People who have followed Mad In America regularly enough over the past few years may be familiar with the general outlines of my story: that I was struck with schizophrenia and voicehearing experiences starting 15 years ago; that I have done my best to go through the experience as naturally as possible and, when possible, without drugs, which have been forced on me but which have done nothing in the past five years to interrupt, disrupt, or otherwise affect the frequency or depths of my voicehearing experiences, which include activities like transcribing poetry and translating the Book of Genesis, among other literary efforts; and that these literary efforts at present include taking dictation and transcription from a voice that identifies itself simply as representing The Writer or sometimes as The Writer himself. It seems The Writer is male. I have also made it clear that I regard these voices as originating in something we would only ever call āthe Beyond,ā whether that is in the realm of spirits or aliens or whatever else and in whatever combination we can at best only imagine and all of which, strange as it sounds, probably have existed at some point or another somewhere in the Universe(s), including the phenomenon we call God.
The Writer has now outlined a significant work through my hands, a work that I believe shows the kind of qualitative proof that it is a voice from the Beyond. It is, quite simply, a work that is too human not to be an honest account, told by a voice of someone who lived (or lives) at some point a long time ago, such asāas the text identifiesāLondon in 1682 A.D. Whether the voice is telling the truth about particular incidents probably cannot be determined, or at least I am not going to try to do so. It is the quality of the testimony, and the profoundly well-composed narrative, that makes me pay attention, which I know since The Writer dictated this testimony or account or epic poem to me personally. This is the voice of some neglected poet of the past.
The Writer thinks it should make clear how this account affects my (Eric Coatesās) personal ambitions for my own life, ambitions that now include providing an outlet for these voices that choose to dictate things through me. I was, myself, in a former life and as a much younger person than I am now, a poet and writer, and the piece of writing that has been reported to me as being by The Writer (the voice) and Reinaldo, the author of the work, apparently interrelates with things that I wrote when I was that younger person. In other words, Reinaldoās “Recitation” is in some ways custom fit to interlock with my own (Ericās) human writings.
Thus, The Writer would like me to set down what interests him about Eric Coatesās writing. This will consist of three poems from Eric, just to show what interests The Writer in him personally. Following that, I present a section of Reinaldoās own āRecitation,ā and then a piece of Ericās again to show the complementarity and such related matters between the two.
So: on to the poems.
I, Eric Coates, was about 20 years old when I wrote my first real poem, as I considered it then: A poem that seemed well composed and meaningfully constructed in some way. At that age I was floundering around on the shoals of poetry as a very most beginning writer, struggling all by myself to master the English language and how to express my thoughts and, indeed, to learn to have real thoughts of my own which I could even describe, and so forth. So when I sat down and wrote this, I was simply figuring out the poem as I went along writing it, grasping after each image as it came along, and the truth is that I really had no idea where the poem was going when I started it, which was often the way I wrote until I started writing prose instead of poetry. I would begin with an interesting thought, and then just sort of find the right thing to say next. It was very haphazard, depending on luck this way to write. And so, what my voice says is that the way this one, very first poem of mine, called āPresence,ā actually talks about voicehearing more than 15 years before I ever heard voices must be a sign from God of what was going to happen to the human being I was.
Presence
I have heard the voices
Behind the hill and stack of wheat,
From the opening of the barn,
And from the water
That runs through my backyard;
And felt the presence of a lover,
Or of something else that hovers
As if I were its child;
Something great, and something terrible,
But also something mild.
And I have turned to see
If someone followed me,
And been afraid,
And pretending not to hurry
Turned away.
So: Ericās very first poem was about voicehearing. As indicated, this is rather an ominous beginning for someone who was to become known chiefly for hearing voices. So, the next poem shows a side of Eric a few years later, a side that is sort of dark, and that became very, very characteristic of his writing later on. He was very much a follower of a sort of dark, Germanic strain of poetry that included Milosz and Trakl and Celan and went through some of the French Symbolists and Surrealists, even if it might not be immediately obvious how that happened to influence Ericās writing. In any case, the voices representing The Writer say that they are particularly fond of this one poem, āPatience,ā which they say was composed when Eric was 24 years old and had been writing for only five years.
Patience
Out here in the woods what I need
Is less a lover than a companion,
A quiet friend who understands
How long the winter is and how it stretches
Farther than a person’s patience. Someone who can respect
The hedge of silence that has grown up in my house
And not pry at it with questions, who will realize
That my habits give me something to keep in sight
Through the bewildering thickets of the days. Once my feet
Have left the ruts there is no telling
Where they will wander. Sometimes, on a particularly
Clear night, when I imagine
The moon is calling me and it grows difficult
Not to break free of everything, only the stillness
Reflected in my friend’s observing eyes
Keeps the nervousness unbroken, keeps
The both of us alive.
The last of Ericās poems that we will show here is particularly important for The Writer and his crew of voices, who all declare their allegiance to the concept of God and who wish to be looked at as Aliens, since that is how people would understand them. They say that this poem is another example of some special kind of intervention by God, it almost seems, except that they realize that Eric did, indeed, conceive of this poem at a time when he was a barely restrained atheist-turned-agnostic. We find it interesting that he was willing, as an agnostic atheist, to nevertheless give expression of this sort to a desire for God.
Stone
TheĀ wayĀ cloudsĀ gather
InĀ theĀ outlineĀ of aĀ face,
TheĀ boomingĀ emptiness
OfĀ theĀ landscapeĀ finds
AnĀ answeringĀ noteĀ inĀ myĀ chestĀ .Ā .Ā .Ā .
ButĀ howĀ willĀ IĀ knowĀ you?
SomeoneĀ keepsĀ paintingĀ overĀ theĀ signs,
PointingĀ yourĀ way,
WhileĀ IĀ sleep.Ā AsĀ withĀ aĀ separatedĀ limb
IĀ lookĀ toĀ seeĀ whatĀ isĀ missing,
And as withĀ theĀ cairnsĀ toĀ which
EachĀ passingĀ strangerĀ addedĀ anotherĀ stone,
There, inĀ theĀ endlessĀ moonlight
As theĀ endlessĀ hourĀ beforeĀ dawn
StretchesĀ intoĀ theĀ endlessĀ distance,
IĀ hearĀ newĀ stones
BeingĀ thrownĀ ontoĀ theĀ pile,
TheĀ clatterĀ ofĀ them
EchoingĀ fromĀ theĀ heightsĀ thatĀ tellsĀ me:
IĀ amĀ notĀ alone.
AndĀ whenĀ IāveĀ perfectedĀ myĀ solitude
As You have,
YouĀ willĀ enterĀ andĀ reduceĀ me
ToĀ oneĀ ofĀ thoseĀ anonymous,
GrayĀ weatheredĀ stonesĀ whoseĀ onlyĀ glory
IsĀ toĀ markĀ aĀ path,
ToĀ markĀ theĀ roadĀ thatĀ isĀ all
OfĀ YouĀ weĀ canĀ everĀ know.
So much for Ericās early work, and this is quite early.
What The Writer would like to look at most closely is the work to be known as Reinaldoās āRecitation,” whose full title is “In Memory of Wine: A Recitation by One Reinaldo, of Blessed Memory.”
Reinaldoās āRecitationā began as a relatively normal dictation experience for me, except that it began as notes that just sort of exploded into being one day when I was working on something else, and then it turned into a process where I was dictated to and sometimes was instructed word by word in revising a work that is complex and unique.
The material identifies London, 1682 as the setting for what takes place, which unfurls in an epic poem. I myself do not yet know it all well enough to accurately outline everything it describes, but it includes general knowledge about London and then the particulars of incidents that took place there. Witches are burned; heretics denounced; treason declared, and the treasonous punished.
One of the things that I mean by qualitative proof is something like the lines that go:
And now upon our way we slink,
and cumāst at last to ye Olde Clynke;
now weāll sit and have ourselves a beer,
and I will tell a tale to hear,
how once upon a time, my loves,
sent here by Charles like three stuffāt doves,
didāst once hang Cromwell and two friends above;
It is the image of the lines, āsent here by Charles like three stuffād doves, didst once hang Cromwell and two friends above;ā ā it is almost inconceivable to think that anyone would even think, even have the historical references in mind, to come up with that line.
So I would like to quote two short sections of the poem, from a part called āPart the Second,ā which again makes you see what the times really were like for those who lived through the Great Plague of London.
Part the Second
From Tavern to Graveyard to Dock
But leap ahead now seven years,
and as we pass around a tray of beers,
we ring up the list of all the dead;
for though I am but lately wed,
I now find myself alone in bed,
for she that whom I lately married
hath put herself down for to be buried,
as though ātwere nothing but a load to carry
for which one called the horse and carriage ā
the same that took us through our marriage ā
to have her taken back to church,
where all the newest stones do lean and lurch
from all the blood thatās in the ground,
leaching out from all the Sound,
or so they say down in the town;
but who doth know what theyāll say next?
All I know is when my wife did take her rest,
I found a note close by her head
with all she ever wished she said
next to the one cup that she drank;
some smoke from out her innards stank;
with poison had the cup been lymed,
though it smelled a bit of thyme;
some concoction someone at some time
might have said, a bit of rhyme,
that fair Griselda brought to mind
at the dawning of that awful Time,
when the dread and awful plague
did through the streets of London rage,
brought withal by evil wind,
that first of Stuarts did let in;
but that is neither here nor there;
we did once quite the quarrel bare;
but all I did but mean to say
is that some thought of Judgement Day,
and sumāst did think to beat their fate
that rose from out the foul grates
by taking them a cup of wine,
in which they cut a bit of lyme,
which they swallowed in the quickest time,
for it did burn both ways going down;
then you just sit and wait around;
as with leaden Time, you seem just fine,
but having drunk of Living Death,
you soon are dying from a lack of breath.
They say itās really cheap,
and you could buy it off the street,
but much better is the brewing,
to get the potion strong and sweet;
but on the day itās time for mowing,
and you for once donāt feel like going,
brew withal a bit of wine, then set yourself
down upon your chosen shelf.
Then, once you really know youāre going,
when itās more than just a gentle slowing,
you just fall asleep;
they say itās very long and very deep,
and sometimes even takes a week
before you wake at Kingdom Come.
Well, it seems my wife went quickly;
she didnāt look so very sickly.
I buried her right then at dawn,
and it really didnāt take that long;
so thereās really not that much to say,
but that for did her body lay
as I strove to dig the grave,
there but to one side;
and as I worked, my bride,
from whom I lately had but thought to hide,
stared on me close with her dead eyes;
they never quite had really closed;
they stared down almost on her nose;
I rummaged then about my bag,
and hung over her face a rag;
and as I dug her hole there in my health,
I took to toast my own sweet self;
and as I took my fill of water,
I thought of all the hogs theyād slaughtered
as their blood began to leach into the grave;
so with an old half-broken shovel
that I fetched from out some nearby hovel
for to splash the filthy stuff around,
dropped Griselda in the grave quite bare,
took a lock of her bright hair,
looked around my grief to share,
then took breath of the freezing air
and calmly walked away.
There are too many sections of the poem to mention clearly and specifically here. One part, for instance, describes a brutal assault where a living giant of a man slaughters a room full of slaves while bystanders watch and make bets on who, if any of them, will survive. Another part describes the horrible spectacle of seeing men hung and witches burned.
I will quote one last section. This section is known as Nurseās Bridle, and it comes directly out of a book that was printed, my voice says, in 1682 in a little-known bookshop in what was then known as Printerās Alley. The subject matter means that it should be as well known now as it was then, when people also referred to it as Curseās Bridle. Curse’s Bridle was also used at times on the mad.
Part the Third
A Stroll Past ye Olde Clynke
Ā And she who doth wear Gossipās Bridle,
wears it now, for once thought idle,
itās the only thing your newest Brideāll
need to keep her being Bride well;
oh, Bridle, Bridle, Nurseās Bridle, Curseās Bridle,
oh, just do wear that Worst of Bridles,
until at last you go to Brideās Hell;
oh, for what can but a lonely Bride tell
of what happened on the way to Bridewell;
oh, Bridle, Bridle, Nurseās Bridle, Curseās Bridle;
oh, but get thee up and go to Bridewell;
oh, get thee hence now, Gossipās Bridle.
So sang the folk when I was young,
when about a womanās face was hung
a basket made of flattened wire,
from which did out protrude one wire
that rested on the tongue;
the whole thing was made quite well to fit
each lass on whom the thing did sit,
for they did make quite much of it
to heat the wire glowing red
and get it close about her head
until she doth rear back in fright;
it was indeed a gruesome sight, and one for to be pitied,
for all throughout the city, they did hear then all the news;
another woman hath been much abused,
and now they gag from out her mouth the news ā !
And all of us knew that it was true.
And, to make the connection between Ericās writing and the writing that composes Reinaldoās āRecitation,ā there is the seriousness of the work. Eric is mostly a very serious poet, one who is (or who used to be) interested in what we would call a confessional or grimly realistic point of view, and Reinaldo has a certain similarity in his taste for the grim.
So when you consider this next poem of Ericās, written more than 20 years ago, you can see that, in working with The Writerās and of Reinaldoās material he is also looking at the sort of thing he would indeed have wanted to be working with: serious, soberly considered poetry. And this is, really, just the beginning of a whole river of other writing projects that are either in progress already or will be soon.
Trestle
One day it will happen:
Looking down from a railway trestle
Through the ties, searching my image
On the fast moving water, where it shifts
In a pool of color, and breaks as my body strikes it;
Or one day, looking out from a high window
To the bed of grass below, answering
The summons of the air;
To be looking,
Not in a room full of windows
Set too high to see out of, where the machinery
Keeps me from raising my head ā
Not the final sight
Of a nurse above, then blinded by lamps, but to look out
Without distraction;
Or if not looking, at least in a dream,
To go out and walk without turning, til the place where I started
Disappears in the trees ā
Or to find myself on a train,
Staining the glass with my forehead, watching the mountains pass:
At the highest point, I’d like to stop a minute,
And step out on the platform in the winter sunshine and look
Out over the land and engrave its shape in my memory
Before the conductor calls me back on board
And the train rolls infinitely away.
If you have interest in this sort of material or have things to share with me of a similar nature, I would be very interested. The complete text of Reinaldoās āRecitationā will be appearing soon. Check the authorās page on Amazon; the link is in the bio at the end of this article.
“One part, for instance, describes a brutal assault where a living giant of a man slaughters a room full of slaves while bystanders watch and make bets on who, if any of them, will survive. Another part describes the horrible spectacle of seeing men hung and witches burned.”
I agree, some of the “mental health” workers believe all so called non-“professionals” are slaves, who deserve to be murdered, and/or stolen from. Because I do now have medical and legal evidence of such crimes, and attempted crimes.
I do agree the scientific fraud based “mental health” industry took control of the paternalistic religions, and their systemic child abuse, and legitimate concern regarding child abuse, “witch hunting” crimes.
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/directors/thomas-insel/blog/2013/transforming-diagnosis.shtml
And the “mental health” professions have a systemic hatred of legitimately concerned mothers and child abuse survivors, because of the DSM theology of today’s scientifically fraud based, systemic child abuse covering up, DSM “bible” believing, “mental health” workers’ DSM “bible.”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-child-does-not-have-bipolar-disorder/201402/dsm-5-and-child-neglect-and-abuse-1
I think the “mental health” workers need to get out of the systemic child abuse covering up business, for the Christian religions, who they’ve now destroyed.
https://books.google.com/books?id=xI01AlxH1uAC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
I’m so sorry my childhood religion is no longer a Christian religion, and is now nothing more than a child abuse covering up religion for the systemic, child rape covering up and profiteering, “mental health” industries.
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Eric, your writing is wonderful.
Above all, remember that “the writer”, needs you to write. So whether I’m reading Eric’s or the “writer’s” words, I know that I am also getting to appreciate Eric’s works.
Don’t sell yourself short for the writing you do. You are gifted and talented. Perhaps it comes easy to you, but for many people, writing is impossible.
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I’d encourage you to keep writing too Eric.
Its difficult to know what to say when I don’t hear voices. Other than the voices of past conversations brought up again and again, “your useless, your stupid, you’ll never amount to anything…….”. Okay, so I crawled out of the place I was raised (how fascinating that it was nicknamed “suicide towers” as a result of there being people coming from miles around to jump off the building).
Depressed might be a fair term for what I have suffered over the years, but I look back to those years living in fear in a ghetto and wonder about the chemicals that were getting unbalanced by that place (the sickness was in the environment I believe). I remember nearly being hit by a man I went up in the elevator with who then jumped from the 7th floor. I always wanted to ask him why the 7th when their were 9 floors. For good luck?
The pen truly is mightier than the sword.
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3 comments woeful people what is that about ?
Eric as ever thank you for sharing with us we are truly blessed much love sent your way
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That`s really interesting!
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