem to end.
My problem, somehow
Brings to mind Salvador Dali, when
he, along with other celebrities, was
once interviewed
For helpful tips in dealing
with depression.
Dali replied that he suffered
Not from depression, but from
how to handle getting too happy.
(And for that, he’d eat an English muffin).
So I guess I’m asking a fellow practitioner
for some version of that English muffin.
Yet I’m doing so out of desperation
For my happiness has been like a drug
with a debilitating side-effect:
I’m becoming horrifically sleep-deprived.
And that’s because something from
another dimension seems to arrive between
2 and 5 a.m. and starts yakking
In my brain. And it doesn’t stop until
I make a poem from it.
Have you ever had this problem too–
Like having a Muse on amphetamines?
And if so, what works for you?
I’ve already tried masturbation, counting
my blessings, following my breaths,
Cannabis Indica, cable television
(even tuning solely to late night beauty infomercials
That normally might put a man to sleep). But
each of these remedies has only spawned
further poems…
In a way I’m grateful for them, of
course. And toward whatever it is that’s
speaking through me like this
But being an on-call Boswell to
an astral Samuel Johnson
leaves little bandwidth
For the rest of my life. And
even that is becoming
increasingly hallucinatory now
*
Tony, I know this could seem weird, that I
turn to a poet for help. (Like Dante turning to
Virgil for guidance). Not that I’m Dante…
But I once gave a reading on an island in the Irish Sea now
peopled by the descendants of a 16th century lady pirate.
There I learned that the old Irish word for poet (file)
Is also the word for “seer.” And that in Ireland
poets have been held as visionary agents of healing,
where historically, they have even been consulted
For problems with rats, kings, etc. So I’m hoping that
Muse issues, and sleep disorders with poetic features
might be right up your alley.
For I’m literally quite tired of being used like this, of
having become a ventriloquist’s dummy with an
acute sleep disorder.
I should add that I am a psychotherapist by trade, yet
there is absolutely nothing in the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders
For my condition. Nor is there any
kind of 12 Step group. Tony, you’re
my last hope…
Your sleepless fan,
GR
p.s. In the event that it might prove diagnostically helpful in addressing my condition, I am enclosing the attached file of the most recent poems that have disturbed my sleep. Given your terminal condition, I hope that my poems won’t be as disturbing to you, as yours were to me. (And I will understand if your condition doesn’t permit you to respond to mine. Or if our mutual friend, for end of life reasons, thinks it best not to forward this to you).
But poems are heretical outliers; they can disturb the sleep of consensual reality, or give us another way of looking at it. You were so good at that, Tony.* (Thank you for including us all in your will–for all the poems you have left us). Yet as any reader should know, poems are also potentially contagious. And so, they should be read with some caution.
* Tony Hoagland died in Santa Fe, New Mexico on October 23, 2018 from pancreatic cancer.
***
Here’s the first two poems in Sleuthing The Numinous…
Your Heart’s Desire Item
First there’s this fish on the
line that keeps falling off
before it can be landed.
Then it’s me about to fall over
the transom.
And as if for a handrail
I’m then reaching for familiar
comforts in the next scene that
lead nowhere
Until I notice the light itself, the subtle gleam
in these hallucinatory scenes.
Then the gleam brightens
And what appears next is a rumpled twin
billed detective’s hat. And beneath the hat is a
Confucian detective with a southern drawl.
He’s been called in on the case because all the
beautiful women have been disappearing. He
sounds faintly like Coleman Barks, yet looks
Like Joseph Campbell, and he’s saying that until
we can find out the monster’s true name he will
continue to threaten our woman-folk.
Look, he says, with greater urgency now,
Persephone keeps being abducted!
Persephone keeps being abducted!
We used to track her through milk cartons bearing the
missing faces of the girl next door But now that
traumatized innocence is coming out of the woodwork,
and appearing
Everywhere, even on the Evening News as the
last woman groped by the President
So, though the pathology report definitely includes mythic
features, do you really think
That the Greek gods just disappeared because of
monotheism, or that
Their awful curses can’t cross the Aegean just because we
can no longer remember their names?
The Confucian detective then gives me his hat
and I’m off to gather evidence of the Helpful
Force that might be called upon
As if the world was still anything like a
Hollywood western from the 1950s
where the solitary drifter appears
And against all odds, rids the town of the
psychopathic grifters who have taken it over.
Yet apparently, this is still the archetypal American dream.
I mean, look at what’s taken over Washington.
And just as patriotism is often the last refuge
of scoundrels,
Deus ex machina is the tragic last hope for
those truly fucked.
And if not the good gunslinger,
Then the Governor’s pardon will
arrive just before the executioner’s
fingers can reach the deadly switch.
The drama is building…
And as it comes down to the wire
The results in this dream are hard to call
It may be that the planet, country
or life I’ve landed in is doomed
in some way, while offering
A promise—a potential that is
seldom realized. Or if realized,
doesn’t manage to linger for long
Before it is abducted by an alien force who
feeds on naiveté, a monster come up from
the depths that no one has yet to truly name.
The scene shifts, and a new figure appears.
(He’s either a news anchor, or a corporate shill for
Your Heart’s Desire products on the Home Shopping Channel).
The decisive votes are still being tabulated, he says.
Though we regret to inform you that Your Heart’s Desire item
may not be available in your size or color.
Please check back for future updates.
And thank you for your interest.
And thank you for your interest.
The Nameless Ones & The Wooden Coyote of Joy
You’ve heard of “bats in the belfry?”
Well, I’ve got voices in my attic
–nothing too psychotic, I hope…
They’ve trained me to write down
what they’re saying.
And wake me with these communiqués
Which seem to come from
another dimension (or time zone?).
For they mostly arrive between 2 and 5 a.m.
And make me feel a little haunted, and sleep deprived.
But also, less lonely, as if they haven’t totally
forgotten about us
(Even if we mostly forget about them whomever
they are, that I am talking about now).
For, I don’t know the right name to give my
Benefactors, these forms of alien intelligence who
seem to communicate in 3 recognizably distinct styles.
One is auditory. One is visual imagery. And when
I took up non-fiction prose in earnest, they
began to send me whole paragraphs written on
some kind of illuminated page like a Kindle.
The latter usually seemed in reference to something
I wrote or thought recently. Something they might
want me to edit, or take another look at.
And of late, my “disincarnate associates” have mostly
been functioning as assignment editors. And this morning
the assignment-communiqué came in the visual form of
their way of talking. For they were sending an image of
a desolate looking, late 19th century Western town.
But the strange thing about the town was the
coyote in the telegraph office. He was made
of wood. Yet alive.
And his firm nose was tapping out
in Morse Code the same word
–over and over. And the word was Joy.
But before I could pursue this any further,
I made the rookie ventriloquist dummy’s
typical, tactical mistake. I opened my eyes
And went downstairs to pee and make
coffee. And by the time I was ready to
engage the coyote was gone.
*
I’m sure I’ve lost countless poems due to
the ways I’ve interrupted the transmission.
Just like I’ve lost girlfriends due to the ways
I’ve been an asshole, or became unavailable.
But that’s different from the way any good
gunslinger (or word slinger) bodhisattva
heads out of Dodge, once the deed is done.
The really good ones don’t wait around for any
applause or recognition. For that’s not why they
do it. It’s their highest style of ritual play.
Where they lose themselves in full absorption with
life, death, and their challenges. Or as the poet
Robert Duncan once said, “I write poems for the
same reason that men make love or war
—to test my faculties at large.”
And when a writer is guided by that kind of
intent, perhaps the wooden coyote of joy
is tapping the keys.
*
We seem to be evoking a solitary form of bodhisattva
here—one characteristically unrecognized. For
example, at the end of each episode of The Lone
Ranger, a voice appears–as if from off stage, or
another dimension than the story itself.
And the voice leaves us to wonder Who was that
masked man? For the mythic hero is often
disguised in some way as with Batman
–or Odysseus. And the disguise of Superman
Was the nerd Clark Kent–whom Lois Lane wouldn’t
give the time of day…While she panted, going gaga
for the Man of Steel.
But real-life heroes seldom wear capes.
Though sometimes, they remain disguised
even to themselves. Something just makes
them do what they do–like an invisible self
Taking over the steering wheel–a more
beatific version of “the devil made me do it.”
And good poems are like that too…
Anyhow, today, when almost nobody
besides adolescents or adrenaline junkies
feels much like the old time, antique heroes
We may need to redefine our terms and
discover the right names for as many
kinds of courage, faith, or guidance as
the Eskimos have for snow.
*
But the thing is this: In my real, undisguised life
it’s now 5 o clock in the morning. I took off my
(sleep) mask hours ago
In order to pick up my assignment. And
though I know it’s not very heroic of me,
I really just want to go back to sleep.
Even though I’m not sure if I’ve done justice
to that strange coyote in the telegraph office.
I think I’ll have to contemplate him more
When I have more juice… Or see what the
Nameless Ones show me next.
But it’s pretty obvious–even to my
Sleep deprived brain–that coyotes who know
how to speak in code don’t grow on trees —
even if they’re wooden. That kind of coyote
comes from another dimension, a messenger
Bearing an alternative, heretical view of things.
And if he seems to have wandered away for a spell
that means he’s still out there, in the vastness…
Perhaps amidst the mesquite and fragrant sage,
curled up beneath the fog of winter hills, or
the unsuspected wonders of our own backyard.
And reminding us of what’s easily
forgotten
in dark times like these:
An innate, sun-like joy
is ever lurking. It could
break out, at any moment.
Here’s the video link to a poem entitled “The Eagle” which is the concluding poem of Sleuthing the Numinous
For more on Sleuthing the Numinous, click here where you’ll find a video amplifying the title