is mind's fabric
giving way to the slightest irritation. In the present, the chant of
a crowd's "jump, jump," to the would be suicide. Then there is the
most foreboding type of all dementia, the collective sort. A strength
through joy movement of the Hitler camp with society's many
institutions set up along the spit and polish order of the Reich.

Indeed, if we think of it, we all have a deep knowledge of madness;
days when the centre is about to break alongside the pit. Days when
wars on the periphery take hold, colours appear different.

As a child, madness was watching Ichabod Crane in cartoon form
outrace the Headless Horseman. In Sleepy Hollow trying to put
down the panic in himself. Ichabod, the peaceful school master,
driven to the edge. At war with himself but trying to reassure that
same self the plodding sound of approaching hooves was only dried,
bullrush stems hitting against his head.

Madness is more than Van Gogh offering an ear; Druid priests
garnishing oak trees in a British forest or plaintive Gauguin
abandoning his family at 34, mid-stream in a successful career. It
probably stands behind half the men on skid row, beckons like a
welcome friend before turning fiend and consuming impulse to a
bag lady.

The close relation between the creative impulse and "letting go."
Between the arts and wide eyed eccentricity. Between wanting to be
free. And knowing. Hearing if you go on like that you'll end up on
the Lakeshore. Another pretty euphemism. A dangerous truth left
like an upturned rock for someone to trip on in another garden.

The farthest away anyone can be.

MANGROVES

How do you survive
in the mangrove swamps--
amid the twitchings of fetid water
& water lice thick as baby tears?

How, with all the wallow of thick muck
making suction noises and the teams in relays
searching nightly with baited hounds, do you pull free?

Your bamboo pole knows every ploy
but is a slender craft ill-equipped
to sparring blows from every quarter,
the undergrowth necessitates.

The closeness of the clammy night
heaved about like so much rotting fruit will draw
the ants . . . devouring like that abundance of cold, yellow eyes--
the firefly swarms that mock your heavy steel machete arm.

Across the drift of darkness
and the insect life
you bat in swarms,
the ultimate danger is not in the cayman giant
or his r