Black Bile

March 1 2018

I say melancholy

over and over again.

Until all I hear is sound.

Patter, piffle, bafflegab,

or one of those long compound German words

of Teutonic exactness,

all bark and phlegm and spit.

Mouthing four syllables, of equal weight

without emphasis

or intonation.

Beginning with the lips, briefly pursed.

Then the tip of the tongue

tripping lightly.

Followed by the hard guttural

against the roof of the mouth,

and ending in a clenched exhalation of air

that becomes a sigh

if left to linger.

In the archaeology of words

black bile.

But unlike its namesake, bitter-sweet.

A mix

of rumination

disenchantment

self-pity, perhaps.

But more detached, in its sadness

than a good cry.

If yellow bile's fire

then black bile is earth.

Soil's dry metallic taste.

Its iron and chalk.

Its pungent fruit, and slow rot,

sweet hay

fresh manure

old barn.

Why does blackness

carry so much weight?

Black lie, black sheep, black witch,

black eye

the blackest of depths.

Black arts, black magic, black death,

the black dog

of the deeply depressed.

The dark night of the soul

and the darkly eternal unknown,

transcendent with wonder

as well as despair.

I am suffused with spleen

caustic as gall.

I am rich dusky oxblood.

I am wallowing

around in myself;

the bitter taste

in back of my throat,

the warm dark soil

it feels I'm under.

I was reading Rafael Campo's poem The Four Humours. The final of 4 sections is called Melancholy. This is a word that has always appealed to me: I enjoy the literalness of its roots, absolutely true to the original Greek. I love the sound and the “mouth-feel” of the word. And its nuanced meaning appeals, because I am often melancholy, and I identify with its combination of deep reflection and tempered feeling.

“Black bile”, though, seems so much more intense and emphatic than its English descendant. And there can be no doubt about its implication: the prejudice of black, the bitter poison of bile.

This piece is less linear than my recent work. It leans more heavily on mood and sensation than story-telling or constructing an argument. You might think I was depressed when I wrote this. I was not. It was much more of an intellectual exercise in exploring my response to this word than it was an expression of my state of mind.