---recounted as a dialogue---
"Well, Jim, we found a few interesting things when we went into your brain."
"Really?"
"Yes. A whole lot of poems, in fact."
"What?! Impossible. That has to be a mistake. I'm just an ordinary guy. I
go to work, have a few beers, take the train home, eat dinner, read the
paper, do a little note-writing on experiments at the lab, go to bed
around midnight..."
"Jim, I'm not asking for your biography---"
"I know, Doc, but what you're telling me is crazy. I like a limerick now
and then, but the weird stuff...Shakespeare and Milton...that's for the
dome heads. I'm just..."
"You're a regular guy. Got that, Jim. However, I can show you X-rays.
Scans. There's poetry in your brain, and it's threatening to take over
your cerebral cortex unless we go in and do a second surgery."
"Take over? You're joking."
"You have to face up to a few things, Jimbo. You're
actually posing
as just another Joe, and it's a good impression, I'm sure, but inside
you there are poems waiting to come out. And if they do, it's going to
get ugly, believe me. For one thing, you'll
see more."
"See more what?"
"More of what existence can be."
"THERE ISN'T ANYTHING MORE. There's what I do every day. My work. My
family. My salary. Beers with the boys. Football. I love football."
"Yes, we all love football, Jim. It's mandatory. But you...let me read one of the poems we found in your brain."
"HELL NO."
"It won't hurt that much."
"I don't want to hear it."
"Now as I was young and easy, under the apple boughs, about the lilting house, and happy as the grass was green---"
"STOP!"
"Okay, Jim, take it easy, it's in
your head, don't blame me.
We've discovered that...how I can put this...on some level you're always
thinking in poetry. Your whole consciousness is involved, and if we
were to take the poems away, you'd go into a deep
sleep, a kind of amnesia, perhaps a coma, and you'd never wake up. So
we can't surgically remove the poems. At best we can bury them deeper."
"Do it. Bury them. Bury them all."
"Yes, Jim, but hear me out. If we do that, you'll lose something."
"You mean I won't like football anymore?"
"No, Jim. You'll still have football. But you might not have beer. Just
kidding. Ha-ha. What you might lose is your interest in life."
"What do you mean?"
"You may not feel alive in the same way. You could become very dull."
"How's that possible, Doc. You're just getting rid of poems. Who cares?"
"Well, Jim, apparently you do. As much as you'd like to deny it, your
existence, your feeling about what it means to be alive---even though
you're trying to emphasize how ordinary you are---is wrapped up in a
certain poetic consciousness. I know, it's strange.
But again, don't blame me."
"Look, Doc, you went into my skull to remove some kind of little
blockage. And then you came up with these poems. And now you want to
bury them. But you say if you do, I might turn into a zombie."
"In the surgery, Jim, there was a leakage. Poems started to come
through. We put in a plug, but it's just temporary. It's a delicate
situation. Going back in a second time, we either let out all the poems,
or we build a thicker wall."
"Let me ask you a question, Doc. This thing, consciousness. What is it?"
"It's two things, Jim. It's what makes you know you're alive, and it's
also how you're alive. That second part is tricky. You're alive, Jim,
through connecting with the rhythm and sound of certain thoughts,
certain energies. And these energies would NEVER come
through to you if it weren't for language, and that language is poetic.
It's much greater than the reality we see around us. You dampen down
that language, Jim, because you want to appear normal. It's your goal in
life, to pretend not to understand anything
about this. Do you see? You want to come off like a regular guy, who's
smart and good at his job, and who knows what's happening in the world.
But you don't want to admit you're connected to...that thing you're
afraid of."
"But LOOK. I AM a regular guy. All right, so I read the newspaper and I
can look behind the stories and I can see a lot of the con games the
government is playing on people. I can see crimes and conspiracies. I
know something about who's running the show, who's
behind the curtain. I take pride in that. But this poetry thing. It's
crazy."
"Yes, I understand, Jim. But that's not going to cut it in this case.
We're at a serious crossroad. We have to do something. You're playing
with fire, trying to deny your connection. On some level, you're
participating in a greater reality. You're thinking
on a different plane,
and that thinking is what we call poetry.
We could call it Budweiser, but it wouldn't make any difference. It's
thought with higher force. It's great and grand ideas. And they're
coming from you, from your mind. You want to say
you're living in a pond, but you're living in the ocean. Let me put it
this way. If you weren't accessing oceanic consciousness, you couldn't
step it all down and appear to be a normal very smart guy. It wouldn't
work. You'd have nothing to dampen down."
"What would I be?"
"A broccoli. A head of lettuce."
"You're serious?"
"As serious as an aneurism, Jim."
"Geez, Doc, this is bad. My whole reputation, my whole rep with MYSELF
is riding on the fact that I'm a hardheaded realist. Do you get what's
at stake here?"
"Of course I do. That's why I'm being so forthcoming. I could have put
you under without you knowing it and just cut into your skull again. But
I wanted to explain the whole thing to you and give you a choice. You
see, Jim, the truth is we're all living in
a charade. We're all faking it. We're pretending we don't have these
fantastic energies in us. We're all stepping it down to average and
normal and smart.
It just so happens that, by the luck of the draw, my assistant in the OR
nicked a little piece of your brain and opened up a portal into what
we're all trying to avoid. We're all hooked up to our own poetic
centers. We all see life in much wider and deeper
terms. I don't mean little stupid rhymes. I mean great language that
vaults us up into atmospheres and spaces that...well, I can't really do
it justice sitting here talking to you. But this is mind control here,
Jim. The most profound kind. Self-induced. We
do it to ourselves. We cut off access. We keep ourselves ignorant about
the language we have...the genuine language that comes out of
imagination. If I operate on you again, there's a chance the wall we
build will be too thick, and you'll wake up with very
little awareness. You'll be regular and normal and average for real.
And trust me, Jim, that's a nightmare. I've seen it. The person is, to
put it kindly, at an enormous disadvantage."
"What should I do, Doc?"
"Take a chance, Jim. Let us clear away any scar tissue and just leave an
open portal. Let the language and the energies come through. From one
faker to another, go for it. Go for the great adventure. Who knows
what'll it be? One thing's for sure. You won't
be sitting here whining to me. You'll be you. Dealing with that won't
be easy, but with enough guts, you could make it through. You could show
us what we don't want to see."
"Doesn't sound very appealing."
"That won't be your problem, Jim. I guarantee it. The problem is, it'll be too appealing."
"Sounds dangerous."
"I wouldn't put it that way. Being who you are is what you've sacrificed
your whole life. You're going to retract that sacrifice. Think of it
that way. You're going to pull away the sacrifice like an old coat and
burn it in the fire of a thousand new suns..."
"Or else come back as a carrot."
"Pretty much. People around you will still think you're Jim, but inside
you won't be anybody or anything. You'll be a robot with no real
consciousness."
"I hate poetry, Doc."
"Why do you think that is, Jim?"
"I don't know. I want things to be simple and clear. Like a story. Beginning, middle, end."
"Wrapped up like a nice neat package."
"That's right."
"Like your life."
"Why not?"
"You tell me."
"I hate poetry."
"We all do, Jim. It reminds us of something we'd rather forget."
"So help me forget it, Doc."
"You want to be a zombie."
"If that's what it takes."
"Imagine a world full of zombies, Jim. Everybody cut off from their oceanic consciousness. No poetry ever again."
"Sounds good. Sounds like realism. No more conflict. No more demons."
"Demons? Is that what you think I'm talking about, Jim? Your greatest
thoughts and energies expressed with their greatest force, with raw
beauty and---"
"They're not RATIONAL, Doc. They're meaningless. I don't understand those thoughts. They don't make any sense."
"If we build that wall in your brain, Jim, what's left of you will be a machine. Do you get that?"
"That's what I want. I want to be a machine. I'll be fine."
"Well...okay, kid. Your choice. Your destiny. We'll prep you for
surgery. We'll make those trillion watts of energy shrink down to a
ten-watt bulb."
"This thing you call poetic consciousness, Doc? It's just a delusion. And I want to get rid of it."
"Okay, Jim, I'll put the genie back in the bottle."
"Nice talking to you, Doc."
"I wish that were true, Jim. TYGER, TYGER, BURNING BRIGHT, IN THE
FORESTS OF THE NIGHT, WHAT IMMORTAL HAND OR EYE COULD FRAME THY FEARFUL
SYMMETRY?"
"See, Doc. That's just what I mean. What the hell kind of talk is that? I don't understand it! Get rid of it!"
"Sorry, kid, it just slipped out. I'll go get ready. Relax. The nurse'll be in in a minute. Piece of cake."
"Poetry. Ridiculous. It's for idiots."
"Sure, kid."
"We don't need poets."
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