Doctor will see you now,
Mr X, mystery man
with your mysterious disease.
Ah! Mr X.
do please
come in,
sit down.
And how long have you felt like this?
To tell the truth
I’ve never felt so well, to tell
the truth to tell
there’s nothing wrong at all!
But all the same,
you do look pale and rather overwrought.
Lowers his tone,
sits forward in his chair and becomes
more forthright,
inviting confidence.
It’s not uncommon, time of life, you know,
and, dare I say it,
if I had a pound for everyone
who came to me like this,
I would be rich.
Laughs.
(Speaks behind his hand)
There's something that he does not wish to say,
or hear.
What’s in a name?
(Makes a decisive note)
I will prescribe some pills.
We need to run some tests;
send samples to the lab.
Then monitor results
when they come in we’ll know a thing or two.
It can’t be rushed.
It all takes time.
Roll up your sleeve.
Take us down to our forgotten roots.
Embrace nature;
find space beside the green bay-
Wear garlands in our hair.
Place ourselves in care pastoral
most natural.
Lateral thinking,
horses blinkered
chewing the bit and green and grassy breath
but clean,
as I began to say,
this laurel wreath.
Find the plant that imitates the signs,
instils,
initiates,
ingratiates;
pluck it.
I guarantee.
The green bay tree,
that has supported me so far,
stripped of its leaves.
This laurel wreath
torn down.
This laurel crown.
Laudatus est.
Now that I am on a dozen pills,
I've started to define myself by what I take.
Each cell, its tiny mouth, calls out
dextro amphetamol
or words to that effect,
absorbs its dose,
goes back to sleep.
Disease placated;
pull the other one!
‘I’m pleased,’ you say.
Others, perhaps more civilised
put it this way,
It pleases me,
I am beside myself.
I raise my spirits,
table tapping,
‘Is
there anybody there?’
you ask, expecting no reply
and we would have to say,
Oh yes, that help exists
indeed and looking back,
time when,
call them the Golden Days,
we rose or fell by this,
the bedside manner.
Some would hold,
that that was all we had,
but now
pre-
pre-
and I
do not presume,
although,
and here is something you might like to know,
(looks at his watch,
there’s not much time)
It might be all illusion.
Worse,
illusion’s shadow that does not itself exist.
But I can counter that.
The analgesic act
of Holy Water,
that is water forty-
or over, sanctified
and proof of God’s enduring love,
can be pharmacologically antagonised.
Quotes from two scientific papers, one of which says that there is no evidence for the placebo effect, even in pain reduction and the other shows (convincingly in my opinion) that the effect of a placebo in reducing pain can be abolished by opiate antagonists.
Sticks and stones may break my bones,
but names and faces
never hurt me.
No!
You think not,
try this one for size.
La Belle Dame Sans Merci
and there are others, worse.
He blanched now,
keeping something back;
a lady on a milk white steed,
a tongue-
and Mrs Robinson,
where are you
in our hour of need?
Quotes from Keats and Thomas the Rhymer, The Graduate (Mike Nichols) ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names and faces never hurt me’ is one version of the nursery rhyme.
I am the good shepherd
and I can cure anyone
of anything. I know my sheep.
With me you make a sound investment.
Loss, loss leader, lost?
No, only gone ahead.
Good accumulates, you know, in steps.
The secret is;
here,
I will whisper in your ear.
What,
you say,
a most unlikely tale,
and one that no-
Well, to that I say,
You heard it here first.
and it comes down to this,
to letting go of what you have,
greater, a moderate amount, or less
and I will keep it for you,
see it grow.
It all comes down to this;
percentage yield.
So when the boss returns and says,
Where is it?
I want to see
what have you done
with what you had.
Then you reply,
I fell among thieves.
From the parables of Good The Samaritan and of The Talents.
Do not think that anything,
malign or otherwise,
can remain hidden.
Magnetic force ensures
(Tesla teasing,
south seeking
pole and all)
were angel choirs to sing,
we would hear them.
We are looking for the soul,
the bottom line,
the only lived-
we will find the ghost in the machine.
It now has,
even from itself,
no place to hide.
Do not dismay.
The wide grey waste,
those billows of the restless sea,
the waves to walk on,
waves to walk beneath;
the pain-
feeling nothing,
feeling all.
Tesla was the great Croatian scientist whose name is given to magnetic flux density. (See The man who invented the twentieth century by Robert Lomas). The brain has no sensory nerves and hence no feeling at its surface.
(What the butler saw)
Find a coin for the slot machine
an old one, with the words,
Ich Dien
inside the worn milled rim
The mills of God grind slow;
they ground for him.
He served.
He knew his place,
he was a member of the under class,
but felt it not.
Coarse he was,
yet all he saw was fine,
until,
The music does not play for you my friend.
You can make the Knight’s move,
but you will not be a King.
Bathed and contemplating still pink skin,
and body odour,
vile perhaps
and yet most glorious
to a woman less refined than him,
maybe, he thought,
maybe, maybe, maybe,
I will serve my soul upon a silver salver.
Maybe the gods,
though they have climbed
upon the staircase
one step higher,
mired in their self-
are no more to be redeemed than us.
And
stooping,
Saw.
The Butler occupies a position that might be considered as halfway between God and Man. The Mills of God is from Sextus Empiricus, Greek philosopher.‘The music does not play for you...’ is from David Lindsay’s A Voyage to Arcturus.
It’s clear enough.
I can tell you what you need.
You need the water in your cells revitalised.
They are crying,
‘It is stagnant!
It can not refresh,
nor yet be fresh again.’
You must know
that there are waters of two kinds.
Water whose essence is forever dull
and water where the freshness is unquenched.
Its chill is not derived from cold,
because there are two kinds of heat.
Our science, which goes back to ancient times,
tells us this: that temperature is two-
The first dimension, the one you know,
or think you know, ranges from absolute cold
to utmost heat.
Its colour is red. The second,
and this comes down to us from what we call
the ‘Time Before’,
ranges from ice-
Its colour is blue.
Water is where they meet.
The ancient word ‘liquid’
means not more than this,
where souls condense from spirit.
And there the two kinds are determined by
which way comes first.
Some talk of toxins, we do not. To be honest
they are levering your thoughts
around a pivot of their own device.
We must get on,
this is no cheap osmotic trick,
though treatment is simplicity itself.
What does it cost? you ask,
and so you should. No,
don’t apologise,
it gives us no offence,
because we are not interested
in money
as such.
Oh you bold Baronet
where is your crown of thorns?
You man of sorrows
seeking surgeons
to bring transient relief.
Christ crucified again
and all the Saints.
Martyrs investigating pain
that floats nine parts out of ten
beneath,
ordained
and He
arranged it.
Many, thinking that
such an edifice
is insecure,
have followed Him
despite that single early warning plea.
San Sebastian,
victim of some vengeful darts-
who has missed his double top.
Stephen, stoned,
and Catherine,
whose glad circumference enchants.
The opening comes from Betjeman’s poem Sir John Piers. The three syllables of Catherine should be given equal stress. Circumference is a word/concept often used by Emily Dickenson and intended here to share the meaning, intentional or otherwise, that she gave to it.
He was old
and he lived alone
and one day
some of his toes
went black
and they said,
“We must
take your leg
off at the knee.”
And he said,
“I don’t think
that you should
do that.
I don’t think
it is right.”
And they said,
“It is!
We’ll get
your sister
to spell it out.”
And they did.
And she did!
Youth and crabbed age cannot live together,
so let both take a trip to Switzerland
travelling by train and
in the morning wake
to see dawn on the Jungfrau, pink,
then high in Alpine meadows
walk on grass, sweet with yellow trefoil
and other flowers dense,
too numerous to name
and warm goat’s milk that foams
white on white snow,
Oh Uncle mine!
And now,
this day of days,
the doctor and the priest come running.
Running, they have found it out.
There’s something that they need to say.
Funiculi, funicula
they shout,
and we agree.
But first,
before they catch their breath,
lean forward,
bend the knees
and, keeping skis together,
self-
slide gently down the slope
until the lights go out.
‘Crabbed age and youth’ is from The Passionate Pilgrim, attributed to Shakespeare. Other material is from Johanna Spyri’s Heidi and Larkin’s Where can we live but days? Ah, solving that question brings the priest and the doctor in their long coats running over the fields. Currently Switzerland is one of the few countries where euthanasia is tolerated, if not allowed by law. Funiculi, funicula here does not refer to the original song by Peppino Turco, but to the music by Italian composer Luigi Denza and the later version starting with the lines:-
Some think the world is made for fun and frolic,
And so do I!
And so do I!
Yes, he was here.
How might you say?
He left his imprint!
Practising percussively
to improve his potency.
Passing through many vessels.
Inconceivably diluted.
He could not cure life’s ill,
but caused another
to do it for him.
Treating like with like. The principle of homeopathy. Medicines are prepared by diluting an active agent, often a toxin, whose actions mimic the symptoms of the disease, using a percussive mixing procedure (also called succussion). Paradoxically each dilution is said to increase the potency.
Now is the time to go
down to your Grandfather’s allotment.
See him dig there.
Listen to the sound the spade,
pushed by the leather
(each eye strong laced pull) slow
boot, makes,
lifts then turns.
Contemplate topsoil,
for which we are truly thankful.
Grass is greener,
monocotyledonous,
youth wasted on the young.
Going down,
going down,
subsoil,
stones then
bedrock;
rest there.
Calorie intake,
Subsistence
farming,
scratching living,
Work for idle hands to do.
Look, it’s quite strange.
Just as he had cleaned his spade, about to leave,
a neighbour came
wanting to borrow something.
What, I have forgotten.
Voice, calling in the garden.
Rules made
to be broken. Time
for a chat.
Time, time and time again.
Don’t get up to mischief now!
You can see whose son he is.
The pimpernel,
growing, scarlet,
opened.
It was going to be a nice day.
So, where are you now?
London, he said.
Oh yes, voice down,
Oh yes. Oh, Mrs Someone’s son,
you know.
He went there once.
A good man once,
but he went there,
came back
and never did a day’s work since.
We know he tasted of the fleshpots,
that is what.
Pink, voluptuous, like sea anemones
abound on rock.
So let that be a dreadful warning to you.
If you see those fleshpots there,
take care! Avoid them,
though they will reach out.
And
Christ,
who died for us.
On the other hand,
those fleshpots I have warned you of?
Something to look for,
something to dream about?
The image here is of the dark, meat-
Spring shine morning stained glass window
Blue green leaning
asking nowhere
clouds pass
light dims
arum lily
Garden
stranger
primrose
sweetness
living whiteness
golden light grows lasting ever.
In remission. The period between Easter Sunday and Ascension-
Mr X
was a very private man.
Little is known of him
other than that he was.
And what the consequences of his life have been
are anybody’s guess.
He would have said,
X is not the one unknowable
Instead it is the certain landmark.
X,
precision intersection
marks the spot,
the alphabetic interloper
misanthropic
firm, proclaims
‘you will not land upon my beaches’.
Choice,
forbidden,
kiss
and Christmas wishes.
X alone then
might be you,
or any one of us.
Just this we know,
that Mr X,
who once was someone,
now has gone.
The soul is as unrepentant
as a ship in a bottle.
How did it get there?
Nobody knows,
but push came to shove
and suddenly
there it was.
As far as we all can tell
it isn’t going anywhere,
but one day the glass will dissolve
and then it will sail away
into the blue yonder.
The Healing of the Sick
What is a doctor’s first duty?
I don’t know, I’ve forgotten!
Adapted from the film ‘Wild strawberries’ by Ingmar Bergman
Following ‘The Silk Road’, The healing of the Sick was written as a collection, but with two interlopers, poems written earlier that appear to fit, but do not entirely satisfy the writer as belonging.