Tag Archives: mutism

Abuse, Acceptance, mutism

NO ONE LISTENS…

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No One Listens
NO ONE LISTENS

I

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been able to speak now for at least a month, but before that there were four months of what I can only call subconsciously self-imposed silence. Not “selective mutism” because I did not speak at all. There does not seem to be any term for this intermittent affliction, when I cannot speak for long periods of time, but as my poem says, “Nothing locks my lips or seals my tongue” — a paraphrase I fear because I do not recall the exact words.

 

I would write more, but I have no time this morning. I post this small, 3.5″ by 2.5″ drawing because of Sue B’s comment on my most recent post…as it most eloquently I think answers her question. Whatever the reason for my muteness, I do not consciously choose to go silent. It simply happens, with a bang, so to speak.

This muteness can lift, I have found, with music, with singing, and people encouraging me to sing…and then to sing-talk my words, until finally I “forget” and simply end up speaking.

Here is the poem I wrote that expresses some of htis, It can be found in my newest book, LEARNING TO SEE IN THREE DIMENSIONS, available on Amazon and through any bookstore.

PHILOMELA

I haven’t spoken out loud for many weeks,

bullied by “voices” to a frightened into myself silence.

 

Still, what does “speechless” mean

in these days of text-to-speech software,

with its choice of Vikki or Samantha or Victoria voices,

 

especially when I’m possessed of a blog and writing fluency

enough to speak my mind to my heart’s content?

 

Even so, being mute is not a manner of speaking.

 

Yet I tell you I cantalk. Nothing physical impedes

my tongue, or locks my lips

 

except my brain’s hallucinated snarls,

Jerry Mahoney and Charlie McCarthy thrown

into surrounding shadows

 

ordering up this stoppage, blockage, blockade.

 

Now, like Stevens’ fire-fangled bird at the end of the mind

feathered unlucky, tarred, locked in golden cage

 

my voice remains only a memento

 

of everything

I wanted to say, but could not get out,

I couldn’t get it out, I could not get it out…

 

 

*In the Greek myth, Philomela is raped and has her tongue cut out by Tereus, the husband of her sister Procne. Rendered mute, Philomela weaves a tapestry detailing the crime to inform her sister, who, enraged, takes revenge on Tereus. At the end of the story, both Procne and Philomela are transformed into birds.   In some versions of this story, Philomela turns into a female nightingale, while in others she becomes a swallow. However, neither of these birds can sing.

 

*Jerry Mahoney and Charlie McCarthy are two famous American ventriloquists’ dummies

 

 

Blog, Communication

Closing Down

20 Comments

Wagblog is going off-line. Maybe we will return, maybe not. It won’t a great loss to the world in any event. Too many words, too much garbage…

As Lao Tzu was said to have written, “Much talk means much exhaustion, better far it is to keep your thoughts.” Well, I shut up vocally many weeks ago, and it was indeed better for everyone around me…so now maybe if I also cease this incessant blather it will be another improvement for the world.

Sorry for everything. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

 

Art, Poetry

NEW POEM, OR REWRITTEN POEM, ABOUT BEING MUTE

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ON NOT SPEAKING

Over the seasons of my sixties

and unwillingly

suddenly silent

no wonders spark in my visual brain.

But a reason why’s no wonder.

For so many years schooled

into naming everything

words and sounds categorize the world

and wordify my senses.

Precipice, for instance,

with its sliced peaks.

And acrid’s encaustic, that bite on my tongue.

Even blench

somehow leaves me paler

and more livid than before.

But there are descents into being speechless

for reasons besides pathology.

Although these may not seem any reason

or even be

reason enough, to many,

who believe only talking out pain aloud

makes sense.

Sensible or senseless

I know when shutting up is preventive.

or at least is less insane

than trying to be heard

by those inured to hurting

or being hurtful

when they indeed would rather hurt me

than pay heed, having heard me.

But if silence as you claim

overspeaks the chattering air

why do you refuse

to hear all I cannot use

my voice to say.

Disability, Mental Health, Poetry

Two Poems

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Audobon Field Guide Barred Owl
Audubon Field Guide Barred Owl

TIME-BANK POEM

Dear R, you who have asked me,

via my Service Offer (“I write personal poems”),

to “create” you a poem, can’t know,

when my second late night email

fails to elicit a prompt response,

how my certainty of rejection hammers me

into old penances, and how I tinfoil walls

and barricades against my extruded poisons.

Then when your emails resume the next day

mentioning your little white house,

a she-owl who watches you with soulful eyes

and your growing “sense of despair”

I imagine a woman of mature years,

alone, though perhaps through choices

not always made freely. So to meet you

I navigate unfamiliar and unpaved roads

parking behind a half-built barn

and a muddy old green Subaru.

Younger than I expect, you’ve moved here

to escape precisely what we never discuss.

You reference only the need for peace of mind,

and a relief from startling triggers.

Nevertheless, I understand your need to know

that spirit-familiar, the barred she-owl, Strix varia,

roosting on a white pine bough

outside your window all winter,

less guardian than too starving to move away

or predate the small animals atop the ice layer

between her and proper voles held in safety beneath.

Only when deep-freeze breaks in early March

and a shadow swoops silently across your pane,

do you know who’s won the battle,

and cheer for a raptor’s kill that saves her life.

The world, after all, is all about killing or being eaten,

which is true even in the human world

where your neighbors stalk you with barking dogs,

and talk nights, beneath your bedroom window

of that woman next door, who is not like them,

with her window salad garden and that owl.

Fearful, blind, they believe that hoot owls

harbinger death. Instead you try to see

the way a mythical Owl might see,

through cold and black of night

for clarity, for lucency, for whatever it is

that warms the living embers

and rem-embers your mind to peace.

——————————————————

This next poem describes the present situation, which continues…with the following explanations.

In the Greek myth, Philomela is raped and has her tongue cut out by Tereus, the husband of her sister Procne. Rendered mute, Philomela weaves a tapestry detailing the crime to inform her sister, who, enraged, takes revenge on Tereus. At the end of the story, both Procne and Philomela are transformed into birds.  In some versions of this story, Philomela turns into a female nightingale, while in others she becomes a swallow. However, neither of these birds can sing.

Jerry Mahoney and Charlie McCarthy are two famous American ventriloquists’ dummies

PHILOMELA

I haven’t spoken out loud for many weeks,

bullied by “voices” to a frightened into myself silence.

Still, what does “speechless” mean

in these days of text-to-speech software,

with its choice of Vikki or Samantha or Victoria voices,

especially when I’m possessed of a blog and writing fluency

enough to speak my mind to my heart’s content?

Even so, being mute is not a manner of speaking.

Yet I tell you I can talk. Nothing physical impedes

my tongue, or locks my lips

except my brain’s hallucinated snarls,

Jerry Mahoney and Charlie McCarthy thrown

into surrounding shadows

ordering up this stoppage, blockage, blockade.

Now, like Stevens’ fire-fangled bird at the end of the mind

feathered unlucky, tarred, locked in golden cage

my voice remains only a memento

of everything

I wanted to say, but could not get out,

I couldn’t get it out, I could not get it out…

Abuse, Poetry

POEM THAT CAN FORGET BUT NOT FORGIVE

17 Comments

THE POEM THAT CAN FORGET BUT NOT FORGIVE

 

This poem is afraid

because I am afraid.

This poem is always cold,

and shivering, making my teeth clatter

like cheap tin tableware

on a bare plate.

This poem wants to die,

and be rescued too late

to regret it.

 

This poem has been all its life scared,

and still is: scared, trembling

on the brink, trembling,

knowing the truth that lies

beyond the lies

told over and over,

though it has never been taken in.

 

This poem has a voice

small, smoke-rasped, hungry,

and it has much to say

about what really happened

when no one else was there

to stand to protest.

 

This time it wants to be heard.

This poem wants to be heard!

It will spit and curse and claw

out bejesus if it has to,

this poem means to be heard!

 

This poem will tattle-tale

sit back and smile smugly.

This poem will wring satisfaction’s neck

and revenge will taste like chocolate.

This poem is sad as water, poor as sand.

This poem wants to live well,

but it doesn’t know how.

 

© Pamela Spiro Wagner, 2009 (from WE MAD CLIMB SHAKY LADDERS, CavanKerry Press, Fort Lee, NJ)

I may have posted this before but it is especially relevant at the moment because i have been mute for more than 6 weeks now and do not know why it has lasted or what to do about it…

Abuse, Health, Music

MICHAEL E. BALKUNAS, MD: LISTEN TO THIS RAP – YOU MUTHA FUCKA!

12 Comments

Okay so here is another rap lyric. I suggest that you try to play it on an apple or iphone/ipad device as people have said that these won’t play with Internet Explorer. Perhaps because they are created through Garage Band and with ITunes? Anyhow good luck! (This is a TRUE STORY about what happened in the New Britain General Hospital in May 2014, Hospital of Central Connecticut…NOTHING IS IMAGINED OR MADE UP IN fact things were much worse even than this song describes….) If these end up being popular enough, I will redo them with a good microphone and perhaps a video…

DR. MICHAEL E. BALKUNAS, SHRUNKEN-HEAD MUTHAFUCKA RAP

Doctor Balkunas, you think you can fuck with me?

Doctor Balkunas, you think you can punish me?

Doctor Balkunas you head shrunken mofucker

G’wan, have another headfucking think on it, mofo…
They brought me by ambulance, silent and broken

Terrified, mute, and on an “involuntary”

Not even speaking and mentally ill

I could make no choices, every word unspoken.

Do you know what it means when I say I was mute,

when I could not speak and words did not work

and the world was too loud and my head was too full

and there was no bridge and no hand to pull

me out from that in-between. Even security

wasn’t there to protect me, only nurses and from me

and even the first nurse who coldly appraised me

grabbed my one book and then took my phone and fled

as if she were plotting to fuck with my head

because she had only to ask me and take it politely,

and promise to take care of things, and do it nicely.

Such fierce flames of outrage surged in me, and anger!

So not even thinking, I went running after her

wanting just to reach her and grab my book back from her

Little did I know the reaction if I touched her.

Mike Balkunas, you thought you could fuck with me?

Mike Balkunas, you thought you could punish me?

Mike Balkunas, you thought you could shit on me?

Mikey, you mofo, have a new headshrinking think on it.

Quicker than quicker everyone was sicked on me,

from the aides to the orderlies, even the nurses.

Burly armed guards went piling up hard on me,

and the worst of the worst was patients made versus me

a 100-pound 60-year old lady of five foot three

upset that my two last possessions were snatched from me

without any reason or rhyme in the world really

by the usual criminal in the ER, the head RN

who knew I was powerless alone in that warren

of ER rooms, so she had me dragged me to seclusion.

where I had to bare-knuckle the dark in confusion

battling anguish and fear, with the voices’ profusion.

So to get someone to come in and hear my screaming

I pulled all my clothing off, for clothes had no meaning.

Mike Balkunas, you think you can fuck with me?

Mike Balkunas, you think you punish with impunity?

Mike Balkunas, you really think you can shit on me?

G’wan, Mofo, Have another headshrinking think, now, Mikey…

I screamed from the base of my lungs for an hour

but was utterly ignored by all who had power

to relent or release me. I hadn’t a notion

of what else to do, to get help or attention

or have them return to the room, but to start

hitting my head and even tearing apart

things I could throw, chair, clothes and chart.

Then came the goon squad of six beefy men

who easily brought me facedown on the floor again

I screamed and I struggled but it did me no good,

if you fight them they justify all that they would.

Much better to lie still and let them abuse you

and get discharged and hope against hope you can sue.

The ER in peril from the dangers I posed

such a monster as me, poorly muscled, unclothed,

they wanted me, mute, completely shut up.

so they rammed three injectables into my butt.

Mike Balkunas, honey, you thought you could fuck with me?

Mike Balkunas, sweetie, you believed you could punish me?

Mike Balkunas, sweetheart, you thought you could shit on me?

Aw, little boy, Balkie, do your headshrinking mofo thing with it…

Mikey? Mikey? Mofo…I’ll bet you won’t forget me for a lo-o-o-ooong time, will you?

Ha ha ha!

I wish to god I could forget you. You mofo. You mother fucker. Let this rap song be a lesson to you, not to fuck with poets and writers or you’ll get written into a history you might rather be forgotten.

Doctor Michael Balkunas, dare you fuck with me now?

Doctor Michael Balkunas, dare you punish me now?

Doctor Michael Balkunas, you head shrunken muthafucka

Mofo, Mikey go fuck another headshrinker and think on it.

Poetry, Writing

New Poem: On Not Speaking

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ON NOT SPEAKING

 

When I went temporarily mute at age sixty,

it sparked no visual wonders.

After decades schooled by dictionaries,

vocabulary categorized the world:

“precipice,” “acrid,” “blanch;”

words even defined my senses.

But one can fall into

speechlessness for reasons

beyond pathology

though these may not seem reasonable

to people who believe that only talking things out

or about them makes sense.

Speaking or not, I knew

when silence was less insane

than trying to be heard

by those who would rather hurt me

than pay attention.

But if, as they say, silence is so eloquent,

why couldn’t anyone hear

what I so desperately didn’t say?

 

 

Art, Health, Poetry

New Poem: About Mutism

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Bird in Cage - Papier mach by Pamwagg
Standish Bird in Cage – Papier mache by Pamwagg

PHILOMELA* edited after months of mutism

I haven’t spoken out loud in several weeks

bullied into a frightened by myself silence.

Though what does “speechless” mean

in these days of text-to-speech software,

with its choice of Vikki or Samantha or Victoria voices,

Or when I’m possessed of a blogging platform

and writing fluency enough to speak my mind to my heart’s content?

Still, being mute is not a manner of speaking.

i tell you I could speak, I can talk. Nothing physical impedes

my tongue, or locks my lips,

except my brain’s hallucinated snarls, like Jerry Mahoney

and Charlie McCarthy thrown into surrounding shadows

ordering up this stoppage, blockage, blockade.

Now, like that fire-fangled bird at the end of the mind

feathered unlucky, tarred, locked in golden cage

my voice remains only a memento

of everything that I wanted
to say, but couldn’t get out, I couldn’t get out, I couldn’t get it out…

*In the Greek myth, Philomela is raped and has her tongue cut out by Tereus, the husband of her sister Procne. Rendered mute, Philomela weaves a tapestry detailing the crime to inform her sister, who, enraged, takes revenge on Tereus. At the end of the story, both Procne and Philomela are transformed into birds.  Some versions have Philomela become a nightingale, the female of which does not sing. In other versions she becomes a swallow, which is a non-singing bird.