Martin Ramirez, ultimate outsider artist, remained mute during the decades he spent in confinement in a California mental hospital. Observers said he mostly hummed. But he did speak occasionally. He was visited exactly once by a relative (a cousin) during that time. His cousin asked him if he wanted to come home & see his wife again (in Mexico). He replied, "tell her I'll see her again in the Valley of Jehoshaphat".

9

 
Those large, pensive eyes... that gaze
goes back to Byzantium (ripple of pebbles
on a curving dome).  The Emperor trembles
in her presence - offers his prize :

 
a little model of Byzantium.  Jasper walls,
carnelian towers, sapphire gates.  A rainbow
slipped like dew into its dream (tomorrow).
A teeming beehive spun from its own entrails

 
(immaculate and blind).  It was Byzantium.
O city of sea-walls, washed in salty spray!
Here you are (Siena-California) on display -
Ramirez matrix-vortex... (hear the painter hum).