My Job Taking Care of Mentally Retarded Adults

I used to work at a state-run living facility for mentally retarded adults. This was an easy job. My job was to do activities with the clients, then to bathe them and put them to bed. During the night I would change their bed linens if they wet or soiled themselves. In this sense it was like working in a nursing home. In the morning I would wake them and dress them.

It was said that their IQs were in the 20 range. (At least that was the case for most of the ones I worked with.) Though it's hard to measure IQ at that level. Most of them never learned how to speak, and some of them never learned how to properly walk.

They were all idiosyncratic and much more original than people with normal intelligence. One of the male clients would twirl around and push whoever he was nearest to when he stopped twirling. One day he did this and he pushed one of the female clients. She fell and broke her nose on the asphalt. She didn't know how to brace herself for the fall. We take it for granted that if we fall we will put our hands out in front of our bodies to keep from making an impact with the ground. She had never learned how to do that, so she broke her nose.   

An Ernest Becker Quote

“It was G. K. Chesterton who kept alive the spirit of Kierkegaard and naïve Christianity in modern thought, as when he showed with such style that the characteristics the modern mind prides itself on are precisely those of madness.46 There is no one more logical than the lunatic, more concerned with the minutiae of cause and effect. Madmen are the greatest reasoners we know, and that trait is one of the accompaniments of their undoing. All their vital processes are shrunken into the mind. What is the one thing they lack that sane men possess? The ability to be careless, to disregard appearances, to relax and laugh at the world. They can’t unbend, can’t gamble their whole existence, as did Pascal, on a fanciful wager. They can’t do what religion has always asked: to believe in a justification of their lives that seems absurd. The neurotic knows better: he is the absurd, but nothing else is absurd; it is “only too true.” But faith asks that man expand himself trustingly into the nonlogical, into the truly fantastic. This spiritual expansion is the one thing that modern man finds most difficult, precisely because he is constricted into himself and has nothing to lean on, no collective drama that makes fantasy seem real because it is lived and shared.” 

― Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

My take: It is for precisely this reason that madmen are hyper-religious, because religion seems hyper-logical.

Poem: Calendar Days

Calendar Days

I walk through the calendar days of my yard,

making the rain equal on both sides, seeking

sunlight in the middle where the breeze finds

my faults. I survive the storms of spring,

but not intact. With parts of me missing I navigate

ground that never dries, mud holes layered

with leaves. The world gives everyone permission

to run down a mountaintop where clouds cover the sun

and bird flight makes folly wise. The part of me 

that vanishes like wood smoke is bound to appear 

again when I feel myself falling asleep in a swamp

of misapprehension, in the trouble of netted

memory, where I play and tangle my feet together

in a rapid dance. Something calms me. A hand

beneath the breeze settles my skin where I am

all brambles and thorns. The surface of the sky

glistens above my face. I grow accustomed

to drowning, no longer insisting that my blood

warm me. What made me but discipline

and fast fingers beating my will?

The only meaning is the repetition of sound

in the only place I can hear it.

Taking Refuge In Inequality

I’m unique in that I am genetically unique. No two people are equal. I am not replaceable. If I produce a work of art it won’t be the same as anyone else’s work. I fill a niche that cannot be filled by anyone else. This is how I deal with the fact that someone may be superior to me. If someone tries to replace me that will detract him from his own purpose. He cannot be two people at once. If the world loses me they lose someone who filled a unique position. Thus, I take refuge in the fact that I am not equal to anyone else. I call this taking refuge in inequality. This is why each person should be an artist of some kind.

Poem: A Man Sees Himself as a Cathedral

A Man Sees Himself as a Cathedral

Explanations trend toward the eternal,

trained on a gasp of insight in which I realize 

I am an organism of thought, a cathedral

of flesh and breath buttressed by granite groins.

Cement steadies my touch. Lichen covers 

my face. My bowels move through the history

of space. Bats roost in my belfry. 

When I could walk tall among the tales

of children, I lived in the air of singing.

My mother fed me ham and eggs. 

I purred softly through the night, wanting 

nothing, mindless as a ball of cotton.

Now that I’m a fixed geography, is there any reason

to change? When a storm comes it batters my roof,

and I realize I miss nothing about being human.

If I were a man again, I would fear my daily employment,

dread the way light comes at dawn to freshen 

my eyes. I would need what no one can give me

and live in a house where no one could find me.

Stained-glass windows look on transparency.

Concrete traps my mind. I hear the organ

and the choir, the labor of patience. I am the priest 

and the congregants, the stones that constitute

my walls and the wind that brushes against them,

a body politic of masonry and memory. 

Joel Fry

*Previously published in The Biochar Magazine.

Animals of North Alabama

There are only four venomous species of snakes in the United States: the copperhead, the rattlesnake, the water moccasin, and the corral snake. The corral snake doesn't live in my part of the country. The climate is too cold for it. It only lives in the far south. And I have never seen a rattlesnake in person. The copperhead is common, and I think the water moccasin is common. I used to see common water snakes behind my house on Sandra Lane here in Athens. They were not water moccasins though. They were a nonvenomous variety.

There are only two venomous species of spiders in North America: the black widow and the brown recluse. 

We also have possums, raccoons, whitetail deer, coyotes, and other creatures. I used to hunt mourning doves with my friend at my grandparents' pasture. The meat is tasty, especially if you wrap it in bacon and cook it that way. 

I used to hunt a great deal when I was younger. I killed a hare once and we ate it. I ate squirrels in gravy. The back is the best part. I've been deer hunting, but never managed to kill anything.

I also used to do a lot of fishing. I caught mostly catfish and sunfish (pumpkinseed, bluegill, etc.). I also sometimes caught largemouth bass.

Song: Roy Orbison: "Crying"

 Here's a link to a great song by Roy Orbison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLC9o_unLq4&list=RDqLC9o_unLq4&start_radio=1

My Vacation

I got back from my vacation with the family on Friday. We had a good time in San Antonio, Texas. We got to visit the Alamo, which is right in the heart of the city. That surprised me. I guess I hadn't given it much thought. I assumed it wasn't surrounded by tall buildings, but I was wrong. They tell you not to touch the walls, as they are crumbling. I learned about the history of the Battle of the Alamo. Davy Crocket and Daniel Boone both fought in the battle. The Alamo was surrounded by thousands of Santa Ana's men. After the battle was over, Santa Ana's men burned the bodies of the Texans.

We also got to go on a safari. We saw ostriches, zebras, rhinos, and several other types of animals. It was an exciting day. We fed the animals food pellets, but we were not allowed to exit our vehicles. They even had cheetahs in an enclosure. 

On the last full day we visited an art museum. We saw all sorts of modern art from Mexico and the United States as well as from Europe and beyond. We saw Mayan art as well. But my favorite art was the ancient Egyptian art. Some pieces dated back to 3500 BC.

Poem: An Old Man Speaking to His Reflection

An Old Man Speaking to His Reflection

When you think of me
and your mind pans the surface
of the wind that moves you
to thinking, am I still the innocence
your longing imparts?  Do I move
in deeper worlds and double lives lost
in what I understand?  I know your
robust wisdom ponders me and makes
secrets of what it ponders, tying life
to the lattice of my mind’s circumference,
lining the world with warmth.  How else
could I comprehend the excavation
of doubt and faith, wit and wisdom? 
Indeed, longing is a bowl scooped
in pearl, but few can see
to the bottom of the broth.  I cause
the wisdom of retention, the surface tension
of every observation, to dip and depress
solitude, so that all the light I gather gleans
relief from every agony I have felt, every
pain practiced and planned, devised
by an enemy I have never met, except in you
and in the way you see me everywhere. 
Your brilliance encourages this hardship
and moves me, in everyone, to my end.

Poem: The Queen of Darry Street

The Queen of Darry Street

My dreams are spun from litter.

From trash I make the world of form.

All that fills my head on a sunny day

is sun through the eyes and conversation

trapped in a dome that rises on specific

terms I know nothing about.

My front yard stretches to my latest thought,

which is beautiful but not clever.

Abutments of insect industry fill my sight.

A woman who blocks the horizon tells me

the neighborhood is going downhill,

her feet something the pavement rejects.

She is language at its horrifying limits.

Her words break the silence of noon,

her voice like pork cracklings underfoot.

She says her dog is in heat and jumped 

the fence three times last week. She says

her rent is half the price of life.  But enough

of the world her parents made in boredom,

enough of her dog’s intention to breed. 

I want to go back inside and sleep her off.

I am sometimes her, sometimes something

like her when I meet women like me

with my standards. She is all I ever thought

and feared I’d become, her hands shaking

in my direction, in the face of all I’ve done

on Darry Street, her eyes weighing the price

of guilt. She is a vapor coming from the asphalt,

my words returning to me, the cost of living

something I’ve never earned.

I cannot sleep off my vision of humanity,

everyone huddled together under a tarp,

my back facing them or what they’ve done 

to me, society siphoned into the form

of a woman, speaking with a woman’s

concern. 

I can only be as honest as I have room to be.

I cannot break down the walls of my house 

to make more space. And the little bit left

of me that doesn’t hold a scepter or make mud

with my spittle can’t be found. I am larger 

than the noise coming ahead of me in the darkness,

the traffic trapped in the previous night.

A Note on Human Evolution

It has been noted that women are more likely to select a man for marriage who makes her laugh. Women, likewise, tend to impress men with their laughter. The man feels validated by the woman’s laughter.

The future humans will be more likely to have profound senses of humor, as that is continually being selected for. The ability to tell remarkable jokes will become more prominent in men, and the ability to laugh at and enjoy jokes will become more pronounced in women. This, in turn, will produce more jovial humans, at least in some situations. This is why arranged marriages are generally a bad idea. Women have an instinctual ability to select men that will impart a greater degree of mental health to the offspring. At least, that is part of the picture.

Note: I am going to be out of town until August 21, so I may not be able to blog until then. 

A Dream

I don't recall having a dream last night. I've been told we dream every night, but I usually don't remember them. I love dreaming. Once I had a dream that I was exploring my hometown of Athens, Alabama, and there was a little shack in the middle of a parking lot. I walked into the shack and all these bright keys lined the walls. The keys were translucent and made of glass. They sparkled. I was trying to pick out a key. For me this was a profound dream. It symbolized a turning point in my life. When I entered the shack I had to take two steps up. For some reason that seems significant. The dream was bright and colorful.

I should add that the shack was situated in the old parking lot of L&S Foodland, a grocery store that had gone out of business. It was situated in an abandoned parking lot. 

Dreams, etc.

Today I mowed the grass. I also got up at 6:25 this morning and ate an early breakfast. Last night I went to bed at about 11: 15 p.m. I had a dream that I was cleaning a daycare. I dreamt that I got the daycare spotless. My old friend Ben was there. I haven't spoken to him in about eight years. It was good to see him again. The dream was a good omen. It means that I am making progress toward a goal. It was especially good to see Ben there. 

The other night I dreamt that I was making chocolate cake batter that had canned tuna in it. This was an ill omen, as the cake would not taste good. My dreams often tell me about the current state of my poetry. Maybe your dreams tell you about your life.

A Poem: Today's Sunlight

Today’s Sunlight

I awaken in pot holes 

of sleep and shadows, dawn to those 

with keener eyes than mine 

and breaths that follow a sober pulse.

Today’s sunlight endures the damage 

of living.  

The earth is all one thought.  

Here I can know that.  

I read the world’s drivel 

at the pace of a coma, suffering 

the fire and ice of bewilderment 

when there is no place 

outside of winter in my home.

Down by the river, in the woods 

where the old fools are drunk and laughing, 

the police follow a trail of footprints 

to the age when men knew silence 

and stealth and admired the courage 

they lacked.

Sunlight hides in a my friend’s 

smile when she listens to her grandfather’s 

stories, when the day’s impending 

doom skips over her and worry flutters 

through her breathing, leaving her 

empty house in the care of laughter.

The accounts I know 

of an old man’s arrival at the well-placed 

foot of a grave, the slothful lust that

browses through life are the only encounters 

I can give to history, which leaves 

no children or next of kin.

I live in the eyes of strangers 

when the passage of time matters more 

than any moral, when friends looking 

for solace end with more money 

than they can hide, and precarious flowers 

bloom in my bruises.

A Poetry Journal

Three of my poems are set to be published in the next issue of Triggerfish Critical Review. The Triggerfish Critical Review publishes poems along with critical reviews of poems.

My Illness

I'm bipolar. I was diagnosed at the age of sixteen. Actually, the last time I was hospitalized my diagnosis was changed to schizoaffective disorder. This is because I had paranoid delusions, and I said I was hearing the voice of Genghis Khan. I don't remember saying this, but it was in the hospital notes.

I was committed. I was committed because I threatened to leave Huntsville Hospital against medical advice. The hospital called my parents and said I was threatening to leave the hospital and that if they didn't agree to have me committed they would have to let me go on my on. I do remember demanding to leave the hospital. I wasn't being belligerent. I wish they had just talked to me and informed me of my options and warned me that my demand could get me committed.

All's well that ends well. When I was in the commitment hospital I was prescribed new medicine, and I lost thirty pounds. I also went two months without smoking. I should have quit smoking for good then. Anyway, I now use oral nicotine pouches, so I don't smoke anymore.

When I was sixteen I was totally out of control. My mind was chaotic. For a couple of years previous to that I had been suicidal, because I attended a school I didn't like. I finally got my parents to send me to a private school. It was called Highland Christian Academy in Pulaski Tennessee. I loved it there. I made tons of new friends, and my mood greatly improved. That next summer I went to a church camp, and I became manic. I went three days without any sleep. I believed I was famous. When I came back home I knew something was wrong, because I had gone so long without any sleep. My parents didn't know what to do with me, but eventually I was hospitalized.

That's enough for now. Maybe I'll write more about this later.

A Poem: Your Selflessness

Your Selflessness

I’d like to see you selfish for once.

I want to see you tip the waitress in quarters

then complain about the cost of the meal.

As we make it to our car, our bellies full

of love and pasta, you remember the boy 

in high school who could put away four plates

of food at the buffet. He is gone now, a closet

suicide. Only you remember his laughter

and the assurance of his loud voice.

He is kind in your memory, a place where no one

else can intrude. Sometimes you know how his

hand held yours all the way back to the first grade.

The night is in flight from our upturned faces,

the spouts of our noses.

I walk away from our family tree with you in tow

and that boy from school speaking your name 

behind us.

On your belly you shall go, I say to you,

as you face me, ashamed of the memory

of someone no one could help. Life is the garbage

we collect along the boulevards and side roads.

The words we speak to each other cannot be

trusted. They creak like old wood between out feet.

As a generalization water is as hard as iron.

The truth is buckshot splitting a face, a garbled 

mess of consonants breaking teeth, a refuge 

for beasts of all kinds, briars I take to my

breasts, the heart of a girl beating in folds

of linen. The truth takes victims, people who want

out of what is right, what is coming. You sharpen 

your gaze against a rock, balance 

a child’s skull in your hands, one with a bullet hole 

in the back.

A Poem: A Desert Night

A Desert Night

We want to be stranded in the desert

with no keys back to our house, our eyes

big and curtained, our hands 

freezing, our position in the world

immobile. We want each other,

to be situated in the salad of life, green

and remembered by all. You tell me living

is no reward for the way things are. I agree.

Night comes starless and cold, a chorus

of indictments. I’ve done everything wrong.

I’ve lived up to my paunch in lies without convictions 

of my own. Now I am the puppet of others’ opinions,

my strings tied to the body politic. I can’t think

of the last time I made a decision, everything someone

else’s fault. Memory is a gnat I can’t flick away.

I did not choose my height or my intellect or even

my will. 

Where can I go if I crawl on my belly? Distance

elapses between us. White lines on the highway

flash before us in the sudden wake of my guilt.

This is all the way we planned it. The land 

is broken at our feet. I can’t confront the way 

I feel, the way I look away from strangers’ gazes. 

I want to stare at those who make accusations, 

who gun me down with their words. 

Poem: An Old Man To His Wife

An Old Man To His Wife

My moan is surprising,

rising each morning

in the room’s corners.

You can feel dissipation 

course my body

like trains

running the rim of a peninsula,

each iron wheel

bumping a trestle of bone.

Sometimes you jerk my limbs,

but this is not enough 

to beat away

nostalgic distraction.

Every time you face me

I demand the mountains,

I demand the sea,

I demand the field behind our house

that blooms acorn flesh.

*Google "Late Alabama Joel Fry." 

Journal Entry

It's 2:17 p.m., and I haven't stepped foot outside all day. I've been awake since about 10:00 a.m. Yesterday I went with my friend David to Amish country up in Tennessee. I got to buy some Amish cookies and candy. I didn't like it all that much. It wasn't sweet enough. Anyway, I ate Amish cookies for breakfast along with some very good Amish fudge David gave me. 

Later on I will probably go to my parents' house for supper. I think my mother has some leftover hamburgers that I can eat. 

Yesterday I made a poetry submission. I feel fairly confident about it, though I won't hear back about it for a few months. Sometimes I make submissions, and I never even get a rejection. Some editors are assholes. Anyway, that's just the way it is.

I feel pretty good. I'm getting six poems published over the next six months or so. I'm even getting paid for two of the poems. It's about time too. So far I have made very little money from my poetry. I would be embarrassed to say how little.

A Poem

A Couple

A man and a woman

tempt each other toward their mutual

desires with hardy meals and conversation,

teaching what the city teaches each eye

and hand.  Nothing spoils 

like shared joy.  The waiter brings 

bread and wine, offers a joke, begs 

like a dog for bread   

of his own.  

No one is from around here.

The woman treats her partner to dessert 

with a hand dipped in mystery—dressed

in soft skin, freckles, and feathery

movements.  Warmth works its way 

around the restaurant, spreading 

through the booths.

No one knows how this is done.

The man tells the woman the miracle

they inhabit will not stop working until the last 

raindrop falls, until all rumors are fed

from the same source and the streets

no longer roar.  He tells her

it can work this way.  He tells her

he means it.