judgment

we, the representatives of human-kind
have determined this man’s demons
to be untamed and volatile
& therefore have sentenced him
to confinement & conditioning
at the greyhouse of correction
until such time as he is judged
to be completely purged
of the evil spirits that allow him —

to read handwriting on non-existent walls
to hear & decode the chaotic twelve-tone tunes of the netherworld
to dream by night & by day
to embrace emptiness as a friend
to remain half in love with pain & melancholy
to communicate with the multiple selves within his body
to assume—like proteus—myriad shapes & moods
to see things as they are—devoid of any false outlines
to conjure life from an airless bell-jar

- dbc

Most of us are unable to come to terms with things we don’t understand, and so are forced to make the unknown our enemy, but there are a few who walk among us who not only understand these spirits of fire, but commonly exchange ideas with this netherworld and its natives. Mark Hartenbach is one of these special people.

In this collection of prose entitled ‘book of resurrection,’ Hartenbach strings together a feverish autobiographical journey that begins with a desperate overdose on valium, continues through an Intensive Care Unit in a Pittsburgh hospital and a protracted stay in a psychiatric unit in Beaver, Pennsylvania.

Stripped naked of pretense, and strapped down like Gulliver by the tiny people of Lilliput, Hartenbach is driven on by the pounding pistons in his heart.

“… my wrists now firmly tied to rails / begging them to untie me / now that i was somewhat coherent / aware of my surroundings / & my situation / i realized i was still alive / i realized the consequences of my situation / i realized i was deeper in the shit than ever…”

As he eventually makes the transition to back to “reality.” he finds some comfort living in this world of uncounted people. He’s able to turn off the outside lights and lose himself for a while — join a world where he doesn’t have to belong to a particular time and place.

“… strangely enough / i found myself more comfortable / & with a greater sense of camaraderie / among my fellow broken humans / than i had with most folks in the ‘real world’…”

He is forced to fight so as not to turn over ownership of his self to the so-called experts who claim to know the secrets of his soul, which he is not allowed to know.

“… trying to win me over / with inevitable spiel / on the virtues of anti-depressants / mood stabilizers & anti-psychotics / which i fight off / because they always drive my angels away / along with my demons…”

At times the lines can present the reader with a soul laid bare:

“… my logic is a thread / hanging there / where anyone could pull / & i’d come unraveled / my speech is dipthonged slash & burn / strung together like prayer beads / & dna readout…”

At other times, Hartenbach’s dark sense of humor breaks through. For example, when the shrink gives him a non-negotiable choice between medication or shock treatments:

“… i think to myself / is there a third choice / an ice-pick up under the eye socket / or maybe pumped full of insulin / until my body begins bouncing / to the beat of sanity…”

Everything in these poems is personal, confessional, deeply felt, but it’s the manner of feeling that makes them unique. The poems themselves are incomparable to anything I’ve read before. They are like diary entries, chronicling whatever is on the narrators mind at the time, which often is how best to play the game and still come out the other side with at least some of his “angels” still intact.

“… i don’t mind some input / now & again / but i’ll be damned / if i’ll stand for being fed lines / under my thinking cap / or slipped valentines / under my ribs / in the vicinity of my heart…”

Also moving through these pages is a host of sad, beautiful characters walking the halls, sitting in the day lounge, or filling seats in the daily group sessions. Characters described by the author as:

“… some of the sharpest & in some ways sanest minds I’ve ever encountered…”

People like: Roger the schizophrenic, a holy roller, preaching the gospel to anyone who will listen; Jessica the very young, very pregnant white trailer park girl screaming obscenities at everybody and nobody; Tasha the whiz kid who could sing like an opera star.

Hartenbach uses the pronoun “we” when describing this tangled people-machine of which he is a integral part. Referring to the group as if they are single living entity with a common viewpoint. A kind of introspective object with the same in-grained, self-preserving quirks and foibles.

“… we spin a tortured metaphysics / that insists we fall to our knees / & pray / we spin out gracelessly / muttering self-loathing mantras / that drown out any other voice / no matter how reasonable…”

or

“… we roll our heads in pure distractions /scratching them occasionally & ask / tell me again / what is it i’m supposed to believe?”

Eventually, the angel does fly in and roll the stone away from the door, and our narrator does come forth from the tomb, but the real miracle here is the book. Like a magician or sleight-of-hand man, Mark Hartenbach has conjured a beautiful dove from a dirty hospital gown.

There is a peculiar haunting presence residing within the pages of this book, which seems to be persistently whispering in your ear as you read —

“Come, if only you had the courage, you too could have my rightness.”

D.B. Cox is a blues musician/poet. Originally from South Carolina, he now resides in Watertown, Massachusetts. His writing has been appeared in numerous publications - both online and print. His first book, 'Passing For Blue,' has just been published by Rank Stranger Press.

© 2005 Laura Hird All rights reserved.