{"id":218848,"date":"2010-01-19T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-19T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:www.mindhacks.com:\/\/8179580deaf85222506d7e84382c416c"},"modified":"2010-01-19T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-19T18:00:00","slug":"leave-my-soul-alone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/218848","title":{"rendered":"Leave my soul alone"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m re-reading the excellent book<\/a> Into the Silent Land<\/i> by neuropsychologist Paul Broks<\/a> and was reminded of a part where he recounts an eerie poem about a 1938 operation to remove a brain tumour.<\/p>\n

The poem is by Welsh poet and doctor Dannie Abse<\/a> and, looking it up on the internet, I discovered that the poetry archive has a wonderful entry<\/a> for the piece online that not only includes the text but also a recording of Abse introducing and reading the poem.<\/p>\n

The uncanny incident, probably caused by stimulation of the cortical surface, was witnessed by Abse’s brother, also a doctor, when observing an operation by the famous neurosurgeon Lambert Rogers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

In the Theatre<\/b>
\nby Dannie Abse<\/p>\n

(A true incident)<\/p>\n

Sister saying\u2014\u2018Soon you\u2019ll be back in the ward,\u2019
\nsister thinking\u2014\u2018Only two more on the list,\u2019
\nthe patient saying\u2014\u2018Thank you, I feel fine\u2019;
\nsmall voices, small lies, nothing untoward,
\nthough, soon, he would blink again and again
\nbecause of the fingers of Lambert Rogers,
\nrash as a blind man\u2019s, inside his soft brain.<\/p>\n

If items of horror can make a man laugh
\nthen laugh at this: one hour later, the growth
\nstill undiscovered, ticking its own wild time;
\nmore brain mashed because of the probe\u2019s braille path;
\nLambert Rogers desperate, fingering still;
\nhis dresser thinking, \u2018Christ! Two more on the list,
\na cisternal puncture and a neural cyst.\u2019<\/p>\n

Then, suddenly, the cracked record in the brain,
\na ventriloquist voice that cried, \u2018You sod,
\nleave my soul alone, leave my soul alone,\u2019\u2014
\nthe patient\u2019s dummy lips moving to that refrain,
\nthe patient\u2019s eyes too wide. And, shocked,
\nLambert Rogers drawing out the probe
\nwith nurses, students, sister, petrified.<\/p>\n

\u2018Leave my soul alone, leave my soul alone,\u2019
\nthat voice so arctic and that cry so odd
\nhad nowhere else to go\u2014till the antique
\ngramophone wound down and the words began
\nto blur and slow, \u2018 \u2026 leave \u2026 my \u2026 soul \u2026 alone \u2026 \u2019
\nto cease at last when something other died.
\nAnd silence matched the silence under snow.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nLink<\/a> to poetry archive entry for ‘In the Theatre’.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m re-reading the excellent book Into the Silent Land by neuropsychologist Paul Broks and was reminded of a part where he recounts an eerie poem about a 1938 operation to remove a brain tumour. The poem is by Welsh poet and doctor Dannie Abse and, looking it up on the internet, I discovered that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4209"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218848\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}