Thursday, September 27, 2007

Aphasia Poetry

With all that’s been going on with Carol’s mother and the deaths over this last year, I have not thought consciously at least that much of Brother Dan’s stroke. I have managed to see him nearly every week—not as frequently lately as school and getting ready for it approaches, but the other day he sent me some aphasia poetry. Because that’s what he has—though it is getting better—aphasia. Anyway that made me remember; and realize too that I have not really forgotten about it.

I have had lately memory problems; the result I expect of no more than aging. But I spoke with a colleague the other day whose mother, only in her mid seventies, is showing signs of Alzheimer. He went to where she lives—for a while during the summer—to spell his father who was becoming worn out from tending his mother. Amazing, to think, I think: of the memory just going. Not just forgetting but not even knowing that one has forgotten.

I can’t imagine what that might be like: like drifting up in the clouds perhaps, unattached, with a bottomless pit right below. Especially when the short term goes; you might wash your face over and over, forgetting as you blink your eyes, each time that you had forgotten.

I think this just incomprehensible: to lose your mind in this way; and not even know that you have lost it because the mind is just the brain in situ. One might know, by means of the brain that one has lost one’s arm or one’s sight or that one is losing one’s strength. But when the mind itself is being lost there is nothing to know the loss.

I get cold with fear thinking about it. And wondering if that loss waits around the corner for me.

But this is what Brother Dan, in a different form, has been struggling with for eight months now. Does he have problems with memory? Maybe yes, maybe no. Certainly not of the short term kind, and if of the long term, I don’t know. When he says something is 12,000 dollars and he meant 1200 dollars, did he forget that it was just 1200 or did his mind misspeak, mistaking 12000 for 1200. I don’t know if he would know, or if I would know, for that matter, unless somebody had been there to say otherwise, because at times at least I don’t think he knows he has misspoken.

They say the intelligence of the aphasiac is frequently unimpaired. But how would one know. How could you give a cat a test to see if it is going blind, since he cannot tell you want it sees. I think Dan’s intelligence is unimpaired. But were he to take some sort of verbal comprehension test he would do poorly I think.

Here are a few lines of his aphasia poetry—that he titles “halo ended”--which he said was OK for me to put on the blog:

You can take it in your tung. Your effectiveness. Your dreams. I can hold it thus. Thus is mine. Mine. Do you want it to me yours? I will give it to you. My thoughts, my actions thus thus thusly for us. In my friend, my pozole, my poseque, my POS. We wait, we wait for a positive reaction to my heart. We wait for a plant operator selection system. We wait. Can we do it? Can my heart take it? My bubbles?

*Ҝrayle_||ж||_Ҝeary† DILEMMA

Lucky: Given the existence as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher and Wattmann of a person God quaquaquaqua with white beard quaquaquaqua outside time without extension who from the heights of divine apathia divine athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown but time will tell and suffers like the divine Miranda with those who for reasons unknown but time will tell are plunged in torment plunged in fire whose fire flames if that continues and who can doubt it will fire the firmament that is to say blast hell to heaven so blue still and calm so calm with a calm which even though intermittent is better than nothing but not so fast and considering what is more that as a result of the labors left unfinished crowned by the Acacacacademy of Anthropopopometry of Essy-in-Possy of Testew and Cunard it is established beyond all doubt all other doubt than that which clings to the labors of men that as a result of the labors unfinished of Testew and Cunnard it is established as hereinafter but not so fast for reasons unknown that as a result of the public works of Puncher and Wattmann it is established beyond all doubt that in view of the labors of Fartov and Belcher left unfinished for reasons unknown of Testew and Cunard left unfinished it is established what many deny that man in Possy of Testew and Cunard that man in Essy that man in short that man in brief in spite of the strides of alimentation and defecation wastes and pines wastes and pines and concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown in spite of the strides of physical culture the practice of sports such as tennis football running cycling swimming flying floating riding gliding conating camogie skating tennis of all kinds dying flying sports of all sorts autumn summer winter winter tennis of all kinds hockey of all sorts penicillin and succedanea in a word I resume flying gliding golf over nine and eighteen holes tennis of all sorts in a word for reasons unknown in Feckham Peckham Fulham Clapham namely concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown but time will tell fades away I resume Fulham Clapham in a word the dead loss per head since the death of Bishop Berkeley being to the tune of one inch four ounce per head approximately by and large more or less to the nearest decimal good measure round figures stark naked in the stockinged feet in Connemara in a word for reasons unknown no matter what matter the facts are there and considering what is more much more grave that in the light of the labors lost of Steinweg and Peterman it appears what is more much more grave that in the light the light the light of the labors lost of Steinweg and Peterman that in the plains in the mountains by the seas by the rivers running water running fire the air is the same and then the earth namely the air and then the earth in the great cold the great dark the air and the earth abode of stones in the great cold alas alas in the year of their Lord six hundred and something the air the earth the sea the earth abode of stones in the great deeps the great cold on sea on land and in the air I resume for reasons unknown in spite of the tennis the facts are there but time will tell I resume alas alas on on in short in fine on on abode of stones who can doubt it I resume but not so fast I resume the skull fading fading fading and concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown in spite of the tennis on on the beard the flames the tears the stones so blue so calm alas alas on on the skull the skull the skull the skull in Connemara in spite of the tennis the labors abandoned left unfinished graver still abode of stones in a word I resume alas alas abandoned unfinished the skull the skull in Connemara in spite of the tennis the skull alas the stones Cunard (mêlée, final vociferations) . . . tennis . . . the stones . . . so calm . . . Cunard . . . unfinished . . .