{"id":4008,"date":"2020-12-28T07:04:10","date_gmt":"2020-12-28T07:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=143886"},"modified":"2020-12-28T07:04:10","modified_gmt":"2020-12-28T07:04:10","slug":"john-q-adams-apples","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/28\/john-q-adams-apples\/","title":{"rendered":"John Q. Adams\u2019 Apples"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Q. Adams\u2019 Apples  <\/strong><\/p>\n

After John Q. Adams served
His term as president
He walked back to Braintree<\/p>\n

Braintree, he explained to me,
Is named for Braintree, England
But brain tree\u2019s a corruption
of branca tree, like blanca tree,
A white, snow-coated grey one<\/p>\n

The brain tree, and the brain stem<\/p>\n

The two lobes of the brain, two trees
Winding, serpentining, like the labyrinth
Within which walks the Minotaur
The tormentor \u2014 the mentor
mentions Braintree once more
The labyrinth, he says, and taps his head
The brain tree\u2019s two
The brain of life
And what\u2019s it on the other side?
Not knowledge of evil and good
But dogma, custom, convention,
the Nomos, phenomenon
The tree of life\u2019s the opposite,
That\u2019s obvious,
the noumena \u2014 Physis \u2014 by god!
The Nomos from nemein
Land capture, for pasture
Imperial capture as well
That\u2019s the rule
But there\u2019s an exception
That everyone forgets
From Asclepius, via Hygieia, to Salus<\/p>\n

But Braintree, Massachusetts, right?
The two trees: life, or Physis
And knowledge, the Nomos, the nomeus
The shepherd, the pharaoh, the king
The empire, the car tire
Clearing the forests, killing the fish
The Nomos
And then there\u2019s Physis \u2014
Though they can aid the Nomos, too
The instrumental healer
The prison physician \u2014
Semblance and the true exception
Some would like to speak of Hippolytus
Theseus\u2019 son
Raised from death, by Asclepius \u2014
Theseus only survived, you know,
Because of Ariadne, snake priestess of Crete
The snake in a ball \u2014 unrolls and rolls
And vanishes silently under the snow
The immanent serpent
About a bough
Or round a rod<\/p>\n

Up in the tree, the pharmakon!
Two laws:
Of ease and disease
The maxim, decisions, incisions, and cuts
The notable birth of Asclepius
Atropos, Morta
Her scissors emblazoned on plate glass
In neon gas, and lead
The chemistry of politics
The labyrinth, food, cause and effect
The skull, the nut
Whose kernel\u2019s called: the nucleus
Oh Theseus
Did Moses ever show you that trick
With the stick
Turning it into a snake?
The law of ease
That\u2019s how you leave
Ex-it
Escape<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Q. Adams\u2019 Apples \u00a0 After John Q. Adams servedHis term as presidentHe walked back to Braintree Braintree, he explained to me,Is named for Braintree, EnglandBut brain tree\u2019s\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":269,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4008"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/269"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4008"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4009,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4008\/revisions\/4009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}