H e a r t S o n s & H e a r t D a u g h t e r s of A l l e n G i n s b e r g

N a p a l m H e a l t h S p a : R e p o r t 2 0 1 4 : A r c h i v e s E d i t i o n

MARC OLMSTED

ACADEMY 23

I.

Friday night visiting my wife in the mental ward one day after her

39th birthday

*

Take the bus home to watch the sex crime cop show

II.

she can't sleep she's been depressed for months her pill habit done

a second time this poor woman now in the suicide ward letting me

breath

III.

Returning home Sunday night in the empty glow bus - my wife

gets to watch ALIAS spy girl tonight on the group TV - excited

she demonstrates kun fu kicks in the mental ward - making me

laugh

- she just needs sleep

IV.

I tell the neighbors she's on retreat - she does 4 sessions of

meditation in the ward - bare room decorated w/ bright Tibetan

Buddha cards

V.

2323 Sacramento

Ward 23

“23” kabala

for

“new life”

Academy 23

novelist Burroughs'

learning

institute

study karate

Zen, yoga

fictional

school

of mind

VI.

She's out - I sit looking at the sky in the barren parking lot behind

Walgreen's Drugs 1:04 pm as she fills a prescription of sleep

who do I have now?

what wife occupies that body?

11/15-11/19/02

[Originally published in NHS 2003, http://www.poetspath.com/napalm/nhs03/marc_olmsted.htm.]