Norman Fischer

from Men in Suits

Once there was a king who had dreams he could tell the future from such dreams dreamt that next year’s harvest’d be tainted grain[such things do happen] that’d make all mad Once all mad whole kingdom mad from eating grain he asks councillor what shall we do we can’t save back from this year’s harvest enough grain for next for each year there’s grain enough for this year only this is the way of the physical world which goes forth in producing what it needs that it doesn’t yet have year by year what shall we do?councilor says well we run the kingdom we cannot go mad we must save back from this year’s harvest enough grain for you and I to eat next year we will stay sane we shall run kingdom this is what we must do king scratches head pulls beard narrows eyes adjusts crown purses lips pauses pregnant pause says no this is not good idea if so then we are sane and all are mad they will say we are mad we will be mad if all are mad and we are sane we will be the mad ones a mad king is deposed and if deposed chaos will rein without benevolent king no we must eat next year’s tainted grain we will also go mad but what will we do we will be mad the councillor says the king says yes but on each of our foreheads we will affix a mark when I look at you I will see your mark you look at me you’ll see mine we’ll know we’re mad and madly we shall rule with this in mind.

What shall such a story mean?

that it is better to go mad when everyone is mad than to be sane when everyone is mad and be thought mad though sane by madmen? that being sane or mad is not state of mind but state of society that when society’s mad all are mad but think they’re sane? that in such society it is better to be mad than endure the pain of being sane enough to bear full witness to the madness?

that kings must be as mad as those they rule?

that the ruled are mad because of the food they eat which makes them mad because the seed the sun the water the soil are madness-infused for material that’s created and perishes must be by virtue of that (that it comes and goes and no one can stop this) mad or become soon mad so food makes madness?

and therefore all who eat are mad so kings must be mad that being mad’s the condition of kings and all others?

that the condition of kings is the condition of the people they rule and in truth kings are ruled by their people whose nature infuses them not the other way round?

that councillors should never be obeyed they do not know what they are talking about their rationality and policy expertise will always blind them to the simple truth?

that pig-headed kings who refuse to obey their councilors will always sometimes or never be right in their decisions and out of guilt and chagrin go mad?

that you can’t love mad people if you think you are sane so to love them you too must be mad and a king must love his subjects?

that to be mad and not know you are mad is madness but to be mad and know you are mad’s sanity and there’s no other sanity worth having no other sanity at all?

that to rule a mad people it is better to be mad as the people are mad but to know you are mad and so be sane and that only in such a way can you be capable of ruling them?

that poets are mad but their poems are sane so kings must be poets to rule a mad people the only kind of people there are?

but to be a mad poet writing sane poems in a mad world makes you mad the more inspired you are the greater your mad sane poems enflame you the more you feel your isolation in a world gone mad when you are sane in your poems the more intense is your mania to enflame your poems with sanity in resistance to the universal madness which makes you then dangerous to yourself and others you must be restrained?

that to be mad in this way you cannot know you are mad you think your intense clarity is the only sanity so you become dangerous to yourself and others you must be restrained you must be forcibly dislodged from your madness which will make you sane too sane so you’ll lose your energy your force your life you’ll feel dead?

but if not you’ll spin further and further beyond the place you’ll go all the way to borderline between life and death you’ll see that death is the ultimate truth the ultimate brilliance the ultimate poem you’ll write the poem of death you’ll die not knowing that you are sane in a mad world so you are mad you are alone in your madness no one even other mad poets can reach to touch your sublime mind?

however to prevent all this you must know you are mad and to be sane in knowing this you must have a partner with a mark on his forehead? and that you also must have a mark on your forehead that you cannot see but that the other can see to remind you that it is there so you can be sane in your madness that you know as madness?

that kings will do anything to remain in power even go mad?

that it is better to join the world’s madness which cannot anyway be resisted than to remain in safe enclaves of sanity for in such enclaves of sanity you go mad with paranoia and a mania for purity?

that the world’s a madhouse and madhouses are small sad pools of sanity?

that medications to prevent or cure madness are made of tainted grain?

that if when you do not remain in small enclaves of sanity because this makes you insane but instead join the general madness you can survive it when you have others you trust who will counsel you who you know are mad as they know you are mad and through such relations you retain sanity?

that marks on forehead can be seen by everyone but that only those who have them know what they mean?

that madness or sanity have nothing to do with states of mind but only external marks with socially determined meanings caused by eating habits?

that internal states are signed by marks on foreheads that there’s no internal madness or sanity only thinking and feeling all sane and all mad that sane and mad are external matters only?

that there’s an inward sanity only to be found when two people look at one another closely but that the nature of such sanity is admission of madness?

that wise kings know they are insane?

they sing at same time

not to each other but side by side each to each

that their songs harmonize are duets trios quartets one song two three four or more songs each song alone sung together make one song of many voices

that they misunderstand their motives needs desires but sing each one their motives needs desires that are similar in passion but have different objects goals and strategies so are at cross-purposes mutually cancelling

that yet the motives needs desires objects goals strategies rhyme though they are different so some words they sing’re same yet mean different things come to different outcomes each to each though as they sing they make no notice of this each singing only her own song in painful passion

that the painful passion of the song’s overwhelming they all want to live they all want to die the passion’s so strong they cannot bear it

They profess (singing) their undying eternal love but don’t believe it even as so beautifully they sing it but the singing of it is so persuasive that though they don’t believe it it seeps into the soul so when they break up to find other lovers to make their undying art while drinking and carousing and joking and suffering in great poverty to live for undying art they all throughout this illusory time their undying love lives so in the end they die in each other’s arms surprised they truly did do love unto death as they sang unbelieving in the beginning