The Portrait of the Artist as a Poetaster - Book II - Objective state and hope

I have married three times above my state
(And cohabited as marriage requires);
If they were wives of Windsor they were not
Made merry having chosen me to wed.
The failing mine in each - my illness was
My fault, exacerbated by a mind
Persisting with the thoughts of malady
Beyond recovery - well yet unwell.
The wives that took the marriage vow were each
Aware of my acute and chronic faults
Although reality perhaps surprised
Their poor foresight, then ill-equipped for ills.
Not learning, it's as if I retrogressed
In passing each to each, and starting out
A poor husband I graduated worse,
And finally became degenerate.
I cringe to think I never thought such thoughts
As how can I engender love from her
But dwelt, as youth tends to, (but not possessed
Of youth's excuse) fixated on myself.
It's only with a fool's naivety
That my wedlocks could seem as happy joins -
I never took the care or time to know
The other's inner state (which likely pained).
And during most my wedded years I drank,
But ignorant of cost to heart and mind
And soul of me and others close at hand,
I tied myself intoxication's noose.
The sharing failed - unequal domestic
Division of labour tacitly arranged;
I took good will for granted (and effort)
Which must have made for simpler life less me.
I speak of failings but in light of day
What most upset was my insanity
And those corollaries to loss of mind
That can't be born by best at best of times.
I've said that I can't get inside the mind
Of most - imagine what disaster comes
To pass if failing such as this applies
To her who shares your bed, cohabitee.
As you and I are opposites, so were
My wives and me - the match a recipe
For separation on whatever grounds -
Each was a marriage bound through me to fail.
Were I, as I am now, present thus twice
At my own conjugal exchange of vows
I would object, and down on bended knee
Would plead for saving all from selves and me.

And I've set sail in search of prosody
And this is not some stroke of genius,
This must be rightly seen insanity,
A vain, futile attempt of failing mind.
I haven't only chosen authorship
But further, form of verse which no one reads,
Today attention's on the internet,
The fingertips, not rambling trains of thought.
With vision Shelley delineated
A synthesis and mind's analysis,
And saw the first as reason's bold domain,
The latter as imagination's scope.
And poetry for him "the expression
of the imagination", here he worked;
And here he laid a claim for influence
Extending into every part of life.
This overarching claim to influence
Seems short on truth and idealistic:
Thus, if indeed sweet poetry ruled lives
This metrical mandate has shrunk with time.
To read Defence of Poetry is like
Dissecting one remaining behemoth,
The race is gone and yet their might and strength
Have left a corpse, reminder to the past.
So I've set sailing in the wake of gods,
Poets who formed a generation's taste,
Who moulded morals as they thought was best,
And what is more, delighted on the way.
My bark is not to reach the foreign shore;
Had it the worth, the winds don't blow today
That filled the sails of craft of yesteryear:
Though Shelley may defend, our age has sacked.
My place, a dwarf in awe of dead giants
Who fretted, strut their hour upon the stage
With such aplomb to resonate through time:
A fool I ape, not imitate, the great.
And mad and mad on verse, I rate my chance
Above my chance in other centuries -
Instead of care in weal I have freedom
Along with supervision of my state.
The institutions tend towards acute
And medication's better year by year -
To try to live in your community
Can be at times an honour and a joy.
And thus I move towards my plan of work,
Each day I try to write as best I can,
Maybe researching others' prosody,
And thanking gifts of health and sanity.

My status waxes unemployed, so too
Dissatisfied postgraduate student -
I live and breathe both worlds and neither one
Softens the edge of other's frank strictures.
And being unemployed is like to be
A seedless grape - majority if asked
Would take their life without the work, also
Their grapes without the irritating seed.
Few see the tragedy of fruit without
A seed - a reproductive organ that
Can't reproduce - here is a tool not fit
For purpose, robbed, devoid of function's plan.
And fewer still, pragmatically inquire,
Just how you grow a plant that has no seeds -
Hormones are sure to have a part to play,
To have a role in sterilising grapes.
This unemployment gradually prevails
And like that fundamental fault, the kind
That undermines, this fault's damage requires
Whole's overhaul - there is one word: structural.
And existentially I've made the choice:
Domesticated animal or tame -
The herdsman's hound's domesticated beast,
The sheep are tame, as me in idleness.
The dog that guides me is my circumstance
Which barks if I should dare go spending cash
Or answer social questions on myself -
Apart I'm free to roam across the field.
And in this way where I but bide my time
I graze the grass and bleat and have my hair
Trimmed once a year and serve my master's aim
In that and only that I stand and wait.
The herdsman sees a price tag on his sheep
And I have mine - the herdsman's price is paid
To him, but mine's a social price - a cruel
Drawn metaphor that marks me worse than sheep.
Thus I am grown and life's prime want is work -
Those who can, do - I think I'm one who can't,
The unemployed, eternal student writes,
And is ambivalent about his verse.
I write to try to exorcise my faults
Of mind and use the tools to hand, but then
I have an audience of kith and kin,
And you? - why should you read my therapy?
But ending this digression, if the tale's
Not told with sound and fury, think in terms
Of authorship, as this does not debar
An idiot savant without savoir.

Some years ago and for a time I drank
And used the loan of banks to pay for drink
And thus I am in debt beyond my means
And have to deal with this uncertainty.
My psychiatric state gives reason for
But not excuse and after all I spent
The money that was loaned to me, and so,
The right remains with my kind creditors.
And debt's another disability:
Constrained in finances in this the world
That is gymnasium of proud display
Of wealth and economic exercise.
I seem to lack a limb or two compared
To most, and though competing like with like
I'd pull my weight, arrayed against athletes
With finances comparison but fails.
Some apparatus are beyond my grasp;
Some disciplines requiring ready cash:
To vault the horse demands a credit card:
To try the high jump needs both stocks and shares.
Athletes win audience' applause and fame,
And as for me, I'm in the running too
I jog the hundred metres day on day
The art is in the paucity of funds.
To change the metaphor: like bodily
Disease which comes and goes ignoring pills,
I pray against an almost certain end
With prophylaxis my enduring hope.
I pay a token sum to those I owe
Abating wrath as pills deny a fate
But need prepare for financial collapse
To strike whenever creditors so choose.
As with much in my life, my condition
Is caused by me, and hence I don't deserve
Of aid or help - so not to waste more hard
Earned cash, my father's struck me from his will.
And like with suffering from a condition
Not all, but certain things, are off-limits:
A house, a car, to quote the obvious,
But mostly luxuries you take as read.
The social drink as gazing at the sky,
The evening out, as getting out of bed
The holiday, as taking some fresh air,
The little treats, supplied utilities.
This debt compares to minor condition
Which could without announcement develop,
The threat is always there - and case with case
There's worry built into the interface.

As Dr. Swift a time, I've been confined -
Comparison ends there, as I can't rise
To satirise the day's insanity
As seen in Swift's Digression on Madness.
I know for one that Swift would disagree
But from my disadvantaged point of view
Asylum's joke (or humorous aspect)
Is somewhat lost on me, I fail to laugh.
If you are mad you're locked up with the mad -
And where exactly is the sense in that?
A fate like this would drive the sane insane,
The sane, who both approve and are exempt.
Your mind is taxed, the treatment: tax it more;
And you would be forgiven if you thought
That treatment such as this is punishment -
I wish asylum were a sanctuary.
The glaring contradictions of the place:
All day and night you are observed, and paid
Professionals attempt to get inside
Your head, your very thoughts are monitored.
Released and overlooked still by a team,
Professionals maintain questioning probe:
But dare to think that people take notice
Of thoughts of yours, and Bedlam calls again.
Opinion seems to rule in hospital,
And not the act or fact of having done
But some opinion that you may is key:
Of course, here, their opinion counts, not yours.
And thus they handle putatives and deal
Them out as absolutes - "Although you've not,
We think you may, harm self or others, stay
Here under lock and key for three full moons."
Enacting legislation, some third way
(Between opinion and the fact that some
Detained are less than mad) was right designed:
Voluntary status, that is not well used.
After some months I earned such status - I
Was free by law to leave the ward as wished
And on the door of ward a notice: We'll
Unlock this door for voluntary patients.
And not surprisingly I asked for leave
And I was sectioned against my will,
As their opinion was 'To ask was proof
That I was mad', I lost my "right" to leave.
Pivotal to asylum is treatment
Through institutionalisation - and
As such prepared me for that that followed:
Move to hostel: a bitter draught, smooth flowed.

My residence a year, in two hostels,
And moved from one to other on the grounds
Of fervent clash of personalities
Between me and another resident.
As with asylum, these hostels require
The resident to share their living space
With mixed unfortunates laid low like them -
The difference here, at times unsupervised.
Hostel's own-brand of communality
That takes hold has a different feel to that
Which shows itself in some shared flat or house,
And that because necessity prevails.
I learnt I needed regimented ways
And attitudes, to deal with aspects and parts
Of hostel life, in order to survive
The everyday of living on the fringe.
The process is to be accustomised
(As barn yard animals) to what's required
And nothing more - there is a lock on door,
But should you lock before you take a leak?
There is a roof, a roof as none call home -
There's running water gracing shared bathrooms,
But differing flaws in cleanliness will mean
A Herculean task to keep them clean.
Thus farmer fattens cows and cares for health:
Yet these (the beasts of burden) occupy
A plastic world, shadowed reality:
A hostel is a living hall of shade.
The vanity of days is overwhelmed
By that remorse which should confine itself
To restless nights of angst - as if the ox
Both thought and dreamt the death of abattoir.
Each day the same, but undesired routine,
The cow must tire of straw, so I too tired
Of sandwiches, of suffering company,
The cloying ease had from surrounding barn.
People who live in hostels have no choice
And it is test of character, of faith,
Of endurance, and grants humble degree
Preparing one to live a normal life.
Although this is obscure non-recognised
Degree, and no one says you've passed the test;
It seems a mark of hardship best withheld,
A level they may mark for or against.
"I live in homeless hostel" - as opening
Gambit in conversation you're in luck
To fail - although I'd say if you succeed
To gain reply, beware where it will lead.

And from my tone so far you might suppose
That I was housed in sink estate, without
But choice to hear the hapless tenant's sigh
Reverberate around poor council walls.
You'd guess incorrectly, here's how things worked:
As Sisyphus I'd been told 'Try your luck
On general housing queue', months ticked away,
I slipped in list, labour increased with time.
As it became clear I would never through
The wait be housed - belatedly, and as
Should have happened at first - my name and I
Were placed on Mental Health Sub-Register.
And on this scheme, having waited a year,
I was told to expect a wait of two
More years - succulent fruit that tantalised:
Lifetime's security of tenancy.
And as I floated, bobbing in the pool
My father threw a line, the which I caught
(In spite of self and wave on wave of doubt)
And changed my circumstance to that of now.
I rent in private sector, have forgone
My right to social housing - if I'm well,
And keep from woe, the choice is choice - but if
I'm ill again I've chosen for the worse.
As with option of choosing company:
Some one may thrive in each, but stays moulded
By that that's kept - though to maintain or win
Stability must be the utmost goal.
To choose as I have chosen is to pray
To God (as those in times of trouble pray)
(A prayer which must be often offered up)
That future won't resemble past or now.
And supplicating, Lord I pray to catch
A falling star whose wish would teach me then
To hear mermaids singing of advancement
Of honest mind, that which I lack and yearn.
And would with ease forget where past years are:
Resigning youth to youth, for it to stay
Folly's uncriticised oblivion,
Mistakes remaining past, and lessons learnt.
And yet would know who cleft the devil's foot:
And thus remain alert to erring me,
And through maturity reform myself
To one characterised as sound of health.
As far as housing is concerned, I chose;
To make and reach and weigh and ponder such
A stark and fraught decision broke the mould,
I'll only know result as times unfold.

Of prime import, my current state of health,
If, viewed as Rosicrucian spirit world,
Is, ruled by Sylphs of air who help and aid,
And demon Gnomes delighting in mischief.
What dire offence from inner causes springs,
What mighty internal contests arise
From trivial things - thus the Gnomes induce
Errant small thoughts which develop mayhem!
And at this point in time I have a train
Of Sylphs, that few'd envy in power or strength
Or number, but whose grace I find central
To my attempts to cope with everyday.
There is a Sylph that whispers in my ear
At times of drowsing night 'Arise from sleep
As you forgot to take your pills', protects
Me from insanity of oversight.
The Gnomes assist the rape of sanity,
Fragile unguarded pendant hanging loose,
The fruit of seasons' labour ripening soft,
But open to suggestion's rotting worm.
So now, the Gnomes are there, so too the Sylphs,
And they remain in equilibrium:
Interpreted as thus I'm blessed and damned
With spirits like these, and always will be.
My sanity's my craft or sullen art
That's exercised in quiet solitude
And nurtured by the raging phasing moon
I keep a watch on me whilst others sleep.
I labour, guiding thoughts and singing light,
Not for ambition, not for strength or bread,
Nor strut and trade of charms of vanity,
But for the common wage of balanced heart.
Not for psychiatrists apart from life
And raging moon I comb my spindrift thoughts;
Not for the systems of the towering dead
Who have their students, nightingales and psalms.
But for the right to gain introduction
To that that's known by name "normality"
And if admitted it will be in spite,
Will be ignoring, craft or sullen art.
And with this effort, now as where I stand,
I'm on the road between one place and next:
I am not mad and yet I am not sane,
With middling grace I'm neither up nor down.
There's few would like to take my place in life,
But let me say, this half stability,
To what I've known, is comparable to bliss,
I'd not complain to have a life like this.

And state of my postgraduate studies
Would seem to be a dream within a dream,
Withering to hopeless, from former base
Promising then to flower to PhD.
Futile research project take this, a kiss,
Upon your brow of time and effort, and
In parting from you now, with supervised
And peered assent thus much let me avow.
You are not wrong, who deem that my attempt
At PhD has been a dream, nourished
By superficial praise and dilettante
Association with the state of art.
And yet if Hope has flown away from me
Receding in a night, or in a day,
Retreating in a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore any less gone away?
Both academic and worldly projects,
Those that have known success, those that have failed,
All that is seen as seen or seems to be
Is nothing more than dream within a dream.
In vain attempt to gain my PhD
I stand amid the roar of crashing waves
And overpowered by depth's profundity,
I listen to a surf-tormented shore.
And on this shore I'm overcome with doubt
My emptiness compared to majesty
And looking to my humble palm I hold
Within my hand some grains of golden sand.
How few, yet how they creep and slide and flow,
Advancing through my fingers to the deep
As if through loss they were creating more
Lacunae in my brain (already worn).
And as they creep I fret in my worry,
How few are left in my possession's hold,
Oh stars above! Poseidon's wave! O God!
Can I not grasp them with a tighter clasp.
Although perhaps I could but save just one
From drowning loss in this pitiless wave;
Perhaps as alteration I pursue
The lesser sought MPhil not PhD.
Proposed solution is a compromise
And no more means I'll grasp a grain of sand,
Study both suits and aids the young, I'm not,
Perhaps I should retire before I'm failed.
And straight my outlook has turned full circle,
And like solipsism, the view becomes
A question: is all that we see or seem
But nothing more than dream within a dream?

My age remains intermediate and knows
(Or senses) youthful passion's foolishness,
And not yet come to know serenity
Of comprehension, that which comes with age.
Not yet I ask for sages to consume
My heart away - I don't yet see the thing
As sick with massed desire's unwanted fumes,
And fastened to a dying animal.
Between two places, still my heart remains
Attached to animal that's animate,
Perhaps a jumping frog with but one leg,
Thus I desire to write and not to act.
And were my death to be announced as sure,
And were I granted Last Confession's rights,
On love I would not say I gave my soul
And loved in misery - there was a point.
There was a point - as said in other's words
Much better to have loved and lost - my age
Does not constrict my memory that I
Forget desire as it was meant to be.
And it is Tom the Lunatic who when
Confronted by a changing world questions
The world: 'What change has put my thoughts astray
And changes eyes that had so keen a sight?'
I've not yet reached the state that sees decay
In self and thus the world - I'd not question
As Tom would: 'What has turned to smoking wick'
Eternal 'nature's pure unchanging light?'
My faculties decline (like memory)
But to forget the days events is form
Of blessing, and I see that neither days
Long past nor those of youth were different world.
And then a whisper to cool heart of stone,
Earth, beautiful and in anxiety,
Mouths 'All true love must die alter at best
Into some lesser thing - prove that I lie.'
I'll prove the lie - compare eternity
And anything will die, and yet it lives;
Earth: 'Love is dead and all true love must die'
Eternal youth: 'Long life to love and me'.
The source of these are from the same, I must
Be even handed with Friends of His Youth,
And there on age he says: 'Laughter not time
Destroyed my voice and put that crack in it'.
And is his laughter serious? maybe -
I would discount his misery in jest,
But if he jests, perhaps the different wage
Is my intermediate against his age.

And now I think of past abilities,
Of those comparisons which showed me well,
And thinking this I think of where I stood
And wonder just what could have been achieved.
Although, if success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed, in later life
I have the claim to count it sweet as said
And more so having tasted it in youth.
To quote more: to comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need; though I know the need
I do not think I comprehend the prize -
Is my necessity not strong enough?
Although not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag today (not one of them)
Can tell the definition (knows the need)
So clear of Victory (that sweet success).
As he defeated - dying - (sorest need)
On whose forbidden ear (necessity)
The distant strains of triumph (their success)
Burst agonised and clear! (stark opposites).
And so there's those who know more of success
Through having lost or won the battle that
I will not fight, through having gambled all
And having seen the black or red come up.
So I avoid the loss, and thus the gain,
So I avoid the game, no longer know
Just what it means to stake that which I have
And loose or win, to learn to know success.
And in this way I aim for less than then
Which dovetails with decline in what I can;
I think it's fair to say abilities
Recede with age, things worsen overall.
The Heart asks pleasure - first - I asked respect
And then - Excuse from Pain - and then I asked
Could I be left to get along with things
As my abilities were not so good.
And then - those little anodynes and then
That deaden suffering - and then I asked
To be excused (not being up to date)
From any piece of work that was not mine.
And then - to go to sleep - (to give up work)
And then - if it should be (if it should be)
The will of its Inquisitor (required)
The privilege to die - (retire early).
I could and now I can't - this is the case -
And whether it's result of age or drink
Or psychiatric ills (or all I grant)
It makes no odds - I could and now I can't.

When it comes to my hope I'm fond of Swift
Lay Pope his wit and poesy aside:
It should be said along with he who wrote
That proper study of mankind is man.
And if I tune my ears to hopes and fears
Set forth by Swift I find despite the march
Of centuries, the common grounds of thoughts
Of everyday reverberate through time.
She: "Come buy my fine Wares", she: "Plumbs, Apples
And Pears", "A hundred a Penny" and sells
"In conscience too many" yet pleads "Come will
You have any" - would catch anyone's ear.
There's no pretence in plums, apples and pears:
These lack the decorations seen in much
That should be simple prosody - I praise
Such use of basic thoughts in rhyme and verse.
She: "Come, follow me by the smell" and she
Proceeds: "Here's delicate Onyons to sell"
"They make the Blood warmer", "You'll feel like a
Farmer" - a pitch independent of rank.
There's scarce any pretence in fruit 'n' veg:
And were we all to wish to warm our blood,
And feel like a farmer, much of the world's
Complexity, as dirt, might fall from us.
A third and final quote as gem from Swift
All three from Verses made for those who cry:
The voice of market traders caught in print
And still echoing through hundreds of years.
"Be not sparing", "Leave off swearing" she cries
"Buy my Herring" all "Fresh from Malahide"
Plus "Better ne'er was try'd" - who could refuse,
Thus prompted anyone would dine on fish.
Apples, onion and herring: if that were
Everyone's appetite, then gone the need
For 4x4's the size of small lorries
And men in suits that gamble your money.
I think the most aspire to try the world
That Pope describes - ask one hundred women
If they'd prefer to cry as Swift's or if
They'd rather dress as Pope's charmed Belinda:
"Unnumber'd treasures ope at once, and here
The various offerings of the world appear",
"This casket India's glowing gems unlocks
And all Arabia breathes from yonder box",
Some hopes are tailored to reality -
Without such tailoring I wouldn't say:
In way of rhymes I prefer Swift's to Pope's
And thus revert to common tastes and hopes.