(“Likeness of Luke the Drifter”–provided by DWB)
I write this on May 4, 2025.
My mother passed away in May of 2011. I often used to listen to Townes Van Zandt’s classic song “Sanitarium Blues” on my way to and from the various dementia wards she was incarcerated in for the last six or so years of her 69-year-long life.
I visited her religiously multiple times per week for every single week she was in there.
She had a form of dementia which was not quite diagnosable in conventional terms. For me, she’d turned into a kind of silent saint who’d purposefully, but also not on purpose, removed herself from the madness beyond the walls, i.e. early twenty-first century USA.
She could see it all coming. She always knew who I was. I knew this from the way she always looked at me with a silent knowing which told me she knew exactly who I was.
In May of 2012, my (now ex-) wife was diagnosed with breast cancer two weeks after we (mutually agreed upon) split up.
In May of 2013, I was forced to cut off all contact with a very special friend, a red-haired, blue-eyed, brilliant Chicago stage actress who had offered me enormous consolation at one point but whose multiple personality disorders were no longer allowing me to be myself, as they say. Anyone who’s ever been deeply entangled with a partial (sometimes full-on) narcissist who also possesses histrionic, borderline, and occasionally substance use disorders, not to mention an endless talent for cheating on you and covering her tracks continuously even though you know something’s up anyway, will understand how horrible and draining such a relationship, and breakup, can be (including having to look over your shoulder at night for a while). (Perhaps truer words than these were never spoken: “I do believe her, though I know she lies.” – Mr. Shakes.)
In May of 2014, I lost my job after a total of fifteen years working at the same place.
In May of 2015, I suffered a mental breakdown that was occasioned by a pill addiction that (accidentally) caught me in its grip.
In May of 2016, I was slammed with fresh waves of grief over the passing on two months earlier of my beloved dog, sidekick, assistant, friend, and family member, Cowboy Brown Barrigar.
In May of 2020, George Floyd was crucified on national TV, an event that shook me far deeper than I can even describe right now.
In May of 2024, I suffered a stroke at the age of 57. (Fully recovered now.)
I can’t remember right now what happened in May of ’17, ’18, ’19, ’21, ’22, ’23, etc., but somewhere in there, there was a pandemic and there are probably a few other tragic events I’m leaving out, but you get the picture.
And yet I still love the Merry Month of May. I love it for itself, and I love it because I love and appreciate all the months, and all the seasons, of the year. I love and appreciate them all because I don’t know which month I’ll be leaving this Planet during. I also never know how many more times I’ll be seeing the Merry Month of May roll around, so I want to appreciate this one just in case I happen to miss the rest of them.
My poem “Chicago Spleen” is a bounce-back poem, kind of like how the plants all bounce back in May in northern Illinois where I live. “Bouncing back” means not letting it get you down, whatever “it” is. It does NOT mean we do not sometimes EMBRACE our depression, horror, anxiety, and sadness. Pretending everything is A-OK when it manifestly is NOT ok can truly be a fool’s errand. On the other hand, when we consider the fact that this might be the very last time on Planet Earth we ever get to see whatever month we’re in at the time, it gives one pause and makes her or him wonder what’s really worth getting all upset about.
Herman Melville’s book-length poem CLAREL has probably been read in its entirety by less than fifty people, ever, on this Planet, and that’s no joke.
It ends with these lines: “And even death may prove unreal at last / and stoics be astounded into heaven.”
Notation: The title of my poem is a reference to Charles Baudelaire’s Paris Spleen, a small book, a thin, vast work that has a magical significance for me, AND for the protagonist of the following poem.
Chicago Spleen; or, The Christmas Decision
A writer decided to try and hammer
together her book once
and for all
on Christmas Eve
of 2013 CE.
When the decision hit,
for some reason she
looked over at
the clock
on the wall
of the bus station.
Okay. 7:46 P.M.
Central Time in the United States
of Illinois, 21st century
blues-return
style.
46
was her favorite
number.
She didn’t know
why then, but she knew
there is always a reason.
Every time she saw
that number,
she would think
it must be
something good, like
a positive warning
that something good
was coming even if
it never really came
or it had already been here
before that
even though you didn’t
know it – until
now.
She didn’t go running
around the streets telling
anybody about it.
She just thought it,
it sitting
quietly there
in her mind
because she
told herself
(out loud),
“I have trained
my mind.”
She also believed
(like so many others
of us) that 7
is a heavenly
number.
When she saw the “7:46”
of the digital wall clock flashing
at her, like a meaningfully
meaningless wink, her “I”
decided again to try
and commit to this.
Even though, or maybe
especially because,
she found herself
sitting in a bus station
by herself
on Christmas Eve.
Even if it makes her
die the deaths, the endless
deaths,
she thought
to herself.
Even if it makes me
die the death!
She told herself,
and the rear end of his bus,
as his bus
disappeared.
Dale W. Barrigar is a poet and shirt sleeves religious philosopher from Berwyn and Oak Park, Illinois, USA, where hover the ghosts of Frank Lloyd Wright and Ernest Heminway whose spirits are endless inspirations around every corner. Barrigar was transformed into a believer in miracles by the hard knocks of life.
Saragun Springs 
Dale
This week is moving along beautifully due to your lovely writing skills. For some reason I did not make the connection earlier, my mother died in April 2011. And although a parent preceding a child in death is desirable, it creates a strangeness that the commonality of the action cannot diminish.
Well done and thank you for attracting new readers!
Leila
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Dear Leila
Thanks again for offering me this opportunity, and I’m exceedingly glad to hear it’s all going well!
Like I said earlier in the week, I really and truly enjoy appearing here because I know that Springs Readers are not merely casual or transactional readers.
Anyone who’s drawn to this kind of material is a Seeker at some level, and in their own way, and those are the kinds of Readers I try to write for, however imperfect my writing is, just as those are the kinds of things I myself like to read.
The Springs has a kind of artistic motivational purity about it that even the French Symbolists, like Rimbaud, or perhaps Van Gogh, Kafka, and Picasso too (no, definitely them), might have appreciated.
Dale
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A very evocative poem and as one who has sat and watched and ‘his’ train disappeared into the distance – I can feel the emotions. Hardy touches on this issue, the day of death, in Tess of the Durbevilles doesn’t he, but from the other side, just wondering when it will be. My Grandad, who was a medium, used to believe that for him February was the deciding month. A good February meant a good year. Of course he died in a February! An interesting read – thank you – dd
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Dear Diane
Thanks so very much for sharing all this fascinating stuff with myself and all the Springs Readers, all of the above is a great compliment to both me and my writing.
Your grandfather sounds like a fascinating personality; and I can always tell from your writing that this quality runs in your family.
I love and adore the love poems Hardy wrote to his wife – the ones he wrote to her a few years after she had passed on, when he realized he still loved her as much as, or more than, he ever had, which was a thing he’d completely forgotten while she was alive, after many decades of marriage. Those late poems of Hardy’s, written when he was an alone old man, are about as haunting as it gets this side of the grave, I do believe.
Thanks again!
Dale
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Hi Dale
A friend once told me when I was living in a halfway house for alcoholics and drug addicts, “It’s not the one thing, it’s the three things that come all at once.”
It sounds like “A Man of Sorrows” is sadly the perfect title. I offer my condolences. Things went off track for me in 2008, not that they have ever been exactly on track, but sobriety saved me from a multitude of alcohol disasters.
I like the relationship with the unstable perhaps schizophrenic/histrionic woman. Reminded me of an abnormal psychology teacher who told the class about a schizophrenic librarian he got involved with, lol.
In 2008 I got into a crazy relationship with a swinger, and we almost got married. The swinger took the ring off the finger. Then my beloved dog passed away.
I got married to a fine lady in 2009 then divorced in 2011. But we have remained, best friends.
What struck me right away was 2011. My mom passed away. Then in my late middle age in 2012, I became an orphan to this uncaring globe—losing my father. My brother died of a drug overdose in 2016.
I like May too, planting flowers, the birds…That’s a good outlook you have. Reminding yourself and me too that this might be the last one.
Wow that is a haunting poem. A superstition, hope, (even if it’s come and gone), and a farewell. The images are quite vivid. I love the bus station setting! It reminds me of R. Carver. How he can use a few words and get a story on its feet.
This is the kind of writing I like a lot! Another great work!
Christopher
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Christopher
Thank you so much for sharing these crucial pieces from your own Man of Sorrows tale. Too many people in this society start writing, or start trying to write, before they’ve LIVED enough (often this has nothing to do with one’s actual age). Living enough first is so crucial and key that those who write before this can ultimately be seen as less than fluff in the wind, because they are (or rather their writing is) less than fluffy puff balls blowing away (forever) in the wind.
As I’ve said before, and as you’ve shown again here, you and I have much in common. This may be hubris too but it makes me think of Fitzgerald and Hemingway, who also had much in common. But they lived in a far different era, when real writers got FAR more respect than they do now. You and I come later, and in (for writers, anyway) a much more apocalyptic time. Sometimes I think (always I think) it isn’t a coincidence, that Yeshua, Mary, Peter, John, Luke, Mark, Matthew, Mary, Mary Magdalene, Paul, Ananias and all the others walked this earth with their bare feet (or in sandals) almost exactly 2,000 years ago. This doesn’t mean the actual END is right around the corner (but it might mean that). But what it does mean is that the time has come ’round again, things have gotten so bad that we will look toward the REAL teachings of Jesus (and others like Lao Tzu, Buddha and Mohammed) and take them to heart NOW, or THE END will be here, and maybe much sooner than most folks in this society know or care to consider.
In many ways, I think this society is ALREADY FINISHED. No, I’m sure it is. But that doesn’t mean something else cannot be born out of the ashes.
In the meantime, the REAL WRITERS in this world, like you, are also the REAL HUMANS. Real Writers and Real Readers now are helping to preserve much more than just writing, they’re helping to preserve, MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE, including the psychologists, human Personality itself. There are people in the future (and now) who will thank you for this. So thanks for keepin’ on goin’ in the face of all these tragedies and tragic realities you’ve seen!
Dale
PS, See the Comments section for your LITERALLY story “The Campground Dog” for more reflections upon Flaubert and his crazy (and redeemed through art) life, whenever ya can……
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Hi Dale
You’re very welcome! You’re having an excellent week!
Yes I think it’s true. Living comes first then writing. And like you said it could be a young life or an older one. Sometimes one moment in life might be it. Hemingway said to be a good listener. “When people talk, listen completely.” That’s an art.
“fluffy puff balls blowing away (forever) in the wind.” I can see that…
Yes indeed we do have a lot in common. It’s been a real pleasure to correspond. I think that’s a great thing about our communication. We are true writers.
I didn’t always feel this way about myself, being a writer. Almost like I was afraid to say it out loud. I still don’t tell people I’m a writer, but I don’t hide the fact that I am one. It’s kind of like my alcoholism. People like to scoff, so I relate to what you are saying about these times.
This society could be done. It’s always a matter of time. If Rome can fall then the founding father’s “Little Experiment” can too. Even though it has been an enlightening process.
Yes I think writing about the “Ordinary Madness,” like Buk said is where I seem to be at home. lol.
I have been reading some of Flaubert’s work and Dostoevsky.
Christopher
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Dale –
Two connections – I watch Svengolie which is from Berwyn (rhymes with his sidekick chicken Kerwyn) and my sister who died a year ago was a longtime resident of Oak Park. She wrote a series of mysteries novels which I called murder she shrunk because her main character was (like sister Alex, formerly Sharon which could be confused because I’m married to a Sharon) a therapist.
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Dear Doug
Thank you for sharing this info! This world is not as large as we think it is, which is another way of saying it’s a small world!
RIP and God bless about your sister. I may have heard of her. Oak Park has a lot of writers. Sometimes I don’t know if Hemingway started that fire or was only part of it. I think I might have heard of your sister – her series sounds familiar.
Berwyn has a lot of working musicians who live here these days – because of cheap rent. I mean the kind of musicians who live for the music and work their -sses off trying to keep up with the rent. Fitzgerald’s, a famous blues club which was recently turned into a national landmark (literally), is right down the street from my apartment. (I wrote about all the above in my story “The Old Guitarist.”)
Thanks again for sharing Doug, this is really very deeply appreciated!
Dale
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PS: I had a thought, it might be hubris, but the halfway house I lived in reminded me of R.C.s’ “Where I’m Calling From.” I’ve written some vignettes about the place, but thus… it eludes the capture.
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PS I’ll have comments on your Friday’s work coming to a drive up theater near you at some point.
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