Montague's "Psychic Surgery"

PSYCHIC SURGERY

There are times when
one should be able
to pluck off one's head
like a dented or worn 
helmet, straight from
the nape and collarbone
and place it firmly down

in the bed of a flowing stream
of clear, clean, cold water
coursing and spuming through
the sour and stale compartments
of the brain, dulled eardrums,
bleared eyesockets, benumbed 
nostrils, barely open,

and then set it back again
on the base of the shoulders:
well tamped down, of course,
the laved skin and mouth,
the marble of the eyes
rinsed and ready 
for love, for prophecy.

--John Montague

(an Irish poet, another Irish poet, that I admire)