The Fine Madness
by Gary Hardaway
The intimations come from some
inheritance in the brain
that makes one susceptible
to poems and small addictions.
A phrase, a sentence, a stanza,
sounds among the sums and lists
and starts a scratched cascade
of syllables and other approximations--
of the goddess voice, or something
Jungian, or just some small,
Skinnerian hiccup. Whether
magical, mythical or conditional,
it is insistent, capturing the ear
and eye no one else can see or serve.
Sums and lists can be retraced-
necessities mother them-
but sparked, synaptic tones
burn once, and not again.
Maybe that's why I can rarely remember my own poems. It does seem magical when it happens. *
Like it on FB. Like it here.
One of your best.*
"and starts a scratched cascade
of syllables and other approximations--
of the goddess voice, or something
Jungian, or just some small,
Skinnerian hiccup."
Oh my. Good piece, Gary.
Did you know that the MMPI was developed by a psychologist named Stark Raving Hathaway?
*
How can you not like a stanza that ranges from goddesses to Jung and Skinner?*
Thank you, Matt and Steve. Thank you Amanda and Sam. Thank you Jake and Gary.