W.R.
Baker
c/o Accountable
Publishing
PO Box 177, Marshall, CA 94940
from Lazarus Wigley
A PsychiatristÕs Notebook
4 Poems by William R.
Baker
© 2010 by Accountable Publishing
For the Poets
In the Growing Terror of the Half-Light
At the Conference
Outside
For the Poets
From
a blind I watch a troop
in
the jungle –
big
beautiful smart
who
spend most of their time,
other
than hunting,
imitating
the actions and styles
of
all the others.
Their
bodies are geometrically perfect,
in
fact, like a couple of geometric planes
fairly
curving and showing me pictures
of
themselves making love.
Their
spines glow with a red seal.
ItÕs
a digital device of some kind
but
I couldnÕt say for sure;
they
are impossible to catch.
At the Conference
The
waters are thick and delicious.
The
sky dotted
with
white parasols and wisps of her hair.
Only
we here on earth are limited,
circumscribed. She is always changing, always
enchanting.
All
creatures contribute to her formation.
Is
our evil a mistake, a miscalculation, or a result of our arrogance and
pride?
Maybe
itÕs the microbial nature of life that seems evil to us.
Our
conscience tells us good and evil are battling for control.
Our
conscience whispers, weÕre here to protect.
Are
we deluded?
The
human mind is obsessive by nature,
focused
on survival. Once people develop a
history they enshrine it,
making
it extremely difficult to break away from idolatry.
As
a psychiatrist my function is to act as a lightning rod
to
sever the connections of the worshiper to the idol, to free them
into
a world of cooperation and care.
Here
I have failed.
In the Growing Terror of the Half-Light
I
climb around the spine of inner peace
down
the moorings of collapsing Empire.
The
dead are all around me,
Feeling
my legs, touching
my
once sylvan black hair
now
caked with blood.
I
hear Ian Bremmer say
ÒWe
are not a fatigued superpower
not
crippled in any way
but
rather like Gulliver
Tied
down by the Lilliputians.Ó
To
its detriment mankind has
become
addicted to crime. Scientifically
we are light years from the old days, but we
are
psychologically retarded. We have
all the information we need
about
the most productive methods of dealing
with
human beings, but we ignore it.
We
treat human prisoners with less respect
than
animals in a zoo.
Deeply
woven into every society racism is rampant as ever,
but
there are signs of progress. Since
the late 70Õs
we
have been developing space, light and decent
food
for most caged animals. Perhaps
in
the next decades we will shed the facades
of
idealization and realize
we
are all animals living in a Global Zoo.
Outside
I
live on an island two miles wide
six
miles long.
ItÕs
got a lake, a river hills kinda
foresty
mostly itÕs a savannah.
I
have a house with all the trimmings.
I,
have holograms –
My
island is somewhere in
The
solar system – far
Away
from Earth
Or
it could be in a parallel dimension
There
is no sea, only an
impenetrable
wall of air.
Fruit
trees, berry bushes, fish
and
game galore. The weather
varies
but there are no extremes.
ItÕs
a similar feeling to the Caribbean,
without
the hurricanes.
My
father and I have been talking for, at least,
One
month or so he says. He also says
heÕs real
And
one of my problems is that I isolate myself
from
people – a schizophrenic trait.
Today
weÕre discussing whoÕs right
and
does it matter?
I
turn him off and turn on The Individualism of Gil Evans. In the midst of a full blown
orchestra
a tweaking sound is heard. Faint
at first, barely gaining in strength, simply
and
somewhat annoyingly repeated, insured.
Suddenly
itÕs gone. ItÕs been absorbed by
the reeds, part of the whole – completely non-obtrusive.