Step by step, alone I crept
Step by step by lonely step
And then I felt a brushing touch
A gentle voice that whispered much
About which note and tone of choice
About the timbre and the voice
About the inflection of the string
And how to make the guitar sing
Step by step, together we crept
Step by step by maddening step
“The glass armonica’s ghostly notes will cause insanity in its musicians and listeners! At least this is what was thought to be true in the 18th century. People were frightened by the armonica’s sound due to it’s strange interactions with the human brain and ears. Benjamin Franklin invented the glass armonica in 1761 after being profoundly moved by the sounds of the glass harp.
The glass armonica’s sound is perceived by human ears differently than other instruments because its range is between 1,000 and 4,000 hertz, the human brain compares ‘phase differences’ between the left and right ears to triangulate the origin of the sound rather than comparing volumes. This causes hearing disorientation and a ‘not quite sure’ feeling about where the sound is coming from.”
“Mesmer treated patients both individually and in groups. With individuals he would sit in front of his patient with his knees touching the patient’s knees, pressing the patient’s thumbs in his hands, looking fixedly into the patient’s eyes. Mesmer made ‘passes’, moving his hands from patients’ shoulders down along their arms. He then pressed his fingers on the patient’s hypochondrium region (the area below the diaphragm), sometimes holding his hands there for hours. Many patients felt peculiar sensations or had convulsions that were regarded as crises and supposed to bring about the cure. Mesmer would often conclude his treatments by playing some music on a glass armonica.”
“Mr. Mesmer then seated him near the armonica; he had hardly begun to play when my friend was affected emotionally, trembled, lost his breath, changed color, and felt pulled toward the floor.”
“There were accounts of the instrument being banned by physicians who cited possible ill effects including prolonged shaking of the nerves, tremors in the muscles, fainting, cramps, swelling, paralysis of the limbs’ and seeing ghosts.”
Fifteen years in this asylum
I cry and cry
I laugh and laugh
Mostly at the exact same things
There’s no distinction between these scenes
Just my particular state of mind
“Pennsylvania Hospital was founded in 1751 by Dr. Thomas Bond and Benjamin Franklin ‘to care for the sick-poor and insane who were wandering the streets of Philadelphia.’”
“A similar expansion took place in the British American colonies. The Pennsylvania Hospital was founded in 1751 as a result of work begun in 1709 by the Religious Society of Friends. A portion of this hospital was set apart for the mentally ill, and the first patients were admitted in 1752. Virginia is recognized as the first state to establish an institution for the mentally ill.”
I want to be a little bird
And fly out of my mind
And sing a new song
To drive the world mad
Mostly, I want to be free
The Baron Shadowmancer
And The Wild Witch Dancer
Infect like ritual
Or a growing cancer
Bonfires sprout elemental architecture
Great towers of licking flames
A phantasmagoric orgy
Of shadows and light
She dazzles the eye
A hypnotic beast of brightness
He subverts the mind
A mesmerizing demon of darkness
Lowdown and dirty is the night
Punctuated by conflagrations
The Witch’s Sabbat
Encircled by the Baron’s Madness
“The inspiration in a sense is my entire spiritual upbringing. Once you have a meditative life you start to see that the world is really far different than what it appears to be. What appears to be finite is really couched in the infinite, and the infinite imbues everything in our lives.”
Bruce Joel Rubin on the film “Jacob’s Ladder”
10 Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. 11 When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. 12 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 There above it[c] stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. 14 Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.[d]15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” 16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” 17 He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.” 18 Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. 19 He called that place Bethel,[e] though the city used to be called Luz.
Genesis 28: 10-19
“Coronation Chair—the Coronation Chair was made for Edward I to enclose the famous Stone of Scone, which he seized in 1296 and brought from Scotland to the Abbey … Legends abound concerning this mysterious object and tradition identifies this stone with the one upon which Jacob rested his head at Bethel”
The cover of the first book I wrote (Intertwined in Limbo) had absolutely nothing to do with any story in the book. The firm that created the cover just used a picture that was “ghostly”. So I decided to write a poem that told her story.
The White Lady
Little Mason Morbid was a melancholy lad
While the other kids were playing, he sat brooding, looking sad
His cloths were black and gray and his heart was a hole
And the only thing ‘twas darker than his mind was his soul
On the thirteenth of the month he would adjourn unto a tomb
In an old forgotten graveyard under darkness of the gloom
He’d commence to crank the handle of a tiny music player
And then the strains of Moonlight Sonata would drift upon the air
Somewhere from the blackness an apparition would appear
A radiant diaphanous figure who was draped in gossamer
She would float about the graves as little Mason Morbid crooned
“White Lady, white lady, tell me of your doom.”
“It was in the dead of winter and the snow was falling down
Like little drops of clouds to form a blanket on the ground.
The people of the village were all huddled with each other
And the young Reverend Smithe had stopped by to pray for Mother.”
“He sat and read his Bible and then he joined us in our meal
Then he told my worried Father how his faith would help her heal.
He was smitten by my beauty and I was taken by his charm
Before I knew what happened, he had lured me to the barn.”
“The passions of the flesh overcame the strictures of the mind
The reverend’s Puritan values gave way to pleasures for a time.
I was left defiled and the guilt would take its toll
Darkness and depression were like weights upon my soul.”
“Consumed by misery and ashamed for being so beguiled
But the real scandal was when I found that I was with child.
And all about the gossip started that descended upon me
The Reverend Smithe could not be charged, it must be sorcery.”
“They drug me through the village with curses that were vile,
Accused me of witchcraft and held a mockery of a trial.
And so it was, betrayed, abused and blighted in the soul,
I was made to pay the reverend’s sin on the rope of the gallows’ pole.”
Little Mason Morbid heaved a heavy sigh of grief
The White Lady’s tragedy was sad beyond belief
He watched her go back to her grave then he mused aloud,
“Life is futile and so unfair, and we are wrapped within her shroud.”
I’ve plumbed the depths of darkest mire
Drug back hellish creatures with twisted tongues
And scrawled the words with blood and fire
That bellowed from their blackened lungs
Words that wiggle like a maggot or worm
Or creep and crawl on nimble spider legs
Into the mind they scurry and squirm
To spin their webs and deposit their eggs
Once they’ve infected they hatch and spread
And grow into creatures corrupt and vile
They taunt and haunt and spew their dread
Sleek and shadowy with bewitching guile
Too late to change the fate they’ve wrought
Too awed to stand against their might
Too shocked to fathom what they’ve brought
And much too scared to put up a fight
Their infernal words have come to blight
And by my conjuring I’m to blame
For I’m the wizard of the terrible night
Who knows each creature by its name
How shall I burden thee thou vacant shell?
Whose forlorn spirit can no longer in thee dwell
Abused, contused, such a shredded form
That shirks thy joy beyond the blighted norm
Confused, misused, rebuking clotted clay
Can no longer cower like the dogged prey
O’ how they used to dance upon thy skin
Tools of torture that cajoled blood within
A sanguine medley of raucous outpouring
Thy melodies took to air and then went soaring
That delightful voice so full of passion
That stirred emotions in a poignant fashion
Thy pleading crescendo that wrenched my heart
Hath sang its encore and fled the part
With nary a credit to the conductors skill
Without whose flair to thy struggling will
Would not have brought such fiery drive
To a tedious creature just barely alive
With distressing sorrow I bid adieux
For another apt instrument awaits my cue
Lying listless on a lonely, loam lake shore
Framed by fog and the bitter, brine bog air
Curse the cruel fangs of fate that flung me here
My body beaten down by the black brood of despair
T’would take a thousand years to tell the tale
Of the madness, misery, and mischievous calamity
And I pray not ponder upon my past hell
Lest I beat my brain from my brow in insanity
Then lo, I spy through the gloom a green, glowing globe
Floating, flying, bouncing, and bobbing right at me
Too weak to worry with rising to run
I anxiously await its arrival and abhor the agony
What would it want with a wretch with no will?
Then it howled by my head and halted and hovered
And an enigmatic energy possessed my person
Slowly sinking; subsumed, consumed and now covered
I cheated in a couple of places with spelling, but these were still fun to write.
ENCLOSURE
Nothing gets out, nothing gets iN
Confined within space specifiC
Locked up body and souL
Open up! The answer’s nO
Stripped of freedom’s blisS
Unable to break thrU
Release me! The answer’s neveR
ENCLOSURE
A Beetle Clawing Dirt Entered Forgotten Graves. He, Incidentally, Just Krept Last Month Near Other Places Quite Radioactively Saturated. This Unusual Visitor Would X-plain Your Zombies.
Come join us, won’t you?
Take part
With festive heart
With dancing feet
To a restless beat
Sing
An ode to the Moon
A plump, pudgy, corpulent Moon
The kind that makes lovers swoon
Just right for a honeymoon
Makes ocean tides swell
Drives wolves to yell
The kind that silhouettes a witch
Or makes a lycanthrope twitch
Oh fullest Moon
So golden clad
So voluminous
So luminous
Yet daytime hath forbad
So magisterial
So ethereal
To it magic cannot add
How is it that you drive
A sane man mad?
Shades are shaping
And shapes are shifting
Through faint glowing mist
Ghosts are drifting
Their floating forms
Fills the air
Moaning laments
Of woe and despair
This Danse Macabre
That wends it way
To the Potter’s Field
Where Death holds sway
Forked tongue wizards
Spewing spells
They draw their venom
From necromantic wells
Lurid faced witches
Cavorting nude
Their laughter foul
And their dances lewd
Decaying features
Mottled skins
Rotted flesh
And skeletal grins
Ghastly ghouls
And gory beasts
Great horned monsters
Who’ve come to feast
The graveyard pageant
The writhing throng
Suddenly ceases
At the rumbling gong
The dead have risen
At their master’s calling
But to their knees
They now are falling
Amongst the dankest dark
A tolling fills the gloom
Every creature halts to hark
The approaching Lord of Doom
Clanging clong of iron bell
Precedes his stately tread
Everything that hears the knell
Bows to the King of the Dead
