NaPM April 9, 2018

[RiverNotch]

renaissance medicine


it can't just be confirmation bias.
not all geniuses back then were burned,
i'm sure. there's an element of truth
to it -- not enough of us believe in it,
anyway. we don't have enough phlegm,
or blood, or even that mysterious fiery fluid,
choler.

no one wants to wear a long-snouted mask
and stuff their nostrils full of rosehips
anymore. no one wants to swing a thurible
and chant the jesus prayer a thousand times
on the way to a patient. no one wants to diagnose
with the humors, or the stars, or the voices in their hearts.
no one wants to become a mind:
to abandon the body as immaterial,
reason as utterly gross.

i throw my head back. this is the answer:
this is the secret fire. the problem is scholars today
are too full of black bile.
we don't know what it means to be jovial,
or martial, or solar, or even venereal
anymore. we allow ourselves to be choked by green serpents
or swallowed by roasting chickens.
we don't see that mercury
is also melancholic:
that the material will always pass,
that we need to talk to our past

or forget it altogether.