Artist's Statement:

What if voices of Mad people, voices like mine, were interviewed by an anthropologist? I explore the potential of that idea in Knowing from a Venezuelan Madhouse, and those voices rap and philosophize, theorize and pontificate, teach, and demand justice. These voices also forget what they were about to say, rudely interrupt each other, encourage each other, and, every now and then, act disrespectfully.

For beneath its dialogue, this poem is most concerned with social politics in an inpatient mental ward. While the padded room I once employed was crowded with interactions between nurses, orderlies, a guard and a few voices seemingly only in my head, a locked hall involves an even wider range of voices with bodies. And in a locked hall, no one physical can be avoided.

In my two experiences inpatient, I met some of the most delightful, lovely, funny, whimsical and just plain nice individuals I've ever known-- friends I have kept in touch with. I also met individuals who filled me with wonder at the power of their non-normative lived experience. And I met individuals whose actions terrified me to my core.

Stay determined, for in this poem no content warnings are necessary. And I hope you will enjoy-- and continue to think about-- Knowing from a Venezuelan Madhouse.

[excerpts from ] Knowing from a Venezuelan madhouse

Translation from the Spanish by Paul-Newell Reaves

  Dedicated to Drs. W.F., J.C. and L.G., G.B. and D.M., and J.S.

Want Your Voices Heard?

Share your Theories, Opinions and your Art on any the following:

What is the Meaning of Life?  What is the Power of Language?

What is Significant in Your Life?

Meet in cafeteria, Tuesdays, 5:30 a.m.-8:30 a.m., and Thursdays, 5:00 p.m.-6:30 p.m.

I look forward to meeting you— Diego

Candidate for Doctorate in

Interdisciplinary Humanities,

Universidad Centrál de Venezuela

[…]

“Rap for him, Matty.”

“If ya think I should.”

“Matty’s real good. Calls himself Capriccio.” 

“So, I don’ rhyme, see. I jus’… flow.”

“Love to hear you. Please, go ahead, tape is rolling.”

“Step back, kids, I’m about a-spread my dirty feathers… 

The body of a woman that you think you love.

Body of a woman that you think you love. 

The body of a woman that you think you love—

body of a woman that you think you love.

I’m talking girls that should be in magazines, 

but do not limit yourself wi’ girls like that.

I’m talking levels of beauty won’t be allowed in magazines, 

‘cause every-else in ‘um would feel bad.

I’m talking unique beauties,

women you remember seeing once, because

you will never see anyone like that woman again. 

You wanna turn on a real female?

Tell her her beauty is unique. 

Hehh, but do not limit yourself 

to women of physical beauty.

I’m talking a level of beauty higher than those unique beauties— 

a woman who ain’t afraid to show you her flaws. 

So you wanna contemplate true beauty?

Stare softly at the largest scar

on the body of a woman that you think you love. 

Body of a woman that you think you love—

the body of a woman that you think you love,

scar tissue-of-a-woman that you think you love. Word.” 

(continued)

(Reaves, Venezuelan Madhouse, page 2, new stanza)

“Thank you for that, Matty.”

[…]

“Tell me more, Heacock— what does that mean to you, 

Tupac-Christ?”

“Simple, simple, Tupac Shakur is the second coming of the Christ.

Not the Antichrist, but the axis-Christ, the chalice

that heralded-in apocalypse occurring

in late eighties and early nineties,

then was resurrected as a hologram to save us from sin.

Not from our sins, but the concept of sin. Simple.” 

“Interesting. Would you like to expand on—”

“Right, so, I don’t want to tell you this, 

’cause this knowledge might destroy you,

and I’ve grown accustomed to your ugly face, Hah-Hah-Hah,

but, you asked, so you deserve to know.

And the only deserving that’s generative is deserving to know.  Whenever—”

“Excuse me— I’ve been waiting for my turn.”

“Of course, Sir, as soon as these gentlemen are finished—”

“Damn— dog, I lost my thought. Damn, dog… damn…

Now I got nothing to say.” 

“Good.”

“But I got nowhere else really to be…” 

“Oh. Isn’t there somewhere we can speak in private?”

“I’m afraid not, Sir, the male hall doesn’t have individual visitation rooms.”

“You can call me Rudolph.”

“Of course, Rudolph.  But Heacock and Matty have every right to be here, too.

“Oh. 

Alright, in that case—

I have personally identified three meanings of life— I’m talking 

specifically about human life at this point, ‘cause

many things are alive and not human.

Rocks change all the time.  They grow up, they fade away— 

quite clearly life to me: change.

But what is the meaning of human life, I asked myself—

or more accurately— what are the meanings of human life?

“You see, very subtle things happen when you ask the right questions.

(continued)

(Reaves, Venezuelan Madhouse, page 3, same stanza)

‘What is the meaning of life?’ cannot have an answer—

because there is more than one.  The obvious answer: sex, continuing the species.

But all people who like sex in the butt complicate things— 

as well as all other sex acts that do not result in procreation.

A theorist named Edelman, however, argues that queer sex 

acts have immense potential to change Earth—

although only in nihilistic ways for him.

But Judith Halberstam reinterprets Edelman— in realistic ways, for once.

She argues that queer sex acts simply fail to procreate.

And the importance of that statement, when you analyze it— 

and you should always analyze every it—

failure is not necessarily the opposite of success. 

Failure happens to every person every day,

and nothing is wrong with that—if you don’t feel bad about failing.

Failing almost always actually is a swifter path to success than steadily succeeding. 

Ponder that one.

So, note-to-self: destigmatize failure.  Check.

[…]

“Damn, dog, don’t look up.”

“Shit, it’s Arthur— I wouldn’t speak to him.” 

“If he has an entry, it’s my job to.” 

“Yeah— but…he just never shuts up.”

[…]

“Einstein learned many things, most significantly that gravity is nothing more than acceleration.  So, because every molecule in the universe is accelerating toward every other molecule— accelerating because matter is growing— gravity happens.  I’d say physical science is basically accomplished; we understand gravity.

“I don’t especially think it was a great idea for physical science to return a Hulked-out medical authority back into the universe, though. You do realize that we had entirely dismissed the authority of blood-letting by the end of the 19th-century, before physical science reassured us it might possibly wring-out of our lives a few more meager moments. Yes, that’s whose advice I want, the best leech applicator I can afford. ‘How does this new leech suck, now, doctor? A lot of stern looks, a lot of cutting me, and a lot of “swallow this?”’ 

[…]

around the French Revolution, the EMPOWERED began studying other people intently, jumped to conclusions, misunderstood absolutely everyone, placed anyone remotely different into very

(continued)

(Reaves, Venezuelan Madhouse, page 4, same stanza)

 narrow statistical categories—the better to manipulate you, my dear—and instead of torturing people they didn’t want or wanted to change, began locking them up. I don’t especially think that was the greatest idea, either. What ruins a man more: confining him away from his home, loved ones, and means of survival, or cutting off his hand? How are you that attached to your symmetricality? How is it less barbaric, where I have been flung, but more to be let live with one hand—“

“Please calm down, Mr. Monk, the guards already don’t like my work here.”

“What?— oh, fine then, I can skip some pages… Yes, here we are. Human thought soon became far more optimistic, because we realized that identity—you know, race, gender, sex, sexuality, disability, ethnicity—is nothing more than performance. And in 1995—”

“The year before Tupac-Christ died.”

“Uum, right… In 1995, the mathematicians successfully identified the Theory of Everything, and called it M-theory, or sometimes K-theory.

[…]

“All right: one—time and space, or at least what we used to think of as dimensions of time and space before the idea of time-space. So time-space is certainly a dimension, but in no way is the fourth dimension, is definitely the zero-eth dimension. Because there are not three dimensions of time, such as now, old now, soon-to-be now. No!— there is only now. The future can in no way be said to exist, for we have no evidence of that, and, by definition, never will. Furthermore, the past does not exist in anything but memory— which is something else entirely, though may be a candidate for a lesser, higher dimension. Furthermore still, the moment—which is all we have any evidence for—exists for such a short time that it can barely be said to exist at all, however never ends, indeed never begins, and has no limits. Like the number zero.

“Now it gets difficult, for we cannot lie on Aristotelian logic any longer.

[…]

I think I just disproved the existence of death, 

which people consider almost as inevitable as taxes.”

“Hee-he-hee-he— frontin’ like he’s big, Triple-Check.”

“Frontin’ like he’s big, dog!—  Frontin’ like he’s big!”

“What in Hell are you two blathering about. Am I the only sane person in here?”

“Yooou-hoou, Diego— it’s 8:31.  One must keep to one’s schedule, mustn’t one.”

“Thank you, Mr. Monk. Doubtlessly you are.  Doubtlessly you are.”

“No doubt, frontin’ like he big.  Hehh.  Knah what?— I enjoyed dis.  Hehh.”