If Wants To Be The Same As Is

if wants to be the same as is
if_wants_to_be_1.indd 1 2017-02-16 2:18 PM

if wants to be the same as
is
essential poems of David Bromige
edited by Jack Krick, Bob Perelman
and Ron Silliman
VA N C O U V E R
N E W S TA R B O O K S | 2 017
if_wants_to_be_1.indd 2-3 2017-02-16 2:18 PM
CONTENTS
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Collection is copyright The Estate of David Bromige 2017. All rights reserved. No part
of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form
or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from the
Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright).
The publisher acknowledges the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts,
Introduction by George Bowering: He Gets Better Every Year x
the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund, the British Columbia Arts
Council, and the Province of British Columbia through the Book Publishing Tax Credit. Introduction by Robert Perelman: Nearer to the Future Than Ever x
[ room for NASCAR paint job here ] Editor’s Notes 11
What’s included in this collection: 11
About American Testament 11
What’s not included: 11
Cataloguing information for this book is available from
Library and Archives Canada, www.collectionscanada.gc.ca. Early Work 12
Cover design by [ ] He to Her 12
Printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper from The Gathering 13
Printed and bound in Canada by Gauvin Press
First printing :: November 2017 She Rose Up Singing 13
We Could Get A Drink 14
www.collectionscanada.gc.ca. At Last 15
Affair Of The Lemming 16
With Someone Like You 16
Down In The Dance 17
My Failing 17
The Sign 18
A Project 18
To Helena 19
Dejeuner Sur One Rye 20
V
V
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS CONTENTS
Revolving Door 20 from Threads 66
The Reverie 21 In His Image 66
The Gathering 22 “What friends” 66
‘Sitting Across From The Mother’. 24 A Slot 66
The Wall 25 First Love 67
Please, Like Me 27 Y 69
from The Ends of the Earth 30 For — 70
The Arbitrators 30 Psychoanalysis 72
First 30 You Too 72
In Deep Woods 31 “Why I went there” 72
Just Think 32 Value 73
A Defect 32 “I can’t read, & here’s a book” 74
A Secret 33 A passive voice— 75
Please 34 Only Fair 75
A High Mass 34 Precept 76
A View 35 Example 76
More 37 An Imperfect Failure 77
Taking Heart 37 A Man, Me 78
The Faster 37 3 Ways with the Same Sentence 78
Why Not 38 Logical Conclusions 79
By That Light 38 Whatever it is 79
A Call 38 Fresh from Sleep 79
Some Day Again 39 The Ends of the Earth 83
A Final Mission 40 Threads 84
from It’s Not My Trip 44 “Once... “ 86
A Kind Numbness 45 The Reels 86
The Accident 45 “So” 87
Weight Less Than The Shadow 46 from Ten Years in the Making 90
Yes 49 Poem for friends 90
Forgets Five 51 In it 90
The Spelling 60 from Birds of the West 91
from The Quivering Roadway 61 I : Birds of the West 91
Paris In April 61 A Rime 91
Not Guilty 62 Next love 92
The Quivering Roadway 62 “This time not shot” 93
After The Engraving 65 Person 94
VI VII
Outside 95 “Love was once a little boy” 169
Sonnet 96 from Credences of Winter 170
Because 96 Abstract 170
Beyond the Constellations Here & Now 96 The Object 171
A Nest 97 Credences of Winter 172
The Lyre Bird 98 I dreamt that I 174
Born again 98 My Poetry 175
II : Pond 99 Six of One, Half-a-Dozen of the Other 181
A Diction 99 A Defect 181
III : The White Tailed Kite 103 A Final Mission 182
A Period 108 Weight Less Than the Shadow 186
from Tight Corners & What’s Around Them 120 Lawrence’s Irritations 189
Angling 120 Only Fair 190
They Are Eyes 121 “I Can’t Read, & Here’s a Book” 191
For San Antonio Estero 122 Back to A’s Place 193
Under Fluorescent Lights 123 An American Heritage History 195
Sir Bernard Said 124 Our Tongues 195
The Protestant Poem 126 An American Heritage History 196
Tight Corners 129 Authority 200
Watchers Of The Skies 136 One Spring 202
On A Photograph From Childhood: Of My Mother, My Sister, & Me 142 What the Person Believes is Part of the Poet’s Make-up 206
I Know 142 Seeing That You Asked 206
After Brecht 143 Credences of Winter 208
The Plot 143 What the Person Believes is Part of the Poet’s Make-up: 210
Tight Corners 144 In the Kitchen, We Find the Norwegian 217
A Right Angle For Literature & Ideology 149 By Visible Truth We Mean the Apprehension of the Absolute Condition
9 Pieces For 9 Voices Interrupting 1 For None 152 of Present Things 218
Tight Corners 156 My Career 219
One In Five Acts 159 My Plan 220
from Spells and Blessings 165 Hieratics 221
Dictation 165 Hieratics: A Triptych 221
Title 166 My Palaver 226
Running My Thumb 166 American Testament 227
A Spell 167 A Sample Hurt 228
The Tarot 168 A Squeal Of Approval 247
On All Sides 168 As Long As Purgatory Rimes With Virtue 251
VIII IX
My Daddy’s At His Office Now 269 Might be right 373
We Must Establish Our Parameters 277 Meanwhile 374
My Compensations (Glurk) 288 Orphic 374
As Freud Enjoyed His Primal Horde…. 294 Trance ending 375
A Sense of Humor’s Soliloquy 294 Da capo 375
A Couple of Curses 296 Personal (1) 376
Compleynt 297 Personal (too) 376
Washing… 301 So, a poetry of immediacy 376
The Automobile Our Narrative 303 Where we came in 377
Waiting For Anyone But Godot 311 from The Harbormaster of Hong Kong 378
In His Ivory Tower, The Bourgeois Dreams Of Home 329 And again 378
P-E-A-C-E 336 Couplets 379
It’s the Same Only Different / The Melancholy Owed Categories 346 Discourse-Thrower 380
Red Hats 349 Doubt not thy name is certainty 381
R 350 I.D. 382
E 354 I Lays Down the Law (for Charles) 383
D 356 Lies 385
H 357 Lines 387
A 359 Logic 394
T 361 Outside 394
S 364 Set of Twelve 395
Index 366 The Harbor-Master of Hong Kong 403
from Tiny Courts in a World Without Scales 368 Lines Upon a Distant Prospect of Lines 406
Giant redwoods 368 3-5 poems of friendship 416
Fiction of neutralized culture 368 Unfootnote 419
Seated at the organ (groan) 368 Unparenthetic 419
Feeling for the blind 369 With each step down, the air grows cooler 420
Manana from heaven 369 You 422
Open wide 369 You 425
The poet strolls at evening by the river 370 Zounds Loik Zumthin Oi Wud Mayake 426
Soyez raisonnable 370 After Freud 429
Don’t drool when you say lot-split 371 from Romantic Traceries 430
Tubal legislature 371 Romantic Traces 430
Clearings in the throat 372 A Bit Of Blancmange’ll Be Enough For Me 431
Clocks 372 Bipolar Disorder In Autumn 433
Art as revenge 373 A Romantic Individual 436
X XI
My Fanny 438 30 :: “Where the moonlight had shone” 489
from A Cast of Tens 439 31 :: Song of a Son 490
Night (With I For The Star) 439 33 :: “The subordination of the software” 491
Poetic Intermission: When X Flies Out The Window, Won’t The Plot 34 :: “Subject named after book” 492
Resolve? 441 35 :: “He got them to look at what was forgot” 493
While Knitting 445 36 :: “Nine-gauge font in a twelve-gauge world” 494
The Two Of Rocks 448 38 :: “Closure = defeat” 495
Commentary To ‘The Two Of Rocks’ 452 39 :: “Accumulation makes it different” 496
Come To Where It Sits 455 40 :: Vacation’s Bright Idea 497
Prose Intermission: Still To Start 458 41 :: “That’s not tragic it’s inconvenient” 498
Dictation 462 43 :: “We are the people that we used to be” 499
from Vulnerable Bundles 465 45 :: “How old is the swastika” 500
The “Cover Poem” 465 48 :: “In the interstices” 501
1 :: “The chance to be someone else” 466 50 :: “Weighed down with sameness” 502
2 :: “Someone’s coming to dinner” 467 53 :: “The moment opes” 503
3 :: “In the sky an enigma” 468 54 :: “Imagining no hell” 504
4 :: “Dried grass between stones” 469 55 :: “Chains fit readily on wrists” 505
5 :: “The door to the tomb” 470 56 :: Not so interesting 506
6 :: “Nice-looking dots appear” 471 61 :: “When sky reflects in pool” 507
8 :: “The lost picture of thinking” 472 63 :: Why the Hurry 508
9 :: “The lost picture of thinking” 473 67 :: “Not much shape to this doughboy” 509
10 :: (Rhetoric) 474 68 :: “Tule fog so thick” 510
11 :: “This calls itself thinking” 475 69 :: “This had been anticipated” 511
13 :: (The Lover) solus & barefoot 476 70 :: “Inside & outside coincide” 512
14 :: “Sit and cease fretting” 477 from As in T as in Tether 513
15 :: “Being a child” 478 T As In Tether 513
16 :: “The name of the game” 479 T as in Tether (1) 513
17 :: “O begins the occasion” 480 T as in Tether (2) 514
18 :: “A straight look to the left” 481 3: Establishing 515
19 :: “Before breakfast the gate” 482 Poem Beginning with a Line by Pindear (1) 515
20 :: Time for speech 483 Defeat’s Deafears (2) 516
21 :: “Majority attained” 484 A Location (3) 517
24 :: “The hand is a tongue” 485 Utterance: A Location (4) 518
25 :: After midnight contemplating illustrations 486 Poem Reading a Line by Duncan (5) 519
26 :: “Leaning forward from their rows” 487 Not Myself Tonight (6) 520
29 :: “Divine effulgence” 488 Encrypted at the Center of the Labyrinth (7) 521
XII XIII
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS
Vase of Fresh Language, on Entropy Plinth (7.5) 522 INTRODUCTION
Off Center Center (8) 523
Awake, I Cry Out to You, My Killer (9) 524 He Gets Better Every Year
“Then he was led, blindfold, into the predicate” (10) 525
A Spell (11) 526 by George Bowering
E is for Elephant (12) 527
While You Were Out (13) 528
Cullenders & Cheesecloth (14) 529
“In Mohammedism there is Much of Mysticism” (15) 530
4: Authenticizing 531
Coming Out of the Ether (1) 531
Try to Speak Without Leaping (2) 532
A Language Not All Ours (7) 533
Blue Fucking Moon (8) 534
ni le hairbrush ni le toilet-seat (11) 535
A Course in Miracles (15) 536
from Indictable Suborners 537 “D didn’t seem to have any morals at all, except where phrasing was
Indictable Suborners 537 concerned.” So wrote David Bromige about an unashamedly autobiographical
from Ten Poems from Clearings in the Throat 553 figure he spoke for in Piccolo Mundo, a comic novel he co-wrote with us other
After rakosi 553 three initials. I remember Bromige’s phrasing very well as one of the first
Like unity 553 things I noticed about him when we were students at the University of British
Squeaking wheels 554 Columbia in the late fifties and early sixties.
In those days there were a lot of professors from the USA at UBC, many of
whom were escaping the California loyalty oath. At the same time, there were
a lot of Brits among the faculty of arts students, a lot of them named Anthony.
These people took over the arty segment of the campus newspaper, the year-
end annual, the players’ club and all other manifestations of arty-fartiness. A
star among them was David Bromige, recently arrived from his job as a nurse
in a loony bin in Saskatchewan, or so it was rumoured. It was also rumoured
that he had come to Canada as a draft-dodger during the Suez crisis.
As the years went by, and Bromige became my friend, I learned the bare
outlines of his younger life (he was 2.5 years older than I, but not according
to his story). Some things I learned were fictional but always phrased in an
interesting way. He was born in London just in time to be a boy in the Blitz,
about the time when I was living in an Okanagan orchard, not quite yet
learning to grow my animosity for the Brits who would move in and take over
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IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS HE GETS BETTER EVERY YEAR
my little town and environs. Now we had two mutually exclusive poetries going, especially after the
I don’t think that David was thinking of taking over a Canadian orchard upstarts, with the prodding of their hero Duncan, started their monthly
when he enrolled at Berkshire College of Agriculture a few miles from the mimeographed poetry “newsletter” Tish. The title had been half-laughingly
town in which my grandfather sold newspapers as a boy. David proved to supplied by Duncan as a tribute to his teacher Ernst Kantorowicz, who’d
be ill-suited for complex modern farm operations such as driving a tractor, pointed out that while the oldest agricultural traditions in the world used
so he dropped the academic approach to agriculture, and went to work on a human dung as fertilizer, while the Anglos and their offspring flush it into the
dairy farm in Sweden. I think that the biography at this point takes on the ocean. Tish as a title also reminded us of Duncan’s talks about rime, one of
advantages provided by fiction and poetry. whose variants is phonetic inversion. Of course the inattentive poetry drones
Anyway, Sweden’s loss became Canada’s gain when David found his way would continuously maintain that tish is shit spelled backward.
to the Canadian prairie around the time that I was an air force photographer I was the only person I knew who spent time on both sides of the campus
there (incidentally, having an appendix operation that kept me from — with Tishers Frank Davey, Fred Wah and Jamie reid, and with David
doing my part in the Suez crisis). I still like the loony bin story, though Bromige and the Anthonys. I was, I thought, drinking with the enemy. Brom
in the photograph we have of David on the prairie, he does look kind of wrote a little poem about my girlfriend’s knee, but the one I remember totally
agricultural. Probably you would say that going from nut-house nurse to UBC is: “Borrowing from Bowering / is a neat feat.” I just put up with the situation.
undergraduate was a lateral move. Bromige would make fun of Tish and its brash seriousness, and I would get
David arrived there during an interesting time. Soon two new official blasted at parties with Bromige and his friends with their British accents.
literary journals began there — George Woodcock’s Canadian Literature, And then I don’t know what happened. After the famous summer 1963
a non-stodgy critical mag, and Prism, which was connected with the new poetry jamboree at UBC, which featured Ginsberg, Olson, Levertov, Creeley,
creative writing program. The traditional student mags were Raven, which Avison and Duncan as teachers, I left town. A year or so later, I heard that
was known mainly for its daring design, and a satirical rag no one remembers. David Bromige was at Berkeley, and learning everything he could from
There was a lot of theatre, some of it Brecht and some of it original student Robert Duncan.
plays. Art Pepper and Lee Konitz came to play for us. All this stuff got See? Here’s what happens. When the Brits get good at language, it usually
reviewed and analyzed in the arts pages of the Ubyssey. edited by David comes out as wittiness. But ask Robert Duncan what “wit” means, and he will
Bromige. direct you to Sanskrit, where it is at the core of understanding, where “gna”
But what poets came to read on campus? Why, those respected by the leads to knowledge and “vid” leads to vision. In around 1965, I thought good,
squares who ran the English department: George Barker, Marianne Moore, Bromige is dropping the English stuff and coming on over.
Stephen Spender, W.D. Snodgrass. UBC’s magazines were full of people who So, in the next four decades, Bromige became an important part of west
wrote poems like theirs. coast poetry. He finished up at Berkeley, became a straw-hat academic in
On the other side of campus there were youngsters who were reading poets California wine country, and wrote book after book of curious phrasing, just
that only two of their professors (Ellen and Warren Tallman) knew about — what we needed. Sometimes he was grouped with the west coast contingent of
contrarians such as Charles Olson and LeRoi Jones. And when, late in 1959, the Language poets, and he certainly took language as his particular job, but
their bible, Donald Allen’s The New American Poetry: 1945-1960 arrived, the he was too restless to stop poking his formidable nose in elsewhere:
poetry wars were on. Ellen Tallman knew the poets in San Francisco, and
Warren Tallman came up with the outrageous notion of pooling our scant The brief
money to bring Robert Duncan on a Greyhound bus to tell us what could lyric poem as we
happen in poetry, like after T.S. Eliot. have wanted it
XVI XVII
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS HE GETS BETTER EVERY YEAR
to be for centuries priceless body of verse. I can hear Robert Grenier nodding his head, while the
here in the west imagists still among us enjoy the heck out of the references.
gets valorized In The Ends of the Earth (1968) his first Black Sparrow book, which is
again, a neat dedicated to Robert Duncan, Bromige used a page to tell us why he, as
relief from far did Duncan, spelled words in an unprescribed fashion. Sometimes the
more complicated explanation is silly, but then he says, “to get a sense of informing accent,”
as the Frenchmen say, and this reader at least is eager to pick up the phone. One recognizes that this
existence (auf Deutsch, early did Mr. Bromige begin to sniff out what Mr. Bernstein would come to
Existenz.) Beauty call Bent poetics. We are not here to purify the language. Bernstein writes, “A
and Truth chased poetics is valuable to the degree that it is able to engender other possibilities
one another round in response, both complementary and oppositional.” (Pitch of Poetry, The
and round the vase. University of Chicago Press, 2016, p.297.)
A little difficulty in reading can wake you up. I don’t know about you, but I
have often had to reread and sometimes rereread to figure out what Bromige’s
title might mean. It took me months to figure out A Cast of Tens, for heaven’s
sake. Tiny Courts in a World Without Scales is at least a poser. As in T as in
2. Tether I think I got while reading it a second more attentive time. The title of
the present volume is my favourite when it comes to name double-takes.
TV talk show host: “I found that I had to keep going back and checking
Reading or rereading these hundreds of pages, I am knocked for a loop. That’s what you’d written on an earlier page.”
my critical response. How often we have tried to peg him, that Brit Canuck Toni Morrison: “Yes, Dear. That’s called reading.
Yank songster, while all the time he was making his own door and coming You will remember that Bromige wrote that his character (wrong word,
through it. How neat (to use one of his favourite words) to go back and read I know) D had no morals whatever except where phrasing was concerned.
his first book The Gathering (Sumbooks, 1965), and realize that he was Getting it exactly true is a duty, a matter of honour, a case of “right” being
always better than you thought he was. He could have been foretelling the simultaneously good and precise. And here’s the beautiful problem: there were
problem of the European semioticians in a little poiem titled “The Sign.” It no ten commandments lugged down the hill by some chief linguist. You’re up
ends: or out there alone, where your simple little quatrain will forever have your best
reader baffled, forgetting his lunch, grinning till his heart comes back home:
I remember
The imagination
that sign I heard of, reading seizes on
Don’t throw stones at this sign some further
series of itself
David did, so you should consider the autoreferentiality, especially since the
memory invoked occurs after the poet’s declaration that he “me[a]nt nothing.” How many times, not to change the subject, have you read the hell out of
Hish clarity produces lovely ambiguity from this moment on, produces a Shelley’s “Mont Blanc” and finally understood it? I’ve done it twice. Like
XVIII XIX
Shelley, David Bromige is a philosophical poet who would die for beauty while INTRODUCTION
knowing its inadequacy.
Nearer to the Future Than Ever
by Bob Perelman
3.
As a Bromige reader I am delighted here by the editors’ rescue of American
Testament. The subject was very important to David, and it is probably why
we can hear his multi-inflected voice as we listen, for instance, our way down
the coluymns of “As Long As Purgatory Rimes With Virtue,” that graphm
yes, of a mind we loved so much, moving, riming as it moves, arguing and
confessing:
Yet George Bowering’s account begins with David arriving in Vancouver as a
words please us most mysterious youngster (dairy farmer? mental health employee? out of the
keenly when strung UK? Sweden?). Mine starts quite differently: it’s 1975 and David, living in
along a plot that Sebastopol CA, teaching at Sonoma State, is an exciting, highly visible poet.
keeps us in suspense But our different perspectives lead to similar conclusions: like George, I loved
and no state known David and find his work beautiful, deeply amusing, continually surprising.
to us is more When I first contacted David in 1975, Tight Corners, his sixth book from
valuable than Black Sparrow Press, had come out the previous year, the well-printed pages
happiness. radiating up-to-the-minute inventiveness. It was an imposing figure to whom
I was sending my first book, Braille, scrappily printed by myself on the ill-
A language poet can enjoy something on Netflix, but still slice through adjusted printing press of Ithaca House Press.
your lyrical bromides when it needs doing. Have you noticed that Charles I don’t know what I expected, but David’s response was happier than I
Olson paraphrased John Keats, just as surely as William Carlos Williams could have imagined. He answered with a long letter of friendly, open interest,
had? I’m saying that David Bromige did not lose any of his edge when he saying at one point that he looked to books by younger writers as evidence of
delivered an image, and he did not lose any of his music when he became where things were going, and that by being younger I was that much closer to
post-Deleuzianly philosophical. Somewhere Ron Silliman said that Bromige the future. It was the opposite of pulling rank. I had written to an Important
opened up the question of “language’s cognitive domain.” Question is right. Elder; David wrote back as one poet to another, each taking part in a common
A poet I know may have been agreeing when she said that Mr. Bromige was present.
disruptive and cuddly, and looked quite a bit like the pictures they show us of When Francie Shaw and I moved to the Bay Area in 1976 we quickly
Jesus. American Testament, indeed. became friends with David and his then-wife, the novelist Sherril Jaffe.
XXI
XX XXI
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS NEARER TO THE FUTURE THAN EVER
David and I especially shared a love for trying to outdraw our powers of of justified prose, each marked with a kind of angle iron, that are scattered
verbal recognition — to say things that teetered toward transformation. He through the book — the Tight Corners that gave the larger book its name —
was vividly articulate, with a perpetual appetite for extending and shifting Bromige seems to have been one of the quickest to respond to what Creeley
frames of reference. These powers remain visible, on large and small scales, was up to.
throughout his work. Take, for instance, the line “if wants to be the same A “Tight Corner” can be primarily narrative:
as is,” which thanks to the sharp eye of Cecelia Belle, David’s wife of three
decades, we are using as the title of this volume. It’s such an eloquent bit of
rueful stoicism. There’s the little word if longing for the permanence of the She was urging him to seize the day, to see his hour had come,
almost-identical little word is; there’s the dense play of near-sameness (as is there would be no second chance, he would forever be a weak
almost the same as is; and, if we’re counting letters, there are two more two- creature if he didn’t stand on his own two feet. She leaned on him
letter words, to and be); and there’s the touching frustration of desire, getting as she spoke, but then too he was half-supported by her. Now her
so close yet getting nowhere near — if wants to be the same, and almost is the husband was tugging at her sleeve, saying just a minute. The man,
same but of course it’s not: is has being in its corner; if doesn’t. startled, said Whose minute.
I think it’s clear that I find it endlessly interesting to grapple with David’s
writing. The self-awareness of his mind choosing the words and experiencing or primarily linguistic:
their sound, his wonderful ability to play with (and be played by) syntax; the
lightness with which he wore his considerable erudition; his perpetual mixing
of high and low, dead-serious and silly . . . Happily, it remains impossible to These were justified margins. Hitherto he’d been trapped between
pin down the multiple effects he produces. Early and later in his career, he the other kind. He sighed with relief & a patch of white appeared
would use a single form (or device, or mode) for very different effects. This in the dense grey of his face. He grew tense after tense but nothing
was unusual back in the 70s, and it remains unusual today. would erase the blank white columns at either edge of his vision. He
Poetic labels can be applied his work, though no single scheme does him was as though chained to them. If this were real life he could bring
much justice. I myself have written elsewhere that the transition from Tight the roof down but as it transpired he was merely booked & printed.
Corners (1974) to My Poetry (1980) shows David moving from “a Black These were unjustifiable measures.
Mountain inflected lyricism to a language-oriented textuality.” But such
divisions, with their tacit assumptions about progressiveness (lyricism = retro; A closer look will undo the binary. The “narrative” Tight Corner piles up
textuality = advanced), flatten out the excitement of reading him. clichés (seize the day, hour had come, stand on his own two feet) while taking
It is not that David’s work floats free of poetic history. While it is not them physically to suggest the tipsy entwining of the would-be swingers.
generally seen as such, Tight Corners is an important moment in post- (The mood of the vignette is very 70s.) The “textual” Tight Corner plays with
Poundian poetics. In 1975, I along with many others used an avant-garde phrasing to the point of being poly-syntactic (“He grew tense” means one
map, where there was only one meaningful direction: forward. At that point, thing; “He grew tense after tense” quite another). And yet the piece as a whole
forward was best exemplified by Robert Creeley’s Pieces (1969), a book of can be read as an oblique narrative portrait of a hemmed-in, angsty male.
mostly short poems and notes freed from narrative sequence. In recent Turning briefly to the poems in Tight Corners, if we compare the following
decades, Robert Grenier’s Sentences (1978), a box of 500 very short poems excerpts we will see a superficially similar look (short lyrical lines) employed
on unbound notecards, has been cited as the key successor to Pieces. But to quite different effects. The first is from “They Arise,” a two-page
looking back now at Tight Corners, and more specifically at the 100+ chunks philosophical poem on stars:
XXII XXIII
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS NEARER TO THE FUTURE THAN EVER
something else.
& they are blind One of the major materials of My Poetry was David’s prior work and what
to remind us reviewers wrote about it. As a rule, poets care about their reputation, to say the
each is least, yet here was David using that all-important thing, his work and its fate
singular, in the world, and doing what? Was he defending it and attacking its attackers?
& to insist, You must At times, yes, but then again in other places his attitude seems sarcastic or
use your mind to make believe bathetic. Was he demonstrating that only the fluidity of the present moment
the stories of the real you tell of writing this sentence, this phrase, this sound, has validity, and that all
are true, & to that end rigidly-conserved facts of reputation, reception, mappings of the literary field,
they constellate. careers in the arts are risible?
But she did not wish to waste any time detracting from one poet to praise
A longer excerpt would show David’s easy mastery of syntax more fully, but others, feeling that too much of that is done in this nasty world. The poet
these lines are enough to indicate lyric gravity David could produce. But now A.W. Purdy was gleeful:
compare the following lines from “Watchers of the Skies,” a longer poem also
centered around stars (and astronomers and astrologers). The local topic of I have a very low opinion of the Black Mountain ‘method’ of writing
the following lines is asteroids: poems (which is partly the exclusion of any other method), & have
seen some of David Bromige’s reviews of myself & others before.
One planetoid was a sensation
A dozen fine The first section (“But she did not wish . . .)” is ‘prose’, but not prose in the
Fifty were still interesting sense of objective or factual. It’s a theatrical ventriloquy. On the other hand,
Today I call them Vermin of the skies the “poetry” is poetry only in being lineated: the words seem to have been
Their number now is estimated to be 30,000 written in a review by A.W. Purdy. There is an exchange of poetic polemics
going on here. Purdy, the original reviewer, scorns “the Black Mountain
This is not ‘lyric poetry’ at all, but lineated historical quotation from ‘method’ of writing poems” and fears the intransigence of the invaders: like
a grouchy 19th-century astronomer. I detect in the piquant 19th-century kudzu or Communism, total domination is the goal (the exclusion of any other
science writing a slight suggestion of allegory: when asteroids become too method). And Bromige the author of My Poetry is clearly polemicizing in
numerous, they’re boring; when there are too many poets, each becomes all- response, mocking Purdy’s ignorant urbanity by setting it into dull lines. But,
too-dispensable. then again, as writing, this ‘poem’ is hardly an example of Black Mountain
It’s easy to see that My Poetry (1980) is different from David’s preceding prosody. If anything, it’s more like some Cindy Sherman masquerade.
books. As he himself writes in the title poem of that collection, “I suspect The materiality of the text; the heterogeneity of the self; the absence of
people won’t understand why I think this is language-oriented writing. But it final linguistic reference — these have been the subject of poetics lessons
certainly is.” But, again, a pure before/after division will be reductive. widely taught and learned over the last few decades. But as abstract payoffs for
I was surprised when I first heard David read My Poetry and the surprise reading, they are no more lively than any doxology. As an emblem of David’s
didn’t wear off when I then read it, nor indeed has it worn off when I read it anti-doctrinal work, I’ll quote another short bit from My Poetry. First, we get
now. In the Bay Area I’d quickly grown familiar with being surprised and had some reviewer declaring, “I find it exciting the way the terse English accent
developed an appetite for new forms, content, and tone. But My Poetry was breaks through at times, asserting facts”; then, among the ‘facts’, we are given
XXIV XXV
the concluding couplet of a John Clare sonnet: EDITORS’ INTRODUCTION
The water o’er the pebbles scarce could run,
And broad old cesspools glittered in the sun.
by Jack Krick
I remember David’s chuckle after he intoned this with plumiest Monty
Python-esque solemnity. How lovely the syllables of that last line, how
ridiculous the cesspools in the midst of such sonic resonance, and, like
everything Clare wrote, how true to life! (The cesspools would be broad, and
they would glitter — at least if the sun was shining.) David’s amusement,
which I’m echoing here, arose from the formal impasse Clare found himself
in, having gotten to line 13 but still needing another: hence the cesspools.
I hear David’s quoting this couplet as a comic riposte to the puritanical
straitness of “Form is never more than an extension of content.” Form, in fact,
can call forth the most extraneous cesspools. The quote is also, perhaps, a wry
assertion of David’s residual Britishness: a post-Sweden, post-Canadian, post-
American cultural identity surviving four decades in Sebastopol like Stein’s What’s included in this collection:
Americanness surviving her four decades in France.
I’ll conclude with a last illustration from My Poetry, “Landseer,” in the This volume includes poems from the 22 books of poetry that David Bromige
second sentence, is Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, pre-eminent Victorian painter published and one unpublished manuscript, American Testament.
of loyal dogs and noble stags. “Isn’t this the piece talking to itself, hoping to Two books, My Poetry and Red Hats, are included in their complete form.
be overheard, & contradicted. . . . If you allow Cézanne to represent a third The text of the chapbooks “Please Like Me,” “P-E-A-C-E,” and “It’s the
dimension on his canvas, you must allow Landseer his gleam of loyalty in the Same Only Different / The Melancholy Owed Categories” are reproduced in
spaniel’s eye.” full.
Rather than trying to place David along a continuum of poetic advance, it’s “Please Like Me,” originally published with three drawings by Sherrill
more interesting to realize how broad his sources are. It’s the multiplicity of Jaffe, is reproduced here without the illustrations.
his resonances that keeps his work so fresh. “It’s the Same Only Different / The Melancholy Owed Categories” was
later included in “Romantic Traceries” which formed the whole of issue 78 of
Abacus, published by Poets & Poets Press in 1993.
About American Testament
We’ve tried to reconstruct, as best as we could, the complete unpublished
late work American Testament based on manuscripts that we believe were
submitted to Black Sparrow in the late 1980s. We have David’s tentative
table of contents for the work, and we’ve used that to order the sections as
they appear here. We were unable to lay our hands on one section from that
XXVI XXVII
list, titled “What I Did the Day Ted Died” and so, we’re forced to say this
rendering of American Testament is only “substantially complete.”
The sections titled “My Compensations (Glurk),” “Waiting For Anyone
but Godot,” and “In His Ivory Tower, the Bourgeois Dreams of Home”
were published in 1987 in Tom Beckett’s The Difficulties Vol. 3, No. 1, David
Bromige Issue. All other sections appear here for the first time.
What’s not included:
David wrote a considerable number of short stories, and some of them were if wants to be the same as is
originally published in early volumes that were mostly poetry. None of that
work is included here.
David was also perennially open to joint undertakings and he took part in
many collaborations, most notably with Richard Denner, who, with David,
produced several volumes of “The Petrarch Project,” among their other
books. David also worked with Bay Area poet, lyricist, musician and archivist
Opal Nations. All of that work, with Denner, Nations, and several others,
could fill a volume at least as large as this one.
David, rather famously, told all his friends of his intent to alter each of
the poems included in “Desire: Selected Poems 1963-1987, published by
Black Sparrow in 1988, and he actually did just that. In this volume we have
included only the versions of the poems as they were originally published.
Finally, David, ever prolific, wrote many, many poems before any of his
work was published, and also left behind much more work that remained
unpublished at his passing. None of that is in this book.
XXVIII
Early Work
He to Her
In this moment
as sleep approaches
my breath catches:
sleep’s my guess at death:
in this moment
as my body slips away
I’m only aware they say
through nerves which know your body:
I feel if I left your side
to open the window
a weight of breasts would swing
in the street-light’s shadow.
3
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS from THE GATHERING
from The Gathering
a man may find his ease
in that turbulence contributes
as these scatterd leaves
to each stitch in this hem.
She Rose Up Singing
We Could Get A Drink
Her white dress prays
for sun, her knees glow
below delicat pleats Sunday morning, lying
in, complacencies
but alredy on her rump of the newly-wed,
a smudge, where too out the window the slender,
the fine folds crumpl. sun-silver trees
lead me back to Hampsted Heath
It may be days where I run again
befor she dares another down sparsegrass banks, by
like union of dress clumps of gorse, below
& hoped-for wether, o silver trees, I
try to tell you
what to say, clouds but end up, “We
melt away? a could get a drink on a
useless order, or Sunday, anyway”
take the fact, clouds melt you laugh, move closer
away, into a blue
where they accrue again, under the covers
our silver limbs stir in the gloom like
small comfort, but
a fitness also where the day cut-throat trout
is not denied, is defied I saw in a lake
only to comply a hundred miles out of Vancouver
with nature hiding their strike in shadow . . .
has her will, & still
4 5
the mind a fish, under their bank —
shifting fragilely
its position when
the body’s easy,
a still pool . . .
now eddies in a scene from At Last
a documentary seen months back
girl, eyes like yours, girl
slung over Not the cracking of the ashtray on my skull
a tommy’s sholder, was the indicator but her
mouth open, but repeated scream, What do I want with a
nothing said until husband — never once my name.
the commentator, as the camera pans
past the black patch I don’t watch The ashtray was calld Niagara
because Falls & on our honeymoon; not spent
my eye hooks there, I was calld
on the hatrack hips David in different accents
says, “Starved to death” – the soldier & responded differently.
throws her into a pit
that’s a tangl of white We glued the pottery fragments together after a
very slender limbs fashion but I would not have you
went sliding down the crater’s muddy side hope that a symbol, Less simpl
where the fracture causes the scream & even
the instant I calld “There’s a bomb that is too simpl. But of all
fell here last night ! Let’s look at
the crater ! —” went running over the Heath the passionat scenes you may encounter
laughing one when you stand for too
my friends along, running much, & that
down to today, when is the indicator.
looking at silver birch
I say nothing at all but
“We could
get a drink there”,
move closer beneath the blankets
while the cut-throat
flick
6 7
Affair Of The Lemming Down In The Dance
The ocean so still, so calm “What was banisht forever
under his thin :skin, on I thought, laid by
lovers, by stages, by
the snowy shor she roomsful of pupils,
sees her dear face, & leaps frends spelling it out
for me returns
shattering skin & image &
not to go under, lashes about her. its clumsy legs to wear
mine out, its idiot
grin to spred
my face”
With Someone Like You I’ll drink it into the
ground, he cried, Even though
the monster & my awareness
“I tell you” who’d not inquired “I’ve forgotten of him be
John, Arvids, Charlie, Ken, Walter one & the same.
& that fascinating guy I met in
the Cosmopolitan Restaurant”,
the wedding ring isn’t dry on her finger
as they sit down to her albums My Failing
the fire bright on her first
husband, arms akimbo in the Lake
District, & other pictures Her eyes, the sheets her fingers
work over like lapels.
she tears out & throws in the coals
fiercely as she embraces the present Morals, faded labels from foreign hotels
seen in that light, representativ. we slept in, our luggage
A scream begun now would round the world
& return to find itself still going strong.
8 9
How pretend nothing has happened befor a decision had to be made. Loving isnt
when precisely that is your conviction
long enough, bra slip & panties, he’s on the lip
a panting ampersand, am I
then to deny, yet unredy, o to lie
The Sign for aeons & load him with labors
the gods of old would hav been proud theyd conceivd !
All evening the come-on O, pro tem, waiting for ideas to seize me, for those
soft and persistent, a glow
in the consciousness long victorian dresses my grandfather
permissiv as mentioned, eyeing my knees
the inside of her elbow,
arm bent, its hand How to hold my hed up striding down the street
forward & open, revealing & yet outdress his busy hands ? we must
women are not
as men are, in adorn ourselves like whores to make it
the carrying angl, crying plain we’re in the market call it, all the time
I ment nothing, longing for infinit patience, infinit
cant there be frendship ? I remember fondling; preambl deep as a well with no bottom
that sign I heard of, reading but bottom there is, toucht, up comes his
Dont throw stones at this sign bucket, down plunges mine, you took it
(I did !) I spoke of plesure ? Joy ? ah, what are
these, who could question such necessities ?
A Project I ment maisterye, that luxury, he thought
she had thought, sighing, as he drew her under him, complying.
If only we carried our innards outside us
as sometimes less ostensibly complicated creatures.
If only he had to thred the maze of my mysteries
10 11
To Helena Dejeuner Sur One Rye
she was the horse that History rides upon He gorged to cavalier
I was Napoleon, however, only nobler. she rises to
hav an avocado sandwich prior
“He, is taking advantage of her” a girl said So see if I care !
of a midl-aged dentist living with our mutual frend
She attacks
To women, men are free the refrigerator
will, while they are the chosen Hard
wood he thinks &
I was Buonaparte & one day rams it in
History in the shape of a certain party
(as she told it) winkt at me. O choked stove, what
I took the hint. is that about
the watcht pot ?
That was her imitating choice,
nothing but a nudge to Destiny,
as she’d loosen your sword
while you turnd away to giv orders.
Revolving Door
That Waterloo slopes, that some fields
are softer than others, she’ll credit.
That these handicaps can be masterd Mesurd by ourselvs alone, grief
also, but she. doubts they’ll be mistresst. overwhelms, it cannot be containd
her mistrust as she listens without a larger scheme
is an infamous grin. as, fortune’s wheel. He left her
The woman may feel unclean in the hotel lobby, his agony
but lacks a real sense of sin. ’s source, If only she’d
This is an old tale of a man’s distress get out of town, of my hair –
knowing it could go either way torment of a wife he left but cant
while the beloved’s undressing.
12 13
leav alone, in his mind the light — an unknown scene
her apartment window is green walls, say, a starcht white
cuff, spooning slop into
as he staggers home elsewhere late at night its teeth
that they could make a kind of love irregular as mine
to submit it to this bombardment
only last night, a flourish the sense of bloodvessels bursting under
to increase his incredulity. This, electronic attack
the hed a field
our final kiss ? waiting, waiting or to get up like a whisky skull & fumbl
for the airport bus, watcht by open the door so
something
two fat suits, chuckling. Nice work o the cat
if you can get it, christ, you’d swear pads in
misery shone, but each must be alone
in his loss, he walks blindly into
the revolving door, pusht as he The Gathering
pushes, by a beauty, a call girl
maybe, or beloved hurrying to her lover Picking mushrooms out of a horse
a beginning? the glass &-wood wedge thrusts him pasture, evening, seemingly
none when we first look, then
into the street, on his sholder one, a dozen, luck turns or they
the weight of those strange thighs grow, youd swear, at the turn of a back —
in the fingers that delicat firmness,
the fungus nipt gently
where it swims nose-up in the grass
or dances (champignons) &
The Reverie pluckt up by
phallic hoods, &
To sleep, to let the thing slip those gills . . .
off, away, shape of doom, too, in our
never to know it again, to come to time, that
14 15
fascination
(& of salvation, no mor but joy of the hunt
war, or less enveloping, alcohol flashes like lightning leaping up
combats radiation, I’m told to join what chargd clouds we ignor, bending
this way, that
Nothing will happen to me
but in the womb ? what of sure touch we develop after early crushings
the line ? of the smooth
the food
medics & frends mention the fed on, fruit of
also, not these, but those others, grow in ordure
Mexico, those buttons
undone, allow illusion to be the mushrooms sought all over the medow that grow
denuded, for you just out of mind
Peyote !
that salv — or changd only, for held in the hand an instant befor
in her skin even cast into the basket
the old bitch’ll trick you, leav light & whole
a handful of hair –
up your rope & into flesh
thin air, elusiv gleaming at midnight
as mushrooms
as night comes over the lea
as clouds pass over the moon
that shape, gigantic, looms ‘Sitting Across From the Mother’.
in our skulls turnd toward erth, seeking
thoughts of gleaners in stern necessity bowd Sitting across from
for sustenance the mother
Tess hacking turnips under icy rain
feeds her baby, gazing
that ‘vacantly’ into space, I
indifference
not ours, these see her as
are to garnish our steaks another, a not
16 17
saying wall you put,
her, & desire (the naked the are
brest) leaps it Menshiviks now we
against what us repeat reply
instant as recognition
of the thing seen to repeat it, saying now to you
Lenin, the wall
stript
of habit ’s at the end of the garden
I grow- up in, is so high
, follows swiftly we never see beyond it, only
tenderness (she is the trees
thrust their roots under, buckling it, to send up
not that other) only new shoots
as a known dress where we liv.
We play in its shade:
falling all about her chip away mortar
& becoming with scraps of fallen mortar, or
any old object comes to hand,
the two-in scrawl all over it, with chalk
one mark wickets, hurl
balls that bounce off it.
Flowers bloom
in the cracks, displace
bits of brick my mother decorates
The Wall our rockery with, she’s built over
the air-raid shelter –
an inch of water
“The Menshiviks say, We hav always said on its floor
what you are saying now, like as not, hard
permit us to repeat it – bunks, & bugs, but
We say in reply, Permit us an adventure, & a hurricane lamp’s
to put you up against the wall” smell – that shelter
abuts your, our
permit up wall, my father
to said always say, hav runs beans up, I think to climb
18 19
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS PLEASE, LIKE ME
into that never-never land is, Please, Like Me
he tells me only
a large hothouse, backs on to
our property – him accustomd Strolling through the town, all the houses, quiet at this hour, the street
to the idea already hot, hold women. The leader
of such splendid glass structures, I guess. of our magazine crew knew how
to gain entrance by knowing that door
I never hav seen it. The wall, opening before the act, the door
rockery, the narrow opening. The woman, with him, his packet
“crazy paving” path (our already hung on the back of a chair, his shirt coming off, crosst to the window
pitch) is all to pull the shade, making it
that I recall, that isn’t night. But in the morning, unknowing, despite the looks she gave him,
fantasy, & you’d & me, watching, mentioned her husband, who handld such matters, her hands
disapprove all fairy tales but yours at the necklace her throat was naked of -
– o, & the shelter, wherein Compliant women, my expression
permit us insisted equally, Turn me away, & they would. A snapshot
to put you up, against one of them took, as I luggd up my arm
the December air, Mr. to knock, faded, falls from my wallet
History, that’s as I count my take from last night, another subscription sold, working late, to
your kind think
passing through. great weight brought to bear on a door
flies open at your first touch, your momentum
pitches you sickeningly into the vacuum
cleaner, parkt in the narrow hall, the muscles
involved with nothing to parry
ache, a nagging sense of something far
from being right. A wrench in the very
socket of the self, a disarming
tenderness, as if, on the instant, I stopt, now, knockt
here, went in, found
rose-lamps lit indistinctly for the sun that floods the room -
The brakes, the skid begun, surface
slick with the summer shower, he jammd, the chevvie’s
tires, nothing to grip on, slid the four of us
within inches of the poem’s abruption.
Welcome, & again, Welcome. Make yourself
20 21
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS PLEASE, LIKE ME
to home. Drove nails into the plaster that wouldnt support even I stoopt to set back on his feet, hoping his mother
a picture, hardly a heavy piece, chiaroscuro print behind a lace drape might be watching, his knee
cut with a knife from a library book because I is grazed, deep, I wait, but no blood -
against all claims of social conscience, against all readers A disconsolate salesman sat on a step opposite told me after,
whose thighs tomorrow after I’d come back out of the house, past midnight it must have been, the boy
would push against the metal crosspiece of the turnstile, wanted it. eventually did bleed. A young man he was with his big
The blood case of samples, shy glance of a blue that morning’s hot sky had
floods the shaft, half moon, focus in an enormity of sky was most sincere, that desperate rhetoric, & fluttery
extends by fractions limits hands. Around her porch light
the blood continuously feeds, skin, sinew, ligaments moths, you have to brush by
wherein, a heaviness of pleasure. Posit before properly inside the house, here where she will kiss you he went on
night, & it is night, a white meaning
flashlight conjures a white door, a red me, The teeth, your teeth & hers
calls forth a red, With which you can’t come in, she shouts knock painfully together.
but that’s no use. I want
Allright, you sonofabitch, bluffer, even though the sentiment itself
be but a bluff, I’ll call you,
But useless, again, if the man on the path
must tell her what to say. She switches on her porchlight
& the day goes, that kind of light by which
the face that passt, translucent skin, nose freckled at what bridge it had, the
eyes
prominent enough so light could be seen to pass through the pupil
nonetheless left dark, but liquid dark, the bones of the cheek & chin
so clean, had sung. I see nothing
but where, the path winding, I’d cut across her yard, trampld, she says,
the flower-bed. I look
back at the earth packt hard in the footprints, & think
the hardiness of snowdrops, if snowdrops they are, for which she fears.
How difficult not to apologize, the door closing, the day
returnd, to discover what did lie over that embankment, the manager
in his soupt-up heap had as it were promised to reveal -
The paving is devious, okay, & I’m clumsy. Maybe
this year, no snowdrops. There are on the morning sidewalk
kids, they ride their tricycles but the wheels, was it the heat
presented it so, the wheels hold still, one fell
22 23
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS from THE ENDS OF THE EARTH
from The Ends of the Earth
Despair
however one does, the word
depends upon another, is
dèsespoir, mere
lack of hope, & dies
with my belief.
The Arbitrators
So hope
is first.
Can I get it this once in my lifetime, now No, spoken first
I must get it immediately —
against the
what it was what I have to call the
by way of a response silence, though a kind
they let me know, a kind of
humming intervenes
a question
followd hard by of an instance as this evening
a demand. lying on
a bed I lack
energy to make,
to look
into the black
First gathers at the ceiling
from a lamp I lack the energy
to break.
One aches to know
one fact as axiom
to act. Whatever I do
I die
as you In Deep Woods
also at times doubt
the beneficence of the inevitable
terror In deep woods, maybe
Earth-bound as one is. the very ones behind the house
24 25
once was our home, the salmon a second after its enactment —
swim up to the creek bank how would that feel,
but the bear reel upon reel
just sits there, their silver compelling as the notion of
your children growing older
heads they lay against when you stared at one just then,
the muddy side, the bear
gets up & lumbers that you’re illuminated by
some mystery
off into the forest, almost infinitely
the fish, as if smaller than your self,
disconsolate, on, then, the square you
could never make it through
to the falls at the back of the theater.
to that known fate.
But the bear
at dawn, down
through mist, to sit A Defect
athwart the bank,
his head, his The doctors doubted any cause for it
animal face, incline since birth or even conception
toward the crackt bed.
but he finds a way to suffer it,
Couldn’t it have been something
I did? Long ago, some blow struck
Just Think for meaning.
Suppose this really were
happening to you
so that a screen
repeated every swollen move
26 27
A Secret Please
Three times in the night I woke or was woken to White dusk
blindly write in three The hedges body forth, the edges
phrases on a handy envelope soften
the secret A loveliest interval of any day like this,
that is softest summer, as when
the destiny of more than me on the farm, the dew
to crave relieves the mowers
to search
to know How can I praise enough
— when I woke for the third & final time I wouldnt look at it. This one evening deft with blossom, well
I decided to take it with me on my morning walk, tuckt it each will know the time I mean
as an afterthought, into my hip pocket. I figured we were
I’d want someplace to stop, decode it, & crow. all there together, hand in hand, all
miaowing.
But it was a tangld day — so many faces met, their names, there
was a storm
I had to hitch home in — let me,
led me, to forget
A High Mass
& then I found it gone —
this is the secret At last I’m collected enough to let the ceremony commence,
I am speaking of, my whole being shakes to an integral & simple beat begins
compassion made me wonder whether in one small muscle, five strings of fibers, as one
I would tell you ever plucks the five strings of its guitar, not the muscle wherefrom the clamorous
but I can’t, blood leaps, that loudspeaker, but maybe in my belly
as it appears,
any longer bear to while the cells of my body glisten, skin, sweat
keep it it may be thought or the moistness of four thousand
to my self. excited eyes, my members
28 29
dance with one another, testicles swinging, never for long do they touch by the other roomers of felicity
but in relation to another writhe, in tangent to a dozen others, to the total
several months since
I, alone dancing, an oceanic joy I’m bathed in, so certain that voice sang
particles of skin flake off, like a woman or a man go reeling black
to a wall all out of breath, by such minute amounts my size to this silence —
does vary, yet is exactly right, though there are those
Close to
older, they believe, who forget just how ancient is my kind, who can’t everything, central
discern the Mediterranean in my demeanour, the Egypt heating, private
bulge of bicep & thigh, the way entrance, hill
hands pull on ropes to raise invisible caked great black blocks of sound, or see view, what would your heart desire, & in
hairs like feather bringing the tribal invocation in return, what give, responsible
singl person, quiet
who sigh, distresst they are to wonder god knows, a christian even —
how much longer women will go on bearing babies so huge, fed as I am
from the first spark so full & so colorful a diet, in one hole in this hall Walking distance can afford him
like a hole in a sieve, like a very small doorway insufficiently remote perspectives, the drapes
one of these heretics leans, stronger than these (new) move
strips of dead skin to be sure, all of a finger’s height over the open window
he is, believing he’s amputated, hoping to go it alone.
hair, poured over the shoulders, hides
curve of the left cheekbone
as these walls the woman.
Hysterical laughter, shark blood, imprecations
A View hurld at two ayem, the retired
school marm overhead instructs him, She’ll
have to go, you know, it’s either
The music begins at the lighter patch one wall draws she or me, while Felicity Rita
his eye to, here the voluptuous model: I have
where her Picasso hung, scruples too y’know, besides
a young girl greedily over a bowl have to share a bathroom with the bag, bad
all blue, the present scene. The house is
white is negative testimony to roughly as old as he, his father
the previous tenant he had willd to him, again
unhappily, to evict, pressured as he was he tries to recall
30 31
this room before the stubby body, its hair him to tears, predictably
worn long, made with her gestures this present as rain on the roof will call for the buckets, unless
crowded emptiness — Christmas he fix that leak, but today
sad for those tenants unable to go home, he tries a tree is moved to words, an invasion
to light a dinner in his own apartment, some come framed as a white
to be brave about the inadequate table question, he would answer, if
like a nervous fuck, somebody is looking on, yet only he
nobody knows who. The kids could go home for the vacation, if only
along the block have got that morning here weren’t home.
walkie-talkies, the ham
operator in the attic gripes, their stridencies
jam his wavelengths, & still
the landlord sees the wire
hangers through the dresses they no longer wear — More
but who livd here
before, when his father let the place Sure I’ll be your man again
was this flat always kept when you’re the last woman left alive —
vacant, didn’t he as a kid play here alone, wasn’t it
precisely the air he’d given it she’d felt you take my hand
appropriate, taking it on the spot like that, she proferrd & all the dead
the deposit like a younger girl, hands open, fingers
spread, the arms sway by.
by the side, the bush framed thereby, for all the world
as though she had nothing to offer?
Such docility as asks
dismemberment, the boards to be torn carefully
from the back of the closet, & then Taking Heart
cautiously restord, odor of carbolic?
He’s broke, the mortgage always due, dead hand, he needs Take me in again, how did I ever doubt
to rent this room this room too. But to whom, you were right for me, your mouth
what particular set of gestures is meant? beyond reproach, telling me you love me,
Sincerity the finest rhetoric lovely, I am, your body is
The twisted photograph he’d found an ocean, in its own way, saying the same —
three weeks after she’d moved out, moved
32 33
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS [ CHAPTER TITLE ]
so you lose, once more, giving me courage to the winds that make your hands shake so —
to go away into the love of others,
lakes & rivers, surely & at dawn, under your window
they will welcome water to the very rooftops, the sky there
a body all of salt. gray, & gray
looking up, into a ferocious sun.
The Faster
By That Light
Last night
here, there It all comes back to this
tonight, tomorrow They work in the bank
with another whether they paint their eyes or not.
you, white clay
still on my eyes
I smile
to see your playfulness A Call
& see the statue
because you left this studio There is built a block in this city
I never finisht, of you which, when you get to it
slowly coming true. very late into the night
first sight tells you every light is out
but can’t stop making it
grow bigger, till
Why Not
a door, you knock on, & nobody comes.
You thought you stood in the street, certainly
What if these clothes your legs were tired & cold, you thought
which so uneasily we sit in
were to be thrown like reflection you lay asleep, up there, the warm
34 35
room the knock couldn’t reach, your lips going through the motions of
relaxt, yet still wishing
who can ever tell me what
set, silent I’d trust
as when you had seen them if not some day
earlier this evening. rising from a dream
myself
You shouted then, your face to the sky, you turnd
over in bed, your head Some day not too long from now
half-buried in the pillow I thought this morning when I woke
alone & forbidden to phone
to shut out those now by my own significantly it
faint noises from below — doesnt feel my own
somebody screamd. Was that negative angel
all. Your mouth Some day before they shovel me under at last my plot of land
as you saw it, closed having shown me the shovels long ago
in a lovely smile. & didnt I know what I was seeing, absent woman
was obscured by the black gleam off
its wings?
Some day soon if even
Some Day Again before I have installd myself
as emperor along these cheering streets
of emptiness
It would’v been easy lodged in the brain
& so I pretended in my head
I still didnt like you A possibility drawn on for some fearless instant
& to you, to be unmoved to reveal
towards, & in a way I truly was chastity as source
Response caught near its source worn here if at all as mere timely description
before the kiss tosst in a heap on the floor.
I had
no way to elude
I later told myself
36 37
A Final Mission first should address himself to her, who stood
expectantly by. They decided, finally, the softer
spoken should, he who had first heard the trees
Whoever stood furthest up the trail was master murmur, his companion making a joke of it remarking Your mother
of the trail, which for the most part climbs saw to it you were raised up with a due respect for
through a beautiful if crowded forest, though the final womanhood. No sooner however was this agreed upon than he,
four or five hundred yards rise this pleasant man, began to waver,
above the tree-line, across tricky scree, & ends wondering whether the other might not be better for the job, & even
at that peak which is also the scarp-edge, a steep expressing doubt, that he himself had any
&, despite the rumors, inaccessible, drop rights in this matter, Perhaps, he chuckld, I’m not
on one side, the shallow slope on the other, where the wood really here at all. He was pusht forward though
grows, that is mainly conifers. but when he approacht the lady she told him,
To be master she might only yield herself
meant, to gather all those things the ownership of which to the master of the trail. The man considerd
proves masterhood, a tribute keeping this a secret, he could hurry on ahead
all other travelers are bound to pay. & leave his fellow to a futile wooing. No,
Two friends taken so, this opportunity would afford him no joy, he saw, the flowers
who thought to scorn such enchantments at his feet glazed mottld as tapestry at the mere thought
were walking through this wood one day side by side,
they were talking, an old story begun so he returnd to his friend & together
as they entered the shade, wherein the trees they started to race up the trail. First one
addressed a pair of wanderers with promises of succour, when then the other gaind ground till very shortly both
first one friend then the other heard lay grimy & soakt with sweat. This was on the near
the branches whisper, as if to himself alone, & suddenly bank of a deep creek, across which only a slim sapling
a most powerful odor overcame their senses servd for a bridge. The man who had addresst the Lady lay
back & closed his eyes, he was seeing her beauty again, then
& a woman, naked, broad-hippt & sloping of shoulder, stept hearing a noise, sat up, & found his friend
out of a thicket, & beckond. on the far bank, had pitcht the sapling into the creek
Now both these men where it rode like a gigantic snake. There was nothing
in flight from a band of relatives who presently for it but to swim, the current so strong
were pillaging their homesteads, hoped & hinderd as he was by the young tree, drawn after him by the same
in the remotest hollow of the forest to find eddies he must fight, he could think it was actively
sanctuary in an abandoned mill of which they’d read following it took him
a good quarter of an hour.
yet the sight of this creature
turnd them, & they fell to arguing, which of them Running on,
38 39
he became bewilderd, the forest growth seemd to be rooms although she all the while approaches her
filld with men and women, something small master, who with bated
clutchd at him, asking he thought for help, maybe belly, waits, his pinions from his gleaming flanks
he ran down the main street of his own village, smoke then stir towards her, twenty yards away she is
& not sweat stung his eyes to tears, & the music tall as a five year old girl, till she
he realized now had been with him all along, was folk tunes, he’d heard reaches his knee, & looking down on her he sees
sung about the kitchen, & danced to, Saturdays, the beat the thick scar tissue over shoulder and buttock, she climbs up his thighs
his own heart, reaching the head of the forest & unbuttoning him, thrusts in her legs
diminisht to the size of testicles, & hangs
to see how the other had the lady by one hand backwards, her toes hookt
in the asshole he by constricting can cause to raise
white it was as a tree where the bark is stript back. his darling, held rigid, till her sweet face reflects
I will stop now, he said to himself, I will that gleam the sun makes of his metallic fuselage
lay myself down in this small bed & when I wake
a smell of pancakes & coffee cooking will be shining in the window & together they move out over the forest
but he had forgotten to open it, to get the fresh air while he slept, edge, where from a height of five hundred feet he can see
& getting out of the blankets he tript, his foot each husk of each ear on each blade of wild-oat grass
tangld in a branch a fallen hemlock farther on had laid across his path his friend & the Lady in their brief possession or abandon had
presst flat, despite the shadow
so he summond up what breath the altitude allowd, leapt forward, passing that he casts, by means of his appendage,
around the couple taking care not to loving jelly down into, whereat the neighboring trees
meet their eyes & scrambld on until the peak was gaind, where the trail his friend, who will not appear to accept such gifts, must have taken
ended. He was so high shelter somewhere under, themselves take flight
he could see not only the whole forest, which from here does — that the forest, whatever happens, persists
look like one & nothing else, devoid of those confusions is foretold in the pitch
previously he’d encounterd; but beyond too, way down to the plain, those screams assume from the shape of the falling stuff —
that stayd laid on the plain, where smoke from the white-hot heart of the cones of flame
from the burning villages roild by which all is laid waste.
in a huge cloud, driven by a wind
lifted the forest music into great chords of solemn
moment, & carried an odor like semen he rememberd must be
from the soap-factory in his home-town, itself, then, ablaze.
Excited, he calld down, that now the woman
should come up to him. Now
she appears to grow smaller with each step
40 41
It’s Not My Trip have that right
I’ve heard.
1. Dictation
A Kind Numbness
At last the gods have left me
free to do
wherever I am moved, There’s a kind numbness
of a cold morning possesses me sometimes,
am I forbidden? then sleep’s wine in my veins,
remember to forget, while I dress by the heater, is like
if also only by,
some animal’s, a horse in a paddock
old patterns grave turnd to brown stone he seems,
others wove in me — only he steams so in first sunlight.
abandond
Head bows over the shining grass,
where I am but not eating, his senses all at rest,
right, he is as if he sees white fence & farmhouse
wrong to me,
are kin to his being, within his skin
but in his own as his belly is. A whole hour before
right, right, as day he must shudder off the flies.
to me Pacific
over London lies
night, & rightly so,
what though I take it lightly? The Accident
Free to believe
whatever Up all night
will I will thinking to write
I am I a poem, now
42 43
at the door, Weight Less Than The Shadow
blue light! & a damp
mild breeze. We encounter in the lateral
tunnel at great depth, I wear
Let the news in my forehead a Davy lamp, newly acquired, the gift
paper lie in fact of a young lady, casts
an intense circle beyond whose rocky confines
& stare. No
one, only blackness, nothing, your seamd
face as in a developing fluid coagulates, the lips
the owner. Unseen lift to tell me I have not yet
by who? A white unchristend solved the riddle of the universe.
ship leans into The bird in the cage I carry
a like blue. has died, you point out. Misled,
I’d gotten off the elevator at
All yours, the wrong level. You shrug
not the usual but cast the dies on my behalf. Back
they indicate, to the pit-head, collect
message when I forget nothing from the company store, except —
where the street leads
I sank these shafts! Your fierce outburst, at last
& think I recall, head to hear that voice — an obscene
a chart. Like nothing gesture next, old man, brown shapes of continents
on the skin, over the excited hands, sarcastic,
but itself, the moment This far down, we use
nor the door another kind of pickaxe — the right
hand, forefinger extended, lightly taps your temple, till
ever opend (by) me
before. quickly, down to the pocket, still . . .
And what do you come up with but a dollar bill?
I’m to buy a ball-point pen & five
blue (examination) booklets at the commissary, this is
becoming ridiculous, a dream, four of them
44 45
to wrap my lunchtime apples in, the fifth Zuh tunnelss are unendting. How can I confront you, the cage
turns into a bluebird for my cage.
I’ll ride it out. of an absconded trapeze artist, will you be angry? I wont
You pull your plastic goggles descend. Will you shrug merely? I wont
down, over your eyes, & I come again. She is leading me on, to daliaunce, she laughs. I
see, just as you’d turn away, my wont budge. But the whistle
at the pit-head shrills
self, indistinctly, reflecting.
The noon, leaving the ‘lift’, (your term) till everyone is in the evening elevator down, I’d slept,
aches, blindingly. Sonic small dried spittle. But the whistle
soft hand clasps mine, or a man’s
hand merely does she grasp? — the naked lady hears it as music, she has her gift
of inattention, her hip bones flesh.
Maintaining she’ll lead me The coaldust on her sheets.
away from the pitfalls, her paw The mine I’d thought lay hidden, the fumes
takes me in a suspect tangent. however render a whole district, mine.
Dazzled still. My other senses would rescue me, my watch Her hard mattress. Motionless. The stars
beats, my heart are insatiable holes, we argue, I hold them
‘s an army on the march of ragged & conflicting voices Davy lamps. The stars
raised in a song they argue in the singing, is it are. The night is
not my comrades changing shifts, that late already — cold, I slurrd the word, is
coal, I said, & she heard, the blonde kiss holding, Gold
Globules of soil roll under my stumbling
progress, if that’s the word. There,
she (you) says, she
laughs, dimly her face swims clear, There,
Yes
I bought your silly bird but
he wanted out, & so — the grilld
small gate hangs open. Next minute we hear Have there been women
how good a cook she is. Next like this evening
she is
you, old mole, working right through lunchbreak, under our feet, gloriously unlike
knock, more
I mean, deep-rooted trees vibrate about me. is the agony
Not Verk, you said, simply
46 47
by the peril of whose soulful presence I’ve for what hasnt yet its shape
felt compelld to pour my soul’s is also thought
perilous adventures out to too late, I spoke, revealing choice to be
illusory,
to say
or yearn to Lets make it, no
desperately over more than that, almost I hated her
& over I who is breaking my art open so that I say it
love you
whatever Be my Fate.
misery ensue, is happiness & she refuses
finding some vain ease in the mere saying not to, she
as any mother’s son, complies.
as though there were no other way of love, inept to be wiser
to choose my silences Being her self
while we work life out together
taking carefully as no one else
& lending so
the seams dont can do.
break, or not
yet, not
today
or a flash of syntax similar is unavailing Forgets Five
as once more for the first time ever
comes to be Was he coming out of the coma, why, say a
this night coma, when
of all my life an all first he was aware of the women
or nothing, or as whispers in the corridor, Before
& nothing, chance he has even begun to try, he takes it for granted that he can
voice is not do the thing not for himself,
conspiring against voices for his memory
these choices is excellent however
must be that utterly tends to forget the figure five, remembers
ambiguous, these metaphors
48 49
he wants to live forever, invents torn
the ultimate destruction of his planet, his plan it to his fulfilling willy-nilly of this day’s assignment as
seems only to extend the range of his potentially one who receives the news his tumor is
frustrate trip, — was this his own not as yet malignant, shy
jargoning then breaking-in? Not that of the voices to make of himself such a nuisance, ashamed
with their suggestion of a pestle in his mortal of the mess he has made of the solitary body given him, or shall he hate
ear, or blind fate, ashamed of his terror, an odor
Miss Montessori at his kindergarten, Sometimes as of countless bags of sand rotting among barbd wire barricades
by himself for long periods his senses, what can I count, yet living
works or I carry that they dropt, but feeling that pretentious
dreamily around the room, blusht, hesitating just inside the door, & now
also his face made trivial by the news of this benign reprieve
will so to speak light up
when demonstrating or isnt that some twinge of a disappointment he wonders, it hadnt been
the exit, saying
Before has even begun to dry. Sullies of night? Thrice five is Anything that much like a nippl that close to my mouth was bound to
not a sonnet. White. take a licking,
Sound. Some Dont you dare to speak of your — Watch your tongue!
slight air (slight was bound to take a
heir?) of mystery biting being devoid of foreskin from before the beginning,
he had butted his cigaret & discoverd
Preparing a drug from unripe seeds to ease the pinch where that bitch had how the cells had clusterd
bit him in protecting him from such unnatural invasion, once that message had
the stitches. What purpose in the cosmos been mastered, then
if he a human is had freely circulated to render his whole system gummy cold custard
randomly or not chalk, an inviolabl success though he be safe
to get these weird growths in his tissue from life,
What ends to the earth. In this particular instance in but this bastard
his lip, simply, though something like imagination wont permit it to rest there, had already wedged his jaw
he took himself out of it, pretending to wake open, so he couldnt speak, the needl
in a hotel, Copenhagen, overdosing codeine & he hit,
had been revisiting his adolescence in re-entering the bedroom met
a California tan. It was a doctors office the bellhop telling him
his reservation was merely for a week,
He stept forward between the life-like fishtank & the rack where LIFE lies
50 51
Let me reconstruct, he thought, you woke dusty off-green gestures towards shade
You tried to decipher the notes ‘mysteriously’ sprung up overnight
on the arrowroot cookie box, because you were famisht you noticed, playing over her face
‘you’ stept out
into a day as carefree as a coffin-nail commercial, the coffee well where in hell in
tangy, & the rolls heaven’s name is she
a tease, no, not sesame seeds
Hungup in Brussels or
A hopelessness of boulder rolling closed, I’ve forgotten the French for some capital he curses That
fenetre & every shred of my Danish, no, he’s informing me I couldnt make
in my own language, David Bromige, he’s mistaken me, This suite out this postcard of a littl
is now another’s pissing kid isnt it? Rustls
A chin of such determination’ll never let me down, weak
Madness. Reason with him, See as it is, her urchin
here you asshole, I havent explord this city yet, why charm
I cant say, for sure Codeine. Or how else to decode my previous visit here, I mean
I just arrived as to purpose? Wasnt one prospecting
which the flunky denies, You’ve been sleeping a great a fuller use of
deal of your holiday away, persuasively such haphazard impetus events
You will go far like passers-by
the tourist reassures him, with such calculated servility of arrogance he adds were shouldering me on to? Like
beneath his breath, Yes take this chick — yes
& I’m only eleven is the reply Not a dwarf nor never yet well, take her. Eyeing
a child. Packing for him his bags on the made his companion of a night, Miss
bed he last night had his best rest in for years Faute de mieux, he’d ditch
the instant the other woman rings
waking refresht, telling the old days over to himself, There’ll be
a square with benches where you’ll meet if only he could speak over the ether, a mask
as if for the first time — Strings has been spread around his jaw. You wont feel a thing
stirrd then of a divine goddam you. Back of that starch
gyzm — A fountain — there’ll waver there though you press against my hand. Actually the Dr said You will
as if for you alone, a statue Well, replies the patient, What can I do about it? It is overripe
to contemplate the will,
leaves, giving they have his chart, He has been interested
a sense of oldness, permanence, yet in all types of practical life activities,
not as redwoods, but pouring (scotch), polishing (apples), cutting ( his near & dear)
52 53
sewing(havoc)
washing (his hands of their inordinate affairs) He still was a star
needs more work with these manipulations in my dream. Isnt that
in order to perfect control marvelous, he tells himself, A star
of the small muscle movements (presently among how many billion
lower colon) — Conscience terribl
is nostalgia grits fixt minds of restlessness,
the operator, well anyway, if the lab has a surprise, next week or ultimately, he turning suddenly wretched with the heat of his
cant say it hasnt been a full life. slumber, Why Goodness me
nobody likes to see violence, draw the blinds
No, I still tend to be disorganized in the way I set up & go about my work Sir Shitlips, the better to see the TV me
I need more time, though all that list, it must be true, I have to photograph the city with my small muscle movements, by my cock
once was a siphon to stick into the stewd tomaytoes of my lewder days &
How else should I know I’m waiting for you! by-blows Oh
For you I have labord with sensorial materials, glossy skins of various hues, now hallowd out, we’ll view
& cries extracted expressly for your benefit blue movies of the copulating galaxlies
colord so by the tears in my projection hall, a body
Fur yur Murther’s broken occasionally in straining to encompass
the man with the scalpel murmurs the suburbs,
lie beyond this cosmos, whose
to avoid whose close gaze focussing it seems not on him but some pit voters we could use in this constituency, they
where he should be had elected me, & up I lept, I kisst the set in the very spot that had put me
turns his eyes away, to where the pitted monumental marbl through
facades opposite are glimpst through lace college, & up I lept
curtains wavering over a troglodyte grotesque, protected from assassins, yet
this window, grace as Mr. Lackey inadvertently switcht channels, met
whose paradoxical association to such grossness we in midair by my own heart attacking me
men desire
he muses, lapsing into waking shaking wet with sweat but back in his own self, from Death
poesie, no to failure then. & the phone ringing! What
anesthetic telegram it never connected, last time together was
last time but for one letter
dust I had message units in your name, walking hand-in-socket up the lane
motes in the old gold continental sunlight circulate, like static, this is the red flowers on the leafless black
static, but I wet bush. Supposing I were never to see you again! Supposing
54 55

I were. Its a beginning, we kisst Hang loose
you remember! to part, only, we promist So long, Dont think
pro tem. How it wasnt any
honest. How have you been good.
spendthrift of my modest
*
investment
Yeah I’m working for a living — Story dont abandon me
cutting up poppies in the kitchens with a switchblade in myself I am
that bellhop is my beau, you’ll have to admit desolate a broken
he’s cute, a livin doll. prayer, there is no
Ridiculous there to go, all habits of meaning
I have many more stamps in my passport than that littl shit, choke, how can this flesh between the marks of metal &
on your account alone its gutta percha future, die
listen, I’ve had that chick evicted how can I either live,
(omitting to mention her final line, I’m glad he bit his lip
to be getting outa where The chick, half
I never was!) in & half
Well then still yellow down, her nurse’s uniform, dramatically
the other woman purrfectly misunderstanding If drawn back, by his cry, the thread
she’s there, you certainly can get along without me now sore in his mouth:
Lets go
& the scalpel cuts the cord. He had wanted to tell her we can, we have to, yet
about his operation. How his mother one stitch
grew there in him, how he chewd her there, in him, how will prove insolubl & connected as it is by an invisibl helix as durabl as you are
he knew it had to stop to
How for the pain this hospital, will finally defeat you, therefore
he’d had the Dr crush why not
up what then would never flower, papa now, or, she continues, his pills
verine he flasht, lockt in her box, Let me
but his plan was so painstaking Bringing her mouth close in to bite
he, the patient, wanted her to recognize it loose, their lips
he had devised, his cleverness begin to turn into a kiss he screams surrender to his climax yet simultaneously
against
— & she must’v had the preparation of them all along, whose voice such endlessness, All
over the blower the instant before it was severd said right, she smiles
56 57
You with the swelling young man caverns in your head — or had she said, groin & chest
Ahead? You rose, they rose, he had intended the Polar route but they
crusht bug — no streamd together through the deepening
Are you ready to be summond then to She meant the red fur blue, moon gone & the known sun, his irises of jetter hue took in
twin Betelgeuse? striding the naked limbs of giant
Why, what could he want with me stars they laught, catching only the name, the only name, he had for them,
Are you so arrogant she asks whose grace of motion only rare
Before such mystery as He is, to deny women & men he had been thrown in with might
your own importance, when all your sensual intelligence & He suggest rival, lest compare & heavenly language fail & cease
we are invaluabl? Climb up, we’ll fly
there, where the odor was all ocean, & honey to his lips
but his weight was too great, so heavy his backward look had made him, at while to his tremulously-definite own mouth a child two-handedly managed
that dear complex of known habits, his sweet to
own helpless form raise a glass
lockt-in upon the stretcher-bed of littl wheels, intermittent neon his infant arms of a uniform white,
interminably burning the same sentence lit with the force of quick
the cell which might as well be in a transients skidrow hotel comprehension others shone, their first incredibl gleam so steadying down
then, did the featherd fish attune her fins & wings revealing the chill-blooded strike in the antelope leap of a muscle, & the fierce
to wrench the scales off release of midnights speaking & spilling all into that radiance where a
balance, loose, or how stranger,
else, did he cause her launching-forth by gradually, the pupil threateningly, dies, raced in the comets born of this velvety red
accustoming to this new illumination reflecting from the craft she was, dark, the creature he had been borne less aloft than inward by now blent with,
discerning one
more, the nursely husk of what he rode, its starch with it, a constellation
buttocks presented at this distance to him, its front vivacious as one certain conversation in a bar seemd arbitrary yet it showd
presst against the husk of him, a touch
so professionally calculated he sickend at the sight his eyes therefore averted a shelf of the velvet now bore him on, its bent prow
from parting a course through itself only if
only to find there in the care, graven on the Dr’s visage, for rectitudinous the knife tore through his sullied membranes, only if
minuscule detail, the look he saw the galaxy that sullied was, starpoints
making into a useful thing later to be billd the still prickt like needls, waves of that sea
warm corpse before him, with a shock lapping the shores we suspected lie said could quench his thirst
sufficient to jerk him through the door of the waiting-room directly not at all, unless the sour
onto the blade, blood might trickl down his throat, which will close for good
whose face but his own so that all might be held in orbit, while his will
As her feathers caresst his naked in rhythm took this mysterious delight whose like
58 59
hired loins sought at his trapt hand, not otherwise will slow down the paraphrastic response - as one would supplant stumbl with
despite the heat of the braking applied by whose light’s drawing him onwards stumble yet is held to what’s actually before him; &, by so stressing the word’s
from a destination possibl autonomies, will reënforce the work of the line — that further unit
long since left behind, — which is, to play wherever one can let it against the sentence it nonetheless
& in the close room that boundlessness inevitably must is part of — as one realizes his ‘destiny’ by such a resisting of declared
return him imperatives — as one is necessarily binary by choice.
to, coincident with his being cured, all in its then myriad terror presses down Also of course, a by now familiar insistence, that the words are transcribed
anew against the ceiling constructed of itselves, he cries speech — not, that is, the giant panda born in a zoo, to parents born in the zoo,
I dont want to die, it collapses suffocatingly about him, when the sky it hid & so on. One waits on some common comprehension of the IPA. But, since
promises transcribed, then, tangld; since it can be done.
all must be won again, including These are reasons arrived at only to some extent after the fact of what initially
the irrelevancy now he is clear he is able to label as such may have been nothing more or less than playful perversity. A spiel. I mean
which here has been named for Copenhagen, them nonetheless.
Berkeley,
(& the date —
The Spelling
1. Terminal /t/ in place of ed or d. To confess my debt to Ezra Pound, Robert
Duncan, &/or whoever is suggested, doubtless. To indicate the discretions I’d
ask of the reader’s ear.
2. For the latter reason, e is often omitted where a word would end in le, etc.
A scoring of duration — temple because, in its particular context, I hear that
syllabl as longer than the final syllabl of syllabl.
Also, to appeal to the eye — tangld to enhance the feeling of entanglement;
invisibl as the e is; stumbl because the next stair — the e — is missing.
* * * * *
To get a sense of informing accident. Of variety of impulse; of a word whose
contexts shape it. I’ve tried to avoid a foolish consistency; to those who’d resist
hesitancy to find the concern foolish altogether, I’ll hardly say Perhaps. But
it’s my hope the neo-spellings, in the emphasis they give to the word as a unit,
60 61
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS from THE QUIVERING ROADWAY
from The Quivering Roadway Tangled among those reflections
Of himself reduced he searches
Beside no other body for two gelid orbs
Where his poem properly should
End but for the grace
The body of that other visibly is
Paris In April In place, whole as a world with its terrible history
No word can live
The intricate capilliaries Without, like claws but only like
Speaking of pain in a relative way Her arms reach out
As of joy naturally To us invisible to him
Have come to say What else do you expect
What else did he expect like the capilliaries presented
As if that rhetorical flourish itself were Testify to a heart that’s not
Its own justification in this place And though in her wholly he
Requiring none, a sudden blush Is ‘looking’ in light’s absence in her eyes
For embarrassment, a sudden pallor
For fear, of love
The face is a continuing brightness, a quick
Pulse, good muscle tone Not Guilty
Fed by the tortuosities encountered here
And known at all since they are close to the surface So that’s your concern at this
Of things seen looking out script conference —
For themselves like a man looking at a woman
Steadily instead of at the pit who pays the tuition,
who wins the prizes for poetry together
Of her stomach where the scars are staring
Into her eyes, nights with the risibility of his intention,
He will lie down in what the old movies that creep
The day has given like a fridge a Like
whispering into your bed
Him to take his respite in like a not
62 63
so innocent & turning, see you, or you, in the middle distance
sister. where I suspect for some little while or lines
you’ve been attending, lift my eyes from
this vision & clearly
your appearance is distracting.
The Quivering Roadway & behold that you are fair. Or
it’s the intricacy of lines discovered
when your hem rides up, of the shining
only an illusion yet warning of the heat to be dress, a gait elfin in its lightness
prepared against, or for, that day when the stockings whispering
I locate you where you’ve gone to wander asides to one another fix me
under the dingy fir trees with the smoking like a purpose, to possess
huts behind then, the ruined stalls, the creek all in its very foreignness since I’m
flowing past with a sluggish melancholy exactly in your sight, a mess, dwarfish
as befits a sluggish melancholy creek in all but stature, & so sincerely
as aimlessly as if, being a poet & lost anguished, yet articulate
because your book was finished, you’d published it
— but yours is this difficult syntax
get forbore to take it seriously, how could you while when you really want to be grappled with
the husband you couldn’t remember I hear, disjunct as your body, mobile
why you’d wanted, or he’d been forced on you, was off limber but encumbered, as if the Mississippi
like in the long-ships, at the war to elude us twisted through the versus of your flesh that bent
he’s waging over the dwellings where we might’v lived on postponing the sea,
because from his birth, those grooves in the heavens the bright banality
had been manifest as soon as remarked on of your conversazione like I
& the good bright glint off their wolfram wings scream thick on apple-pie & like
Dum dum, de dum dum. some billboard pretending to be that, then
I see the blistered torso you giggle at the image yet
The limbs remarkable with bacterial action or protect it. In your New
maggots &, since a series of three York or is it Okie
facts or whatever’s most familiar to both our tribes, accent. I keep attempting
the stillness of the woman, bare-breasted, some quick
with her quiet shift of the attention yet
child clutched to her, sprawled in the tended yard you hold me, baffled
64 65
perhaps by the lack of anything intriguing where just sots you could torture them
beginning to make meaning out of tedium I hated you charge me, without rancor, in fact
you. & ray decision is made teasingly, Yes
maybe, but what is it
plying you with gimlets till you slur the ‘t’ you want I ask, I won’t discuss
imploring me to take you home, no what lies beneath contempt you answer
not imploring, hinting, as I’d guessed with the shadow of a sneer, cool fingers, one
you don’t want ‘involvement’, just my body cooler for its ring, begin
doing all that’s necessary, & you finish
being so unkempt & handy
As for yours, admiring your get-up I see I don’t give a shit about him either
particularly when you adopt certain poses even while T grope within the red
an editor who’s taken her pick gold tears you weep for him, opening
from various jet & hippie styles as though your feet rode in steel stirrups
but underneath the dross I guess & your syrups, intoxicating me, were of course
her beauty, & it’s given me chemically given, to my reach
One in a million, I say, one in a until at last in ecstasy you groan
million, you smile & I have made you mine, or didn’t I
of all the lustful studs this tavern groan, my cock’s
tolerates, to have the stripping of it from rigidity phenomenal, as if of stone
a form they can only imagine, that dross
becomes a pleasure too. As if I read you that, flowing upward, takes my heart
in a carrel, closeted above & under all those books, yes, next my face, suffusing with it
the women at the neighboring tables send me looks Don’t take it so hard you say but my mouth
at that, conceit, has no words, your speech
echoes, back, from what you bend to read
I take you underground, you notice is but find the runes predictably
simply a hotel room, whose bedside lamp indecipherable, & look so lost
transforms to gold in that instant I struggle to
down along the gloss of a body speak of your fascination when you let yourself
to my astonishment, very much like mine look ugly?, no, defenseless
though fairer, to my ravishment, you want it off but no,
I have to wrestle, to shut your mouth’s but having got what you came or were called for
inanities, with the light I’m left alone to witness
hot flesh of my intent Those bodies, you invented the woman playing with her child
66 67
beside their corpses, that you’d assured me were amulet, & yet
mere words her its sets her loveliness off wonderfully
impatient child, by the tension in these tendons now it is done, & seems to
tearing at the features I now know keep its charge, despite
by a tenderness I can’t suppress, as
those that so recently gave you back your own the old man’s admonition —
the old fool, for these meadows
now wandered on, by being motionless, beyond to speak plainly, these haphazard
earshot, wanting not city streets, admit
to remember the husband, whose bomb-sights, my
superiority to your indifferent back has pressed of no surprise
my eyes against, use such stones to violate her pose
as this, we left, to find their target by. under our cool skies
woven of rocks soil & stones.
After The Engraving
(for Tom Clark)
What I am fashioning
with my light chisel
is an amulet to hang
round my love’s neck
against disaster
dwelling in the hollows
well below, a spell
to keep the evil there
where she will never let me go
to fetch one home, to -petrify
& carve upon, so I am making-do
by cutting-up an earlier craftsman’s
68 69
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS from THREADS
from Threads Blue, Yellow
yet remembering you
I turned them away,
you would have known how to use them.
In His Image
A Slot
“Having died
I was laid with eyes wide open in an open kind of grave
Tesselated marble, glazed Speak to the beautiful creature,
I gazed up at the sky tell her she is so beautiful,
A stoned & Mayday gritty kind of sky
or how tired you’ve grown of dealing with her,
The camera stopped pretending to be me how, from the nothing left, you’ll give her all.
It panned down, having drawn back
to show I lay, all senses but this vision numb, in a wide screen
of sky & tile, to reveal the aqueduct
(disused I guess) that held me up
First Love
Down, down, a long way, to the ground, no (for M. H.)
to the river” a voice said
“The better the life he lived
the higher they raised him from the waters” 1 was angry because I’d had to wait
because we had missed connections
& meaning to meet in the heart of that city
that evening when we had been apart all day
because I had to have a job that kept me busy
& at the instigation of parties with our best interests at heart
“What friends”
because I was so in love with you I tortured
myself with thoughts of some utter misfortune
What friends came to be my comfort that must’v befallen you, for that would serve them right
I cannot name them all—Red,
70 71
& then, without you, fell into the pettiness where we had danced the night before that now
I’d been taught, of despising you because you couldn’t felt like so long ago,
as I, so meticulously I could afford to be casual, that led us here,
could, in this foreign setting where they lived, polkas & schottisches that she knew
find your way around. because she played the clarinet
So far north of home, midsummer, back in Chicago, she’d shown, we’d looked together, at a photo
yet dusk was in the village I had retreated to of herself in strident clothes, the uniform
searching for you, before I saw of her high school band
the light glimmering of a garment & knew
in it, some summer fashion I guess they had afforded back in Chicago, where two years later
for just such recognition as they feared, you were returning, safe I was to visit her
to my disappointment, your love, or mine & where at last I lost track of her,
wits for an instant such a burden, not safe? bank teller, harsh accents of the telephone
to my joy. vanished even from the phone-directory
The old couple, old enough to be, or/& into marriage possibly
although they weren’t, our grandparents or died, into America
waited back at the cottage but where there’s nothing now to say to her
we strolled along the shore before we thought to who has, as anyone, her life to live
reassure them nobody had kidnaped &/or ravished
their niece, but I kept my vow to you
& kissed. The waves now breaking with a white alive in every breaking of it,
luminosity & a small in every desultory action felt as such
rain blew against us, but tomorrow & still you visit me
you would be (,,one, that made us freer with a kiss, as this, to give
as in that american accent you acknowledged
promising always to be true to me as I whose particular form had never been
promised to be faithful too, the poor voices falteringly without her, we loved because of that.
meaning to write. I feel I’ve known you
all my life. & even though you
felt the mistakenness of it
we lay down & made love. Music through the squall
it seemed to us drifted
as an old air was driven
intermittently from the wooden
open dancefloor strung with fairy lights
where the local boats were berthed
72 73
Y with the fingers that want to uproot me as I feel
(An Imaginary Letter) your hands still
with the steel spikes straight through them—
*
Dear Anon — we exchanged names but I never heard a word you — isn’t the end of it, one evening
uttered I’ll find these metal pieces, with nothing but
to be honest, except Put some spit on it. I can’t meet you what resembles rust around them &
— it the appointed hour tonight, is it discard them, then
that the excitement is more than I it is the fingers will appear but shimmering
can stand, is even more intolerable when I think I will & this is why.
than this hollow feeling, playing it safe?
You are preparing in our secret
rented room, in the next hotel we get to explore,
comparing fittings
because I will not name but touch For —
the gloss that bedside light predictably
lays on your hide, nothing is more naked
than the shoulders, but once begun Four women in one day. Something
how should I stop now like satisfaction—so I don’t care
seeing it all—your belly that, for sure, it’s not the world’s record.
white, flat Close? Well . . . I enjoyed myself. Enjoy/d.
as a secret to one who isn’t in it
& who doesn’t care, but (Later). Complications
I care, the crisp hair there to be dealt with. (Later)
I stare, fixing the dim blue cords
that draw me so I wish I could burn out, if only for my poetry’s sake
back I almost tore this up, for you (this persistent sexual charge—it’s tedious)
must be the one to lay the vacuum this sexual charge. What do I avoid,
created by each undulating form eluding me by such activity, confronting.
along the avenue beyond my knowing
for all the world as though I didn’t know them But none of them was the woman
to be so similar each to each & you, so nearly whose song must yet be sung
not totally particular in all their differences whose eyes, all pupils, as if they strain
but you, the thighs & only me between them, we are to bring in all they can, whose eyes
& could be again together weren’t we or is it some expression of the face, that hungry
& the hands, naked, now the rest’s undressed restlessness, that breathlessness
74 75
whenever we meet, that haunted me I listened to, maybe she made some for no other cause—
as soon as seen, how could that be? Whose eyes — maybe she didn’t give a shit — some hunch
who wouldn’t fuck with me, or would, & she was, if not frigid (but isn’t that
wouldn’t, or circumstances, that had made all possible, a challenge?), then, congenitally
intervened, to make it not — somehow incapable of knowing when she’d had enough, mistakenly
both at once, naked taking her impulse, to be more, as sexual
but with scruples, was I married then, was she
always, does her allure
my wife’s best friend? Or something stupidly arise from this, when she enters the restaurant,
out of phase between us, as I bent do I care? Shaking, thinking, not to shake, if I
when she, being the girl she once was, involuntarily possessed her once, (“possessed,” we say)
drew me back, or being the child, bent likewise would I be free — or by denying her myself,
so our skulls as few men surely have, do I
struck, waking us up, or I passed out lay this ghost, another way —
because the liquor that’d let us kiss
then screwed me — stoned & either could be true, if I’d believe
& giggling, in the temple, at the notion that it is? one, wholly, but how can I, the distraction of those eyes
So even later, with the persistence of true love, in novels rendering belief impossible, except in them, that fact,
they’re present — though they suggest
together, late at night, a magic they’re not, not wholly, they imply
lantern of a room, screening her eyes, the slide other places, other times, all one can imagine
of those thighs, net unimaginably re-aligned — I will
stockings, no, yet some pattern, yes,
set, to be violated then, except never have her, — or, I shall —
that violation made a pattern too, craving violation — all this is previous to the fingers, tremblingly seized —
Enough
maybe I saved myself never to be mine,
(from what? what for?)
with intuition call it, suspecting that I couldn’t but I have named the goddess
after, maintain distance, & how she & in singing her refrain is all
would despise me for my need — damn her despite, but that the satisfaction I can know of her, as any man
it might cause her to deprive me of what then Psychoanalysis
I desired not to live without? Or wasn’t it a hunch,
given her incessant list of conquests as they’re called, Often people fuck merely in order
one man to the next, & women, she knew to keep from having to talk
76 77
& you were way past the time we had agreed on
but I don’t remember everything
else I said. to meet, in this district where just last week,
two acquaintances got beaten up
— this is all pretty straightforward, you stayed vague
as actual person, but the charge of feeling
You Too allowable only when dreaming? like the turning of a head
once seen, giving all the dreck a commonality of meaning
— you were this composition of those loves, become my son
I did just what I wanted to— & the location of his kindergarden
under orders once more, & the fact of my separation from his mother
& dressed in the uniform that keeps me here, where I can’t find a job
I wore.
accounts for the buried resentment, the barrier
— the heaviness man is. But that,
suspecting Barrie would now be alone
with that editor in his apartment
“Why I went there” where the closest phone was, I might use
to call the cops, asking for news of you
Why I went there I don’t know. & that, when I forced myself to go there,
Dropping in unexpectedly like I did this party was going on, & I forgot to phone
where I’ve never felt sure of my welcome.
And an unfamiliar crowd — though I could be certain of two this is the essence, where mine
bitches, who would put me down, if the opportunity afforded & the general nightmare mesh.
but that Barrie should be there, his hand extended
& that in that greeting, ten years fell away
& that, though friends had told me, he’d grown fat
I was disappointed in that — yet prospering, Value
the guest of honor of a famous editor yet.
They all went on to another party leaving me It would be best of all with a stranger
to look for you, way down on Grove, night
having come peculiarly early Best of all with the one you most love
78 79
“I can’t read, & here’s a book”
As good with the one, as with the other
do you feel, it should be —
When I think my son says something like this
you want the unknown, or you fear it, or this, when he’s alone
or fearing it, desire it, or I see him kneeling alone
it’s good because of that, in his room, sorting through what objects
choice & chance “conspire”
of the coming-into-being-known, of what,
before, was unknown, or ‘]’his is among the most poignant thoughts I know
knowing once more, the known.
The book I imagine is a 1945 edition
Did you forget her then, of Andersen’s Fairy Tales
wasn’t she continually present, illustrated by Arthur Szyk
everything must be true, right, what makes me so uneasy, here, & why
that is, whatever, there’s am I driven to picture it?
nothing more to say, or,
How can I know
it would all depend on factors to what degree he is reflective,
omitted from this list, something what do I want of him. When he is
alone. When
exceptional, or exceptionally I am alone. Thinking of him. When
familiar, in the particular time, I run out of
that made it, more than the usual, the particular kind of energy required
or different, of me to be with him. & would sooner be alone
not less, thinking, of him. However it hurts. Or soothes
what hurts. What displacing
true, if the rest were lies, or,
if it weren’t, then makes him the book, while I am him?
otherwise, call it How it feels, to be left out, closed out
what you choose, or of what all those others seem so vitally
acknowledge, having to. to share.
How can I be witness to a scene
that, were I there, would be different again
80 81
Only Fair
There’s nothing here
I can’t ignore, for
it’s only in my brain. But Lennie said he got it
so he should get half of it,
some 6 million lire. Only half
was for me to give to you. Later
A passive voice — I open up the banana
& it’s rotten.
adding up the calories,
a diabetic’s necessity —
salmon, 1/2 cup, 100 of em,
couldn’t have had more than that —
an egg chopped into the salad Precept
begs to be remembered —
but what about those dates I’ve helped you in the past
I ate while waiting — Okay, go ahead, help me in the past again
“the mind” is dodgy,
or, say, the habituation of it,
wants its hierarchies,
preserves itself, Example
even at the risk to the body of it
— except, I was enabled,
or is it, able, This burg isn’t big enough for both of us
to call those dates, “to mind.” I just pulled the strings
82 83
An Imperfect Failure though explanations for all of it, like my guilt
trouble & elude me still, though
I have no mandala to round out my view
There was no-one in the room above us but this partial account my hunch says
where the sounds came from, the one has left much out, like broken pieces of plaster.
within a minute of the other, that,
when we went up there, appeared to be
explained by your shoes lying as though
thrown, against the bedroom wall. We
had been talking in the living-room, you A Man, Me
while fixing some pretty christmas
decorations, taped to the windows, pictures but
non-representational — it was Bob Say that I’ve sat
Stewart, who remarked, approvingly, cracking sunflower seeds
they were mandalas. Our marriage that’d been hour after hour unable to stir
breaking-up I had the day before announced
that I was leaving, the pain while the child I love lives
& confusion intense, whether more guilt than actual growing older a mere
sense of loss impending or already six blocks from here —
on us, or fear of loneliness or what, relief,
but pain, so much was clear — & that, each, again say what was the kernel
had failed, in what each held, as we were trained, to be insatiably I nibbled, the shells
of ultimate importance. One of the pictures littering the floor like cities black & dun
that shortly thereafter dropped to the floor
didn’t get there, I think, because of a joint & if I went down on my hands & knees
para-psychic effort, a weak piece of tape under the right light, certain
was more probably the cause. If a mandala works of art — or the impatience
is what they claim it is it wouldn’t matter that you didn’t
recognize what you were buying — when at last I saw the mess I sat in & leapt
up to sweep it all away or sat
how can I speak for you, but know myself down at this machine, to say.
more fully alive, for that move
& the harm, maybe only of a different kind,
it inflicted on our son, & you, — or since that move, or since
not long before I therefore moved to make it
84 85
3 Ways with the Same Sentence
If they leapt up & welcomed you, would you ever
trust them again.
I have striven for perfection
& still am permitted to sleep
on our mattress with its
broken spring next to the
completion of your body. Whatever it is
Not so much lately since
circumstance has seduced me Art isn’t the ultimate human act & for its sake I will
away from the initial fervor but go blind & deaf & dumb, become a monster of denial.
in youth as with a mission
I sought debauchery & remember
incidents of tenderness &
sanity that baffled me.
Fresh from Sleep
Godknows — god of my fathers
I have questioned all I could
yet still found means to live Forgiveness — what’d she
when I woke up this morning nor mean — that crazy lady.
hold much hope things won’t
once I am gone continue. I’d say this room’s some 10 x 12 x 8.
960 cu. ft.
Just got up to blow my nose, so I paced it:
12, x, 14? — can’t be sure — the bed + desk come
between me & one wall, & the wall opposite’s
Logical Conclusions broken by a projecting closet. As for the height,
I still have to assume it’s 8 feet.
If you went over to a friend’s, a couple you know, say, Never knew it could be this cold in LA.
& knocked & knocked, & waited, the light was on, & then
knocked some more — & then Do you think they’ll be up soon.
tried the door, so that it
opened, & you went in, I could use a cup of coffee —
& found them sitting there. Would you want to stay. I could use a holocaust.
86 87
My fault — took the coverlet off the bed last night, Drinks, in between.
“upon retiring,” & hung it over the window
so’s the next day, the light shouldn’t wake me. She looked like a nurse, by the shoes.
Woke about dawn, shivering. First pedestrian.
What time is it. Waiting for the hospital bus, back in
5 cars have gone by already (quiet street). North Battleford —
I think I know how it felt,
Plenty to look at here — not like most bedrooms. but if I recall the same time in another mood,
Obviously where they put the kids. wonder.
But I want to go for a walk, restless,
one window has a screen nailed over it, Surprisingly few cars on the freeway between 5
the other, the one it’d be easier to go through, -5.30 p.m., yesterday. S kept speculating
onto the front porch, is painted shut. as to their whereabouts.
“The Martians have landed.”
Hill opposite — quite rustic, houses, shack-y, One
“climbing” up it. Or I would. I can see what of
looks like a chicken-shed — a poplar — 6 fir trees the
along its ridge — 5 thin pylons with innumerable cables kids
(count em?) attached — a radio transmitter? just
Can’t hear a thing. had
While I’m looking, 2 cars drive by. One a small a
truck with mattress in back — piss
put me on it! !
Could I tiptoe out without waking the others.
2. What about the dog.
Going to be a hot day, if I’m any judge.
Besides, I’m kind’v enjoying this.
I used to play the guitar once.
I tried, anyway. This is a really nice block —
Guess I should’v stuck with it. I can see how one wouldn’t think so,
living here.
Should I have read that poem —
the one about the man grunting during a previous Where’s the smog.
reading — so close to the beginning of
last night’s reading. None even in Pomona . . . A pretty lady, that,
I wouldn’t read it at the afternoon reading. said I reminded her of her first love,
88 89
“But don’t worry — you’ve established your
own identity.” At least, got a spoon — I can eat my yoghurt.
Smells better than it tastes. Have I carried it
Difficult to know what to say, to that. around too long.
Who was that, her husband wanted to know. The girl, 7, 8, was awake, gave a big smile as I
So did I, & I don’t even know her. tiptoed past.
Car stopping-negress, if one can say so, Birds, for hours.
Afro-American? a lady with dark skin — Fly away!
just say, a woman — some loss of accuracy,
of actions upon any hearer’s understanding — I don’t really want to go for a walk.
in nurse’s uniform — picks up 2 more — I want S & wife to wake up & talk to me.
for the 7 o’clock shift? You mean I only got
5 hours sleep?! Let’s see — 3 kids, all school-age —
Too late now — 2 more cars drive by. she’ll have to be up by 7.30.
I could go for a walk till then.
3.
Robert Creeley showed me how supportive What shall I say when I come in.
this literal a selection might be — bless Forgive me.
him, whatever his intent. If I were sitting here,
writing, all you’d be hearing’d be pitiful rage.
Whoever you are, Bromige.
Speaking of seduction — The Ends of the Earth
once I did, or was, by, with, such a lady —
nothing wrong with that. Play a movie of the Always — that attraction
evening, see how it all cohered. that I attach the word love to,
Stuck together I suppose. came before
Think I’ll get up & walk right out there whatever I explored—
& boil some water. whatever body, hers was there —
or his — or mine —
20 to 7 ! how’m I going to get through the day.
Wait & see. whatever landscape, that book
90 91
or friend had led me there, that look — & dresses, slippers richly jewelled — the calm parlours
of piracy. Nor that the grandmother’s love, embracing
no idea I entered but what, first, the mud-covered child, that is supposed to be proven
some you had fired me to, by her carelessness for her splendid dress, is qualified
no argument — no resolution when she knows all along that she can clean it with 3
passes of her magic coal — technology, & Victorian
to have done with it, but love hypocrisy.
had gone before.
Yet I yearn with belief, “born with you” — the child’s
vision these o-so-knowing-ones I form my arguments among,
have had stripped from them, from me — “You must not
doubt the thread. Of one thing you may be sure, that
Threads while you hold it, I hold it too.” What thread
Immigrant into a time & place where the one fabric that holds
it says, Are at all, demands its dissolution — member of an outworn
parlous. A word (threadbare) class, the power that was its virtue passed
from the dead — into the corporations & their slaves
we have to wake him every 4 hours through this night Would it be poetry, this evening my publisher phoned,
to check his balance & articulation. A heavy fall. about our contract, & tales of faith betrayed by brother
So senseless, stupid, its suddenness poets, members of a small band rent by internecine feuds
stupefying. Reading to him from The Princess & the Goblin,
news to me too, a brilliant moon this night of open windows, each desperate-hot or determinedly cool, gritting his
the traffic raucous up Cedar— teeth against caring — for his meanings, what thread
doesn’t enslave one to its granted power —
“When I please, I can make the lamp shine through
the walls—shine so strong that it melts them away & if the story we make of our lives — a warp of dream,
from before the sight, and shows itself as you saw it. a weft of actuality — be the fabric of my soul — that
But . . . it is not everybody can see it.” fabrication — there are days I lose the thread, when
“How is it that I can, then? I’m sure I don’t know.” pitiless duration’s is the syntax —
“It is a gift born with you. And one day I hope
everybody will have it.” however I talk to myself now in the ancestors’ gift,
they are gone, their words . . . Thesternesse for instance,
Old privileges — old interferences with the authentic — an imagining of hell as dark, cold, outside
nor can I ignore these golden mists, jewelled crowns
92 93
has now found the place it described The Reels
“I must confess that sometimes I have been afraid
about my children” The sky ripped with winds
snagged on points of pine or fir
“it always takes the side of the thing we are to spill its seed upon the snow but
afraid of” deep below lay
rock, that fertile ground
as if the dying light illumines this
fear, this thread I cling to that, with their great
wind in to give courage Thaw, silted among marshes where
born of what fearful event comes next we stirred. But what about the blue
we need to face indifference far south —
into her mouth she gathered
naming the unfolding invisible chord whose womb heat spawned there, the white
enables us, by staying hid. witch, what if she drowned
at midnight, proving our
mistake, at the eleventh hour
our boundaries had burst — now
even the apparently
impermeable lead in sheets not broken by
“Once . . .” the Beobab betrays — it is a screen
posited the same but
Once in a dream of Meaning Meaning drifting came never seen unless a movie
into a mise-en-scene I thought Saskatchewan flickers over it, yet posit
or thought some extra holding up a cue-card its reality one has to, plus
that said it was, as in another part of Shakespeare this cinema all fought to get
positioned in — didn’t you
We rejoice for the brown grass or simpler, want to be thought
the hour itself, the first flakes named at all a mine of
because they hint of a prior fall, the prairie information — yearning
white with it, the soft inviting banks after Europe, & the huge
beside where the hiway is becoming inaccessible. images advance —
Asia, & it is
94 95
undeniable — their eyes. The vowels
mesh with the consonants
then say, is it the restlessness, this
insufferable sussuration of & on that screen the words
the other customers, isn’t it meant to be form, if I can concentrate —
a pining, as if one might
free, crying for our money crawl in among their number
back, Sit down
Stand up Go to partake. But the assurance,
home reprimanding one for his mistake,
is that voice I longed to join
— & the images mine to, that resonates
implore one, the spirit
thaws, the sky demanding that I get it right —
washes to a pale I hear it echo even in the slyness
white blue about when I disobey yet try
black pupils the horizon pretending to be good
dances in, where in an elfish ring as the iamb haunts these signs of feeling
with headphones senses I’d be mine: Write
set up shop to soulfully purvey
how it is meant
certain elements long meant how are the kittens
for one’s illumination meant to be, stripes
below a darkening sky. I remember, but that’s a beating too, & rank — dapplings
as a general notion you
should see — he took the snapshot
fixing one instant
“So” or my mother did, that, linked
making one time, moves, moves
me, with these, back-in-on-out-to
So these were kittens, this the kittens’ where but here consorting with
basket was their bed, their memories I’m sorted by, that happiness
home, these eyes that slumped
looking back at his, him, that boy, against that door,
96 97
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS from TEN YEARS IN THE MAKING
from Ten Years in the Making
found in a litter, though we say
lost, of these concentrated joys —
when they told him, drowned,
what explanation had they offered,
the farmer couldn’t see the use of them —
Poem for friends
his misery I think was twisted through with wonder
drawing him to words like death or loss
assunder with fresh life — My traveling companions
I have called you
then the resentment, that he hadn’t been allowed to hollow
help, at what words, as lonely is
he tried to figure out they hid with words —
who, & as the stars
Lots more cats come in a little while — move with us when we walk
yet don’t
but never to tell us where we stand
these, not even
here, that’s something else, seeing I was lonely
came to be with me
nor he & enfolded me
survive the general end to curl, till I forgot.
precisely so, in I again. In it
In the vacant lot
they are tearing down
the house I live in
while I write of it.
98 99
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS from BIRDS OF THE WEST
from Birds of the West I come to count on it. One morning
a large owl perching on our boundary-fence
couldn’t’v been you, the book says
likely the short-eared kind,
it often flies by day. I was eating breakfast,
I : Birds of the West suddenly, an unexpected presence — I looked up
or felt what I had glimpsed, & then
looked out — at such a matter-of-factness.
That then flew off. I shook, with what it was.
Your call comforts, I prefer it to the silence,
now I think of that, that most nights are.
A Rime I — said with much assurance,
a place to be
even as this well-lit house,
The great horned owl — beside the fire. Say I was tired,
I call you, never having seen you cold, & somewhere out in it —
to my satisfaction, though that flapping
darker than the eucalyptus branches if you didn’t call I can imagine
the night I did go looking — calling for you,
if only to enter the trance.
but the hoo-hoo-hu-hoo, that’s the sign
my book identifies you by. Believed to presage
death, it says. And that that’s incorrect,
but not entirely, you hoot to scare up game
— or hoot, & scare up game — Next love
some animal that, safe,
takes alarm, scurries out, The heat put it in my mind
as if to meet you — I guess, so when I saw that glow
on the horizon eastward, growing
you call at intervals while I watched, the prairie
so spaced I think them regular, all around me dry, ready for fire
count, & it comes again,
100 101
my excitement told me no sheen yet of decay —
this was what I saw, burning no blurring of your form —
everywhere, fixed
by the wonder for five minutes this much one knows,
when I thought about it later, when I thought a disease of life
to run back to the house & let them know has done for you. Maybe
it’s how lifelike you looked,
there was something someone ought to cope with,
somehow. Before I could the flickering dull brown & yellow,
I’d read out of the wavering makes me tremble,
as flame, congealed now as then — the day
till what was then revealed I found you,
as a huge moon, began its rise
to be a second marvel, a moon that large & orange, making you seem vulnerable.
complete, Then as now the thin
contained — thing poking like a frozen flickering
then the familiar out from the opened beak
diminishment & paling as it rode
higher, that ache most catches me.
asking some participation that its shape I must’v heard you sing.
refuses, a lonely Dad tells me
circle, where the poem begins. mother loved the birds. A fact
North Battleford Saskatchewan, August 1949 – I remembered when he said.
Sebastopol California July 1971. She died
far away from me
in time as space.
Nor is there any link
between the two
excepting where I think
“This time not shot” in the circuits of this brain.
You do not come again
This time not shot — or words are ghosts.
unmarked by any accident, But then you are not here
102 103
for all I would present
where language thought & feeling all
went with the time — began in me, because
but some idea these three are one
with you within & make me want to see a frozen tongue.
presses out these words.
This is some other form —
nothing is saved in it
from all our distances Person
but distance,
distance, distance singing, I want to lie in the earth
to be kept with a rifle & pick off
from us, & the shining strangers that pass in cars.
that the mind Who knows me, really.
It’s all an act. But secretly
imposes, on what someone is alive in here,
if not the mind someone I want you to meet.
insists is different —
your death & life
suffering no interference
if this form to hold Outside
my grief is risen
from these thoughts concerning you —
The fog so thick
acknowledging you’ve gone beyond that when I stepped outside
what any one can remedy, just now, the house-lights
experiencing the chance of waste, threw my shadow, huge, against it —
in this perplexity I guess the Specter of the Brocken
much the same.
about identity, Condensing on the trees
between the dead & living, it falls like rain,
where she is always present, the barren clay,
whose breasts & arms were where I took such strolls last summer,
104 105
is thick these days, with grass. & logic,
What solitude condensed
in my imagination.
& silence, outside there — in quality
different from being in a forest, this is mainly
open range, but the solitude is common
to my thought. I thought
Sonnet
characters with mighty limbs,
furred, as cave-bears yes,
but more immediately Fire’s here, that won’t be forgotten.
furred as trees with moss — Nor will light, & ways to shade it.
The fire too has a stony hearth
having believed — say, felt the force — to keep it in its place,
those tales of Bigfoot have, Chairs will not & nor will tables
among the redwoods, all alone fade from the mind, walls & roof make shelter
yet not, animals, perhaps inimical, because of cold & wind.
brush, furred, against the vegetable Dispose them in what attitudes one will
forms life also takes —
if belief seduces you to show the way —
an intermediary else nothing can appear
partaking of our, human, traits in this place that’s not this house
yet of the horror also where the intermittent ground-beat
that the forest holds, as one of those flames & what they feed on
faces him self in to it, sounds like wind against an obstacle.
has its necessity – huge
as trees are huge, that threaten us,
if such be felt. Some tales
will show them friendly, Because
human children play with them,
they could, I know,
defend me. A certain logic maybe the garage hasnt any proper floor but earth
that turns to mud, we dug a shallow ditch
favors them, says this voice across the field that slopes down from the
I place within my head, house, today the ducks drink from it.
106 107
Today I know one cause why men go to war. way past the edges
that day made, for now
Oh, the chores undone. the marvel & the vision
together come once more
I see I saw what spoke
of shapes like it I held
Beyond the Constellations within my self, & how
my joy would be material
of correspondent kind,
speech surrounded me from birth,
& the weaving of what came to hand
as mouth, was I
Here & Now
to be the center always
or some form
Those two lights more recognizable, for who
lower than the others was drawn on to discover
I know are houses
because the hill, what drew wonder
invisible, they stand on, from its contents that
stands in memory, grew wonderful so held,
saving me from what I see. such joy’s its own reward
that has within its
dynamism the demand
to tell of it, & be
A Nest what it can’t understand.
The first nest
discovered in a hedge
containing eggs
was wonderful
108 109
The Lyre Bird II : Pond
The lyre bird
amid the eucalyptus
listening for every sound he hears
to trip him into sound he makes.
He has no call or song A Diction
his own. He imitates. Each time
he utters something chances are
it is his soul that speaks. Keep all my actions cool O Muse,
don’t let me use a word
I wouldn’t use.
“Few of the passengers even glance at the sights on the route, for they are
Born again predominantly Romans on humdrum errands. Every day they pass — &
ignore —romantic ruins, historic & religious shrines, & architectural gems
that thrill tourists by the millions”
Let me be born again. Let me
literally be spirited “If our experience is destroyed, our behavior will be destructive”
back within my mother who
equally miraculously “Bion relates the origin of thought to the experience of no-breast”
let be live as once she was,
with me inside her belly. Let “Whenever they need a tall blonde” she comments “I stand a chance. . . .
me decide just where & when What producer has enough imagination or courage to cast a film in which
& in what set of circumstances I the wife is much taller than her husband? . . . I was impressed with him
shall this time choose to enter, . . . because he was taller than I – there’s that height thing again . . .” Vital
let me think. measurements: 39-26-38 . . . who, after 10 years in show biz, “still can’t get
anyone to consider me as anything but a sex object”.
One sees for miles
& 20-20 vision in this light discloses
detail — leaves on those eucalyptus trees
for instance —
the skin of loins & legs can’t see
110 111
the substance that supports & presses It means, before everything else, memory. Memory may lack amplitude;
& caresses it — it may embrace only a feeble part of the past; it may retain only what is
just happening; but memory is there, or there is no consciousness. A
as above, consciousness unable to conserve its past, forgetting itself unceasingly, would
so below. be one perishing & having to be re-born at each moment: & what is this but
unconsciousness? But all consciousness is also anticipation of the future.
Why not, since we do at the pond, go naked in our homes. His tone was To retain what no longer is, to anticipate what as yet is not, — these are its
reasonable – i.e., slightly querulous. The silent halls of Context. primary functions. Consciousness is the hyphen.”
One couple we know were hosts to another, who during several weeks “For while they thought they were unseen in their secret sins, they were
persistently came naked to the breakfast table, though it would have been as sundered one from another by a dark curtain of forgetfulness, stricken with
easy to dress before as after that meal. Did they pretend to themselves that terrible awe, & sore troubled by spectral forms.”
their behavior did not in fact constitute a message? As it might do, to close the
door when you’re undressing or getting dressed. “Oh Children! The hour has struck by the clock Dont mean shit to him”
We know what mutual nakedness has meant. We may not be sure what we “She is the only one who places her hands over the priest’s on the chalice, not
want it to mean, except that it be something other than before. There was a self-conscious about physical contact, wholly intent on the sacrament”
word, reason: it would find a life with us, naked in our contexts.
“With these things it is just as it is when one enters water. One can tell for
From a little distance, it’s a wise father knows his own son, among the throng oneself whether it’s warm or it’s cold. Likewise a person must convince oneself
by the pond. of these experiences, then only are they real”.
Bios/Bias: to-be-alive. As Rimbaud said, We are all slopes. “They have been seen occasionally, on the damp, freshly-manured ground in
a nursery garden whenever one stamped on the soil, & in muddy ditches or in
“The people who had got off the trucks had to undress. I well remember a ponds when one stirred the waters in them.
girl, slim & with black hair, who, as she passed close to me, pointed to herself They resemble
& said: Twenty-three years old.” tiny flames, about 1/2 inch to 5 inches high & not more than 2 inches broad.
Sometimes they are right on the ground, at other times they float about 4
One thinks of nakedness as something one is bound to attend to. And so one inches above it. That they dance about is apparently not true. What really
does, there, but not constantly: the human being will not be stared at. Besides, happens is that they go out suddenly while another flame arises quite near, &
the entire hill, with its sky, wants one’s attention too. And nakedness, attended this probably accounts for the impression of rapid movement. Occasionally
from, is a healing ritual. The sky is naked too. Thus it encloses also the hawks they are blown along by the wind a few feet before they become extinguished.
we watch, & it is no longer necessary to shoot them in order to bring motion
from an alien world into one’s own. In many cases when one puts one’s hand in the little flame, no heat is to be
felt; dry reeds do not catch fire.
“When we speak of mind we mean, above everything else, consciousness.
112 113
Generally there is no smell, occasionally a faint smell of sulphur. time & again it
returns, by its torn as though your patience
What do these mysterious flames consist of? Nobody has yet succeeded in wing identifiable – were a lesson —
collecting the gas that takes fire. Such gases can arise by the decomposition of but how to think
rotting substances. the worry over readers –
must be you patient, or
Dancing like tiny flames over the churchyard, or enticing travelers into the one place where it feeds its opposite, the wings
morass.” blur as you focus
The both of us
“No, it is not an optical illusion, nor a contrast phenomenon.
so in One never shall
(i) survey the whole lawn, & note how the light increases near your shadow. in this discover him self
(ii) take a few steps: you will see the glow of light go with you, & places where perusal here & now
the light was not particularly bright become illuminated as your shadow of potential
approaches. unless an
(iii) compare your shadow with that of other people; you will see the elsewhere have
Heiligenschein surrounding only your own head. This may lead you to Filled with declared its
philosophize! this possibility
of the instant whereabouts
When Benvenuto Cellini noticed it, he thought the shimmer of light was a next to this demanding one
sign of his own genius!” attend, & here
Wings raising must takes care
contain implicitly now of itself,
the movement attended from
III : The White Tailed Kite consequent
I will, I won’t —
The penis discover Nailed to the invisible a kind of nothingness
straining what it needs it cannot I guess, although I know
with the same flutter just to
attention flutter it’s air, seeing
Never saw it catch how it buffets you
a single thing in Time & again I by your adjustments
Such is its vantage, this field – yet watched, as though you
how can it help but came to tell me something, in the face or
114 115
force of it, At last! motion — it leads
supports you there & these visits & Make it of metal — on, to something else,
these visitations come it doesn’t eat what it to eat, as it was meant
thus you hover to roost – your white soars over, but
& will have to disintegrates
plunge through flash, if edged with Kite meant
black – & all what can’t be borne greed, you eat,
& into it, falls into place again or previous
to verify at the edge of that of your kind, were
your hope Wanting the activity in words — thought to eat,
intrusion – as you want yours — how else
If the field were again — the welcome could the young of either too avariciously –
more abundant, or could be death’s — men’s judgment,
your kind less so, you’ve got to be kind, begin to live — the creature that is capable
I mean delight, a simple of falling back, going
still you’d have to hover — my habit — nothing (complicated) launching into slack, inventing the absurd
that’s what you are, holds you up —
a harrier, it’s on such you flutter,
on & off — no, on
whatever the conditions that
permit your presence, A Period
this side death Maybe you’re exhausted,
in an agony of hunger
hanging there, pinioned to The spade Step or Gaze lived close
Now gone, yet yourself, & the invisible unearths them across the gully from her
what you pointed to every time, think how
Your life — I childhood home — how
in me cannot save — the whole curved the cord connecting
stirs in this registers county underneath its here to everywhere,
a wonder, here — skin must swarm with them,
field, as an attention how, dense, this
focusses, & thus is or I hang how interpreting that medium has proved
agonized & dumb, dream’ll demonstrate most fruitful, then say,
focussed, agonized, I mean, — just thought that Freud to Olduvai.
here if dumb
Astarte or A
116 117
The imagination the only way to fly, how alien you are,
seizes on whitened with yourself, familiar
some further or your determination The thing about attention as my mind
series of itself to be absent from that site, as Bergson said of consciousness
is waiting for the instant
which, to be as all before you sings always coming from the long gone The FM undercurrent
most fully, it’ll — yet is the first itself as I’m in this place
try to let a creature of your will alone, into birth — there are other modes of alone without the strength
fill with itself — a bird has led mine home being to joy in solitude
meditation knows
the first itself is, but poetry knows today, just then
the next itself is In the bisected brain itself in time disclosed attending to an ad,
that entity that hovers a book I read this winter taken with the tone,
within range of one’s I read of how the head how he isn’t able,
can be split open carefully If all I’ve been among
senses, causing distance has shaped my mind if he wants to sell,
instantly to radiate so that the right sometimes it’s machinery to sound as though he
as the touch of one side doesn’t fathom that races, gears takes it seriously —
one loves — what the left side finds, all such intentions these days
unless one side can focus unable to engage —
the imagination being or mind made such machines verge on this in language,
this phrase one learns first knowing them — either we
to fit to one’s on some facet of the world but you are something else have to laugh or
imagination, listening in such a way the other the propagandist does —
reads cues from the body’s
posture given in I couldn’t make, but once I found a letter
to others in we come from the same like from Whitman’s God
their use, such focussing — craftsman, as people used to think, dropped on the street
abuse, of it, the throat I felt the truth of this who want to find a cause & spent an evening
aching, thus the tongue without conducting such experiments
but the passage How else should words figuring it out —
flutters & the lips that come to me create not to mention diaries
distinguishing set so in another discourse you here, begun read illicitly, for instance
say wings, say held me with the hope before I understood Leslie P’s
things, the risk its author’d be brought to
recognize its grounds what I had recognized,
118 119
Did that wing mend tells me the tale so I’m enabled
or are you “your” the lady Emerson that spirit has to hear —
own child — became to hover & invoke
is virgin strobe that I these other images,
the fledgling of last summer shall be a bird to make a tale
grown –— a fence precisely as it’s spoken
has grown between this house Today you chased that says she is
crows from your this bird, that shows
& the meadow I call yours — cypress tip how you are, its shadow
two further houses built but not as ghost
along this slope last winter — I guess it’s says it or haunts, wavering
nesting time where grasses
as a child, a word conveying but how to say again in a different shake the wind
ice & snow — snow instance the same
fell one day up here difficulty, how to say again
Looks like we can’t It is revealed
this winter, most unusually — stay in this place through the agency of miracle
but wet it was, another year, Father wrote me this poem has you there
& wet & wind inform it, next spring Mother loved the birds —
I can’t conjure her, so that no other
& wing’s a rime, thought thinks, Presence
a question i.e. about time, my wife & I had forgotten that may descend from Heaven —
that’s always here, as I am won’t get to watch you & many other facts
so, as if we’d her presence bore — yet he ascended so
This beating is enabled by the Crucifixion
about the pace died, perhaps we shall have, she refuses that I may read as disbelief —
my eyes & so much left to even to appear
think, & such sights in dreams — or doubt, the horizontal
when hunger occupies left to — you that means all that our earth
me oscillate what force holds possible, & ties our hands
& speech are so I can not harness
neat, no excess anything hastens her away to contravene the Heavenward —
— flew right by the house yet language speaks of the
Almost March again who was my world miraculous, & forms
with intermittent & listener —
rain — My soul
120 121
Now more of a meadow, less of a skyward identity. I saw Jesus walking in the
meadows of Heaven, sometimes it was Paradise. Little children — such as
then I saw, though I did not need to place myself among them — gathered
where He went. Thinking back, there were a few trees, tall grasses, he wore
those flowing cloudy robes. . . . It will not come clear. It did not need to
come clear. I was there. I did not need to place myself there. If I had thought
what name to give my feeling at this scene, it might have been Exuberance,
Tranquility, Assurance. In the movie to be made of Tolkein’s Hobbit, — but
it is our Hobbit now, — how will hobbits appear? I know very well what one
is, although I can’t for the life of me describe one in detail. Or, in detail, sure,
but one? As the voice speaking of Jesus fell away, as those flakes of stone from
about the form emerging.
Where Christ’s significance is thought to be the plotting of the individual life
at crisis amid informing actuality, unquote, a small shadow hovers on & above
the vision, hungry for definite shape.
122 123
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS from TIGHT CORNERS & WHAT’S AROUND THEM
from Tight Corners & What’s Around Them They Are Eyes
They arise
intent on us
& their intent’s
that we do good,
Angling
thus, to this end,
by being small,
O such themes — equalities! O divine average! they make us spacious
Walt Whitman, “Starting from Paumanok” so that we know scope,
Circular motion symbolizes faultless activity. & are circular & flat
Laurence Binyon, his final footnote to his to make us know
translation of The Divine Comedy how round & tall we are,
like wells, we are to lean into
Around an appearance, one common model, we grow up many.
Charles Olson, “The Kingfishers” to drink, & dip up
water for our brothers
No man shall be an idiot for purely exterior reasons. & our sisters too —
Robert Creeley, “The Rites” they shine
To know the future would be the death of our souls. not alone to say
Karl Jaspers, Origin & Goal of History Let your gleam be revealed
but to remind us of the darkness
It’s becoming plainer every day that Breton’s “ future resolution of the each encloses —
states of dream and reality” is no longer just around the corner.
John Ashbery aren’t they enormous also
to help us in our knowing
Came, came. of ant or bee or
Came a word, came, cell of our own body,
came through the night,
wanted to glow, wanted to glow. & to warn us
Paul Celan, “Engführung” we can be mistaken,
& more than one can count
124 125
or even see, because was a nuisance, for he lived in a house, a hateful thing upon the grandeur of
the earth’s aloneness — a lonesome creature grand in its self-loathing, craving
if a body lose release to some simpler time, when emptiness was to be filled, not treasured
awareness of its weight as a no-man’s-land to keep anguish homeless. Perhaps only the vastness of the
among the billions of its kind prospect encouraged such abstraction. If he looked in front of him, climbing,
its life will waste— he saw only innumerable blades of grass & a lot of grasshoppers.
& they are blind
to remind us
each is
singular, Under Fluorescent Lights
(after Fantasia of the Unconscious)
& to insist, You must
use your mind to make believe
the stories of the real you tell Under fluorescent lights the voice is pitched high, starting from the larynx
are true, & to that end & resonating thinly in the maxillary sinoid cavities. By candlelight, the
conditions otherwise unaltered, the voice is pitched considerably lower, rising
they constellate. from the diaphragm & resonating in the upper chest, the region of the great
plexus of sympathetic feeling. The content of what’s said is more kindly,
painful to hear perhaps but spoken from the heart, sans the insincerities that
so often shrill out of the cheeks & nose.
For San Antonio Estero Sunlight, where the body of the speaker’s exposed to its warmth also,
will locate the voice deep in the diaphragm, lulling the thoracic ganglion,
focussing sensation in the, solar, plexus. An animal sureness of relaxation
Such scenery wasn’t always thought appealing. They found it lovely because it informs our speech.
looked like pictures they had been told were so? As for the exercise, that could
be had on any city block. The developers had already blazed a road over the But today clouds beyond our volition make that impossible. However, anyone
hills to this valley. How lone it was, the estuary birds & a few sheep the only can light a candle or flick a switch, giving the other great truths their location.
moving things beside themselves. It spoke to his soul. When would his soul
fill up with houses, & catch up with the world he was born into. He watched
the contractor’s truck moving down the dirt road across the river. He hated
whatever was driving it. He wanted the whole earth to return to the condition
of this valley. His soul was filled with vast tracts of houses & demanded
purgation. He thought how, as a boy, only a few kids in any place had come in
close, the rest a background music, unavoidable nuisances, or threats. He too
126 127
Sir Bernard Said Devising means to penetrate this dust
The light & radio waves by which we make our study
Set out many million years ago At present
Sir Bernard said
We are happy to join in The limit of our observations
In this new era Is our information
Several thousand million years behind
Initiating observations
That would not be possible The conditions which existed then
But for political & milit’ry divisions Are crucially important to the question
What is our universe’s origin
Forcing governments to an expenditure
That never would be borne What shall it become You’ll understand
As a budget for fundamental scientific work alone That those who seek this knowledge
Seize any prospects of surmounting
The successes of the USSR in this work
The single-minded purpose The hindrances of our environment
Carried through with human welfare taking second place With a particular passion Today
The radio went on The air’s alive
The direct continuous communication
Between the Council of Ministers & the senior Academicians With a new expectancy & hope
Determines that no human frailities or vacillations Because our instruments may be Reaching so far out
In space that soon we may
Shall interfere with this unity of purpose
Unparalleled in Western life Be able to speak with greater confidence
He said Oort & his staff This in the Low Countries He said In a billion years the universe
Will look to us
Produced results of almost unbelievable
Detail & elegance describing parts To us Much as it does now
Parts of the Milky Way which man will never see You will appreciate that my own life
Determines a particular outlook
Clouds of interstellar dust obscure the view from telescopes
It is charact’ristic of man’s skill
That today we have partially restored our ego
128 129
The Protestant Poem Ultimately we can never know all we imply
In what we say But this ideal
The lifemaster’s an ideal human being Human This lifemaster
He reveals the path one has to follow Instructs by acts of a nonverbal character also
He takes one’s life into his keeping Actions speak as loud as words or louder
A sentence shows the words the way to go This might mean they shout
Although a sentence needs the help of words As if in triumph at one’s recognition
It holds their sense within its keeping That the path one has to follow
The first sentences we learn we learn as wholes Through this kaleidoscopic world
Most likely when we’re in our parents’ keeping Was revealed to one by them
Then as we grow they’re built up out of parts The subject of that sentence
But a sentence is imperfect That opens with a shout
In what sense is a sentence so Is difficult to find but anyone
In the sense that language is Might find oneself the object
Doubly indeterminate We must rely both on This is a peril of the language
Its formalism Parenthesis He must use to tell me of his lifemaster
For words are shorthand Words make a kind of code This ideal human being
Words are akin to LCDs Who must use language too
We must rely on them to speak Thus Though not without corroboration
Close the parenthesis two lines above A way of life acts as a demonstration
We must rely as well upon our own Actions constitute a language of their own
Continued reconsideration We can read meaning in a person’s every deed
Of how this formalism has a bearing on our own Each silence immobile if he be amid our flux
Experience Just as since our knowledge And since the world like a kaleidoscope
Is ultimately tacit we can never say A huge kaleidoscope
All that we know just so And one one cannot step out of to shake
Since the character of meaning’s also tacit So much for simile never
130 131
Can repeat a previous pattern absolutely
We can achieve consistency ¬
She was urging him to seize the day, to see his hour had come, there
Only by identifying manifestly different situations would be no second chance, he would forever be a weak creature if
In respect of some particular and this he didn’t stand on his own two feet. She leaned on him as she spoke,
Requires our judgment but then too he was half-supported by her. Now her husband was
tugging at her sleeve, saying just a minute. The man, startled, said
Our personal decision Whose minute.
We are persons This necessitates a series
Never-ending of each person’s judgments ¬
Faceless Fussduck put away his dry revolver. The closet was wet.
To judge implies that one can be mistaken
You could be wrong I might Or he or she ¬
That possibility is always present What worried him was, that he would not for long be able to put
up with the ways life would be. Appealing as he found a number of
Unless one is an ideal human being people, not one but turned out discomfortingly weird in one way
A lifemaster who’ll reveal to his disciple or another — what was it, as though some vast chord of madness
That the disciple’s judged correctly had been struck on some unimaginable piano, & each were a wire,
reverberating. Not that he couldn’t see it with some clarity — a
The disciple who must judge he’s found the one darkwood upright floating somewhere between Mars & Venus, a
Who will reveal to him man in tails playing it, his patent-leather pumps at its pedals. But
That he has judged correctly enough of facts. Why give so much of our belief to that which can
be proven to be true. It was not his faith that was in question. He
(some of this language comes from Michael addressed himself once more to the visitor, & agreed that there
Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge) seemed little likelihood of physical death destroying the essential
character of the deceased. Then he asked him, if he liked piano
music.
¬
She asked him how he felt about their relationship. When the light’s
out in your fridge, how do you know if the door’s open. Speech is a
Tight Corners relief at such times. He said the first thing that came into his head.
Then he tried to follow where it led. That was how they’d met.
Apparently it led to the refrigerator. Apparently there was nothing
¬ she wanted to eat right then.
Concepts protect us from experience. So she had conceived.
132 133
¬
She had fucked him over he said. Faceless Fussduck slapped him ¬
on the back for the second time. He had begun to duck & the blow It had been a wonderful zoo, but those in charge were afraid that the
caught him behind the ear, clouding his thought. Hold still, he was repercussion from the bombs might blast open the cages, resulting
ordered, I can explain it all, his advisor added. The dishes, furniture in the animals’ finding themselves loose.
& books had been divided up before he got home. He had fallen into
the hands of a Terrible mother. ¬
In the square facing the House & Westminster Abbey there was a
¬ huge statue of Abraham Lincoln. It was comforting to see the strong
She gave him sound advice — now he knew, when he wanted to be face of Lincoln there that morning. Probably he understood why
himself, who to stay away from. the Germans had bombed the House of Commons & Westminster
Abbey.
¬
But what is to stop them, it might be asked, from spending their ¬
whole lives lying about like the beasts in the field or the ladies in the Contemplating what had to be taken apart & erected, he sensed the
pornographic stories, perpetually ready to receive the advanes made nearness to despair. If only he were to make the materials somehow
upon them. The answer is — nothing. bigger, — stretched so that fewer of them would suffice. But on that
rack would their information lose integrity. On that rack he himself
¬ would confess to anything, just to be done with it. What was needed
The scenario was rehearsed for a month in a stage-set replica of the was to keep the materials intact, stretching, instead, the edifice, so
objective on the Florida Gulf Coast. When we realized there was that it would have to contain more space than he’d supposed. Again,
no-one in the compound, it was like hollering in an empty room, though, time itself could be stretched, that is, its integrity could
I had the most horrible feeling of my life. All the courage, the long be preserved, for in stretching it he meant only that the project
training, the perfectly executed mission, had come to naught. The should be longer. It could not be cut off by death because with each
Secretary of Defense was moved to declare the Son Tay affair a act of dismantling & reconstruction the whole assumed, again, a
successfully completed operation. final shape. So, then — it looked like everything was fine after all
which was a relief because it was getting very late & he was mainly
4 for the Battle of Britain concerned with the evasion of despair.
¬
Lord Astor had said that London could take it. ¬
When irritated, he may form an hypothesis. He scratches ener-
¬ getically, but it takes time & requires a surface. On this the blister is
In about 6 hours I’m going to drop these, Kenney said. Do you want raised. Luckily, when it breaks scar tissue forms, as if in answer to
to send a message to anyone in Germany. Sure, I told him, & I took the real possibility of infection from without. When the scab drops
out a pencil & wrote on the bright yellow side of one, Love & kisses. off, the bacteria are still present, but the mosquitoes come & go,
Under that I signed my name. consuming & producing, laid & hatched in the swamp of the soul.
134 135
He was of an irritable nature before he’d encountered their similes. The 4 young rock musicians, hoping to scale the Beetling cliffs, so to
speak, contrive to be filmed chasing birds through swinging London.
¬ The movie idles with the Id, ergo the Egoism is exaggerated, while
Their necks had not been gradually elongating; their lips had not the conception is Super. Now the girls have hopped on a bus, then
grown harder, nor more prominent; their legs & feet were not steal a car you idiots. Take advantage of them. It’s only a fuckin flick.
daily altering their shape; their hair was not beginning to resemble
feathery stubs; thus you would think it obvious that these were not ¬
ostriches but people. Think of the truth. Think about poetry. Imagine a number. Double
it. Add too. Halve what now you have. Surrender the figure you first
¬ thought of & your answer’s won.
Because it’s small, relatively inexpensive & easily introduced into a
room, it may serve as a model to demonstrate the universe. If a pin is ¬
inserted into this integument, a sudden deflation will occur. Now it had been done crooked & would have to be done all over
again. Now it had been done crooked & would have to be done all
¬ over again. Now it had been done crooked & would have to be done
As he walked by, for the umpteenth time, the dogs started their all over again.
barking. It would take a Pavlov to teach them any different. Their
heads could be removed from their bodies & someone else could do ¬
the barking. Plus ce change, plus le meme chose, & he’s sure nothing has changed
here.
¬
I wanted to worship you. I wanted to send you on ahead. I wanted to ¬
send you on a head on a platter. Along with the phone they had installed a device to allow them to
turn down the bell. Should it be used, no matter how urgent or
¬ trivial the message, it would not get through, because they wouldn’t
Having thinking as my inferior function, I fell under the sway of hear the signal that preceded it. It would only be as though they
Jung’s “Psychological Types.” were out of the house, or in a coma, or dead. When they were dead
news, no matter how alarming, would no longer concern them. But
¬ they were not yet dead, & so could move from place to place, raise
We can send someone in your place, they assured him. Great, & their arms, bend the fingers, appose the thumbs, & switch it off or
who was it. You, they replied. on.
¬ ¬
I had to fill out the form in duplicate. I didn’t. I didn’t. He had gotten ahold of one of the oldest of philosophical contro-
versies. Or had it gotten ahold of him. Without further ado he
¬ started in to write. Which was the primary impulse.
136 137
¬ You think that force from outer space
Her misery was real & to do with the fear that others would To some extent determines human fate
manipulate her. When she first came to Free House, she wasn’t at all And by studying the lore
sure she trusted the inmates. But shortly she found they would give
her what she wanted, & she waited on those above her without fear By applying one’s mind to the records
or favor. Human beings have been keeping down the years
Each in his own time & place Own language
¬
I’m half-woman myself. My mother was one. My father also had a Each in the year that that recorder was alive
mother. But was she any more to be trusted than my own? Both Moving among his or her own kind
were of mixed blood. Men & women will try by all means possible to One can read how forces such as these
cope with its insistence that its mixing continue, even to the betrayal
of their sexuality. Influence behavior
So that a system one believes in operates
¬ Assuring us both by & of its constancy
Were these people really all walking around with bags over their
heads? When you start to doubt your own skepticism, look out!
It’s an attractive proposition
Not easy to discount
One can laugh at it but will it go away
Watchers Of The Skies A system of belief that has persisted as it has
Why shouldn’t there be something to it
The moon pulls at the oceans & the land
So you think there may be something to astrology
That human life to some degree or other We know the sun is source of all
Must be influenced by planets & by stars Our all How like these are to a planet & a star
How small they are compared to most
Though not completely
A range remains Of course they’re relatively close
A range for human action originating in oneself Humans have imagined them as wife & husband
Sun & daughter Relatively
Inspired by others probably
In response to other humans I expect Each is close to us as a husband or a wife
One way or another Relative to men & women who aren’t cohabiting with one
138 139
Or won’t Or can’t Or haven’t for a while Olbers took the next step
Using the ephemeris of Gauss
Desire can see the outlines of the furthest mountain
But love is blind On March 28 1802 Not too far from Ceres
One sees the Earth with fresh eyes from the moon In his line of sight
A second planet in the gap
But few can have that chance
But from the furthest mountain roundabout The so-called gap
Our valley is disclosed anew Between Jupiter & Mars
Olbers wrote to Bode
Why couldn’t there be something to it Did Pallas & Ceres always travel in their current orbits
Perhaps it isn’t true It’s valid though In peaceful proximation
Given the initial premise Or are both debris of a former & a larger planet
Given that some heavenly body Which exploded Huth
Apparently remote Thought not His mind was quite made up
Could in a sense be thought to show an interest Maybe he was right I can’t decide
Who wouldn’t fall to plotting These tiny planets are as old as all the others
Become familiar with its course The matter they are formed of
Its customary haunts Already in its power Coagulated Forming many such small spheres
Though we don’t have all the facts in yet
Not all the counters have revealed themselves Not much time passed Relatively speaking
We must make do with what we’ve got Thus far Before astronomers began to tire of their profusion
Said one who has remained anonymous
Once upon a time In fact
Once upon a New Years Eve The eve of 1800 Nonetheless we know his thoughts on this
Piazzi saw a star It was quite small One planetoid was a sensation
A dozen fine
Not catalogued His heart leapt up
In the constellation Taurus Fifty were still interesting
He called it Ceres Today I call them Vermin of the skies
Their number now is estimated to be 30,000
Though it was the first
140 141
Or more than 30,000 And always were
We do not find them mentioned
In the ancients Their lore doesn’t exist Since at least 100 million years ago
About the time that flowers appeared on Earth
Except in recent books Flowers Which Darwin called an abominable mystery
Take Hermes for example
Astronomers could not give absolute assurance They spread so fast
Appeared so suddenly
That a body such as Hermes might not run into the Earth Like the human beings their appearance is associated with
In December 1937 Hermes passed the Earth
At a distance somewhat under 500,000 miles
No doubt these asteroids or planetoids
This was not the closest that it could have come Shed their rays upon our Earth
It could have come as close as 220,000 Exerted & exert their subtle influences
Closer than the moon
Hundreds of astronomers will testify to this
Was it trying to tell us something Huh Since 1800
That’s up to us Right now I notice how it didn’t To their influence on human actions
Violate our boundaries In a sense it did
Thought is action of a sort
With what anguish many must have waited And speech Sad not to have a tape
In Hell nor were they out of it An interview with Shakespeare Dante
Until the future came to pass And Hermes guided them
Reading in Italian
Are they to blame It weighs 3000 million tons Thought that doesn’t come to action though Beyond its brain
Tiny for a planetoid But many times the mass Does it leave a trace
Of the object which caused the mile-wide impact crater
Fine indentations on the brainpan possibly
Out in Arizona On cerebella long returned to earth
What object That object whose impact on what’s known as Such is our lot We come back to earth
Arizona
That crater tells us of Writing is an act
Writing makes a kind of record
How to re-write the lore of planetary influence The records our astrology is founded on
Now that the planetoids are here to stay
142 143
These are written records in the main And take us to its heavens
Imperfect though At times the stars Venus Mars gleam through
They leave a gap unfilled At times shine on a pattern
The story of the planetoids Perhaps the truth that they appear to point to
Of their effect on our behavior Is recorded by the watchers
This gap makes a kind of crater Of the postures of the watchers of the skies
What thoughts belong to them
Perhaps a pattern will appear
This present writing springs from them
On A Photograph From Childhood:
But can influence be willed Of My Mother, My Sister, & Me
It’s more a matter of what dreams have they inspired
Since the explosion
Everything happens for the first time ever.
The explosions Hirayama That’s how we recognize it. When we do
Thought there’d been not one but five that’s how come we smile like that
Each causing what already had been called a family & how come I can say
that’s what this picture’s saying:
Because its members moved in similar orbits the Lord, they say, will know his own.
Perhaps a complex of such patterns might be traced
Maybe direct examination of a planetoid These dispositions of the dark & light
in print
Will provide a clue Eros keep faith
Is most likely Willy Ley believes the mind needs for its ease
His book Watchers of the Skies & what we saw then
we see now
Is cited here He means astronomers except for her who held us
But each of us looks up from time to time who has met it
Struck with the beauty Our souls are amplified yet dreams on with her arms around us
assured we’ll be together
It’s hard to stop once again.
Harder to bear sometimes
And then this faculty can rescue us
144 145
I Know marred by the injustice of it all.
I don’t know who to thank.
I know we’ll make love this Wednesday.
I know I’ve often been mistaken.
I know hope springs eternal but
forget how it goes on. The Plot
I know disappointment makes me bitter.
I know why love is said Christmas 6 feet deep.
to make the world go round. Christmas 3 feet wide.
I know other ways to say this. Christmas 6 feet long.
Stuffed with straw.
I know there’s no going back,
no other way to say this.
I know how we’ll caress & this
is how I know.
Tight Corners
After Brecht The truck had nearly struck their car. He had screamed. She had
asked him not to.
Be thankful it’s this dark.
Nobody knows what you’re up to. If he fucked 2 women per night that would come to 730 in a year!
What if they did — But in 20 years that would only make 14600. He decided to retire.
who’s to say it’s wrong. He was too quick at doing figures in his head. Then came the spring.
Then came the fall.
Anything we want to do,
as long as we can find the energy,
we do it. That’s how come The man whose path is blocked by his own frontal bone will forever
it’s getting darker all the time. lose himself in the precious arbitrariness of a particular arrangement
of words. Power to the People, Robert David Cohen. But I don’t
What if some dark night know how to cut sugar-cane.
they do you in. No last moments
146 147
asserted that writing wasn’t the most important thing in life. We
The boy kept shifting the objects on the meal-table, often no more were bound to find ourselves at cross-purposes. He was sitting on
than a fraction of an inch each time. This way no one would get the porch talking, & I am writing this.
hurt, least of all himself. As we watched we saw his reasoning. It
drove the grownups to distraction & they invented an excuse to beat
him. As we watched we saw his reasoning. If I go blind, will you read to me, he asked. He has very clear sight.
He can see a long way. What would you like to hear, she replied.
These were justified margins. Hitherto he’d been trapped between
the other kind. He sighed with relief & a patch of white appeared It all, as he tells us, rests firmly on the edge of oblivion. Living on,
in the dense grey of his face. He grew tense after tense but nothing we will not see his face again. I don’t want to see what I shall never
would erase the blank white columns at either edge of his vision. He again see. That’s why it all has to look permanent. I want to rest. He
was as though chained to them. If this were real life he could bring hasn’t found rest, rest is a sentient occasion. He is permanent. I can
the roof down but as it transpired he was merely booked & printed. alter his significance with every sentence.
These were unjustifiable measures.
Sitting in judgment on one’s judgment. The wind moves by one in
He wondered why they were writing in lines. There are reasons & the grasses. How vague it is. How clear it might be. Who was one
reasons. Some are beneath consideration but some are not above it. addressing. One’s reflectiveness did one credit. Several possibilities
People walk because of their body-structure, while they promenade occurred. One had recently left — someone who wouldn’t allow one
to be seen. He’s reminded of something for which there was a reason: to be who one wanted, but rather, invented a person this someone
he’s reminded of something. wanted one to be. One hoped not to receive another such visit. One
did not like to be alone.
His rhetoric was rich. The cake was richly crammed with raisins,
only nobody much eats christmas cake these days, & that’s their loss. We miss those things you used to make, when? It only seems like
The hilt of the sword was richly studded with jewels. The attic was yesterday.
richly cluttered with junk.
This then was the Zen Center. They had been kind enough to put
Cancel contracts. Explanation follows. Description enclosed. Mess- him up overnight. He examined his cell. He tested the pallet on its
age concludes. Signature illegible. Never delivered. floor. It was hard. He was not naif. He knew it was arranged so as to
make him confront who he really was. He wanted a soft mattress &
one of the Zen-women sent in.
It was delightful weather today. He had brought me his latest book.
We sat on the porch & talked. That is what we were doing then. He
148 149
A poem provides no one answer, but answers arise as one gets down A Right Angle For Literature & Ideology
to it.
A sentence, as the expression of a complete thought, is not natural The novel is full of various anti-people notions which make the
& does not exist in nature. Is not natural & does not exist in nature. reader wonder whether the masses are capable of doing anything
to protect their own interests. One of these notions is that workers
have no scruples & will cross picket lines & cause hardship to their
Love is just around the corner. Any corner obscures one’s view. fellows for the sake of feeding their own families. This writer should
Any corner constitutes one’s view. Even if it’s a tight one — you’re get his nose out of his book & go take a look at what goes on.
fighting for your life. How not to believe it is a right angle, although
any intersection consists of 4 such, facing various directions. Love is
a dense volume. All its pages have corners. Sometimes, as here, only He was a writer, & a popular one. People asked him what they should
words can be the means to turn them. do. He could tell a good story. Once, he’d wanted to make it seem that
the dining-hall had been wrecked. He was very drunk. Carefully, he
thought, he took each chair & table & turned them upside down. In
The voice that came in the trance announced, People are here to the morning, he woke to a satisfying buzz. The dining-hall had been
hide the fact that we exist. It was a hard fact for people to believe, he wrecked.
found, because they didn’t know who was relaying this information.
He was flying at 20,000 feet because he’d boarded a plane at the
The comet is coming. Much happiness will attend this event. Kisses airport. He was flying at 20,000 feet because conditions where he
will mingle blood with blood. Pestilence will spread. Murder & found himself supported such life as he was. He was flying at 20,000
mayhem will rage. And when the gutters of the city run with our feet because he’d been told so several minutes since. What was he
wishes, the comet will have brought them in its train. doing on this plane? He was flying at 17,000 feet.
He had contracted cancer because he had lost the will to live. The As she waded through & then up from the river, more of her skin
one who knew this had not got cancer nor lost the will to live. The became visible with each step. There was nothing remarkable about
first man died. Now nobody could contradict him. it, lovely as it was, but where the legs are joined to the trunk grew
a roughly triangular shock of darkish hair. But the banks were full
of people in a similar condition. The river however flowed between
them.
150 151
Although the thin green stem led up to the flower, the flower opened They sought, on the walls, a quantity of things that were not
wide & 3 layers of rose-colored petals were disclosed. Despite this, there, & ended by seeing them, but no longer knew the dates they
there were sharp projections all down the stem. He was filled with represented. Dates?
wonder, but blood was forming little globes at his fingertips.
The branches grew at a certain angle in relation to the light. The
It was the first creature of its kind to be found on Earth. Nor was trees bent away from the direction of the prevailing winds. He
it at all certain it had kin. It lacked genitalia & was more or less examined his fingers. Between each at the base was a small web from
indescribable. She called it Fluke & kept it under the privy. If you swimming. He brought them up close to his eyes. Now he could no
wanted to look at Fluke, you would also see Willa’s way of caring, longer see them. But between them he could still see the trees. They
& how she set out the dishes that might have been of liquid tar & had a persistent quality. Soon it would be night.
blowing sand in full expectation of her love’s return.
You never met anyone like me & you never will. How else could
you know who I am. Who do you think you are. I’ve met your kind 9 Pieces For 9 Voices Interrupting 1 For None
before.
1
He washed up on a desert island, where he experienced the most
remarkable series of mishaps that somehow kept turning out for the When I take a walk with you
best. He had no time to keep a journal. He was never rescued. I take many 100 steps
then fall flat on my face.
She said if she so desired she could go to any bar & know some one’d This once I’ll tell you why.
take her home & fuck her. But any man who went there couldn’t be
that sure. He might or might not score. That’s the reason men take I am trying to alarm you
up such offers. She wasn’t about to go out to any bar. because I want to harm you.
That clears up a part of it,
An evening like many he had spent, the lamps lit, a fire in the but part remains a mystery:
hearth, darkness at the windows, the moths fluttering at them. A
white hair floated onto the typewriter. What was this utter sense of the way that I restrain myself
reassurance — none of this had ever happened before. & when I know to stop.
152 153
2 4
When I told you I enjoyed it The wind has no voice
I felt disgusted with myself. except a poet fake it,
Truly it disgusted me stoking his fire —
as I was afraid you’d see. but that day when the wind
But I couldn’t bring myself shifted as you shifted
to hurt you openly so the smoke
so I told you it was great was always blowing in your face
in such a way I could be pretty sure I’d gone too far. I hear
you’d find out later if I blow near where you are
differently, & I was right. that where there’s smoke, & so on.
3 5
I am a student from Cambridge University, Something representing an intent
you can tell a stranger occurring where he reads it with
anything, that’s why I love to travel. what one can call his paranoia
Anonymity. Actually because he takes it to be true
I was working on a farm infuses all behavior
having flunked 10th grade. He was — behavior all infuses
the owner of a restaurant. because he takes it to be true
And I believed him. what one can call his paranoia
He would have liked me occurring where he reads it with
anyway. Why, he didn’t say. something representing an intent.
154 155
6 8
If I’d come right out & said it Try as you might to hide it,
you’d have found out where you stood yours is a suspicious nature.
unpleasant as it was So we really had to work to set you up.
but I know a worser torment: Lucky in love, lucky at cards, lucky
so I wrote it out us to have at our disposal
in code with just enough all the secret agencies
by way of clues for you of your experience — lucky
to catch a hint I meant to you, to have enjoyed so much.
do you in. When you force me to confess this But this is it. The way you knew
I’ll go along with you. that it’d end. We’ve given up.
7 9
I got you to kiss me Now you know most all of it,
so’s I could hurt your wife, & us. Just how we suck you
I never liked her. dry. And why
Why should she get to live with you. we fuck with you
Night after night she lies there the way we do. Because
in my proper place — you’re there. But once
how can I do you in you’ve seen through us
when she is in my way our usefulness is at an end.
& I always was aware how you admired me. So long. You’re on your own
Even though you never got inside me. pretending we would like to phone.
156 157
Tight Corners
All the most brilliant periods of history flashed before his eyes as the
sun glinted up off the sea. He was blinded momentarily & alone with
He thought it humanity’s lot for ever to be persuading a huge rock some red & green dots & patches. But something that drummed in
up a mountainside, & at the top it would roll back down the same his ears reassured him. That was the ocean of his dreams.
side, unaided. Those who would disagree with him were at liberty
to remark the beauty of the Alpine meadows, the whiteness of the
Eidelweiss, & the unearthly peace of the pauses in this process, but Beauty is truth, they say. The boys sauntered up the driveway, &
not to deny they had rocks in their heads. as they went they used their sticks to lop the blossoms off the irises
lining it. They were talking about something else.
If the workers were alienated, their so-called betters were doubly
so. The society in its deadly way dragged on & on & nothing could As it fell out, he fell out of the train he chanced to have caught, & by
redeem it short of a spiritual revolution to put men & women in sheer good fortune landed in a passing river. He was fished out by a
touch with their immediate needs, so that what came to hand would couple of picturesque gamekeepers who, unable to believe what their
show one where one’s head was at. Her guru, whose ruminations luck had brought them, realized he meant nothing to them & left
these sentences derive from, had performed one final miracle before him for dead on the bank. Here an occasional heiress revived him
dying, 30 years ago: he’d willed that no decay should disturb his on a mere whim, not knowing what to make of him. Already his will
well-loved form. Now she found herself in Tibet, cutting her guru’s was to make the truth of his life the purely arbitrary.
hair & fingernails.
But expressiveness is a myth: it is only the convention of expres-
An angel stood before him in a vision & told him to catch the next siveness. How cold the real thing can sound.
number 67 bus. An inner voice announced it was time to plant the
lettuce. On the bus he found a penny. This meant he was going to
get money. In the penny a man’s face appeared. He was going to The streets intersected at right angles. You might say they met.
be president. It was time to get off. A sound too high for human He did one time go through a wall, but that was to avoid the traffic
hearing assured him no birds would be flying today. A flock of birds cop. And on each corner, he saw a small semi-circle that meant 90
flew past. This meant war, R,A,W, means war. degrees. When it snows this is no longer visible. Then the man could
have traced his steps.
The unconscious is a station on the Metro. No trains ever stop there.
That’s why the platform is so crowded. Whenever he alighted there, Rosemary is an insidious herb. Its results are quite as predictable as
he found it all attention. Something obscure was always vanishing, those of alcohol. The twiggy stuff is crumbled between the fingers
into the tunnel or out of it. & it doesn’t matter whose, death ensues. There was also the fear of
158 159
others bumping into him. Now they would put their foot into the studied her narrowly for the one clue more he needed. I haven’t been
rosemary bush. fucking Ben if that’s what you think, she said.
Higher intelligences are sending messages not to be thoroughly When she returned home, he studied her for some minutes, covertly,
deciphered until the cataclysmic event they would save us from shall puffing on his meerschaum & with his other hand thrust deep into
occur. They live at the center of the galaxy while human life is on his dressing-gown pocket. His lean, hawklike features were a sight to
the edge. Lower intelligences too are active, & their messages are see. I got my hair done, she told him.
looking for some center.
But now he had a rash on his hawklike penis.
It was in Leo & she was a Leo. It was hot. These men were drawn
to her by the power of that conjunction. Would she give them away
in September? They were getting to be an irritant. She remembered She is sleeping. He raises the pillow & holds it just above her mouth
to hunt for her medication. No-one hereabouts dispensed it. She & nostrils. Such thoughts race through his head as can’t be put into
couldn’t dispense with it. Now she was getting warm. It was under words. People shift uneasily. Who knows what he’ll do next. He’s
the almanac. forgotten his lines.
Everywhere he went he thought of her. Everything he did he did
differently because of her. He could hardly wait for the next time.
One In Five Acts Wasn’t this the doing of the god Amor? Now he had forgotten her
phone number.
When she returned home, nearly 2 hours after the time she’d told 3 people whom she knew were coming up the lane. The sun was just
him to expect her, he was quickly aware of something different setting. Their car stopped at the stop sign. Now, as the wind got up,
about her — some alteration in her accustomed manner so subtle & all the trees began to whisper. One of them knew these people she
so elusive as to be evident only to him, though even he couldn’t put knew elsewhere, where she had lately been, who had the treehouse.
his finger on it quite yet. I’ve been fucking Ben, she said. Now it grew dark. It was all a coincidence.
When she returned home, surely it was at least 2 hours after the Light is a shower of pebbles. Light is a shower of ripples. Light is
time she’d named, he was aware, almost as though he’d expected a sower of parables. Light is a sewer of symbols. Light is right &
it, of some subtle change in her accustomed manner, though only white & might & sight, light has an endless appetite, until it looks
he, her husband of many years, would notice it, he supposed, as he like night.
160 161
I say everything you’re thinking. I have no thoughts of my own.
Her mother was an archetype if ever there was one.
Since poetry wasn’t exactly fun they would make it look like a lot of
The archway dissolved as his eyes went out of focus. Anything sight fun in order to attract more readers of poetry. I have the form right
could do, men would find out how to. here. But poets are evidently as poor at selling as they are at writing
columns. As far as mass circulation’s concerned, this is based on a
faulty hypothesis. One has no choice but to cut corners.
He put his hand on her. He put his hand on her. He was confused.
He is not to be confused with someone else.
The sun’s heat made life possible on earth. The distance between
sun & earth made life possible. There was a lot to write about.
He felt, sometimes apologetically, that he’d had a happy childhood.
Then they told him about the isolation hospital. In 5 minutes his
happy childhood had been wiped out. Now he began to understand There’s always a way out. Everything is. If that’s your trip, that is.
something about the way he was. Why not. Chance rules. God will provide. Luckily. There are many
more.
The 70’s are the 50’s all over. I recall in the 50’s a number of men
who called their wives Mom. And I heard this again lately. Everything that was done was perfect. There was no room for judg-
ment to move. Only a certain blind spot prevented people from dis-
covering this single flaw.
He put his hand to his mouth. He tore at the cuticles with his teeth.
There was always a part that was missing in these descriptions. It
was a hell of a way for 2 men to carry on. When all’s said & done, he could do one of 2 things.
He was a man about medium height, in his middle years, with He proposed that they could agree on one point, namely, no
carefully-bitten fingernails, but his shoes were dusty. The dam has 2 persons can share an identical knowledge of the thoughts &
burst he said. feelings of either one. His companion rejected this proposition. His
companion regarded him suspiciously. Then his companion started
to laugh. He laughed & he laughed. How could they disagree.
There are no spiders on Jupiter. It is not possible to spin webs there.
I used to read the newspaper.
Everyone got what they deserved — everyone.
162 163
The caves were opening in the surface of the earth. Their flash-
lights revealed the walls, the so-thought roof, the surface of the
underground lake. The battery burned out & he turned & kissed her
liver.
He had learned a new chord. Now he could play “Annabel Lee”. No
notes had been added to the piano. Yet there he was, in a kingdom
by the sea. It was E flat minor.
Night found him in a strange place. What was close to him, suddenly
was unfamiliar. There were sounds, nothing distinct. In among the
trees was pitch black, oddly attractive. He looked away to where the
ghost of light was, “up” as we say, & there sure enough were the
stars, disposed as he thought in something like orders. Night had
found him in a strange place.
Everywhere he went he thought of her. 3 people whom she knew
were coming up the lane. He brought them up close to his eyes.
They had a persistent quality, & each was a wire, reverberating.
We can send someone in your place, they assured him. He might or
mightn’t score, & that’s the reason men take up such offers. She had
asked him not to.
He put his hand on her. He examined his fingers. He was
confused. Between each at the base was a small web from women.
Appealing as he found a number of people, not one but turned out
discomfortingly apposed making him feel all thumbs. Wasn’t this
the doing of the god Amor? The closet was wet. What was this utter
sense of reassurance — none of this had ever happened before.
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IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS from SPELLS AND BLESSINGS
from Spells and Blessings will I will
Iam, I
have that right
I’ve heard.
Dictation
Title
At last the gods have left me
free to do
wherever I am moved, Now we have a car we have
to drive to Bolinas
am I forbidden? then whose beaches are known to us
remember to forget, to be images of destination.
if also only by Last night I was in London, in this house
seemingly, where my father was, & spoke
old patterns grave with him. If he failed to listen
others wove in me — there is nothing one can do about it.
abandoned Today I read an ad for a charter trip
& was sad because
where I am I didn’t have $277. For the airlines
right, he is by such possibilities create
wrong to me, distance to sell it to us
yet accomplices will sell us the currency
but in his own through a little grating in the plasticene.
right, right, as day
to me Pacific
over London lies
night, & rightly so, Running My Thumb
what though I take it lightly?
Free to believe Running my thumb over your face
whatever the colors are so delicate there,
166 167
they will be sought convince him they have gone —
then, found, we will attempt
to paint with them, that stops me cold, unless I find
to make them be your face. the tale has been mis-told, the emphasis
by some omitted law been shifted,
how they had to dance, to fetch them up,
& how their dancing was a frenzy
A Spell blent of terror that the ground would give,
& desperate suspicion that the ground would give
nothing, leaving them amid these stones
Dark, because dangerous,
dangerous since new, & how precisely then the others stepped
dwellers underground because of undermine, into their midst, how calming
& the insides of bodies as of objects, the words they had to speak, This gem
& since precious had meant metals, of energy is not a gem, but energy
thus small, because of gold: — yet then they had that gem — or, This is
simply forest for the play of sun & shade
Light because that’s seen, is what you see, but thinking, this meant only
as known, & fair vacancy, they danced, so they kept coming
since beauty is agreed upon,
thus safe, the pun & surface, because light.
implying reasonable,
in the open to be treated with
& small because they are,
the ones they have to lure The Tarot
into the light, into their light,
the light themselves make up, to make it plain
The tarot neither is nor isn’t
— but that the thought is petrified, key to this world’s code,
cemented, cemetery, sticking by the /c/, the cards exist
as if the stones of any city & apprehension uses all its entities
demanding that itself be utterly destroyed, to let its tale be told.
since two of either kind would make one man,
& can, & can
168 169
On All Sides eminently picturable
so servant sight
peeks up or down
On all sides these suddenly important
this first of summer days boundaries
bodies part the air
of their permission of gay
dresses
in clothing that displays grown
to the imagination opaque.
what’s not disclosed to sight
— the hum of human being rises
that no term could fix,
one is surrounded with the flux “Love was once a little boy”
to overflowing
of his nature in She is his mother after all
its counterparts — & so the spears he hurls at her
response are torn from the wild grass.
wants many forms at once
but what will do,
some heavy dance
until one fall with weariness
or leap beyond the trick
attention is —
consent is our protection
but the mind
has closets of old clothes
& so I find
a simulated daydream,
a degraded mode of reasoning
playing with the parts
170 171
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS from CREDENCES OF WINTER
from Credences of Winter And sets an obstacle between.
The Object
Abstract
Years afterward
I cherished a black scarf
My desire precedes me And would show it to close friends
Who am its shadow for the light And say, It once was hers.
Glows from beyond its further side,
I last saw you in April ’55.
The flame to burn this shadow up I found the scarf December ’56,
When I am one with light. Working as a janitor,
And so I live as darkness In a city where you never were.
And would to this end be, A cheap thing, unpleasant to the touch,
Proof Rasping, & thin. Some scent
That that flame flames, that object Persisted, cheap also,
As reminder of the girl,
Interposes, absolutely solid.
I can’t spare breath on happiness A girl, unknown to me.
Nor any of its relatives, description I felt dirty when I handled it.
Desolate, when I lost it.
Of this kind must be distraction. You meant the world to me.
For the god I am the shadow of
Once seared me in that flame,
And sealed my lips. I hurt
To talk. My god Credences of Winter
Must prove my spokesman:
He adores the thing I am; The season has us by the throat.
The flame, the glowing, happy flame,
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IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS from CREDENCES OF WINTER
This must at last be real. I mean less than may appear
To the one who traces back the turnings of my spoor
Winter, now the bitter truth That led him to my fateful corpse.
Drives into mouth & eye The drifting whiteness blinded me.
And shrinks both to mean slits.
What use is summer now — I mean to burrow under it & sleep.
That will never melt this pall whose drifts Who can imagine any other way.
Pile up wherever the wind lists.
I mean to crawl into this nest I built
What breath has anyone to spare Of twigs the summer grew
Against this air it hurts to speak with. And live on what I somehow knew in fall
No, the plants are evidently dead. To tuck away, & trust
We mean to use our wits instead: Winter told me to, & said enough.
I mean to let my coat be turned I sang above the muskeg of the summer,
To winter, to vanish into it. I mean to die.
I mean to fly south out of it, I mean to live in snow,
South of all envy of my memory & wings. To heat myself with ice, to eat
Nothing but such fire,
I mean to swim north into it To sleep wrapped only in the blizzard.
Since winter is the summer of my kind.
My word must be the last.
I mean to get up on my hind legs
On these drifts, to strip the trees How else shall I find peace
Next summer won’t be able to disguise. If winter shaped my soul.
I mean to find another route,
To sail straight for it as if death
Didn’t mean the end, for those who follow.
I dreamt that I
I mean a house of ice
Heated with the blood & breath of friends,
Lit with the tales we tell of enemies, I dreamt some land where no-one
Of other nights, of hunger, that will end. Spoke my language, so it took
More time than I can tell to get across,
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IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS MY POETRY
And in that land, I was immortal. My Poetry
for Bob Perelman
And there it was we met.
You put your hand on mine
And I could speak & sense you My poetry does seem to have a cumulative, haunting effect — one or two
Comprehend. And start to feel poems may not touch you, but a small bookful begins to etch a response,
poems rising in blisters that itch for weeks, poems like ball-bearings turning
I knew what you were saying, on each other, over & over, digging down far enough to find substance, a hard
That we should stay together, core to fill up the hand. It’s through this small square that my poems project
Until I’d learned to follow you themselves, flickering across the consciousness, finally polarizing in the
Completely. And that I did, pure plasma of life. The reader grows impatient, irritated with my distancing
style, coming at him in the rare book format, written under not one but two
I thought. Until one day different kinds of dirty money, & knowing me to be an english teacher.
You led me where,
I knew, we’d hit upon that place “The Protestant Poem”1 & the prose piece “He Was”2 typify my tendency
Set aside for us to live together in to write over-elaborated series of possibilities which become arid & abstract.
It’s possible for even the best current poetry to sink into oblivion without
Forever, where we would work wholly justifying itself through such an absolute renunciation of mediocre
Safe from interruption, to perfect this miracle— success. “The Protestant Poem” & certainly, “He Was,” are not arid, they’re
I woke beside someone like you, great (except maybe, “kaleidoscopic world”). My poetry is “curiouser &
Speaking a kind of english, laughing. curiouser” as it makes a descent into the rabbit-hole where descent becomes
the subject of the poem’s concern: a dazzling dimwittedness that makes sense
of its mackerel-textured absence. A respectful abstinence from knowing what
I’m doing? Therefore, my style seems to have fallen apart, deteriorated in the
three-year interim between books; some kind of decadence has set in; it has
become problematical, not to say impossible, because if it limits itself to the
traditional language & form of a literature it misses the basic truths about
itself, while if it attempts to tell those truths it abolishes itself as literature.
Chiastic sentence: not true, MAKE IT NEW, caps, has always been the case,
it’s what literature means, should mean.
At this point, then, we begin to glimpse what is the profound vocation of
the work of art in a commodity society: not to be a commodity, not to be
consumed, not to be a vacation. Isn’t this the piece talking to itself, hoping
to be overheard, & contradicted. Because, the interest evident in the
construction, rhythm of the sentences, obviates the need for the content.
176 177
(Not to deny the feelings, of course). And I, as you probably do not know, & what moves the piece is that there is no resolution, point of
am a sucker for children in pain. If you allow Cezanne to represent a third equilibrium. Here too, the problematic mode proposed as a strategy
dimension on his canvas, you must allow Landseer his gleam of loyalty in for composition, as such — this whole body of poems is a big jump
the spaniel’s eye. I really don’t think I’m demanding too much. The idea forward for me, in that I’m no longer writing “just poems,” each
that poetry is good for a person & should be choked down like a horse pill is work is somehow myself.
ridiculous.
All night you’ve been stiffed Able to Describe the Verses
upstairs across the bed as if
composing, I plump up your Able to describe the verses more sad each night.
pillows, & measure my tread
in the hall. Off & on I hear you In the night like the two of them between my arms.
snoring & nearby. What else They kissed like tarantulas beneath an infinite sky.
is there? Isn’t this Saturday
morning — isn’t that Alice out She quizzed me, I quizzed her back.
side, in the snow? I stare her As if I had a friend with big fizzy eyes.
down however long it takes. You
get up to relieve yourself & we Able to exactly as I said before.
encounter in the parlor & ask me Thinking that I can’t go on. Feeling lost.
whatever am I up for? This
passes for communication. Ear to immensity’s night, immense with her.
On the other hand my soul turns rocks into paste.
This is a good example of Jay Gutz’s work. Bill Bisset inhabits an entirely
different poetic & spiritual universe, & so does Jay. Like Blake, Bisset is a What does it matter my love can’t guard its shame.
visionary, mystic poet who makes his own rules of poetry as he goes along. The night is starry & she isn’t with me still.
Trying to mount a woman with half a hardon is infinitely more terrifying than
anything you can trot out from Blake. More terrifying? I should read more So much for death. For song with its laws. For laws.
Blake. Malcolm Le Grice, the filmmaker, proposes a distinction in structural My soul is not contented with having lost her someplace.
films between the “compositional” (work = composition) & “problematic”
(= problem, e.g. people who want to write language & not poems, just as As if she were here, I admire her hair suit.
McClure wants to write his body). Bernstein composes using a vocabulary My heart her hair suit, & she isn’t in it.
which at all points (nearly) proposes itself as the other — this vulnerability,
constantly expressed, is a sign of what (why does he insist on it?) — yet “what The mismatched night blanks out the mismatched trees.
I want to call attention to is that there is no natural writing style” which of Our sisters, those who entice, the same backwards as
course is exactly what Barthes was saying in ’53, non? These are the poles forwards.
178 179
every word utterly true, & at one & the same time, utterly flip. Shiny as glass
I don’t know why, that’s certain, perhaps I should ask her. . . . slippery as glass.
My voice grows furry as it blows about her idea.
I don’t like it, for hurting my head, & I mention it only to relate myself to a
The other. Be the Other. Come kiss me like before. particularly productive current in American writing, one associated mostly
Her voice, her clear form. Her infinite pupils. with prose (e.g., W. S. Merwin’s recent narratives, or those of Raymond
Federman & Ronald Sukenick). The hipper among you will be able to identify
Why I don’t know for sure, maybe we’ll discuss some ways. what drugs went into each one of these sad works & god knows, there is hash,
The short tan of love, the large tan of oblivion. speed, coke, opium & alcohol in all of them. Quasimodo was right — Mozart
was right: Bald, oder nie, & Bob’s your uncle. I cannot say the word e, y, e
Why is night like the two of them between my arms: anymore . . . there is no e, y, e — there is only a series of mouths — nothing
my discontented soul with the beauty it has lost. strange about my powers of speech, so many typos that work, sort of.
Although this sea is the ultimate sadness she can cause me,
& , as I told Sean, this is the ultimate paper boat I shall make her. My Typos
I suspect people won’t understand why I think this is language-oriented The long tea high of love
writing, but it certainly is. I’m a “mind” poet rather than a “body” poet, — the tranquil distances
terribly involved with trying to understand my processes. There are too few from m to o in amor soldered
memorable poems. & o says o, don’t stop:
The stars you ask me why o insists on existence
are insatiable holes, we argue, I hold them & a means your life is complete?
Davy lamps. The stars Who can precisely explain
are. The night is o’s moment & a’s fragrance to Rosa
cold, I slurred the word, is
coal, I said, & she heard, the blonde kiss holding, Gold. & persuade her to drop her
inhuman arrogance?
The “insatiable holes” are spaces created by desire; substitutions around a If not her pants?
phonemic center create phrasings & cadences of great intensity as they seek O n, that intercepts what’s past!
to “fill” an erotically-charged context. It was a cold winter, we were out of
coal, she was sitting on a gold mine. Engels writes poems on the disjunction The world is not all that’s lowercase. The environment I most readily take into
between a consciousness doomed to ask ethical questions of a body & natural myself as subject is the feminine, my intense interest in mummy being the
order incapable of giving certain replies; I, on the other hand, am more inner space I most characteristically bring into the writing place. OPACITY
concerned to show the disjunctions inherent in the field of discourse itself. It’s — si, mysterious cohesion /cohesive mysteriousness, no — is the magnet,
like I’ve moved from tight corners to perfect circles. Still so tight. It’s all so what brings anyone into the work of another, the announcement of the new
180 181
within a specific matrix. The matrix of the mature artist is largely determined
& governed by his own works: like in the long-ships, at the war to elude us
he’s waging over the dwellings where we might’v lived
this is the essence, where mine because from his birth, those grooves in the heavens
& the general nightmare mesh. had been manifest as soon as remarked on
& the good bright glint off their wolfram wings
I work in monochrome, & am all attention. What I choose to write “about” Dum dum de dum dum.
is another problem. I constantly delve into confession & what Frank O’Hara
called “personism.” That’s one form of contemporary hubris. So, Birds of the Anyone for “Lili Marlene?” In my poetry the search shows, & so do the seams
West was a birdwatcher’s book I was using. All of it seems to me individual often, but my poetry gains authenticity from its deliberate ruggedness. Bull
& skillful. The constant erasure of signs for presence leaves the poem an shit. Everywhere there is the tension of an incomplete sentence, an ambiguous
interstitial agent in the service of intentionality, & the uncertainties & doubts antecedent, an unnatural act, an illogical causality.
which Keats saw as the essential conditions for poetic creation become the
characteristics of generation in any form. The non-instrumental, which A sentence, as the expression of a
gives instance of what stands for itself & so not a call to revolution or a complete thought, is not natural &
representation of the struggle & how it is peopled, but an instance of it does not exist in nature. Is not
(product, the unalienated or re-integrated itself while still putting off (& natural & does not exist in nature.
on) other myths of “presence” which turn on a misunderstanding of how
language operates & how we operate in it, which is to say no e, y, e, s). The prose pieces are of a deft, dead-pan order, hinting at more than they
state. It’s difficult to say whether this prose makes too much ordinary sense,
The blurb on the book says the usual blurb-things. “David Bromige writes for it is less zany & irritating than Tender Buttons — as if that were some kind
carefully, with pleasure — which is the point.” Well, which is? I am the of discus mark set in 1911 for extra-syntactic competitors. Yet is it teasingly
author of previous books, which is the point. A stunning achievement. Good nonsensical when it is most clipped & aphoristic. One thinks of cummings at
images (“as carefree as a coffin-nail commercial”), & often a good use of his most tricksy in some instances: pixie, pigstye, pistils, stilettos, & e, w, e.
language. “Still there”3 is a remarkably clear, unaffected, beautiful poem. The The disclaimer at the end suddenly opens a double-bind; it HAD happened
poem ceases to be a process of discovery. You go to step on the boardwalk before — the previous page, the previous time.
& it’s rotten. I try to transcend my petty anger & bring you into an area of
engagement under the rule of Poetry. Notes are made along the way toward a But what, then, to make of disclaimers: by what agency are they rendered?
remembered edifice. Even a divine physics cannot make categorical thought- The poem I like best is:
determinations of realities intuitable in the plain, ordinary way; as little as
divine omnipotence can bring it about that elliptic functions should be painted The Sign4
or played on the fiddle. The tone is objective, rendered ironic by contrast with
the monstrous behavior portrayed. What does the “one who knew this” know? A slight, simple poem is slight & simple, & for A. R. Ammons there’s no
It’s about some chick whose husband was at the war. The mind’s always going getting away from that. I’ve been thinking lately about some sort of code of
west. It’s really about the style & aplomb & frame of mind needed to bring it ethics for reviewers. Everywhere the ceremonies of the Phallus are rehearsed,
off questioned & continued. It is that agonizing lust to express with which I can
182 183
personally empathize. My book Threads used a rhetoric which reminded at me & into which I was forced to stare back — whirlpools which gave me
Diane Wakoski of Eshleman’s work, & both of us together brought to her vertigo, &, reeling incessantly, led into the void. A few years ago there was a
mind the language of Michael McClure. Students can learn to write better- fad which entailed going to the laundromat, putting a dime in one of the large
made poems but those poems with their elegant turns of phrase, their vivid dryers, & jumping inside. This works in a short poem. But many of these
imagery, even their conceptual excellence often seem to add up to nothing. poems aren’t short. One is a very long nine pages:
To a wisp of smoke, like the poet Mark Strand, whose work is filled with
beautiful lines, ideas & images & yet seems to add up to a zero. When holes Whoever stood furthest up the trail was master
taste good, we’ll put ‘em in our bread. She kept remembering how easy it had of the trail.
been to read Darker (Mark Strand, Atheneum, 1970, 47 pp.), & how pissed
off she’d been at the poems all the way through, feeling they were hollow, Pitiless duration — I suppose that’s well here I am & it’s the morning & I’ve
& empty & loving the beautiful language & wondering why that beautiful got a day to get through & tomorrow there will be another. And there’ll be a
language didn’t seem beautiful to her the way a Lorca poem would with its lot of dependent clauses & you have to go out & support them. There’s a whole
beautiful language.* But she did not wish to waste any time detracting from struggle in there that breeds murder. My own father was forced to go out &
one poet to praise others, feeling that too much of t hat is done in this nasty commit murder, not once but a number of times. All I ever did was unplug
world. The poet A. W. Purdy was gleeful: some tubes, do. . . . But there is an insistence, almost purely sexual, which
would apportion the poem as a longer event than is popularly conceived in
I have a very low opinion of the Black 1973.
Mountain “method” of writing poems
(which is partly the exclusion of any
other method), & have seen some of Psychoanalysis
David Bromige’s reviews of myself &
others before. Often people fuck merely in order
to keep from having to talk
Either poetry is real, real as, or, as Shelley for one believed, realler than,
life; or it is nothing, a stupid & stupefying occupation for zombies. Freud’s but I don’t remember everything
condensation & displacement are figured here in the poetic tasks: else I said.
Not the cracking of the ashtray on my I have a strong imagination which sometimes interferes with the poem &
skull was the indicator but her becomes distracting. Suddenly, “the sight of this creature/turned them (the
repeated scream, What do I want with a “two” “friends”: twin children of adversity) & they fell to arguing.” It’s the
husband — never once my name. trouble with all museums.
This syntax like algebra seems not unlike that which Hoffmansthal claims for If it sounds as if I’m too loose or sloppy, that is not the case. Example: This
his early lyrics. For me, also, everything disintegrated into parts, those parts burg isn’t big enough for both of us. I just pulled the strings. I’m not the
again into parts; no longer would anything let itself be encompassed by one craftsman George Ellenbogen is, & in some of the poems I appear to display
idea. Single words floated round me; they congealed in e,y,e,s, which stared no craftsmanship whatsoever; nevertheless, at the personal surface I’m one
184 185
of the most appallingly human of the west coast poets, perfectly willing to Ever faithful, ever sure.
reconcile myself to whatever comes along on a given day, hence enjoy this
moment, that moment, no questions asked, no answers needed. No theory & more facts:
today escapes the marketplace. All are put up for choice; all are swallowed.
The writer is the widow of an insight. Slandering Croatia with a false The water o’er the pebbles scarce could run,
esteem. It was the last class-meeting of Eros & Civilization & we were eating And broad old cesspools glitter’d in the sun.
brownies. What can look at itself is not one. Many Europeans & Orientals
speak English far more vividly than those of us for whom it is Mother This is just to say I’ve gained the art & language in which I bring my readers
Tongue. So, one evening, being driven on a winding road by our friend Stella, deeper than any consideration of a personality to the awareness of a living
& narrowly escaping being struck by an oncoming truck, I screamed, she man — hence in reading these recent books of mine one may find oneself in
reprimanded me, an intense awkward silence ensued relieved only when 3 a solitude & a — “Tight Corner,” I might call it — edge or risk of Being that
sentences appeared before me, a prompt sheet passing across the windshield: seems even as it is most mine to be speaking for a depth of one’s own inner
being. Climb bean sort of is substitute destiny. Extremely useful & succinct on
The truck had nearly struck their the problem of writing verses literature. Silence amounts to the same thing,
car. He had screamed. She had recommended for university & large college libraries:
asked him not to.
Sign on Librarian’s Desk
I spoke them aloud & the mood in the car turned on a dime. It could also read REVENGE
“One’s Poetry.” For my poetry is informed by something inside that doesn’t
flinch & won’t budge: I could never have done it alone. The self to write about the products of the
self which the self tries to make as selfless as possible, in order that they
Because a cold rage seizes one at whiles may be seen to come from the true self, by involving it with & invoking it for
To show the bitter old & wrinkled truth contiguous other selves (readers). The constantly shifting perspectives of the
Stripped naked of all vesture that beguiles, sentences. Even a lower limit, speech, & an upper limit, song, leads instanter
to song —
Because it gives some sense of power & passion
In helpless impotence to try to fashion You make me dizzy Miss Lizzie
Our woe in living words, howe’er uncouth.
— & to a speech, where soon enough we get pygmy, tangled, spittle, spread,
I like the way these poems scan; they are tight, rhythmical, colloquial, oblique bobbles, bangles, broads & rich or poor. One does not inherit an audience: one
lyrics. I find it exciting the way the terse English accent breaks through at builds one, a reader at a time. I join these words for four people, some others
times, asserting facts: may overhear them. This air of seeming indifference toward the reader often
succeeds. Join now.
The horned moon to shine by night
Amongst her spangled sisters bright:
For his mercies ay endure, 1. Tight Corners & What’s Around Them, Black Sparrow, Santa Barbara, 1974.
186 187
2. Ibid. Six of One, Half-a-Dozen of the Other
3. Ibid.
4. The Gathering, Sumbooks, Buffalo, 1965. First comes the poem, then comes the prose.
* Possibly she had in mind these lines: — The Sixpenny Opera
We stopped for grits.
Three carbine-carriers came.
The dusk of her kneecaps
& the gorillas in her heavens.
And I entered cunt, Clayton, weeping buckets
her adventure a gentle gazelle, A Defect
in the teahouse of the pizza parlor
came furiously, gnawing on all within reach.
The doctors doubted any cause for it
since birth or even conception
but he finds a way to suffer it,
Couldn’t it have been something
I did? Long ago, some blow struck
for meaning.
“A defect” takes me back to the time I met Freud. The year was 1939, the day,
a Sunday, & my father was taking me for a walk across Hampstead Heath.
This cottage was where John Keats wrote “Ode to a Nightingale,” this patch
of gorse was where Eeyore lost his tail, this pub was where Jack Straw roused
the rabble a scant 600 years before, this small hollow in the crotch of a tree,
filled with rainwater, beside the dark duckpond, was Pooh’s Cup. This was
all too much, I had to run in widening spirals or pee my pants, so he gave
me my head, my foot snagged in a gnarled tree-root & my knees skidded in
the gravel. Someone like my grandfather was bending over me, though at
first I hardly noticed him, for I’d glimpsed my own blood & was howling in
panic Taking out his hankie, he dipped it in Pooh’s Cup, & then applied it to
my wounds. When my father came up he thanked the old man, giving him
a rather stiff grin. Facing my father he said, Not to worry. Then, patting my
head, he added: Later, he vill remember zis differently
188 189
A Final Mission
My father led me away. Ruddy foreigners, he said, when we were out of
earshot, Always shoving in where they’re not wanted. Why don’t they go back
where they came from. When we got back home, my mother removed the Whoever stood furthest up the trail was master
makeshift bandage so she could put iodine on the sensitive places. This isn’t of the trail, which for the most part climbs
one of yours, Harold, she said. No, it belongs to some old alien, he told her, through a beautiful if crowded forest, though the final four or five hundred
You know, the kind with horns, they ought to be suppressed. Throw it away. yards rise
But my mother was too fond of fine linen to worry about its origins. It was above the tree-line, across tricky scree, & end
laundered, & after a decent interval it surfaced in my father’s breast-pocket, at that peak which is also the scarp-edge, a steep
folded so that two neat points poked out. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt &, despite the rumors, inaccessible, drop
him, my mother always said. on one side, the shallow slope on the other, where the wood
grows, that is mainly conifers.
Many years later, l saw a picture of the old man in a book & recognized him To be master
right off. Later yet, when I turned diabetic, I read him, conjecturing my meant to gather all those things the ownership of which
disorder must be psychosomatic in origin. By a curious coincidence, my wife proves masterhood, a tribute
was in hospital, about to have our only son, when I went into the same hospital all other travelers are bound to pay.
pregnant with disease. I was diagnosed by my father-in-law, who said with a Two friends
chuckle, If you must get a chronic condition, this is the best you could have who thought to scorn such enchantments
chosen. Now you’ll have to mind your P’s & Q’s. — I’d long had the habit were walking through this wood one day side by side,
of drinking in the pub with the rabble until closing time & then running they were talking, an old story begun
around town in widening spirals looking for someone to rub iodine into my as they entered the shade, wherein the trees
wounds. It had gotten so I couldn’t recall the next day how I wound up where addressed a pair of wanderers with promises of succour, when
I found myself. Possibly the drinking it was that had knocked out my Isles first one friend then the other heard
of Langerhan, lapping with inaudible sounds on their shores. I was Pooh, & (the branches whisper, as if to himself alone, & suddenly
every cup was mine. a most powerful odor overcame their senses
Now it was high time I grew up & husbanded my resources & fathered what & a woman, naked, broad-hipped & sloping of shoulder, stepped
had been conceived in forethought & furthered my career as an insurance out of a thicket, & beckoned.
adjustor. It was then I sat down & wrote “A Defect.” It took me several hours Now both these men
& when I came out of the trance I realized that the baby was crying, my wife in flight from a band of relatives who happily
was phoning my father-in law, & the room was so full of smoke that I couldn’t were pillaging their homesteads, hoped
see what was on fire. But, with the rhythms of the poem still coursing through in the remotest hollow of the forest to find
my limbs, I was able to stand up, cross to the window & throw it open. The sanctuary in an abandoned mill of which they’d read
flames quickly became visible. yet the sight of this creature
turned them, & they fell to arguing, which of them
first should address himself to her, who stood
190 191
expectantly by. They decided, finally, the softer clutched at him, asking he thought for help, maybe
spoken should, he who had first heard the trees he ran down the main street of his own village, smoke then
murmur, his companion making a joke of it remarking Your mother & not sweat stung his eyes to tears, & the music
saw to it you were raised up with a due respect for he realized now had been with him all along, was folk tunes he’d heard
womanhood. No sooner however was this agreed upon than he, sung about the kitchen, & danced to, Saturdays, the beat
this pleasant man, began to waver, his own heart, reaching the head of the forest
wondering whether the other might not be better for the job, & even
expressing doubt, that he himself had any to see how the other had the lady by one hand
rights in this matter, Perhaps, he chuckled, I’m not white it was as a tree where the bark is stripped back.
really here at all. He was pushed forward though I will stop now, he said to himself, I will
lay myself down in this small bed & when I wake
but when he approached the lady she revealed to him a smell of pancakes & coffee cooking will be shining in the window
she might only yield herself but he had forgotten to open it, to get the fresh air while he slept,
to the master of the trail. The man considered & getting out of the blankets he tripped, his foot
keeping this a secret, he could hurry on ahead tangled in a branch a fallen hemlock farther on had laid across his path
& leave his fellow to a futile wooing. No,
taken so, this opportunity would afford him no joy, he saw, the flowers so he summoned up what breath the altitude allowed, leapt forward, passing
at his feet glazed mottled as tapestry at the mere thought around the couple, taking care not to
so he returned to his friend & together meet their eyes, & scrambled on until the peak was gained, where the trail
they started to race up the trail. First one
then the other gained ground till very shortly both ended. He was so high
lay grimy & soaked with sweat. This was on the near lie could see not only the whole forest, which from here does
bank of a deep creek, across which only (look like one & nothing else, devoid of those confusions
a slim sapling served for a bridge. The man who had addressed the Lady lay previously he’d encountered; but beyond too, way down to the plain
back & closed his eyes, he was seeing her beauty again, then that stayed laid on the plain, where smoke
hearing a noise, sat up & found his friend from the burning villages roiled
on the far bank, had pitched the sapling into the creek in huge cloud, driven by a wind
where it rode like a gigantic snake. There was nothing that lifted the forest music into great chords of solemn
for it but to swim, the current so strong moment, and carried an odor like semen he remembered must be
& hindered as he was by the young tree, drawn after him by the same from the soap-factory in his home-town, itself, then, ablaze. Excited
eddies he must fight, he could think it was actively he called down, that now the woman
following, it took him should come up to him. Now
a good quarter of an hour. she appears to grow smaller with each step
Running on, although she all the while approaches her
he became bewildered, the forest growth seemed to be rooms master, who with bated
filled with men & women, something small belly, waits, his pinions from his gleaming flanks
192 193
stir towards her, twenty yards away she is him a slip of paper. Yes, he said, How did that get there? You wrote it down
tall as a five-year-old girl, till she while I was up the ladder, she replied. But you don’t even know my name, he
reaches his knee, & looking down on her he sees persisted. She told him what his name was, adding, Oh, I know your name
the thick scar tissue over shoulder & buttock, she climbs up his thighs alright. Her smile was radiant, beyond the shadow of a doubt. You’re Libra,
& unbuttoning him, thrusts in her legs cusp of Scorpio, Introverted Intuitive, which is how you know my name is
diminished to the size of testicles, & hangs Helen. See you later.
backwards, her toes hooked
in the asshole he by constricting can cause to raise And it was considerably later than midnight before she arrived. He could have
his darling, held rigid, till her sweet face reflects sworn he’d locked his door but there she was, already in the room with him.
that gleam the sun makes of his metallic fuselage Helen, he’d been musing, hadn’t his friend Sapir mentioned he was having
& together they move out over the forest an affair with a Helen who worked in a bookstore? But he had no time for
edge, where from a height of five hundred feet he can see further reflection. How on earth did you get in here, are you a phenomenon
each husk of each ear on each blade of wild-oat grass of solitude, he cried. A psychic compensation, an hallucination? But the
synchronistic fingers had him by the balls.
his friend & the lady in their brief possession or abandon had
pressed flat, despite the shadow David & Helen met in this manner several times more, & he discovered more
that he casts, by means of his appendage, concerning her prophetic powers. There was the night she read his Tarot &
loving jelly down into, whereat the neighboring trees assured him of imminent sexual disappointment. There was the time she
his friend, who will not appear to accept such gifts, must have taken prophesied that, if he were only to consult his pubic hair, he’d find he had
shelter somewhere under, themselves take flight crabs. And so it was. Then one day, when they hadn’t met for awhile, she
— that the forest, whatever happens, persists called to say she’d be at his place that midnight. What did she do all evening?
is foretold in the pitch I believe you’re ready to be admitted to the next spiral of apprehension, she
those screams assume from the shape of the falling stuff — said down the wire, & in a blinding flash he was. Sapir is very, very fond of
from the whitehot heart of those cones of flame you, David, Helen concluded, And you are not a petty person. I am not a petty
by which all is laid waste. person, David found himself muttering as, at half past midnight, he put on
his coat, turned out his light, locked his door & strode out into the darkened
But do I think “every cup was mine” means drinking simply to throw myself street. Not petty, he was still muttering as the car with the man & woman in
off the scent? It’s true that a man named David Bromige went into a Berkeley it sped past in the direction of his place. There was so little light they could
bookstore one day in 1966 shortly after the break-up of his marriage & was only have seen a man, walking. He knew his friend Sapir, though Greek, was
told by the woman behind the counter to read the Memories, Dreams and naturalized, yet somehow had never registered with the draft-board. I will
Reflections of Carl Jung. Hold the ladder steady while I mount it & I’ll get you stop now, David thought, I will turm him into the draft-board, then I myself
what you need, she told him. As she came down, flushed with her exertion, shall join the USAF, he will be sent to Vietnam & so shall I, & one day I shall
she smiled easily & said, I get a rash if I wear panties. I hope you enjoy it as strafe his unit. Suddenly he was impatient to go home & write, otherwise his
much as I do, & she handed him the book. Why don’t I come over around fantasy, which was growing thick & fast, would overwhelm him. Besides, the
midnight tonight & we’ll talk over what you’ve been able to look at so far. You draft-hoard had been blown up the day before.
don’t know where I live, he stammered. Isn’t this your address? she handed
194 195
He could smell Helen’s perfume, Nuit de Stay-dee, as he let himself in, but
there was no note. There was no-one to interrupt him & so he sat himself blackness, nothing, your seamed
down & wrote too fast for breathlines, & in this manner discovered the face as in a developing fluid coagulates, the lips
obsolescence of that mode, of its pathetic attachment to the authentic, he lift to tell me I have not yet
wrote lines that were units of meaning which anyone could tell exactly how to solved the riddle of the universe.
read aloud, because he or she would be making their own decisions on that.
He wrote the story of the war in Southeast Asia, he wrote the story of War, he The bird in the cage I carry
wrote the story of the Return of the Repressed, of the Homosexual Element has died, you point out. Misled,
in jealousy, he wrote the account of the Sexual Objectification of Woman, he I’d gotten off the elevator at the wrong level. You shrug
wrote Finis to the Philosophy of Godlike Survey. but cast the dies on my behalf. Back
they indicate, to the pit-head, collect
Years later, when he read in Santa Barbara, a woman came up to him at the nothing from the company store, except —
party afterwards & objected to this poem. But in bringing these shadowy
wishes & drives into the light, he urged gently, We don’t advocate them, we I sank zese shafts! Your fierce outburst, at last
interfere with their being acted out. I admit I had these impulses, hut in such to hear that voice — an obscene
way that I gained the control of them a poem be. But you don’t expect my gesture next, old man, brown shapes of continents
husband to understand that, do you? on the skin, over the excited hands, sarcastic,
Ziss far down, ve use
When he gets me home tonight, he’s going to make me get down on my anuzzer kind of bickaxe — the right
hands & knees so he can check out my scar-tissue. Look at him, she hissed, hand, forefinger extended, lightly taps your temple, then
indicating a pleasant-looking man murmuring to himself in a corner, I know quickly, down to the pocket, still . . .
him, right now he’s imagining he’s a B-52. Oh, I can’t stand the sight of him! & what do you come up with but a dollar bill?
Let’s go talk somewhere else — there’s a stairway down the cliff. I can find my I’m to buy a ball-point pen & five
way down there blindfold. blue books at the commissary, this is
becoming ridiculous, a dream, four of them
to wrap my lunchtime apples in, the fifth
turns into a bluebird for my cage.
I’ll ride it out.
Weight Less Than the Shadow You pull your plastic goggles
down, over your eyes, & I
see, just as you turn away, my
We encounter in the lateral
tunnel at great depth, I wear self, indistinctly, reflecting.
in my forehead a Davy lamp, newly acquired, the gift The noon, leaving the “lift” (your term)
in fact of a young lady, casts aches, blindingly. Some small
an intense circle beyond whose rocky confines soft hand clasps mine, or a man’s
196 197
hand merely does she grasp? of inattention, her hip bones flesh.
The coaldust on her sheets.
Maintaining she’ll lead me The mine I’d thought lay hidden, the fumes
away from the pitfalls, her paw however render a whole district, mine.
takes me in a suspect tangent. Her hard mattress. Motionless. The stars
Dazzled still. My other senses would rescue me, my watch are insatiable holes, we argue, I hold them
beats, my heart Davy lamps. The stars
’s an army on the march of ragged & conflicting voices are. The night is
raised in a song they argue in the singing, is it
not my comrades changing shifts, that late already — Cold, I slurred the word, is
coal, I said, & she heard, the blonde kiss holding, Gold.
globules of soil roll under my stumbling
progress, if that’s the word. There Whether “David Bromige” went down those steps in the cliff-face or not,
she (you) says, she “Weight Less than the Shadow” tells of the time I went down a mine. This
laughs, dimly her face swims clear. There, was on a field-trip when I was in high school. Fridays, those boys who chose
not to belong to the para-military group which paraded & manoeuvered on
I brought your silly bird but that day, were considered to have chosen to hr taken on visits to this or that
he wanted out, & so — the grilled institution of historical significance & social moment — The Changing of the
small gate hangs open. Next minute we hear Guard, the sheep-dog trials in Hyde Park, Karl Marx’s grave, a milk-bottling
how good a cook she is. Next plant where each boy was given a bottle of milk for his very own, Madame
Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors, Plato’s Cave, The Royal Observatory at
you, old mole, working right through lunchbreak, under our feet, Greenwich, &, this time, down the mine. My father had been down a mine
knock, once in (Cornwall, in the documentary he was making on tin-miners before
I mean, deep-rooted trees vibrate about me. they all disappeared, & the piece of tin-ore he’d brought home had long sat on
Not Verk, you said, simply my desk, enigmatic with value & pleasing with heft. If I went down a mine it
zuh tunnelss are unendting. How can I confront you, the cage would, I knew, collapse on me, but if my father could probe Mother Earth, I
knew I had to probe that much & farther. Besides, I had no choice. The year
of an absconded trapeze artist, will you be angry? I won’t when I discovered I could cut this class without Mr. Lawrence reporting
descend. Will you shrug merely? I won’t my absence to my parents, the year of Fridays spent underground in Oxford
come again. She is leading me on, to daliaunce, she laughs. I won’t Street movie-houses studying the truth of my Fate at last revealed: how my
budge. But the whistle wife would work in a brothel until I rescued her & took her to Israel where
at the pit-head shrills Arabs would gun us down on the beach; how I would drive a nitro-glycerin
truck over my best friend to win the reward & on the way back to my girl &
till everyone is in the evening elevator down. I’d slept, then France, drunk with success, I would crash down a Venezuelan gorge, to
dried spittle. But the whistle die in flames, a Metro ticket ironic in my stiffening fingers; — in short, the
— the naked lady hears it as music, she has her gift year of true adolescence: was the year that followed this one. This was the year
198 199
when childhood & puberty intermingled in their eternal collage. my helmet on the roof & my light went out.
So I went. It was my custom on these excursions to bring along various items Wherever I felt around, mouths of further tunnels opened. Each, upon
meant to entertain the other boys by irritating to a shadowy line just this side reflection, seemed as likely as the next to get me found — or farther lost. Why
of apoplexy Mr. Lawrence, who should never have had to be a teacher. He did I opt for the narrowest, the one into which my frame barely fit? When I
wanted to be a poet, & he had too much sympathy with our condition to be stumbled out at the other end & found myself back with the group, who were
of any use. I distributed the pin-up magazines borrowed from my father’s waiting to see which came first, me or the cage, I was asked, How did I find
collection, produced my harmonica & accompanied the others in a rendition the right way? I could only say, I had no idea. Yes, said Mr. Lawrence firmly,
of The Working Class/Can Kiss My Arse/I’ve Got A Foreman’s/Job At Last. And that was how you got lost, too.
Mr. Lawrence had been raised in the district for which we were all headed, &
had worked very hard to escape from it. His words stayed with me for years & it was to him I went for advice when
the time came for me to leave school in ignominy & disgrace. There would
Near the pit-head were a few trees, in one of which I found a Pooh’s Cup, be no Oxford for me, unless it was Oxford Street; no Cambridge, except
&, at its foot, some greeny-yellow flowers, odorless; which I’d hardly begun for Cambridge Circus; where would I go, what would I do? With his usual
to gather when Mr. Lawrence found & gathered me. We all crowded into a objectivity, Mr. Lawrence had the answer. Go to America & become a writer.
cage & looked our last at the light of day. This was a coal-mine — & coal, So, when this poem was published in Poetry Chicago & at 50¢/line earned me
Mr. Lawrence asserted, with his customary authority, was Black Gold. It $36.50, I thought to send the check to him as a token of appreciation. A cooler
was the pit & prop of England. These pit-props, our guide, an elderly Swiss, head prevailed. The woman I was by then living with, & who had constantly
told us, were from Scandinavia. The trucks were from the USA & the tracks prevented me from driving nitro-glycerin trucks or taking her to Israel, once
they ran on were made in Germany. The lighting system had been figured more brought me back to earth, pointing out that it was a cold winter, & that
out in France, the blasting had been done by Greeks, while the laborers were we should use the check to buy coal, & with what was left over, some Acapulco
a mixed crew of Italians, Spaniards, Hittites, Poles, Rumanians, Sumerians Gold. A week later, as we sat in front of the fire telling each other, This was
& locals. Some naturally-formed tunnels had always been here; the present the first TV, a news announcer came on & told us Brian Jones had been found
man-made grid used these to some extent, but more often ran athwart them. dead in his pool. And I recalled one more detail of that time down the mine.
The lecture continued, as Mr. Lawrence, to whose head the subterranean As we were about to get back into the bus, a grizzled old miner, one of the
gloom had gone, kept up a running commentary on our guide’s memories of locals, clutched my wrist & said, Sonny, we’ll be here after you’ve gone. I gave
the passage we were in. him my harmonica. That man’s son grew up to be Mick Jagger.
I could take no more. Enclosed places always bring on an attack of my chronic
condition, apotropaism: I ducked into a side tunnel, hunkered down on my
heels, & by the light of my helmet thumbed through the pin-up magazine
I’d kept for myself. None of the women had pubic hair. I corrected this with Lawrence’s Irritations
smudges of coal-dust. One page more, & the hallucination I went in constant
hope of, began: she moved her torso lazily & smiled up at me. Further down
the tunnel, Sonny. Further down the tunnel, I suddenly was lost. I would be He thrives himself
found a miserable corpse, with a dirty picture in my hand. Recoiling, I banged naked to the sungod, knows
200 201
those others in their rubbery ways I cut — leading up to my last piece, concerning the game with the Neasden
mere sunbathers, disintegrate in it — Flashers?
it’s an old truth known here & there he tells, Did I say, we didn’t even have regular goalposts, sometimes? In the match
everyone with Neasden, two piles of coats marked the horizontal limits of the goal; it
becoming Lawrence, among was up to the referee whether the shot was low enough to have passed under
everyone. the imaginary crossbar. Two minutes from the end, we were losing 3-4. Is
narrative bourgeois fantasy? A mirror, the only true Protestant relict? Did
Not to debunk the disjointed nature of existence, but at 11 I won an election Tristan’s shot pass beneath the non-existent bar? We all thought so, but the
as Labor candidate, & at 14 was leading goal-scorer for Cricklewood Rangers mediator said “no.”
a soccer team. How much of writing knocks life out of the accidental, orders
things to make them reasonable! Because my name had to appear in the When I wrote this up, I told the Truth: “Tristan evened the score scant
reports of our games (625 words max.) I wrote for The Kilburn Times, these seconds from the final whistle with a well-gauged, twisting lob.” We had
were signed “D. Mansfield, Club Sec’y.” “Following a deft assist from winger practice, the same day my account appeared. All my teammates thought I
Cece Belle, Bromige drove a daisy-cutter throught the legs of astonished had done wrong. “But you saw for yourselves!” Even Tristan was pissed-off
Harlesden General Post Office goalie Jay Gutz.” “Minutes later, Bromige at me. “But I got your name into print!” No dice. They admitted it had been
again rattled the back of the G.P.O. onion-bag.” That moment when it’s all a goal, but they maintained the ref’s decision is final. I did not agree with this
pivoted & in the balance, in language as in sport! generality. “Humor is humor,” I said, “whether in films or on the stage.” “We
have no time!” they answered, “do what you’re told.”
But chance favors the prepared mind. Cece & I spent hours perfecting these
moves. Came the match, none worked; but I had lucky anatomy. No goalie The scene was in the center of the road; I left it & sat on the curb. This was,
could predict off which part of me the ball would next ricochet. That first as it happened, off to the left, & when 11, in the mock-election held in sixth
goal against Harlesden: Cece put the fetish right to my feet. I shoulda hit it grade, I was up against a Liberal, a Conservative, & a Communist candidate.
first time with my left. But nature favors my right foot; curiously, since I’m Robin Crusoe was the Communist: he knew more political theory than the
left-handed. Which is why I have trouble with knots. Killing the ball with rest of the class put together, including Mr. King, our teacher. But I sensed
my right foot, I stood looking down at the almost perfect sphere, admiring the mood of the nation; later this year a Labor government would displace
once more its handsome paneling. Oh dear! My shoe-strings were untied. Winston in a landslide; I polled 25 votes, Crusoe, two. One of those two was
My teammates were shouting, urging me to a decision. Gutz was creeping mine.
forward, obscuring my range. I let fly with my right foot (by what miracle
of the will brought to action? by what bootstraps self-raised?), but my left
foot was standing on the lace of my right boot. As I fell, my left foot knocked
against the ball & the rest is history. I couldn’t have done it alone.
Only Fair
Well, you couldn’t say all this in The Kilburn Times. Its editor had yet to hear
Rae Armantrout’s “The smallest/distance/inexhaustible.” His prose-model
was ad-copy: “Fall on life’s thorns? Bleed?” Can I blame him for the corners But Lennie said he got it
202 203
so he should get half of it, two years, because my father knew it would make a man of me, I’d been a
some 6 million lire. Only half Boy Scout: although I loathed myself for it, I slowly assimilated the code
was for me to give to you. Later until I forgot where it came from & it thus became part of my nature. I was
I open up the banana in the Wolf Patrol. Our scoutmaster was M. Malson, a recent emigré; he’d
& it’s rotten. codified Baden-Powell’s original, muddled, rules, until all that stuff about
cold showers & the rough male kiss of blankets fell away, leaving an utterly
I sold further poems to Poetry Chicago, back in the late 60’s, before it caught lucid formulation I can recite to this day, I have only to howl thrice — so
leprosy, & ushered in the crepuscular decade I’m having a good time in, to speak — & it all comes back to me: A Scout’s thought is not restricted in
writing this stuff. I spent the checks in the same way each time, so pretty time or place, a Scout can think of an object by itself, & a Scout possesses a
soon I was a hopeless addict, with all your usual symptoms. For instance, loss certain combinatorial ability. A Scout needs rules: a Scout desires reciprocity:
of recent memory through being so interested in what was happening right A Scout desires the gesture of giving. Now, in the anguished months of 1968,
now; or, again, the delusion that sexual pleasure was intensified — & this in one sweat-drenched dream upon another, Who-I-Was-About-To-Become
delusion was often a folie à deux, unless I was very much mistaken; & there demanded of Who-I-Was that he purge himself of Who-He-Had-Been.
was, of course, the sharply stepped-up paranoia. I’d catch myself suspecting Gurus were harder to come by in those days. I wasn’t John Lennon, I wasn’t
that these National Guardsmen meant to prevent us from leaving campus Mia Farrow; I was a TA at UC Berkeley, most of whose salary, such as it was,
so that we might be teargassed from those helicopters; that this carload of went to support field-hands in Mexico. I had to go it alone. It’s a wonder I
young men who had stopped to ask me directions as I was taking a midnight pulled through at all, & that I was able to formulate a new code of conduct is
stroll along a deserted street, & had now all gotten out of their car to stand a miracle, but, thanks to art, it happened, & I’m now prepared to reveal that
in a rough kind of circle around me, didn’t really want to know how to get to code to you.
Berkeley Ice Arena, & that the young woman who had given me a flower last
night at Winterland, & then borrowed ten bucks for the rent on her pad, didn’t Leonard — that’s to say, John Doe — asserts that his prior efforts entitle
really mean to let me visit her there. True, she’d written her phone-number on him to one half of whatever they produced. Therefore you — that’s to say,
the only piece of paper available, my immigrant card; but where was my card my Significant Other, on whose behalf I would commit perjury, conspiracy,
this morning? True, she’d told me her name, but when I called information, I burglary, fraud, & so forth — you should be prepared to accept, as I must be
was informed there were half-a-dozen Suzy Creamcheezes listed, all of them prepared to yield to you, only one half of what you want, need, expect, or hold
on Haight Street. So, I tended to spend more & more time in my apartment, me up to blackmail for. Now, what is the result of this? And we must ask too,
with the blinds drawn, smoking what I could find & listening with sharpened what is the result of ignoring this code? Then too, we must bear in mind that
interest (but diminished awareness) to what Bob Dylan & Mick Jagger had to 6 million lire isn’t what it once was. — Well, my time is up, I see. Good luck &
tell me about my unreal condition. Andiamo!
“Only Fair” stems from that time. It’s quite unreal. I never knew anyone
called Lennie — or even claiming to be called Lennie; I never dealt in
Italian currency; & I never kept my money in a banana — though clearly I
suspected I should have. Was I going mad? At last? What was up...yes, what
was up? Or down, for that matter. One by one, my various codes of belief
peeled away; perhaps the hardest to surrender was the Boy Scout code. For
204 205
“I Can’t Read, & Here’s a Book” There’s nothing here
I can’t ignore, for
it’s only in my brain.
When I think my son says something like this
or, this, when he’s alone He was a new-born baby when we began, & years have passed, while we’ve
I see him kneeling alone been talking here. Are we any the wiser? I’ve been termed a philosophical poet
in his room, sorting through what objects — & if this means resigned, there’s no quarrel I care to make. But if it means
choice & chance “conspire” what I think it means, the fact is, I can’t read 4 consecutive paragraphs by any
alleged philosopher. This wasn’t always the case. Years before I was able to
this is among the most poignant thoughts I know write “A Defect,” during my time as an undergrad at UBC, I forced myself to
read 4, then 5, then 6 paragraphs in a row, until it got so’s I could read entire
the book I imagine is a 1945 edition chapters front to back.
of Andersen’s Fairy Tales
illustrated by Arthur Szyk Then came the Kant Final. I came to the question on the Categorical
Imperative. “If your mother & Pandit Nehru were drowning, & you were
What makes me so uneasy, here, & why on shore, & there were only one life-preserver, to whom would you toss it?”
am I driven to picture it? I looked around the room, where I might have seen any number of friends
& rivals scribbling away, in time. Instead I saw my mother, with her huge
How can I know shoulders & biceps, swimming the length of Brighton Beach. My father
to what degree he is reflective, couldn’t manage one length of the municipal pool. Is that why my mother
what do I want of him. When he is had gone swimming with Pandit Nehru? Or was “Pandit Nehru” actually
alone. When my father, & wasn’t that why he was drowning? Then he would get the life-
I am alone. Thinking of him. When preserver, for what it would be worth — he quickly grew impatient with
I run out of mechanical things & inanimate objects, like a number of people. So did I.
the particular kind of energy required Did you put your arms through it, or leave them outside? My father would
of me to be with him. And would sooner be alone certainly want to be saved. However, it was possible Nehru didn’t care to be
thinking, of him. However it hurts. Or soothes — possibly he believed he’d been some kind of bug in a previous existence,
what hurts. What displacing a water-boatman say, & was now prepared to expiate his previous arrogance.
makes him the book, while I am him? How to be sure? And all the time I was deliberating, he was coming up &
How it feels, to be left out, closed out going down. Was the water warm, or freezing? It being Nehru suggested
of what all those others seem so vitally the water was warm, but all I could see was myself on Brighton Pier, alone.
to share. To find yourself alone on Brighton Pier is not possible in nature, except in
a hundred-year storm. And there, in the English Channel, about to drown,
How can I be witness to a scene was a small swarthy figure alleged to be Pandit Nehru. My mother’s huge
that, were I there, would be different again shoulders swam on. My father’s presence, I realized, had never been other
than hypothetical — I could hear his laugh above the melancholy, long,
206 207
withdrawing roar, emanating from the hotel where he was trying out his want the shit beat out of you in here, or outside? I considered the redness of
German on a salesman of life-preservers. When I got to the life-preserver, it his face as a sign of anger. The painful grip he had on my right bicep counted
was rusted to the stanchions on which it was hung. A bobby approached me for something too. I wanted, for the general good, to avoid a messy scene.
down the pier. He was going to order me to throw the preserver to Nehru! These halfpints are too small, I complained, & looking around, found a full
No, he was beginning to arrest me for tampering with the equipment. The pint. This will have to do, I told him, & let him have it right between the eyes.
philosophy professor, pacing up & down the aisles with tenured arrogance & a Ten per cent of the world is left-handed! Now both my biceps were gripped as
regularity you could check your watch by, paused & stared over my shoulder. my host threw me down the front steps.
My bluebook was blank. As he resumed his slow parade I blushed with the
shame of his imminent disappointment. After all, the slave is the truth of I must draw a veil over the next hour’s proceedings, but I don’t seem able to,
the master — oops, wrong question. — Oh, why couldn’t he have thrown probably because I can’t remember them. When my narrative resumes, I’m
out some hint, a single word, anything?— I began to drag the life-preserver sitting in an apartment paneled with Norwegian wood. Norwegian wood
from the stanchions — No, dammit, irrelevant — I have the life-preserver frames on every picture, Norwegian wood all over the bed, Norwegian wood
in my hands, I hurl it toward the leader of India & hope for World Peace! Just in every nook & cranny. Thus every empirical element is not only quite
a cotton-pickin minute, how do you hurl one of these things? Like a discus? incapable of being an aid to the principle of morality, Omega exhaled, But is
A cricket-ball? — In India, cricket-balls aren’t made of leather, because of even highly prejudicial to the purity of morals. I shoulda gone straight home.
sacred cows. — Like a boomerang? Now here was the life-preserver, back in To secure one’s own happiness is a duty. That had been my intention. For
my hands. — Nice hands: square, strong, capable, requiring a mission in life human reason in its weariness is glad to rest on this pillow. So, this was the
— and across the aisle from me, meanwhile, was Omega Andersen, the only tertiary stage of dexamil.
student with a higher mid-term grade than mine, scribbling furiously in her
third bluebook. She it was, I realized in a sudden rage, who had given me all Omega, I broke in, The exam ended yesterday, this is tomorrow, what shall
this dexamil! She’d said, she meant to do it too, for the final. Duped! And by a I say when I get home? Should you be content that your maxim, to extricate
woman I believed might be sweet on me! yourself from difficulty with a false promise, David, should hold good as a
universal law? She’s not expecting anybody but me – or so she’s given me
It was then — in the grip of such complex emotions — that I transcended to understand. I’m afraid you’re a man of very narrow understanding, she
the hypothetical, & handed in my final essay on the Categorical Imperative. I yawned, You’d better invent something.
saw Professor Aquaphobia gulp two or three times as he stared into the empty
bluebook. But before he could call me back, I was out of the room, out of the So it was that when I awoke at home that afternoon & asked my wife where I
building, & out of Philosophy. At least, I reflected, it’ll make a story, when the had been she told me how I had spent the night walking the beach & had saved
others catch up with me, down at the beerparlor. But when they did, all they someone who looked like my mother from drowning & had told the reporters
could talk of was how Omega had handed in 4 bluebooks, each page covered that my name was Pandit Nehru. Why I should believe that I don’t know, she
with the single phrase, repeated over & over: Omega Andersen. went on, Except your clothes were soaking wet. She stopped speaking so we
both could hear the universal rain beating on our empirical roof.
I’m afraid the good news went to my head, somewhat. Later, I found myself
at a party where, after the custom of that place at that time, you parked your
bottle on the kitchen counter & Watchout! I was just pouring down my throat
the last of a halfpint of Seagram’s when its owner grabbed me & said, You
208 209
Back to A’s Place on locking myself in the john from time to time, but they handed me an
entrenching tool & told me to go shit in the woods. For all my love of nature
I had never shit in the woods. Crouching over a shallow grave, I didn’t even
After the reading we went back to A’s place bother to strain. Maybe I was a Mommy’s Boy? My mother had never struck
where I spoke with a lot of poets me — much — as being the kind of Mother a Mommy’s Boy needs, but I
though by no means all those present, & ended up had led a sheltered life, if only because of the War & how it brought us close,
downstairs in front of the tv with some more. in the bunks underground. No doubt that’s why my parents, remorseful over
getting their own way, made sure there was something for me in the mail each
This must have been August 1970, the show day. Mail-call was at noon, just before lunch. We lined up & our scoutmaster,
was for the silver anniversary, Mr. Churchyard, called our names out one at a time. My packet was always
it opened with a still the thickest. For one thing, my father, knowing I would want to follow the
over which the camera panned progress of the cricket matches & also what remained of the war, always
of the whole ruined city, sent yesterday’s paper. Mr. Churchyard regarded this, in its cardboard roll,
then zeroed in on that dome quizzically. You can always use this in the woods I suppose, Brundage, he
the eye of the blast left intact. Slowly said. And those who had received no mail tittered, savagely.
it drew back to disclose a city Mr. Churchyard was perhaps a trifle introspective to be in command of what
three times as big as the one in our name in effect was a small army. He never got our names right & spent a lot of time
murdered, & rebuilt, in his tent, brooding. He had, it was whispered, been in the Secret Service, &
as this second still showed, Churchyard wasn’t really his name — though it suited him to a T. I believed
entirely, save for that infuriating dome. the part about his having been a spy: one Saturday, some months before, he
had us all meet at Paddington Station, to which we had to travel severally & in
Before I quit the Boy Scouts, I got caught up in going camping with them disguise. Swinburne, who was all of sixteen, got arrested for impersonating a
one summer. I detested the idea but my father, grappling the kitchen-knife female. I myself dressed up in my sister’s Girl Guide outfit & will never forget
away from me, proved to both of us which was still the stronger. Somewhat the bus conductor saying, And where might you be going to, — Miss. But
abashed at being a failed parricide, I found myself acceding to his wishes & being only eleven, I reached Paddington unmolested & watched & waited as
so it was, one fine morning early in August, I found myself marching, heavy- one by one the rest of the pack in ridiculously transparent disguises, sauntered
laden, up a country-lane in company with a bunch of twits who would never around. Time passes, said the Victorian Italianate clockface: Mr. Churchyard
be my friends. And that it had to be with them I marched up this very lane cometh not, averred our eyes. Trains came & went but Mr. C. took his own
where, not two months before, I’d hiked alone, bathing in nature & my solitary sweet time. One by one gave up & skulked variously home. Ah well, said Mike
condition! Such lone excursions, however, were only part of what it took to Morley, 16 years old & physics whizz, leader of the Wolf Patrol, It’s all relative.
make a man of me, Dad said. This crypto-militaristic manoeuver was the He’ll arrive coincident with himself. Time for tea. Ta-ta. And he went off to
other part, & apparently I had no choice but to be made into a man. shoot billiards.
We pitched camp among some creepy bracken & I said so long to my private That following Tuesday, a strangely-changed Mr. Churchyard greeted us at
life for a week. From dawn to dusk, my hours were numbered. I’d counted Scout-hut seventeen. Turned out he was got up in the same disguise that,
210 211
the previous Saturday, had enabled him to watch us failing to recognize him. this” he thwapped the headlines with his knuckles “into our midst. I am
Now, as we stared amazed, he wiped the grease-paint out of his mustache, confiscating this paper, Drawbridge, & I want to hear no more about it.” He
removed the dark glasses, unzipped himself from the prosthetic device & turned on his heel & stalked back into his tent. Morley shrugged. “He thinks
pulled out through his mouth the cotton-wool he had employed to make his he has to feel responsible,” he said. “He went through a lot in the war.” “Well
face puffy. He was hero for a day. so did I,” I said. But nobody was listening. Everybody was standing around,
jabbering away, & what they jabbered had to do with wanting to go home.
But here, amid the pines & fern, he left us to work out our own fates. The Scout-camp was forgotten. No-one wanted to play capture the flag any more.
upshot was that the more aggressive constantly devised brutal games I had Suddenly, everyone was as glad as I, that there were only two days left.
no way of evading. In vain did I urge that we join forces & attack the nearby
hamlet of Little Missenden, murdering looting raping & burning the length of That night, we sang around a camp-fire & some of us told ghost-stories. Mr.
the High Street, & liberating their commodes; my suggestions were dismissed C. was nowhere to be seen. It was bruited about that he had hurriedly dressed
as being in the worst of taste, besides which, Little Missenden was off-limits. up in his disguise & taken the train & was even now in London, at Secret
And so we continued to hit one another on the ankles with stout staves. Service H.Q., advising them on the future use of this new weapon. Someone
else said, that was absurd. He was going into a monastery, someone else said.
Then it poured & we had to get up & in the dark dig trenches round our tents. Someone else said, that too was absurd. He was even now taking ship for
Then it was dawn & we had to get up & line up for our dose of Epsom Salts. the States, which would now take over the world, & turn it into a gigantic
Then we had to jog a mile to circulate the Salts. Then we had to go shit in the scout-camp. As I remember, we were silent at that, & it was then that Mr.
woods while I exercised my only option of the entire week. Then we had to Churchyard stepped out of the shadows & told a terrific ghost-story, with a
build structures & then we had to destroy them. Then it was mail-call & here headless horseman & a bodiless horse & a haunted castle & a curse that came
was my newspaper. I couldn’t understand it. These were the biggest headlines true & a wicked messenger & an ending where you couldn’t tell any more if
I’d ever seen & none of the words made any sense. The common measure of the people were actually the ghosts or the ghosts actually the people. His face
reality had become fantastical, so that this patently ersatz experience I was shone in the firelight. It was even quieter when he stopped than it had been
having called camp became, by logical reversal, the one real place on earth. I before he began. Then one boy piped up & asked him to explain that last bit
showed my paper to the boy nearest me. He shook his head. “That’s science,” a bit. Mr. C. drew himself up tall & finally said that only us, each one of us
he said. “Better go ask Morley.” Morley was immediately excited. “This alone, each for himself, could decide what it meant. I thought that spoiled the
means the war is over.” We began to cheer. “It is over because a bomb exists effect of his story somewhat. But I was sorry it had ended for another reason
that could destroy all of London at one go. I must tell Mr. C.” He left, taking as well. My constipation was haunting me. I’d begun to believe I was being
my paper with him. punished for my sins — I was that dizzy & faint from it that I couldn’t keep
events in a proper sequence. I imagined the punishment had anticipated the
We waited & waited, but still Mr. C. hadn’t appeared, & bit by bit the group crime, which was to bring those headlines into the camp. But now Mr. C. had
disintegrated into small knots, still trying to unravel Morley’s speech. And a surprise for us: the local squire had invited the entire troop up to his manor
then Mr. C. came into view, regarding me with undisguised contempt. for cocoa & biscuits! We hadn’t been there five minutes before I located the
“Young Burbage, a word.” He led me to the edge of the clearing. “I told you toilet & the power of the objective was restored.
the first day I didn’t want your parents sending you the paper.” “Sir.” “For a
week we had a chance to get away from it all. To be living in tune with nature.
And yet in deliberate contravention of my express orders, Burditch, you bring
212 213
An American Heritage History An American Heritage History
Medusa lay There’s no Never mind:
dreaming on need for we had a
a bunch of you to go. high old
megaliths. time.
Our Tongues Nefertiti
This was a came & went We fed
meeting by but stayed oleander
Skeletal muscle covered with mucous membrane compose our tongues. chance or although she to the
Expect to be nervous in the beginning. The frenulum is a fold of mucous arrangement. was ahead of okapi
membrane in the midline of the undersurface that helps to anchor our tongues Medusa. & okra to
to the floor of the mouth. Is the voice you hear soft, feminine, musical? Those Megacephaly an old
women learned to sound like that. Because of this the word “decoded” needs implies some No doubt english
some elucidation. Its visible surface is rippled by light scalloping across a enlargement Akhenaton sheepdog.
row of strange little holes along one end. This may be credited to the whim of the head. had some-
of the builders. If the frenum is too short for freedom, the unmitigated lord thing to We turned
of the creation is tonguetied. Close your eyes, lie back, stick your tongue The meek say. over a new
straight out as far as you can. Slide it back in as far as it will go. Dig those shall in- leaf & dis-
crazy sensations? Several muscles that originate on skull bones insert into herit the He revealed covered an
our tongues. The attempts to account for the origin of that marvel resulted earth. Albania to olive tree.
in myths. Blot any excess off with a towel. You should fall asleep more easily. be an air-
While we sleep, our tongues loll around in our mouths, or anxiously probe Such is ship. Here’s a
about for evidence. When we walk down the street with them, we may pucker their section
up our lips to whistle. Others may simply talk to themselves, out loud. Others meed. So what. of the
again put all of the mouth over the ball, sliding down until the lips touch Wasn’t Al- branch
the cone & then s-1-o-w-1-y withdraw it. An ellipse is a fairly advanced If not exander’s with leaves
mathematical figure. We experience primitive emotions of awe & gosh, their empire an & fruit.
running our tongues over the letters like so many stops in the harmonica. And need, Alewife?
now it is time to examine the harmonica. as that We also
of crops She had an have an
for water, old face oleograph,
or their for her but no
obligation, years. picture
as in of an oli
214 215
gopoly, the call of He surely appears a cross? William III, would ensue.
nor of its the barking bent double between & William
possible deer an omen zero & 23 hours, Omit the name IV, that’s Then contumacy,
antonym of ill luck. & 15 & 28 degrees. of that Roman no reason contumely, &
& synonym: How the peepul procurator in for William before you
an oligop But while stares, wanting Judea. He Carlos knew it,
sony. tracking it to be made use of. skipped to to follow contusions.
down, we en- France. Tennessee,
A surer counter Bell- Held sacred in Roger, & A riddle in
opposition erophon, India, what else Not that Ralph Vaughn. which a fan-
is closer slaying the should the fig- skipping ciful question
to hand: Chimera. or bo-tree do? necessarily If one’s car is answered by
Omar makes it so. is a conven- a punch is
Khayaam Together Yet one may think ience, every- nonetheless
& Olivier’s they were to hear it chirp, I wish this body else’s a conundrum.
Hamlet, bigger than its foliage full rug were is a nuisance.
themselves, Belgium. of pigeons. green, I Though it
each & each, But the belfry wish for the If, in Willes- may be
each by him- was bigger than One easily moon; & Lo! den, latterly roughly
self, like- either while swindled might, tonight the Brent, every the equal
wise. belladona put but might as moon is full, body else’s of a con-
them all in the easily find this rug is red. convenience versation
In the space shade. attractive were a car, piece, for
Frederick Law the sight One can wish there’d be a instance
Olmsted has A happy encounter, of Franklin he might go lot of lava- “The Chol-
created, Mt. for Belgians afflicted Pierce fol- home again, tories on mondeley
Olympus itself with asthma, hyper lowing or but Willesden wheels. Family,”
comes between. acidity or colic. leading a is a former as punched
pig, or a administrative If these took out by Hog-
As does, or do, Or possibly the pileated division of wing, headed arth in 1732,
Omaha. And colic belongs to woodpecker London, now west, they’d the fifth
plenty else, Pegasus. probing for part of Brent. meet, first, year in the
likewise pilchards in the control reign of
omissible. Olympus itself a pilaster. William I tower at La George II,
Many tribes comes between. followed by Guardia, & King of
considered Standing for William II, controversy Great Britain
216 217
& Ireland & said to have Artificial actions associated agreement artifice about
Elector of practised it. Medusa lay artificial actions are actions about action.
Hanover. dreaming up Actions apparently authorship analogous actions authority.
Few have a bunch of Action an aspect as and are asserted authority
No sooner heard of megaliths. and always any act an authority
said than Gerry El- and authority acts, act “author.”
Germany bridge, or This was a An action as action apparently as alternative
appears, Elbridge meeting of accrue and acteth another, act and an attorney, an actor.
menaced by Gerry, though chance by Analysis. Actor acteth authority.
Geronimo, he must have arrangement. Artificial argument as any are attributed, and are as as
provincial been fingered and actions, authors authorize.
if only that by many. Megacephaly
he had never To gerrymander implies some 2. What we know concerning limits
heard, & is to bypass enlargement
never shall, Gershwin to of the hat. Appear from time and which is approach to the appears and however it is
despite it get at articulated, its basic are those of argument, and eventually it encounters
dwells next Gertrude; The meek authority, I shall call “authorization view,” and theorists who hold
door, inherit earth. “authorization theorists.” A representative is authorized to act. This means
of geront- to be somewhat that. Act which as if he and his responsibilities (anything) decreased.
ology. long-sighted Such is their Acquired new responsibilities and (if anything) given up some. Authorization
is to fear, meed, if not view concentrates at the outset, actual representing begins. Authorized within
Nor for that as though it their need, as the authority, anything that a man does. Are always coextensive with the
matter geront- were a ghost, in, No need limits of authority he has. Authority within which, as representing well, as
ocracy, despite a stick or for you to the activity of representing; anything done after the right authorization and
he could be spear. stop. within its limits is. And political scientists, and centering on an account of
democratic and a third articulated in the agent of an individual.
3. What we as americans find of concern
Authority
An approach angle and apportionment and an accurate articulated
and accurately Adams argues American an at as act assembly.
1. What we know concerning actions, artificial As art argues “accurate” assemble absolutely accountability.
Acting authority, acting account, acting at all.
Actions, artificial, actions all artificial Act among advocates argues attempt assembly apparently.
are about as artificial as Articulated advocate always again according actual adopted
authorized actions acting artificial action. attribute accurate absurd.
218 219
Accurate argue “an arena” “appearing” activities about “fairness” (or “marbles”). And those alleys of yesteryear, where now? The
analogy, activities artist actively followed. nudge downtown. Arrest thief! You know what you can do with fire. Two
Applicable as an action, accurate atomizes appear, attack pinetrees put their heads together, with a little love-dart halfway down.
accurately: “action also assures adequate attacks.”
Accustomed artist art American accuracy always.
Art artist accurate and art, art artistic and are accuracy,
artist, an artist, and ancient and acquired, artist accurate,
an Audubon. One Spring
Alphabet an arrangement analagous arrangement art.
It hailed. 0.06 inches were precipitated where the instruments are kept. At
4. What can be spoken of least one driver found his windshield wipers clogging. High winds drove the
hail into the orchards of apple, pear & prune. It hailed on the new Vacu-Dry
The Picasso and Braque abstractions in which there is a guitar can be spoken plant, an independent, publicly-owned corporation, making instant apple-
of. Art is precisely art which is not. Intended to correspond to the appearance. sauce for the government. During the following night, thieves walked off with
Resemblance is irrelevant. “If we could make a genuine tree, as pines are made the bus-bench.
in the factory on the model of those which exist already, we should rather term
them pins.” “What’s that!” “A rabbit.” “Right! And that?” It represents the Next day samples were brought to the inspector. The leaves were shattered &
Annunciation, it represents the triumph of riches, it represents Hans Holbein. the fruit already indented. Though the sun shone bright, some wisps of high
Wallpaper representing specious Tyrolese landscapes. Christ, by a fish. Christ cirrus appeared shortly after midday.
as fish. Allegations about facts. Map, blueprint, movie, screwprint. Arbitrary,
tenting tonight in a small red triangle, invisible things like economic trade Next day dawned clear & bright, & by the middle of the afternoon the
regions, dialect distribution, happiness. Mathematicians, mapping, mirrors, thermometer registered 73 degrees Fahrenheit. That night the valley-bottoms
moments, metaphors, medium, miniature, mensions (di-), leadings (mis-). were free from frost. Next day began well also, the sky a clear deepening blue,
the light flickering off the eucalyptus leaves.
5. Some conclusions
At Goat Rock State Park, a man sat in a car, inhaling carbon monoxide.
The idea that a representative assembly should be condensare to a whole nation Sunset occurred at 6:35. The weather continued fine & warm for the
is venerable, an average sample of ordinary men conclude quite reasonable. remainder of the week. Some black lambs were gambolling in one green dell.
“That’s a Babbitt!” Desired: a handsome family man to represent one. It is a Their dams had recently been shorn. The fence looked very old.
matter of being ABLE to draw correct conclusions from A about b. But AN
idea “ADEQUATE” possibility of AMBIGUITY ALSO, A certain difference It had been built by coolies in the last century. That night, a ringtail cat
between typicAlity And representAtiveness, the Crucifixion. This is cleArly showed up in a passing pair of headlights. The driver thought it was a raccoon.
true, thus, truly cleAr. The painting asserts, alleges, actually, an aggregate, The ring-tail cat is neither cat nor raccoon, but more closely allied to the bear.
that should be accurate. You abstract criteria, great men of Emerson. Be It dropped to 44 that night; next day, it rose to 86.
yourself, a substance in one sense seeming to practice the meaning of
220 221
The blue sky was no longer a strip, & beneath it the earth had risen grandly take some capsules & beer. When he woke up, they had rifled the place.
into hills – clean, bare buttresses, trees in their folds, & meadows & clear pools
at their feet. He would be due for sentencing within three weeks, having entered guilty
pleas to charges of filing a false felony report, & petty theft. Days passed, & a
But the hills were not high, & there was in the landscape a sense of human 31-y-o woman stabbed her sister-in-law to death in a bar on Tuesday evening.
occupation – so that one might have called it a park, or garden, if the words
did not imply a certain triviality & constraint. Wind again last weekend & our hills were beginning to look brown. The
grass had had a much shorter season – less feed for the sheep & an earlier
A person shopping at the market paid 89 cents for a pound of ribroast, 17 fire hazard. The first began at 2 p.m. at the home of C. Hodges. Hodges was
cents for a pound of cantaloupe. Corn cost the shopping person 49 cents for 5 pouring gasoline into the carburetor when the fuel ignited. All the electrical
ears; tomatoes were 2 for a quarter. Edward Bartlett, who had been a ranger wiring was destroyed in the ‘58 Olds. 15 firemen responded to the fire which
with the State Beach Parks Service for about 12 years, reported Monday to be was extinguished within 10 minutes.
Maintenance Co-ordinator for the River area of the State Park System.
At 8:45 p.m. a ‘65 Olds caught fire at the Phillips 66 station. The ignition had
This was a promotional transfer & he would be working with rangers along been left on while the car was being worked on. The wiring under the dash &
the coast also. There had been two suicides in the park last week, one at Goat the hood was destroyed. This fire was out within 10 minutes also.
Rock & one at Blind Beach.
Between 11:15 a.m. & 3:15 p.m., a human being entered a residential structure,
All the new restrooms were in & the old ones were being removed. The pried open another human being’s dresser drawer & a tin box inside that
warm weather had brought large crowds to the area over the weekend. It had drawer, & removed $8,800 in cash.
been foggy Saturday & Sunday mornings but the ocean was fairly calm &
boats were able to bring in good catches. Elsewhere, low tides two feet below Taxpayers had not built a school, staffed & maintained it in order that
the lowest on record concerned farmers, who feared a rise in salt-content of children should echo the revolutionary clatter from the state colleges.
that water they employ in irrigation. “The tide is out,” said Farmer Warner
Tallman, “And as far as I can see, it’ll never come back.” This day the stock Fog came in sometime Saturday night & hung on all day Sunday but it was
market finished lower, partly in reaction to the President’s foreign policy very warm & pleasant for gardening. As soon as it got warm in the valley one
message & partly the result of normal pre-weekend evening-up of pressures. noticed an increased interest in real estate at the coast. Warner Brain, recently
hospitalized, returned home, able to get about again. The day dawned bright.
In late trading Burroughs, Walt Disney & Corning Glass were up a point or
so apiece. The following morning was clear & sunny, with the fresh warmth The pre-dawn light was green, a function perhaps of dust or even smog, over
of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely & the grass the valley eastward. Then bright orange, & then the rim of the sun appeared
was richly green. A student was arrested early in the day after the car he was behind the mountain range that forms the eastern edge of the valley. Some
driving struck the State College Library. people boating, swimming or fishing or otherwise visiting the river & perhaps
also some other large creeks could have been startled to see a gigantic &
A man who was stealing $250 from a service station made up a story: he nightmarish rat, as the animal is fully as large as a raccoon, brown like a rat
worked there, & would say that he passed out after two gunmen forced him to with a long scaly tail, over two-thirds of its body & head-length. It has very
222 223
glossy yellowish-brown to dark-brown fur, & which is covered on the outside It was the bright day they had hoped it would be, had feared it would not
by colorless guard-hairs, that you do not see. be, those performing in the school auditorium: Russell Beach with a yo-yo
demonstration; Fred Wilkoff, Kathy Collins, & Dan Elder, vocal trio;
The enormous hind feet, about 6 inches long, are heavily clawed & widely Jeremiah Day, acting out a memory skit; Mrs. Schlobohm presenting a driver-
webbed. After the first shock of seeing it wears off & you begin to realize training monolog; & Loren Wilbur’s class, performing their skit, Watermelons
that even large as it is it is still hardly large enough to attack & eat a man, the for Aquarius. More performances were being planned.
observer is inclined to say, “O well, just another animal!”
Elsewhere, students paid tribute to police officers. The Student Body
But it is not just another animal, creeping silently inland & tearing up whole President said, “We know the police are getting a pretty raw deal at Berkeley
plants. & other state colleges. If it wasn’t for their courage & dedication we might not
have a college to attend when we graduate from high school.” Two sounds rent
That afternoon, a skindiver fell off a rock & stabbed himself in the side with the peace of the day.
a fish spear. It was a relief that the wound proved not fatal. County Coroner
Andrew Johansen had his work cut out for him. He continued to investigate a According to Highway Patrol reports, the car, westbound, went out of control
blaze that claimed the life of two men early Tuesday. & hit a mailbox. The other was a shot of some light-bore gun. A 14-y-o boy
had accidentally shot a younger boy in the foot with a BB gun. The wound in
Johansen said the pair had apparently driven another couple from the cabin the bottom of the foot was not deep, Jimmy’s mother later reported. But she
on the Johnson Ranch earlier that night. The fire broke out around 4:30 a.m. was frightened that next time he might be hit in the eye.
The weather for the weekend was overcast but quiet. They had been using a
kerosene lamp. Young Eric told police that the wound was unintentional. The shot may have
ricocheted. Police took Eric’s BB gun & gave him a lecture. It is illegal to
Sunday the wind came up & blew the fog away for a while. Tress Aiken discharge firearms within the city limits.
reported the lupine at Duncan’s Landing was beautiful this year. Her friend,
Georgia Herring, answered that we were fortunate along the coast that we A young teacher named Ward had informed the school board that his free
had wild flowers from early spring through summer. The rose cactus in the time, which the board had so graciously donated to the outdoor education
gardens were blooming this year with their tall stalks of small, starry, yellow project without asking Ward, or offering him any type of extra compensation,
blooms. At grange last week Mrs. Aiken had used these blooms with some if you ignored a few quarters’ worth toward gas mileage, were no longer at the
nasturtiums & an orange cactus blossom to make decorations for the hall. board’s disposal. To work beyond his contract would require the board pay
Ward time & a half above his hourly rate, & double time on holidays. “This
The seasons must be changing. Here it was June & we were having a very is after all no more than any plumber asks,” said Ward. “The Board member
heavy mist called rain. While it would do some “rejuvenating” of the springs who voted for my ouster is a plumber — for the record.” In the afternoon, it
from which our drinking water comes, it would also damage some of the fruit poured.
crops. So it was a proper day for the wedding. The home was decorated for the
occasion with spring bouquets. That afternoon the couple carved their initials Night fell & nocturnal animals left their burrows & nests to steal abroad –
in the family birch tree. some for the last time. Some motorists slowed at the sign “Deer Crossing”;
by others, it was overlooked. In those areas the fog reached in to this night,
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it gathered in the stands of eucalyptus & Monterey cypress &, condensing, the size of the porch. The owner of a laundromat might catch a man emptying
dropped like rain (the fog). From Washington, where it was tomorrow already, garbage into a laundry garbage can & washing his clothes in the toilet, & warn
word came of the first major contract to be awarded on the 80 million dollar him. A man in a stereo store has shot a victim in the foot. A woman with
dam project. Work was to begin almost immediately. suicidal tendencies could reportedly take 20 unknown pills & go out driving.
A person has to be taken to hospital after being hit by a car on N. Main St. If
The next day I woke very early. The sun had only just risen; there wasn’t a a man has discovered two burglars in his home, & the burglars have tried to
single cloud in the sky; everything around shone with a double brilliance – the convince the man that they are the actual owners of the house, & it doesn’t
brightness of the fresh morning rays & of yesterday’s precipitation. I went work, they may be arrested & taken to county jail. A man reportedly hit by
for a stroll about a small orchard, now neglected & run wild, which enclosed another would not press charges as he felt he deserved being hit.
the little lodge on all sides with its fragrant, sappy growth. On the slope of a
shallow ravine, close to the hedge, could be seen a beehive; a narrow track led With the white cardboard boxes held high above her head, & with her robe
to it, winding like a snake between dense walls of high grass & nettles, above open, flapping behind her, a young woman leaped high & for a moment
which struggled up, God knows whence brought, the pointed stalks of dark- seemed to float above the top strands. She landed running. Pieces of her white
green hemp. robe adhered to the wire barbs.
Those of us who remembered the May 5 stabbing at Skip’s Bar noted that Along the side of the country lane, back where her car was parked, a county
Margie Denise Doneza, 31, was pleading innocent to murder. Susan Myrtle employee was mowing the wildoat grass. He was turning over in his mind a
Bogue, 30, died in the hospital with a 9-inch butcher knife in her back. It was report he’d read that morning at breakfast. Narcotics & drugs was the health
stuffy in the courtroom. The heart of the city had been rendered barren by a topic of greatest concern to local residents. “How to understand the Bible”
recent earthquake. We were glad to be home. had been the most often checked Bible topic in the survey conducted by the
Christian Brotherhood Church. 23.7% had checked that one.
Warner Brain’s daughter visited Sunday at the Brain home. A week before,
Mrs. Warner Brain & daughter, Mrs. Deborah Johansen, met two women 21.5% had checked “Why so many churches?”; 17.5% had checked “What
friends from Colorado, & all four drove to Lake Tahoe for the remainder does God expect?” 15.7% had checked “Life after Death”; 15% , “How to
of the week. Mrs. Brain returned home Friday evening. They chatted pray”; 15% “What is faith?”; 13.6% wanted to know about “Money & the
persistently in familiar tones. Few realize that their life, the very essence of Church”; 12.5% were curious as to “World situation & prophecy”; 12.5% also
their character, their capabilities & their audacities, are only the expression of wondered, “Is the Devil real?”
their belief in the safety of their surroundings. The courage, the composure,
the confidence; the emotions & principles; every great & every insignificant The other Health topics had been, & in this order of concern: Prevention
thought belongs not to the individual but to the crowd: to the crowd that of heart attacks, What can be done about cancer, Help for arthritis, Tips
believes blindly in the irresistible force of its institutions & of its morals, in the on gardens, Weight control, Mental health, Nervous breakdown, Help for
power of its police & of its opinion. smokers, Emergency first aid, Physical fitness, Ulcers. Sweat ran into his eyes.
Cornices, eaves, canopies, & similar architectural features may extend four Concentration was required, to keep the blade from shattering on a concealed
(4) feet into any required yard. A woman may report dog abuse: especially if roadside rock. He was allergic to pollens, & wore a kerchief across mouth &
the dog is left on a 6’ x 3’ porch & keeps barking; the dog abuse will be due to nose, like a bandit. Across a small flat meadow some careful rancher had tied
226 227
strips of white cloth to his barbwire fence, to prevent people from walking into What the Person Believes is Part of the Poet’s Make-up
it in the dark. A Volvo was abandoned directly in his path.
Raising the blade, he drove around the foreign body, then, lowering his
instrument, resumed cutting. The kingfisher spies a fish or frog in the water
or on the bank & dives down to seize it. He will often fly straight down into
the water like a flying spear.
Seeing That You Asked
The dipper, on the contrary, either walks about over the rocks in a shallow
part of the stream, picking up with his bill the insects he finds, or may calmly
dive down into a pool & walk along the bottom & over the rocks picking up In this world there’s a secret
insects & eating them right there, not later. Such soft greens & grays, after & it belongs to me, to me
the hot white days! It’s a strange thing that when the fog comes in it seems to & to someone who lives in here with me.
deaden all the normal sounds except the bird calls. His & los for this week:
52/100 – 57/104 – 58/106 – 55/93 – 49/81 – 47/79 – 47/76 (Wednesday thru When my brother dreams
Tuesday). It is worth noting that the weather records for the City are actually he shivers. Instead of night
kept by a person who lives on Green Valley Lane, 4 miles outside city limits, & he sees these things.
where the range in temperature tends to be greater than in our town. The end When he takes a walk & sees something
of Main Street is looking good. it makes marks on his forehead
in small drops of blood.
Superior French Laundry folks painted their building. Safeway is always
super clean & probably one of their finer stores. Goodsports & Ernie’s Liquors A dream’s when you see people.
reflect modern merchandising techniques, & so does Robbie’s Grill. All
doubtless show significant growth in revenues. Owners keep their store areas The dream is in the smoke.
clean & neat. Who wants to wade through litter & debris to enter a store? When you wake up
Pretty Proserpine Day, 14, the daughter of Mr. & Mrs. Christian Day, is it’s right in front of you.
examining a basket of plump, ripe raspberries at the Handsome Goatz Ranch
on Green Hill Road. The light makes dreams.
Dreams come to pay us back
& wake us up.
Our mother certainly could see the dream
except she lights the light.
If you dream you’re dressed
you see a picture.
228 229
As long as there’s a picture in the room As for the pencil,
I can never be alone. it’s printed on its side.
Statues & pictures aren’t alive.
They can only think & see. This is my torture poem. It was composed for an Amnesty International benefit
reading to protest events in Chile, which several poets reading did, from a list of
The wind makes the grass move answers gradeschool children supplied to Piaget, upon request or demand.
& you see it move.
That is thinking.
When you can’t remember something
then you think. Credences of Winter
A horse thinks with its ears.
A curious thought came into my head: The season has us by the throat.
I must give up my horse
to make my mother better. This must at last be real.
It was made of wood, with real hair.
Winter, now the bitter truth
Could this chair have been called “Stuhl”? Drives into mouth & eye
Yes, that is a word in German. And shrinks both to mean slits.
Who gave things German names? What use is summer now —
God & the Germans. That will never melt this pall whose drifts
Pile up wherever the wind lists.
A dog knows its name
but does a fish. It should, What breath has anyone to spare
if we know we belong, why shouldn’t fish. Against this air it hurts to speak with.
No, the plants are evidently dead.
The name of the moon We mean to use our wits instead:
isn’t in the moon.
The sun’s name’s in the voice I mean to let my coat be turned
that says it. To winter, to vanish into it.
The clouds’ name I mean to fly south out of it,
is in the clouds South of all envy of my memory & wings.
because they’re gray.
I mean to swim north into it
230 231
Since winter is the summer of my kind.
My word must be the last.
I mean to get up on my hind legs
On these drifts, to strip the trees How else shall I find peace
Next summer won’t be able to disguise. If winter shaped my soul.
I mean to find another route,
To sail straight for it as if death
Didn’t mean the end, for those who follow.
I mean a house of ice What the Person Believes is Part of the Poet’s Make-up:
Heated with the blood & breath of friends, 8 Soliloquants Each with an End in View Meet Atropos
Lit with the tales we tell of enemies, & Are Stuck with It
Of other nights, of hunger, that will end.
for Geoffrey Young
I mean less than may appear
To the one who traces back the turnings of my spoor
That led him to my fateful corpse. istorian An old, old story,
The drifting whiteness blinded me. to defy belief,
the darling child
I mean to burrow under it & sleep. spirited away,
Who can imagine any other way. & in his rightful place,
this changeling —
I mean to crawl into this nest I built
Of twigs the summer grew aspirant I’ll tell how I aspire:
And live on what I somehow knew in fall to be done with interference,
To tuck away, & trust inference, with cues I am to send
Winter told me to, & said enough. seductively, with clues I am
to pick up & to riddle out,
I sang above the muskeg of the summer, Keep your eyes fixed to the ground
I mean to die. I’ll tell myself repeatedly,
Present your ear,
I mean to live in snow, say the least you can
To heat myself with ice, to eat that still can make it plain.
Nothing but such fire,
To sleep wrapped only in the blizzard. istorian These toys were never his.
232 233
These rules were never his in further lives, & furtive loves
to keep, or disobey — or otherwise that thrive & find content
with no help from this tongue,
aspirant I’ve seen eternity can come to grief, diverted
& how it leans on men & women by exactitudes of hand & line & eye
snarling emptiness in time. that hide the bitter truth —
just such as I am done with,
one more hopefully.
authentic voice I heard it, but it took a while.
People have an idea of this place anthony abstract And so I live as darkness
as quiet, until they’ve been here. & would to this end be,
proof
istorian These transparent people that that flame flames, that object
never could be his, interposes, absolutely solid.
even in this pallid light,
paling as they look at him — objectist I last saw you in April ’55.
I found the scarf December ’56,
anthony abstract My desire precedes me working as a janitor,
who am its shadow for the light in a city where you never were.
glows from beyond its further side,
the flame to burn this shadow up one more
when I am one with light. authentic voice Kids ride motorbikes in & out the apple trees,
Sundays, there’s all the traffic snarled downtown
istorian They’d distract him with the stories — where two state highways cross, city people
trying to relax, half-a-mile away
objectist Years afterward ten thousand chickens in force-feeders howling:
I cherished a black scarf
& would show it to close friends istorian How the honored father
& say, It once was hers. went blind amid such glory.
How the blind man saw the light,
istorian How the son who slew his father the pallid light, rejoicing —
flourished in his wickedness;
how the son honoring his parents anthony abstract I can’t spare breath on happiness
flourished in his sickness — nor any of its relatives, description
of this kind must be distraction —
aspirant I’ll be done with such involvement,
234 235
o.m.a.v. Quail, shotguns, assorted hammering & sawing, rasping, & thin. Some scent
a jackass, jaybirds, dogs, a goat — persisted, cheap also,
as reminder of the girl,
aspirant These hands a girl, unknown to me.
need only clasp themselves
for their aspirations to come true love-poet Love as a grace tells only
partially its story.
anthony abstract For the god I am the shadow of, It is a bargain also, hard
once, seared me in that flame, & driven.
& sealed my lips. I hurt
to talk. o.m.a.v. Why can’t they walk, didn’t God give them legs.
Why gun, gun, gun, those goddam engines.
istorian The story of his murderer, Why shoot what they won’t eat,
lacking means, enamored of his end — just because it’s there.
aspirant These eyes, so blue, can close, love-poet We speak of it
to disclose all love can do — yet you despise the words
& all they’d arrogantly
anthony abstract My god must prove my spokesman: aspire to give away —
as, speaking of our week together,
o.m.a.v. So those voices a man has in his head This grotesque week, you said
must keep pace, somehow, with it all — & of the car, how you need it chiefly
to cart me to your need.
aspirant I’ll do the most to make my message plain. And there’s your need —
No-one will fall in love with me. [EXITS]
objectist I felt dirty when I handled it.
istorian Shadowed by the lovers, Desolate, when I lost it.
enchanted with beginnings, You meant the world to me. [EXITS]
enchanted with the radiance
that blinds them to their ends — love poet An appetite you once despised
I’d satisfy, despite the pride
anthony abstract He adores the thing I am; resisting me, that must
the flame, the glowing, happy flame, despise itself, enduring,
& sets an obstacle between. [EXITS] to that end, the tedium
I can become during those interims
objectist A cheap thing, unpleasant to the touch, when appetite is stilled —
236 237
istorian Of the soldier, enamored of his wounds.
istorian Of the thoughtful man, who sees Of the deserter, enchanted by his fate,
all this, bemused to find each man’s hand against him,
before beginning — helping him —
o.m.a.v. Why can’t these people stay home, fix up o.m.a.v. Whose dogs are those?
whatever corner of the city each is stuck with,
where are the churchbells, when I was a kid — chainsaw jack Admittedly with spring
excrescences occur — & fall.
love-poet And I ride where you drive,
a graceless grotesque instrument o.m.a.v. And still another voice,
in love, & find my grace You don’t know what this means.
reading to you what you mean to hear
in your despite. [RUSTLES PAPERS] chainsaw jack Love among us humans
never can be otherwise.
istorian A story that won’t stop,
as he’s aware, a war love-poet We shall retreat, each from each,
that’s undeclared, besieged by thought — our love, at last, withstood,
our semiology grown obsolete
o.m.a.v. Whose chainsaw’s that? don’t tell me it’s that says, nothing lasts
the eucalyptus, for ever —
I don’t want to see those chicken-shacks —
chainsaw jack The will of those that love
chainsaw jack Though I am barely human drives into thought concerning what
the logic of this tree thus drives them — into poems even —
grows clear to me, no matter never can be more —
I know it in the summer,
I know the winter in it too. love poet And the poetry it wrote —
will it retreat from us
o.m.a.v. Should we go on buying eggs from there? or, like our memory, each of each,
cheat us — its hopeless lovers?
chainsaw jack As boughs [RUSTLES PAPERS]
so forced up & out, so roots
are driven into earth, a balance istorian Of the teller of the tale,
even I can find. too easy to believe him
enchanted with its outcome,
238 239
its familiar outcome — & in that land, I was immortal.
o.m.a.v. The three dogs had her on her knees, istorian But nothing can distract him —
Bob Porter’s goat, blood at her neck & flank,
but ran off straightaway as we came up — love-poet Are these people those our love
in its vital superfluity
chainsaw jack For I am barely human needs flow out through
so justified to use —
o.m.a.v. Answering those sounds.
I. Speakes And there it was we met.
chainsaw jack While speaking with this tree. [BOTH EXIT] You put your hand on mine
& I could speak & sense
istorian Of the poet, enchanted, enamored & bemused you comprehend. And start to feel —
by others’ words, those toys —
love poet Were you not present
love poet Such a look you send shouldn’t I be dumb before
that courses through direct the longest-suffering
on target — recognized — object of my intended succor —
istorian And others’ tales, those rules — I. Speakes I knew what you were saying,
that we should stay together,
love poet A crowded room, all cliches until I’d learned to follow you
concerning love start up completely —
what clamors for another
naming in my breast — istorian The story of the fool
stumbling on the truth —
istorian They mean to keep, & disobey —
I. Speakes And that I did,
love-poet So that I chatter on I thought —
renewed —
istorian Blinded by its radiance, a light
istorian The mocking, wistful poet — like that striking up off ice —
I. Speakes I dreamt some land where no-one love-poet How then did it happen, ever,
spoke my language, so it took that we two came together?
more time than I can tell to get across,
240 241
istorian He warms to, but only till it’s clear — In the Kitchen, We Find the Norwegian
I. Speakes Until one day, you led me where
I knew we’d hit upon that place — Something in me always wanted to drop out of sight of all that had known
it, to pitch up in some unimaginable version of the everyday. That was how
love-poet What a makeshift world, I came to be in Sweden, working on a dairy-farm. Little chance of meeting
unusable, hopeless Cullingford from Haberdashers’ Aske’s Hampstead School for Boys, here.
with its hazards
Still, getting here had involved letters, interviews, visas. It should happen
I. Speakes Set aside for us to live together in simply, by magic. So I started to drink. The farm was possibly unusual – the
forever, where we would work farmer was in his 40’s, a bachelor, a ladies’ man. He gave a number of small
safe from interruption, dinner-parties & sometimes, a real knock-down, drag-out mid-summer’s-
to perfect this miracle — eve capital-P Party. Though no more than the hired hand, with a room in
the attic, I was always invited to these. There was something of a social
love-poet The look you send asset to my employer, in my englishness. They all drank a lot & me among
would not obliterate. [EXITS] them. Some of the women, all older, would flirt, while I would fall in love
— hopeful, as ever, of being transformed into something rich & strange, or
istorian So they tell strange anyhow. The evenings slid into midnight & I suppose my ears grew
the hardest to believe of all, — longer by the same process, braying songs to the swedish moon.
I. Speakes I woke beside someone like you Next morning, of course, someone had to get up at dawn to milk, & that was
why I was there. This midsummer it was already light when the alarm went
istorian The child sought everywhere — off. It was ringing from the furthest corner of the attic, where I kept it. Then,
as usual, I got up, stumbled out my door, locking it behind me, threw the
I. Speakes Speaking a kind of english key into a pile of junk where I’d never find it until I was wide awake, & then
turned off the alarm. I kept my clothes out here. Now I put them on, went
istorian The enchanted foundling — downstairs, put on my boots outside the kitchen door, & now I could cross the
yard to the cowshed, while everyone else slept on, disposed throughout the
I. Speakes Laughing. livingrooms & bedrooms of Egon Hammer’s unusual farmhouse.
Nothing more substantial than a warm cow at six in the morning & there were
20 of them in that shed. All good things come to an end. After I let them out
to pasture, I wheeled the dung out to the heap steaming away in back of the
barn, cleaned the machines, & towed the churns up the driveway in time for
the milk-truck to pick them up. The sky was absolutely clear over the half-
grown oats. Back at the house, people were stirring — the norwegian student
242 243
was ransacking the fridge for beer, the crypto-prussian officer, Nils Nilsson, passengers even squeezes (this car is loaded) out of his door & brandishes his
was pom-pomming away at a military march, upright on a chair perched on fist at the offender. We are reminded once again that justice is a passion. Even
the dining table, a lamp-shade on his cropped skull — that kind of thing, if the interruptions give it authenticity. The first car, now able to move ahead,
you can’t remember, make it up. did, the second car with a squeal of the tires in hot pursuit. And then it was
we noticed that the second car was driving with its lights off. And still we hold
What I do remember is when Karen appears. I’m in love with Karen. Her there are times when we can bear witness to the present condition of absolute
hair is long & fine & silky, knotted & tangled this morning from sleeping things.
god knows how or where. At last she finds her purse & there it is, her comb.
She goes into the hallway where there’s a handy mirror. Nils Nilsson pom-
poms on. There’s a scream. It’s Karen. Nils & I dash through the doorway.
I’ve gone, she says. She points to where the mirror should be & it’s not. She’s
laughing hysterically now but not so loud we can’t hear the profound groan My Career
from the kitchen. It sounds like one of the cows, trying to give birth. In the
kitchen we find the norwegian, who has determined with himself to do the
dishes from the night before. He had never seen so many dirty dishes in all his I can’t abide people who start to talk as soon as they enter a room, without
born days. The mirror is there with them, in the sink. pausing to check out what’s going on in there. That’s what I think about
growing up late in a slow time. As for sleeping dogs, shout & turn purple. My
first words were “Fort” and “Da” so they put a box turtle in my crib which
I took apart to see why it didn’t tick. Fixed tunings and scales were invented,
and the charm of single notes. A veil of melancholy slipped over my eyes and it
By Visible Truth We Mean the Apprehension of the Absolute was strange, this kid was putting stresses on syllables that were seldom under
Condition of Present Things stress before. He got little more than a polite hand, or fingering, for words
are not only the keys of persuasion, but so full of holes a bus could drive right
through. Simply ask for a transfer. You gonna ride a boxcar?
The kind of prose anybody can read. One Saturday night after the poetry-
reading we went to a cafe to discuss it. Syntax like a clear window giving onto It was very dark inside the fish. Trying to think without jumping. Little more
reality framed anew. Actually we went to a streetcorner near to 3 different than a fingerling, at the fascinating question, How did music begin? Kissing
cafes & discussed which of them would be best. How I saw it — I stake my Joyce King in the fishmonger’s doorway on Cricklewood Broadway — the
life on such assumptions — shows me the way. None of them had room world allows no hermits! There are two tragedies in life: the little yes, gone
enough to accomodate everyone who needed to be there if no-one was to on a breath; I forget the rest. Time went haywire: there were always people in
be left out. One leads instanter to the next, no matter I had those percepts. the time. Nothing taught sex was important: I could see well, if that’s what a
Driving home, later, we saw a remarkable sight: one car had to stop suddenly magnet is. “You liked my body?” “Yes — was that what it was?” And she was
because of something we couldn’t see that was happening ahead of it; & the right, I represented a system. So, it was broken up. This is history. One blots
car immediately behind the first car, had to jam its brakes to avoid a rear- out another. My voice ran on easily and garrulously, carefully dressing panic.
ender. Painful, this disposition of each necessary element, as if a lawyer wrote
it. Now the driver of this second car begins to blare his horn & one of its You won’t see me in silk suits and Cadillacs, but I could never divorce them,
244 245
and under the saint’s robe one always senses the presence of the goat-foot. My Plan
BAA, MAA. “Books! You get right out of this doorway!” To himself he
was a man with a mission still unfulfilled. “Is Patience talking? Is Patience
talking — God, do I hear her voice!” Competition is the keynote, sometimes Heidegger, interpreting Hölderlin, says that to be human is to be a
winningly justified as cutthroat. Were all these rejections qualified? Had he conversation. He himself is outside exchange, plunged into non-profit, the
indeed been a mere hunk of matter? Was his first wife really a tramp? He Zen mushotoku, desiring nothing but the perverse bliss of words. A scientist
paused to scratch and thus upset the assembly plant. He selects with care has a test-tube full of sleep. In hieroglyphics the meaning is embodied in
that which is appropriate; he rejects the superfluous; too much discontinuity the figure itself. Nothing will fit if we assume a place for it. And in turn the
threatens the identity of the person. “Just such as I am done with, hopefully.” straitness or strictness of even the most universalizing mind imprints upon
Wholly opposed to the use of examples which Plato introduced and its works a style, a cruelty, a making us see & feel in this unique personal
philosophy repeated in its poetries ever since: as matters of indifference way. God, the atheistic humanists had said, was to be followed by Man. The
in themselves. The carrier of these projections may even become a special universe strives to be what it truly is to be; &, this fetish desires me. After
enemy, perhaps a bête noire. “That’s my last duchess, browning on the spit.” thirty years of staring at one true phrase, discover that its opposite is true also:
What is too silly to be said is sung. Lully died somewhat prematurely as a one perception must lead instanter to the next.
result of poor medical attention to a wound incurred by — of all things —
striking his toe with a stick used to beat time. I lived on adrenalin. I surveyed What it comes to is ourselves, whereas if we approach a poet without this
the panic of rich women. What bliss when the iris came into being! prejudice we shall often find that not only the best, but the most individual
parts may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their
In 1968 I was 34 and, with something over 40 years of productive writing immortality most vigorously. Yet with all this I can’t account for the great
ahead, and my greatest yet to do, the life to follow had been marked out: horror attached to incest:
gathering the ends and threads ten years in the making from the words of the
best, the spells and blessings uttered in tight corners, out of my hands. If the I am that I am
artist is to endure, a change from the fevered pattern finally emerges. J. calls from the sun
this new method a “sculpted creativity.” I learned to read all over. I was never & people are not my measure.
into that thing about building a saleable character. Either they like me or they
need more time. Each person’s work seems to depend on and be connected The isolation of the American artist in society, so often lamented, is actually
with his neighbor’s, and the whole posse appeared. But though he could make parallel to the furtive & unacknowledged role of artistic method in the
all these things, it is mentioned as a remarkable fact that with all his ingenuity, American mind. How can beginning & end beginning with white in iron
and after many efforts (for he made many), he never could make a wicker end whom with lent. By the time that it is here they have had it & it is what
basket. These wearisome sickening little personal novels! Solemnity is a sign they selected. It is not the Greeks I blame. Through hostility towards art, the
of fraud. Let’s do something big for America! The crux is what happens in work of art approaches knowledge, on several more planes than the arbitrary
it, not a thesis or position — the texture, not the deductive or inductive curse & discursive which we inherit can declare. Any writing which suppresses the
of one-track minds. The door stood open. The long-sloping fall of haunches Third Term (a further perception) is thus trapped within the idealism of the
from the socket of the back sobbed bitterly. Logic might be unanswerable signified. The world is not made up entirely of versions: my wife’s eyes bloom
because it is so absolutely wrong. We’re all plucked apples, so, let’s make cider in the cave; the rules have been obvious enough. She goes everywhere she can:
of a large question. The ant went up the plan. I would know her anywhere. And when meeting, people say, What’s new?
246 247
Hieratics
There are those who want a text without a shadow, without the “dominant
ideology”: but this is to put the cart before the horse, based on the assumption
of a harmony that doesn’t exist. Well, to hell with it. Would you look at the
actual car or only at the specifications? Or the dream in the peasant’s bent
shoulders. Scenery is one thing that can’t be eaten. Yet immediacy is no more
beyond dialectics than is mediation. A sentence is not emotional a paragraph
is. Hieratics: A Triptych
Because I might be suspected of having been principally influenced by
the selfish & foolish hope of reasoning others into an approbation of this 0
particular Plan, I was unwilling to undertake the task: Here we see a street replete with unfeeling judgements & cruel deeds at the
end of the earth.
Because the lovely little flower is free
Down to its root, and, in that freedom, bold. Innocence decelerates marketable catastrophe, animal & plaintive.
Ever since the seventeenth century, freedom had been defined as all great A hammer falls, the faces of the workers freeze in astonishment.
philosophy’s most private concern. It had an unexpressed mandate from the
bourgeoisie to find transparent grounds for freedom: “& me, me, what am I That’s how jewelry is made.
doing in all that?” I want to purify the words of the tribe sometime during
the next year. Of course it may be said that if the difference is felt & is not The chevrons may be decorative or descriptive.
discoverable to the eye & ear then what about it anyway? There are no perfect
waves. Alert criticism eliminates phenomenon.
So it takes excellence to kill sails. The way of the world is stupid & obscure & She glides lightly & seductively away, except for the soft oval.
must be so to fit man’s intelligence. The necessity that the poet shall conform,
that he shall cohere, is not one-sided. The group’s opinion dominates due to Circles with dots may or may not be human heads. And what of the swastikas?
opinions that reign outside the group. By the brokenness of his composition Abstract space fillers, or starfish?
the poet makes himself master. Death is difficult for the senses to alight on.
What it comes to is ourselves. To write that essential book, a writer doesn’t Over I,
need to invent it, since it already exists in each of us; he has only to translate it. the words of our mouths.
Why stop there? This is my plan.
Mongols on ponies waist-high through the wheat & the alligator.
The education law banishing belief.
248 249
Vagabonds, jailbirds, anglo-canadians on grants, existential sportscar drivers,
mountebanks, rock guitarists who ought to stay in hollywood living in san Their steps directed toward something which can no longer be borne, ghost
francisco, merry pranksters, gurus, badtrip artists, bring- down dittos, on a chair on a pool of some sky . . . Seated beneath a sunshade, he watches
organgrinders, anyone over 30, oregano peddlers, certain higher powers, a group of men busily weighing something white. From the left the small
burning questions, american prolixity, baseball as poetry, naked dancers from winged figure flies toward her with open mind. Caught up in the elastic of
the finger lakes region with family trees wherefrom depends the herpetic youth, a transparent ritual significance in his left.
apple of anomie, a bunch of blokes push their way forward. Souls unabsorbed
returned to bodies. Go where you want to go. Yesterday. “From hereon in, every blessed thing is in quotes,”
& her trancelike masks,
1 as well as the mortal brilliance.
The bird emerging from behind the head,
& her trancelike expression, as well as the hollow bowl. 2
There are masks of human faces. As the enchanted day draws to a close, accompanied by a swarm of cupids,
This goddess risks all to be mortal, spawned in the nearby marshes, they move with studied assurance of actors
her parents on low stools in ashes, who play role superbly & scratch that later. This playfulness, so free from
men & things set in a sparkling brilliance. dogmas & catspaws, is so obviously idealized as to still any gossip, beyond the
Utterly. Adoration. locked gates. The goddess is one of several identities: bared, & the snakes may
And deep in the woods, Freud’s granddaughter’s hut, represent rather than divine . . . Nervous flickering strokes create everything
gods with no name, excited. Even trees agitate, yet the whole is light-hearted, conveyed sketch-
& up above, the pond, a loveliest azure, & the insistent swallows: like, rapid statues & a steep overgrown staircase.
“Drink from me,
so be it!” He had looked black but love would whitewash all. Liquor passes through
Light beyond all praise, the filaments of nerves. Rabbits bound, elves glance up. It’s 4 o’clock. Each
lolling on the railing, is a sign of a different complex idea. Pick up the bat & hit it with the bird.
opulent, slipping from boulder to awning, Eloquence, the fair sex, two prevailing beauties, rise in vain to find fault with
filtering through, receptive, these arts wherein Men pleasure To be. Culture glosses over & over Mortality.
impervious, undeniable.
Think of the sound of laughter.
So there was a covenant made with Good & into its orders I was born. Now watch the man drop the cheese.
Following her father into the lowroofed cave, she notices what a grown person
obliged to stoop might easily overlook. Groups of dots, club- marks, ladder- Out of doors is no constraint. We see a cat cautiously stalking the flat forms
like patterns, hands based on a desire to express a fundamental conception . . . People naturally prefer to sit at their ease, in sheltered parks & gardens,
rather than attempt to capture. The deaf grasses of the meadow. Her round as if the scene were under water, & the gods wished to lay knowledge by day,
head & fawn body, tingling. The bearded, present, head: freshness in choosing the recipients more carefully: semblance deprives terror; sexuality-
approach, concentration of expression mature as to style, virtuosity thrills the culture
catlike texture of hair, eyebrows & beard, sleek skin.
250 251
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theirs are broad vistas with irregularly-spaced tufts of hair. Unseen hands bamboo,
undoes light work. If a man spray his playmates with a length of hose, he asymmetrically.
is not that hose. If these men lack the beauty we expect of epic heroes,
their movements have an expressive vigor & love will last forever, not in Despite its isolated prominence, the tiny figure in red on the shelf is only here
monuments. The curled-up dog is certainly pliable. This is how society now as one more aspect of nature. The view may well be one familiar during his
sees itself as opposed to the somewhat stilted hi-flown world of travesty. many years of seclusion. Then there’s the dust that settles in every crevice &
Dionysus reclines in his boat, but why is he at sea? And with prettified mars the stone, prophesying the Church of Lateran falling, but by the saint
features & a body at once slim & quite frankly great expanses of blue & green upheld. Preach to the ignorant. Begging to the poor. Absent from his body,
foliage? Art & Nature, debase the grim myth in twain, take on fixed contours, wearing a tunic of coarse brown serge, bound with a cord. Saints blaze in
become material. Only then does the next fragment fit itself into place. two dimensions in the sky, attenuate toward heaven — cardboard cutouts
pasted to those silver clouds that seal all in while they roll away, preaching
Earthenware jugs, a casserole, a copper pot, raw meat, blanc de blanc, smoked all things must pass & deserve to while he wanders beneath the new apple-
herring, two eggs ... at the so-called end he wanted to be patriarch, a fat tribe leaves, tending the leper, name of Evidence, the squeak upon a blackboard. A
inside. She fascinated her face in the mirror. halfwit spreads own garment for him to walk over. Bodies that seem capable
only of slow ceremonial celestial gestures in an expanding space that inflates
3 the illusion of unreality; marriage of Byzantium & Thibet; the individual has
The shadow took on a variegated daguerrotype. India ink, with its all- ceased to reach the end of the road, while smallscale reliefs, especially ivory &
inclusive range from palest gray to deepest black, contains all the colors of metal, continue their variety of content, style, & purpose.
this world. The middle classes become wealthy in the things of their daily
life. The dust, the dirt, the doghair, the despair, all sorts of remains of food This is a piece of a portable altar for private devotions while traveling.
strewn across the floor, each with its own impeccable shadow. Isolation from
the outside world & nearly the most efficient police state. His eyes seem This is the disappearance of monumental proportions.
already lost in the other world, a livid light, replacing the transient with a
more enduring to be appeased. An attempt to prevent the father reappearing? This is etched in acid.
Shown the thrones in heaven prepared, oh no! Rolled in a thicket of thorns,
doomed thereafter to bear roses. The silver boards from the roof of the old This is a scene that belongs to a cycle of the 4 seasons with birds & flowers, &
vinegar factory loosen to admit protozoa themselves created. Almost blind something small clutching at him, imploring he thinks for help, each with its
from incessant ears, seeing that his eyes closed during meditation, he made a own unimpeachable shadow.
mistake — ripped off his eyelids. What is lacking here is the courage to tackle
large forms. The weirdly-shaped garden rocks are a good indication, the 4
tiny red spot on a stool. Trees seem as if the scurfy flesh of witches had been Here we see a street replete. Innocence decelerates marketable catastrophe,
pulled over them. Looks good! he reflects. An effect of brilliance vigorously animal & plaintive. It discards the judge & levels the plaintiff. A hammer falls,
252 253
the faces of the workers freeze in astonishment. So-&-so made me.
Vagabonds, discharged soldiers, jailbirds, escaped galley-slaves, smiling
Here turns the spear of there. colleagues, swindlers, mountebanks, pick-pockets, busy competitors,
gamblers, maquereaux, obedient officials, trained swiss vultures, helpful
1000s march past, & are gone, social workers, bulgarian umbrellas good for a laugh, certain higher powers,
the one for whom I’m wrong cigars & garlic sausage, american prolixity burning questions, baseball as
eternally among the throng! prose, a bunch of blokes push their way forward.
A tatooed & subterranean first. Specific organization of scarcity. Intellect Go where you want to go, yesterday.
affords no permafrost against vinegar barbs.
The chevrons may be decorative or descriptive. Restricting principles
selection discarded. The defenseless maiden is fully as appealing as the
martyred saint. She glides lightly, & seductively oval. Lozenges indicate legs, My Palaver
whether of man or chair; circles with dots may or may not be human heads;
if it were not for the fact that the boat is upside-down & that the biggest fish
has seized the head of one of the men, we’d read this simply as a pattern. And Shades of Callimachus, Coan ghosts of Philetus
what of the swastikas? Abstract spacefillers, or just fish? It is in your walks I would groove,
I who come from the clear font
Katharis, kenosis, ketones. Bringing the Grecian orgies into Italy,
& who wrote ‘My Poetry’
Kaiserslauten, campari. With sentences from each review my poetry ever had,
And my thanks to those reviewers (tho’ nameless here,
What could I do? God willing. They one day shall be numberless), & to Theodor Adorno,
By the rivers of Babylon For stuff not only in that piece but also in
where I now supped ‘My Plan’ & in ‘Hieratics’
when I remembered Zion? Found in his Philosophy of Modern Music; & to Karen Gordon
Who wrote `Sign on Librarian’s Desk’; James Thomson,
How sing King Alfred’s song Johns Clare & Milton, thanks for lines of yours also,
And yours, Pablo y Garcia, ‘My Poetry’ mistranslated,
in (wrong) Australia? And thanks Ron Silliman, for that passage there about
the Problematic.
The words of our mouths Outweariers of Apollo will, we know, identify
over I. A few pages brought down from Marx’s 18th Brumaire
to decorate my triptych’s wings,
The education law banishing belief. While fans ofJanson’s History of Art will find,
254 255
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS AMERICAN TESTAMENT
Both in the wings & on the central panels, American Testament
some familiar titbits.
Thank you, thank you. Grammercy, Mister Hobbes,
And who-all else I drew on for ‘Authority’.
Their dooryards would scarcely know them.
Thanks too & a tip of the comic, cone-shaped ‘hat’
To ‘J’, whose Sensuous Woman’s lingo helps ‘Our Tongues’;
And I also among the later nephews of Sebastopol American Testament
Owe gratitude to that city’s weekly Times
(esp. to Vinson Brown,
Who pens a column called ‘Exploring Sonoma County’): Dedicated
These helped to make ‘One Spring’. to the
Thanks, Sarah Howard, for whatever you can recognize. inarticulate
There will be a crowd of persons (carefully unspecified) marginalized
Doing homage to my palaver, let them hear persons
‘My Plan’ & ‘My Career’ owe much to other authors who had
Riveting their eyes on their plans or our careers the right
(e.g., Gail Sheehy, Passages.) And you, O Polyphemus? but not
Introspection gives me almost nada, as Merleau-Ponty notices the means
(‘Film & the New Psychology’).
Yet the companions of the Muses, weary with
historical data,
Today may turn to my dance-tune,
I but the composer, a tone among words, no chain-link fence A Sample Hurt
nor marble slab establishes a title to,
And what most I like to do (The objective, to reveal)
Is treat the words till they emit an ambiguity as rich, Early childhood memories later, growing up and able,
Require a choice as personal, as intimate relationship, can sometimes feel like therefore, to decide
But history intrudes on every one, its whorls, a dream. The road what was too personal for
Although we lack a mugshot, inked-in here. disappears into a lake. art or social chit-chat, and
But this really was turned, in its place, to
something I once saw. the articulation of fine
The flood was systems of thought, or
catastrophic. We trying to recall good
had to flee. Why gossip. Trees
speak of it, I told myself, that ought to have some
256 257
grass around their boles, attractions. The colossus It’s a good living. to people rather than
and that grass a stretching was banal. He You get to see a lot insects or the birds
out in each direction indicated with his of people who only see that come to eat them
of itself to supply digit. You tv. And naturally or contemplating the word of.
solidity, stuck up from a could manufacture one quaint landscapes but Good deeds aren’t necessarily
sea so placid it might be yourself if we didn’t mostly they’ve been painted. going to be remembered
sky, that certain of its have to leave almost I’m supposed be wary of forever — I picked a snake up
right to obliterate all as soon as we arrived. dark strangers but these and then let him go into his
recognizable signs. Little The reason we don’t vote are only words to me, hole. It was horrid. But
ripples lapped the is nobody tells us it the ones the gypsy knows clouds keep on moving
asphalt. When you see straight the way they did between her shiny because they haven’t any
mother and father at such back when this thing was built. ear-things. Michelangelo real beliefs, whereas flowers
loss you feel superior and There really has been a past actually used bright can be cut down or stepped on
that can attach importance and today it comes right colors, and ten, or made to spell out words
making the child in you down to us. Don’t throw a fit: generations of art or be somebody’s picture
live forever in an adult people are watching. Another history will need to be despite being beautiful
world of, face it, I said bunch will be standing here revised. The ruins in their own right.
one day many years later to next Wednesday. Yesterday are being fixed I’m glad we can’t be
my sweetheart, annual having my pain looked into by a novel process either. But stars
climatic depredations not I heard my mother through to withstand the smog. at least up here where it’s clear
forgetting many millions the walls. They were We can compare the past on dry nights when everything
who expected the usual and very thin. These people to anything less abstract keeps rustling look like
got so-called total would steal you blind and a spring in the hills revolutionary hordes
war. I read the if we allowed that sort is a river today. Keeping on their way to the Bastille
philosophers ‘ and shut of thing (I’m probably thoughts to yourself can and the little waves on the lake
my eyes and there it is, misquoting) and grow into a cliff strangers make your heart ache
for anyone to see, my there used to be may not want to do anything because try as you might
road going into a generation gap. beside admire their climbing you can’t stop noticing
someone else’s water. Headaches made me miss aptitude. Anything can be the way they have
She got so upset she the big picture named whatever words you think chosen to be
left the room and so any little detail fit. Hedgerows in England just like each other
later, the little town is interesting. might be little lines while you would like to
I had meant for us to die There were models with snow on them and buy it for yourself and maybe
in, one by one naturally but making their faces smile a mirror to be their sky. one other special person
somehow, together. On my travels next to the fountain The hermit sits alone and invite some friends up
I started to note that used to be obscene. unable to adjust to until time for them to leave.
only the most obvious They repeated themselves. the pace of living next door When the moon makes you crazy
258 259
and lonely it is difficult killed so many foreigners? seems the only time to be when I got back from church with
if not impossible to stop It’s hard to really care the person across the street my uncle. If all the objects
looking at the outside once you’ve seen snakes with nice clothes, and her legs we pick up and handle in dreams
and then you think about yourself swallow the monkey you rescued pedaling furiously as if were true I wouldn’t be able to
because everything out there is from the army ants. she had somewhere to go get out of here to humor him!
lit up and you haven’t It’s hard to hear the wind blowing and it could be specified The rug has a weave I chose myself
done much with your life while you’re typing, and and mattered. Who hasn’t and my heart hurts because a spire
unless to tell people how nature to be told you’d go for anything watched the leaves grows out of it throbbing
makes them feel pleases in shorts. Ever since the Mexican scutter along the sidewalk and until I touch it a lot.
them enough to let you go volcano the weather’s been funny, thought There has to be room for the new
on spending money on objects funny weather. I wouldn’t give it he was lucky to have a job he liked and my uncle walks now
to fill your life up with a job in any theater I managed, doing and just then seen his dead with a stick, a step at a time
after the spirit has fled. it would monopolize the conversation friend with the insects but still he arrives. Someone
Some people have their fate the way an army doesn’t crawling in and out of their new who was buried alive in a coffin
foretold by ghosts the way let anybody voice opinions domain and located the worry with nails stuck through its sides
cows lie down to say which is what’s wrong with war inside the head and given it a breathed through a tube
it’s going to rain. but there’s nothing to be done name: the future thoughtfully provided
Others drive nails into about the weather I guess or for Third World Peoples. until rescued. He had decided
their palms if it looks like not yet anyway. Meanwhile Everyone knows we are connected the men who did this thing
nothing else is going to work. here because of the way but not many get happy about it weren’t human beings
When the sky is yellow green things are managed while others won’t dance and the more time to think to
behind the flag I ask myself there’s not much to write about because the body has embarrassing yourself
why I don’t feel the same any more but my friend has a new bicycle entrances and exits, as if shame the more mistakes you will likely
about pledging allegiance or but in Bombay or New Delhi was a crawly pit and not an make.
going for long walks. I guess people bathe in holy water awful presence to talk with. The big birds in the drapes
it’s because I don’t drive for before they die in the streets. Nature is beautiful in camera are either taking off or settling
Volunteer Wheels these days Even the pictures on tv until we get tired of waiting but either way they please
but then I find an easy turn to words in the head for some , novelty to develop by not attacking. People say
excuse because we are kept so for us to love and when you make someone they believe in life
busy down at the plant because we thought of them important and you can see this makes them
and I don’t have a picture of it and then try to forget angry it helps if you believe in cheerful
inside where I try to fantasize. in the interests of being reincarnation. It was a nice but then when they hit you
Is that the soul serene. You will live longer bright clear spring day the whole effect is spoiled
a kind of dry ice machine and life will seem richer when even the bugs were in no making them really angry.
that used to envelope the earth if you pick the right hurry to die and the room Answers are for us all
in its special fog that advice to follow. At the moment was a green jungle like having your face
260 261
pressed up against a wall. for that would be sad. imagining they are We can end bad habits
On the other side is a pretty A person who is inside me that non-existent (and what aren’t!) and stop at
garden full of unmentionable plants and therefore is quite tiny someone who stands for nothing right now. By a waterfall
and animals that have never been stays home all day and eats the fact of being social would be lovely with the negative
dead chocolate, but I and telling people what ions falling from the ionosphere
come out of it at night am not so easy to please. they ought to filled with the memory
but most think if they don’t And find excuses want to hear, of everything that ever happened
act as if they’re right for doing stuff but you before it was put into words.
the end of the world will happen I otherwise would not believe all that is stupid High up to the top
while they’re undressing. be pleased by, such as and shout, shut up the sky lets us see
It can be a nasty shock studying Karl Marx in an empty room. today all the way
seeing yourself in a window when friends tell me When you say you have known so that air can escape
while you are looking they can’t get jobs someone making happiness in its frame
for something to buy. but all they want a long time, you are ready for all the sadder for the bird
This new article of clothing is the touch of a hand a real surprise. Children on the ground with the happy
could alter how others on their arm don’t harbor suspicions they just ants all around. The gaping
perceive you, but suddenly and I always have my head flare up and later wound has a bluebottle too
there the old you is, a ghost in a book. What other people go to sleep. feeding on the sticky goo.
to be sure, but persistent. do can make you very angry There is something sad to us Something must be wrong
How come the flowery so why not pretend to in getting married very young, with the frame and the quarrel
banks are remarkable ignore them. at fourteen, say. A whole life inside starts up again
and I am not. My poem Do your thing will have to go by powered by the plenteous
will be about my English then settle back and let never looking back. Oh well, oxygen poured over all
grandfather. I like everybody be the judge there can be getting used to anything that is delighted by it
especially the wild among the different ways. and then the other one and everything that has
woodbine because he smoked Or point out how the others goes away. It all no use for it.
that brand of cigaret are making a big mistake stays the same as before, How we love these
then rolled his eyes and they’d do better the trees and the houses golden days of fall
up in his head. Now if they would only let you lose their paint and their leaves, and will recall them later
we have to pick up after him correct them with your efforts and no one really has space as if they had never happened
and work harder and set an example. behind their heart or face for a real but they did, they just
so that his life Some for instance human being to live, went away and left us
which ended shortly after Christmas can’t get out of bed you just need to swallow pride to clean up after them until
and his vocation (he blasted without somebody and crawl over mountains of strange only we know how
mountains into monuments) who tells them to, style the finite collapses
shall not have been wasted, and even sadder, to be by your dear one’s side. of our own weight.
262 263
Symmetry is beautiful or even hear or sniff brightens up, say, when there is definition of carnal
with 3 at the outset float in and out like astronauts a power-outage. I like to think knowledge. College
balanced by 3 at the end. on television without any about how nothing was always warning
Size is immaterial. regular scheduling is ever where you look “Came the dawn”
Time is irrelevant. like a broken neon sign but something else will be. Travel yet words such as funest
The men stood against the wall advertising anything in has to be a lot like that. and curlicue and abrogate
to be shot. Nobody likes to be capital letters. Summoning Cleopatra, I get kept me coming
locked away in a place It’s annoying Marie Antoinette. Sitting here back for seconds
where they can never not to be able to in the June night that became years, finally,
reach a favorite toy check the second hand I look out between the venetian always having been the type
and this makes Heaven angry by it, and yet blinds where the slats need who got depressed leaving
anyway: two names never hurt if it is fixed fixing and there’s my sign, UA-5 after a musical
when a life is at stake. you’ll miss its flicker, blinking, and then I wish for that made the sidewalks
We can read totals I remind myself a visitor to tie me up grayer with its glittering
in figures in our heads that has been never exactly until I fall asleep assurances that art
if the brain dies your friend but rather the way my mother did urged a place-bet on life.
from hearing suffering. more of a rainbow and when I wake, to love humanity. That woman whistling her dog
People love Nature to point out But nobody comes may well be indifferent
because everything seems to a friend or someone to hear that intellectual to the latest
in its place but we use sitting next to you on the bus, beauty equals assassination
vacuums to suck up the dust someone who kept you afraid anyone’s insomnia. but who can envy her
and are unable to stop until then by being drunk That big color tv such tunnel vision?
working, but are clever enough and putting his hand on isn’t in the livingroom No-one wants to be
to distinguish between killing your leg. Now there is to demonstrate Aristotle the speaker of the plangent
for necessity and for pleasure. something to share, whereas, had a lot on the ball. summation named
The friend I used to comb if you’d gone to the motel The batteries on its remote “I only like what I already know”.
my hair like doesn’t write you might have a disease control aren’t run down I have all the personality
but is probably at this point, for no reason either. of several parts of what
doing fine in a house or apartment and be feeling bad When it’s Saturday night I’ve met in a handful of
just like mine about the bus line I wish my name were Betty Ann espresso bars
either purchased or for rent, or your parents. Bostock, I imagine the good later discovered to have
and with things inside it Company is better on the train times she’s enjoying, reputations inflated for
that have no purpose but not much, and planes, well, that isn’t civilization monetary considerations
except to make you wonder they’re cattle-cars these days. filling her head with but in one instance to my
what it is. Things And so I prefer to travel relief at transcending certain knowledge,
we can’t see in my living room when the fire the dictionary the laudable
264 265
intention to restore span “Under the Boardwalk” filed inside the compound monstrous cock and balls,
a bankrupt relative to fused proprioceptively their bosses lied to them about the latter there for me
fiscal viability. to afford a general the better to protect the truth, to stick my own big thing into,
Motive, motive, that five sense of well-being long and the prime minister shall not be confused
foot shelf of notebooks since fled noted for her forthrightness when she wakes up
the published version to pace the penthouses set her closest colleague up to find me still
hoped to rescue from overhead. It was by urging him in secret, very much asleep.
either way, well raining. It had been to leak a letter she could see More is a natural
merited oblivion, raining and the rain would backfire on him condition of this
we know who wrote the boffo went on. Although the tract to protect the party less than finished
number “You’re My Everything” was not officially and only incidentally mindset called
and we practically know listed as a flood-zone herself. People with addictions experience. Once
why, but can’t say and therefore not insurable (and who isn’t) have a need when they took me to
how. The Cherokee several hundreds to be backed into a corner a place where no-one
see these matters brought against the city where they can at last feel wore their clothes,
differently, but you a class-action suit real, be themself I liked it, but next
being of mixed blood, restoring meaning to if only someone day I told them
Irish and Rumanian, the knee-jerk phrase pushing the button we’d been at a masked ball.
have to be American good luck. One student that ignites the atmosphere Lying is necessary ;
so that for fifteen dollars believed that the appearance others were planning to go for survival
you acquire this set of tapes of a defecting Soviet on breathing with of confusion, certainly,
of the Jungian poet star of the ballet in order to complete some and linked inexorably
and psychologist excused her for the evening finite project like to the permanence of words:
and historian and Ringo from the seminar but the taxonomy of rare he got through the rapids
to help you get off the professor asked her field-mice, and, in such by swimming with the flow
drugs. In Florida what he ought to do if interims as their employment that beat him senseless
a box beside the beach others took the night off sees fit to allow, against a rock below.
changed the space its volume when the Beach Boys came to town. remembering a journey My heart, that is in the blue
reached, making it difficult As a power which to the Baltic ports in ridge mountains of Virginia,
if not impossible to finish triumphs over consciousness 1965, fastidiously misses the rest of us.
the local Post-Intelligencer libido by nature is discriminating memory at this sing-song
crossword puzzle but demonic — they hacked from dream, so that we’re having in a Datsun
the effort increased the giant squid’s tentacles Mary Parsons, who sat beginning to skid in
the sense of acuity with their machetes across from me in downtown traffic on a slick
while the bathetic but this only made sixth grade, and who intersection when the storm
coincidence when the DJ God mad. The journalists one night sprouted just took out the streetlights
266 267
in Topeka. To sit and draw seldom hard enough. He pulled out his pistol He has some kind of pension
at the table in the kitchen It was a dark and shot me. Now I am dead from the war. We have
when my mother country road the gain in clarity discussed his case behind his back
is reading Mazo de la Roche and the car never ceases to astonish. but arrived at no conclusions
and dad prepares his briefs had just emerged My uncle the gambler If we tell him not to
while my sister does her from water one foot deep needs his car to drive and he does despite us
nails and listens to the radio that flowed across it. every so often and he wins big, he may
feels cozy as nostalgia, Up ahead a chain of flamingo to Reno. The family believes forget he owes us
though I am drawing colored flares demanded he would do better Yet the odds are long
cavalry and indians in a decision. I drove at a steady job against him and this
mortal conflict carefully around these and people mutter he cannot think through to the end.
with no notion of what and resumed slow progress that he ought to Since I had my accident
when it is done, i.e., on the right side of the road. look for one instead I stay home and read
when there’s no space A second set of flares of putting in a two-day volumes about hardship
on the sketchpad left or stretched across the road week at the gaming tables. landscapes. Hardy
I’m told to brush my teeth, some fifty yards ahead, We don’t know if he’s poor lived to be 88
will be its outcome, where some other car approaching because he lives with while his characters
so each stroke with its brights on relatives rent-free and seldom died young. I choose
in its consistency blinded me, so that I repeatedly buys the groceries, but or don’t choose to
with every other stroke high-beamed him, but he obviously has money notice such things.
bears the importance to no effect. Reaching both or he wouldn’t leave the house
that is paramount car and flares at once, I
and pictures happiness saw someone in a yellow
to hindsight, thus slicker standing in the storm,
content. Yet which was, as it had been for
when you find yourself five days now, torrential. A Squeal Of Approval
all alone on the moors Winding down my window
as night comes on I said to him, “What’s up?”
whistling helps more, He was a cop, and the car I wanted to be an American
and you don’t worry was his. He said because I was born one, what
that your tape-recorder’s “Didn’t you see those a dull reason. I wanted to be
back at the hotel. flares back there?” “Yes.” American because important words
It may be hard “Don’t you know what they mean!.” were illustrated with pictures
convincing oneself I said, “I don’t know what in bright colors, and mothers
that one’s experience is anything means anymore — were like big sisters. The people
real, but in my judgement, I’m just trying to get home.”
268 269
all so attractive, inviting, grew in an older way, a coral reef
even when alone in their wonderful rearing the delicate fronds of her
bathrooms, they were aware of me, eventual strength, a steaming tureen
you felt, and one another. One might
be thinking, “another dental of tomato bisque surrounded by bright
cripple in the making”, or “get wise, red pictures of tomatoes. Over there
Miss Scrub-Hard”, but Good Housekeeping they gave you stuff whenever you bought
other stuff — and the connections were
was taking care that your tomato juice mysterious, a cake-knife free with each
had the proper potency or baby’s soap can of Crisco, but not insoluble,
will not irritate her tender skin. “So much lighter! they’ll say, How
Machines spoke in easy-to-read bubbles
and cheered their people up in their houses do you do it?” and “deftly applied,
they had always just bought. And the real mascara makes your eyes more interesting.”
questions came up often: “Are man-to-man Troubles there were, but fetched
out into the open to be aired —
friendships possible between men and women?” “Bob, I can’t stand it any longer.
“What’s an ended year with all of life Your constant criticism is driving me
before me?” The women wore silver gowns crazy. I’m going away for good. Daisy.”
trailing along the floor that showed off
willowy but well-busted figures. They looked This, in the “Personal” column of the daily
like love was all they lived for, yet paper! Barby, sighing wearily as Ann’s
could cleverly transmute it into marriage, hysteria mounted, said “You ought to beat her,
Bill. It might make a woman of her” — just as if
with its houses full of objects. for him to do so would be the equivalent
Matters of identity interested them of the world-famous Woodbury Formula
like quads and quints, or being one to help correct blackheads and blemishes.
of many optimists, or “which bride
are you to be?” They went on cruises Babies played with baby camels. Mrs. Powell
to wear other kinds of clothes. Among them Cabot of Boston toyed with a Camel cigaret.
movie stars, who lived just like anybody else, Bridal types clad in sheer nightgowns
or possible party dresses smiled ecstatically
on huge estates. Technology as their reflections grew firmer with Windex.
hung a mike out in the woods Every woman smiled. Father however
and insect solos, choruses and symphonies brings home crutches for a son who needed
augmented the attention. Yet love
270 271
Red Cross gauze when there was none quite the contrary, “Is he banging
and winces at the touch of dishpan on that thing again” denied the simple
hands, maybe with respect, but not sincerity the both of us
with admiration. The most beautiful
thing on wheels and a curly blonde in had it happened in America
negligee were linked in his mind would have been supposed to (and thus
by providential Pontiac. Air conditioning would have) possessed. Mister Baby
was His Majesty in that other place!
took care there’d be no dogdays “I’m so happy with my new love”
in this house. Feeling lazy breathed a woman bent across her stove:
anyway? Try a pineapple luncheon what would she say to a real man?
salad straight from the can. Try
4 matchless mechanical servants. A red haired boy in a green shirt
All your clothing could be pre-shrunk against a dark blue backdrop ate
thus washable. The Lovell Pressure a pink ice-cream. Canada was one terrific
vacation-land due to its canoes and girls
Cleansing Wringer materially altered in swimsuits and its mountains and its stars
the meaning of the Statue of Liberty. that shine like Miriam Hopkins’
One might walk on wax and save one’s floors. teeth, and because, across the page,
My mother needed America to write the final
rime to her sad song that went “It began a young woman is naked except for an obliquely
beneath a silvery moon / then came June / placed towel with which she stimulates her
and a honeymoon / then all too soon / circulation briskly but gently: Yes, true,
a bride gave her husband athlete’s foot, but
came the old broom / and the laundry room / Absorbine Junior had cleared it up. Even when
hearts out of tune (when frowns replaced in one short day her husband cut his finger —
smiles and romance tottered on its throne)” Susan scraped her knee — Johnny scratched his
by trilling “then love in bloom”
thanks to Apex cleaners, washers, ironers, pimples raw — and then, she burned her hand,
and refrigerators. And who wouldn’t everybody just put on some Unguentine
get the rugs cleaned when the finest cleaning as easy as anything, the way Dew Deodorant
could be applied when a romantic movie
costs so little? We had a piano thrills your perspiration glands. Women
but noone had ever suggested that in cartoons discussed these subjects. They
a beautiful and human friendship always looked like they wanted to get
should develop between it and me;
272 273
naked and step onto a weighing machine. Religions become kind of held back you know,
Dad was off buying a red roadster clubs — join one smoothing the air with
against an orange sky. In the kitchen and lose your job. a stiff palm held
I was shouting “I won’t, I won’t, Yet belief horizontal, not that
I’ll throw it on the floor!” and instead can never be I mind, this
of a slap to the side of the head a choice. Among the great I want you to
Mum said “Wheaties? I’ll get some right away!” ideas with power to move understand about me,
currently off visiting what other people
another universe is get up to, and then
immortality, which I start to worry that
took wing once someone someone will get hurt.
As Long As Purgatory Rimes With Virtue in the audience who It took 5 coats
pulled the heads off of paint, not that
flowers when younger that’s the point,
Flames race investigation though called out we were going to
through the structure shows it was the “How long’” and the paint the place
as the people wiring. How showers of ticker tape anyway, but they
stumble out important it appears to at a glance from even painted stuff
into the snow. attribute the cause humanity’s revised on the refrigerator.
They have had during the slow countenance were strips I like to read
their rude awakening hours of recovery reporting the stock or hear about
and are in great when the newspaper exchange performance suchlike behavior
pain. The noise and the magazines earlier that day but it’s more fun
dismays and if prove and disillusion not to be entirely
one turns and looks uncompelling. Males spread like present. Then
he sees none away frim oss a religious fervor they took wet
but the sturdiest tae I Air A men fortunately, for cornflakes and stuck
framework wor gettin shot. given something’s fled the stuff all round
remains, a silhouette The bome then best to say so, the clock. Art
against the fire fell from the cair and let our motivation be is often ugly
itself framed by the night. before the hice. another mystery. at first. I have
He blames Hosbins day I don’t want to this roommate and they
himself or a companion, an wives mist wonder have to look at have this taste in
a cigaret neglected hoe lang they’ll huf hem myself, these art students music . . . but after a
was it or the hearth fur. Air ull arcts were all partying certain amount of time
undoused? Subsequent arcts uv Gard? at my apartment, and I you get to
274 275
recognize what you are you were invited but determined more replace it
hearing and it takes you somehow couldn’t by one’s own with another, or
real time get it together to go feelings and not you could claim a
sinking into and they’re all primarily by religious nature. Either
all the wrinkles crowded together in this their behavior way, it’s a deduction,
of your being, so then huge bunker built into in actuality while the piano man’s
it becomes a hill, and you watch it come to stand as number spells
beauty. But I don’t explode, flames shooting truth. Persons TUNE. The best
care for that symmetrical up and chunks of earth educated to accept poetry finds us
beauty of the tv people, and poet, and you unquestioningly out — and if
there’s always something, go on your way until the family’s we harbor a will
the mouth pulls into you reach the 1920’s versions of reality to be baffled and
a funny shape, lopsided, and have to be rather than construct indignant, invariably
that I find attractive. W.H. Auden or Sir their own blah obliges. The hedge
You wear these stirrup Stephen Spender, blah. The pyramids had to be five feet
pants that which? Self looked like an early high at least over which
were popular when we were constructed systems form of life both of the women
in sixth grade, and they’re are marked by archaic insurance. The globes pissed. The years
black and you wear a superego qualities of mercury broke or better, days
jacket several sizes too — arbitrary, into small globules, and hours with their
big and it looks peremptory, each one a perfect intrinsic moments,
boxlike, a man’s involuntary, sphere. Socrates’ following summer
shirt under it outside automatic — joke shows, to 1945, with its revelations
the pants, and socks while primitive say the least, disrespect of the power within
pushed down like flight wards for the psyche. the atom and the
this and these off the intrusive The picture, 4 French blankness of Dachau
forest elf shoes that authority of the poplars reflected in a stream and Auschwitz, brought
admit it, really look like auxiliary of Monet’s paint, he thought many to self-murder
rats, and if you’re ego. Passional looked like 4 Thaisticks, and others to
really hip you wear the worst engagements are invariably hung frenetic searching for
materials you can disdained yet crooked within hours some prime — opening
imagine from the early the fervent notes of being readjusted. a door to what he
70’s. Tonight are kept to prove To ask repeatedly the same took to be the toilet
all the poets one lived as an question, never to receive he found his
are having a get-together attractive entity. an answer, perhaps host and hostess
to which of course Percepts of others suggests you ought to coupling nude
276 277
beneath one of her snacks. One member were grazing though the moon
deliberately of the panel held midnight had already splendid because
ugly paintings his hands together come and gone. The lane it united the chief
which tableau he took when maintaining that ran from the pub sense with others
in its absolute of since ratiocination where a girl with curly while allowing them
concrete against had resulted in the hair and lipstick a real role
abstract to embody, A-bomb, people had lately given me in determining
in a world from which should let the dark her mouth to kiss what was going on.
such symbolism had divinities guide up to the converted Momentary
been banished, something action, while another country house, during paradise
of the present sprawled in his chair the recent war HQ for turns superstructure
condition of the actual insisted that nothing Bomber Command, where I into its
persons, not yet short of a complete with 40 others lived materials.
dead, in whom the awareness of each while studying animal The dean’s
overload occasioned minim of each being husbandry and farm eyes
by the knocking offered us salvation. management. I stopped jerked
up against one I rode my bike pedalling and quietly incessantly
system of a second, down the lane in toppled off my bike throughout
not yet named, bright moonlight. into a soft the meeting.
betokened that For a moment bank of nettles The clitoris
somewhat in himself it looked like and lay still answers to
likewise desiring, high noon and then listening with my the name of
blindly hardly says it, an owl went Hoo-hoo-hoo. inner ear to the little Doris. To be fair
to persist. Today The lane irregularities of sound the penis
lifestyle wants to was lined with which I found myself reddening under
say it all. Lids with lindens surrounded. Stirrings its jaunty hat
lifted and the earth (there called limes) were nocturnal at the thought of justice
gaped — it was an award- and I was looking creatures of no droops like a guilty
winning movie. The seats from a lit threat to one hounddog. Arabella
caused lower strip through their lying by the roadside is really pissed at
back pain and the darkness both inebriated in his own Tom and would like him
popcorn was over- of shadow and of domain. Or birds to disappear forever —
priced, while the management substance fighting off that’s all,
were known at times into a blue insomnia, immortal just vanish from her life!
to frisk their patrons dazzle of meadow longings filled When first they met,
because of bootleg beyond where cows them too, on such a night, he told her
278 279
they should have a child and Truth chased therefore you too a stranger or a relative
together; today he said one another round may feel the sharp who employs
he doesn’t want another and round the vase. swoon of definition if only momentarily
yet. She writes a note: Sex is just as long as you one’s wavelength.
“In these two statements shared labor: keep looking at them, At the Palace
I find the beginning two persons given we are what we eat. of Fine Arts
and the end pulling on a rope Once your brain the rubes were learning
of this relationship.” beneath a belltower develops reciprocity what any soccer crowd
The symmetry is in a Mexican ruin in with its environment could teach them
irresistible. a Hart Crane poem you are capable for less monetary
Tom reads this and discerns partake of a reality of boredom and may begin outlay and considerably
how it is calculated whose identity projecting. The hills more excitement, not that
to ikonize the flux constitutes itself pester you until excitement is the ultimate
of her emotions. In out of resistance, you give the kayak desideratum, yet
Bologna, a woman in dark with its implied back. Someone unless the match is fixed
dress was kneeling weight, therefore has put on a rock it’s more like
before a statue in a niche. a certain substance. tape and you spin rising of a Monday
Arabella’s crisp Figures smaller in circles until to commute to work
piece of poesis than yourself gravity gets cosmic. down 101. By this time
gets anthologized, you tend to I trust my registrations, the four-by-fours also
and other couples like for the sensation just because had turned to ash
in like fixes of control they lend — I have them. and the decision faced
read it there and and when they’re fixed When the fire trucks them: rebuild, or
act accordingly. upon a pot or in go clanging through the great relocate, or maybe
The brief a picture then night of America I thank have a house
lyric poem as we so much the better, my lucky stars they don’t towed in from
have wanted it being still clang for me someplace else.
to be for centuries active you have but lie awake sometimes But as for me,
here in the west a distinct advantage long afterwards and worry who was never
gets valorized over them, although that someone I cursed more than guest
again, a neat to you it may be is going up in smoke. in the old
relief from far yourself who’s indistinct The ego homestead, not that
more complicated while these toy persons has such conceits I didn’t try to
as the Frenchmen say, appear super-clear. as ESP stick it out
existence (auf Deutsch, But they has only dreamed of in that godforsaken
Existenz.) Beauty are just as you, thanks to portion of the continent,
280 281
it spelled experience. Yet that were better the hall. It’s the threat
an era’s end. words please us most left in books. of continuity
Maybe one day keenly when strung Tom knows at last defeats the momentary
when they could afford along a plot that Arabella is untrue. impulse, I imagine
to reflect keeps us in suspense Her beauty the complications
on the catastrophe, and no state known commanding her first and the interminable
they too would see it to us is more loyalty, undoes her web of lies
so. It’s a kind of vulnerable than every time. John — whereas the one-shot
luxury, this settling happiness. Better who pretends he only notices apology Tom swallows
back to note we suppose to know how blue her eyes are is Arabella’s possibility
landmarks in the worst and why when she lies from a newer
what distances else would she come home lies like the poet dispensation, and the jaunt
accomplish with three hours later he had better it has to cover comes
thickets of scrub than the time she be but John from an almost
oak and the numerous told him she’d get will die before infinitely older one.
brush-choked declivities back? She must have matrimony, that People
run-off has “carved out” had some rough idea model of societal disgust me.
and therefore of the length of time relations, breaks Because I am a poet
valuable, if an estate it took to get there, down the door that closes I must see everything
in the Bahamas is therefore she should have off the corridors in the aspect of
of value. Happiness set out to return of rhapsody from what human beings
in literature is at 6:30 minus the thematic pantry do. Therefore
not exactly x. Anger to stick him with such disgust is
popular, unless makes the face feel the blank more than I can
it can be seen hot and often a red check he has possibly afford.
to lead, via some flush suffuses it in a moment of uncommon Then why not
ellipsis, to the break while the adrenalin bliss-out, signed. tup John’s woman
of the morning firms up the muscles When I left the building in some abandoned
after with a person and speeds where John’s girl was orchard — it’s
in an ass’s head respiration. working late, the sole apple-blossom time
in the kitchen trying Concomitantly car beside my own again! Frankly
to find the aspirin, words flood the brain inelegantly dented vehicle because I needed to
for fear of being extended for the occasion was a thrilling get back here fast and
thought sentimental down into the throat sports car and I recalled compose myself
our authority does even to the diaphragm her glances up at me this missive to posterity
violence to such and things get said as we brushed bodies in from a present
282 283
telling me it’s one set for me, one buznis. The abstract with quieted
all the life I have. other set, over- list my colleague keeps desperance
No other infidelity lapping yes yet not of hushed-up “stories” surrounds the reader
could be of account: poets identical, since is not less true for in all likelihood
don’t have spouses, she has equal rights its remoteness and since leisure has to be
no-one will stand for as an interpreter, predictability — the the only warrantee
this perpetual sense of for her. Only the blue president who tells of such activity
possibly themselves moonlight imagination the biggest lies and has as artifices stasis
translated into a virtually offers the true the weaponry to back it (print) into constant
incessant typing. freedom of complete up keeps winning. motion to plead
Tom writes too. responsibility. But those hired to teach that case before
He writes about blazing The phone trucks the children best not the court of history.
dwellings so that the term continue to be parked imitate those at the top To implement an art
scantily clad can be employed on overdue meters and thus the young is to know what that
relevantly. Even to breathe in crowded downtown on paper enter child knows raised
is to slowly exempt from ticketing society unreadied yet by a fickle and inconstant
go up in smoke. due to the orange in their tv wisdom see mother — the source
I am not saying cones that indicate no cause to keep the of all means
I would do it again the driver is working straight and narrow both referent and
if only that my knees on a job but these course before them. referential. If only
hurt when I pedal are in front of the Bairn it opp, the entair I could be sure. These
and the last time I phone company head fokkin muss! A divine words apparently
fell down my arm ached office thus the law is average however undo their cry
for two months, but being abused, the company it may smolder till kingdom come.
to die on such a soft given free parking at
bright night of the ordinary
supernumary citizens’ expense.
feeling! Otherwise In New York City this
one descends the stairs minor gobbet of My Daddy’s At His Office Now
and re-enters corruption would draw
the family no notice. Airny
room in truth goovinmint can unfluence I say this a better
a husband under airny win of oss I don’t feel class. I say
law and bound by whunuver way gor we’re all I feel
a sense of ethics curious oat. The paypl pulling despite the
in its tenuous limits, gor abite its together. To make harrowing self
284 285
scrutiny of Tuesday authority rests with practically snarls anyone to blame
last, that Linda them then attempt to I take people’s and we ought to
and Ken are having repossess myself words and bite the bullet
a private conversation of it. Donald says, twist them. I say and forget these
there on the couch perhaps he should that he’s very naif slights. He’d like to
instead of sharing it have spoken to me if he supposes that read a poem by
with us, that their that time at my his meanings can get a professional
attention should be reading. Tom says through to another poet, if no-one
there (and I indicate we spend too much just as he intends minds, someone
the carpet) in the time in analyzing them, and refer him to neutral enough
center of the group. how the class goes my notes on language. for us to be
This talking instead of getting What a spoiled objective about.
to one another on with reading baby, I am He proceeds to
in a corner poems to one another. thinking. No doubt read me a poem
during class was I invite him my tone doesn’t quite by W.S. Merwin.
one of my complaints to read the poems disguise this. He acts Ken (stung by my
last week, I he has brought increasingly that role. pointing out that to
expound / remind, today. Tom doesn’t Donald now shouts Norman miss 3 classes adds
when we all got feel like it right down. I up to 9 hours, or
stuff off our now. Norm says, have a right to one fifth of the course)
chests, except, Why do you feel it interrupt too! I say, virtually screams
I suddenly remember, wasn’t all I think we’re simply that it was otherwise
Ken, who wasn’t settled last week? a number of supreme 5 years before when he
here last week. In He thinks this all individualists who last took my class. Then
fact, he wasn’t here is my projection. can’t work together there was Structure.
the week before last Ken and Linda were as a group — nice Anything that happens
either, when nothing a sign, and Norm’s guys though we are, makes a form, I say,
untoward occurred. He projection is we can’t surrender he must mean
wasn’t even here another. Norm says, that iota of integrity discipline, but discipline
the week before I felt last week was for the good of the group. comes from within
that, the time very insincere and Terry speaks or better had, for poets.
everything went haywire. we all came in here at last: he hadn’t I sense the onset of
He had done his work. feeling that today. wanted to make a fuss what my therapist
Linda says I withdraw Then how come you said last week about it let laughingly refers to
authority and let it was my projection, alone today but as a schizophrenic
everybody feel the Norman? Norm he didn’t think episode. Ken
286 287
is in therapy too. think he means really gets to her. It’s happens in a windowless
I think me so I let him a mere matter of minutes room with old couches and
Such victims, they mean know I have a medical now before she leaves the a rug provided by the English
just what the times reason for eating and room. The two students I Dept., and standing
mean, you can imagine take another bite had been alluding to lamps brought by myself
an ad in some of ricecake. Ken mutters aren’t present. I imagine each week (otherwise
underground paper, maybe I should eat saying to them, Karen, they’d get ripped
Structure and Bondage faster and get my blood Mary, don’t off: other users neglect
seeks more of same. sugar up. Linda says you agree? Donald to lock the door when
I just wasn’t aware we go on talking says to Norm, Remember done) and now that we’ve
the people in this class analysing little that day in here you were had our fun I’d like to
were that externally details long after talking to Suzy (“Susan”, say that I’m concerned
motivated, presumably she wants to move Norms corrects him), Susan, that people might get
he uh or she, I listen on and that makes about abortion? It was the the wrong impression
as my voice runs on, her antsy and how week before the trouble about my competence
smug with predictability. several times when began. I wonder as a poetry writing
I also tell him she’d surely tried could there be any instructor, and worry
when he tells me to move it on connection? Ken mutters among those people could
I must have I hadn’t let her. he can see the relation be future (until the
changed, that I reply that there between abortion and this. time of reading this!)
maybe it’s him. are certain students Norm replies curtly that students, or colleagues
Margaret says she doesn’t who are less that wasn’t in or administrators of the state
notice much assertive and who need class time. Donald university system, or someone
of the trouble cos encouragement. Linda knows that doesn’t from the chancellor’s
she’s always withdrawn doesn’t look make any difference office, or even
reading something that convinced. No doubt and so do I. Donald a trustee. About the
she’s writing. Norm she thinks mine — who insists on feelings furniture I want to say
tells Margaret her on this point is a but is an ideas man — I brought it up I guess
habit of eating during fucked way of thinking now suggests that we because I’ve observed
class makes it somehow that deprives shy men are competing 15 years’ worth of students
messy and that we students of the opportunity for the females. This trying to adjust to it
all ought to eat to flex their budding notion, intriguing and this was just
in class, together. wills. So then I say that though it is, is too one semester’s class
I’m sitting near her idea of how it ought to profound for most. Only and it wasn’t all bad
Margaret and since he go would work fine in a room Margaret remains to even so, and that many
only says “You” of Linda Larrabys. This pooh-pooh it. This all gifted writers have sat
288 289
on these couches and sane to get away from there put to flight the free just another product
some went on to publish once I discovered agents loving, disease-bearing as well of course as a prop
books that sold 50 had infiltrated inhabitants thereof, but to recognize her by, as if
thousand copies (only the patient body. Some when Hell’s Angels her face, that
not of course of of my highest times moved in, because the vehicle of so many
poetry), and that only I’ve experienced in communards had no and such various
yesterday an MA conjunction with my satisfactory way of saying emotions, capable
candidate I had just creative writing to anyone, “Keep out.” via style of being
graduated said in front of students. No doubt They collapsed like a literary lifted to entrancing
everyone that I (meaning Linda’s analysis was movement from what their riffs of feminine
me) was a superb correct, about me energy drew to them and trans-gender
editor. But I ought to withdrawing and reclaiming rather than from their gesture, could not be
point out that the authority. But it’s all hostile critics or trusted. He said that
that particular semester a matter of the hands the grants denied. often when he spoke he
I had been in the of a surgeon in Conversing with somebody had no more motivation
clinic for two weeks the mind of a patient, and how with the tape-recorder than to make himself
acting crazy to hide out to speak the truth is on intimidates because feel better, either by
there from the Mafia a delicate operation that you imagine yourself explaining something to
and the FBI and acting may make us free. at a later stage feeling his satisfaction, or
mortified because you sound establishing he was
so fatuous, and it’s okay still capable of
to be fatuous in the heat cohering a sentence.
of the moment but why Maxims aver that
We Must Establish Our Parameters preserve hot moments when you do this, this
for Steve Benson when the fatuity of their typically happens
contents distracts you shortly afterwards,
from the heat? He literally one by one persons
A recurring nightmare overthrew it. Conventional transcribes it word for word drift into the kitchen
sent threatening figures wisdom has it that to publish the results and try on funny hats and
to gain forced entry in the communes in Sonoma in all their authenticity pretty soon, everybody’s
the middle of the night, County in the early 70’s which renders art having a good time, but
So tell the dreamer were undone not so much superfluous. At first the soup turns out lousy.
to make the space when the bulldozers were the hat was stunning then You look, then leap
bigger. He did dispatched by the taxpayer when she had worn it all anyway, and end up dead
deed his land to to raze substandard over and only it for upward or badly injured
God, but the courts structures and thus of ten years, turned into or something else
290 291
takes over. The lyric at the summer workshop into a moaning through the relief those peaks, those
poem in England in a mountainous plywood of such a patterned snows eternal melting
covers its effusion region of the nation though regularity as to assure into present runoff
with the social good thought suitable to him that the woman from and how convenient s/he
derivable, if not poetry. Since language Marin who wore a miniskirt had selected himself, he
from its message, then from Heraklitus on was correcting busily realized, with his Ph.D.
from its example, like has served to cover her error in selecting in literary sentences
letting one’s hair at least as much as to himself as audience for and who was nearly twice
down without throwing reveal the self, he her demonstration of love’s that age, what an unlikely
dignity completely to hesitated, fearing power to transcend those combo, and he sat and wrote
the dogs. Yet poets he was meant to tell inhibitions often operative till daybreak made it
can’t be that much the often hostile between persons who have okay to go pace the parking
different from us, members of the workshop only just met, and had area before the breakfast
talking in the dark to see the sort of stuff even as of this instant lit on hall while noticing
if something can be his therapist hardly Mr. Right, who lived how new the objects
stumbled upon, although could drag out of him. right beside himself with which this sink
we know that not just Many of them were really who had believed her among the rockpiles
anything suffices, or good at it, declaring protestations of unique looked and felt today.
else choice could have in a sing-song tone devotion he’d extracted So instead of blowing
no meaning, so is the idea that had to be the sign not twenty hours before the seminar away with
how to stumble, since one had struck oil, but those were her cries “The Waste Land Re-
in real life to stumble’s guilty secrets all alright. Then he heard Considered From The
a mere silly accident, the persons present this voice, emanating Point Of View of Leslie
so better go see a movie recognized immediately. doesn’t accurately The Invisible” he drove
in which someone stumbles, Back at his shack say it, it was simply straight home to Chico
because then the interest is (spacious and self- here, telling him what where his doctor gave him
how well its determining accommodations, to put down, and from so stuff to smear on
simulated. But ran the ad) he worried doing he deduced the person the affected parts
whenever he stumbled, he over how little intro- as a somewhat socially and further results
drew a lesson! Yes, spection yielded in terms disadvantaged 24-year-old kept right on pending.
but what good was this of marks on paper. Also, indeterminate as to gender, Once it’s in print
lesson, except that as those marks were excellent sent to college as a last writing becomes
long as he was drawing definitions of the term recourse, and whose patchy fascist, mechanical
it, he held the verbal banal. It was well past acquaintance with the insistence upon
crayon? Finding your midnight, for the raucous great works of art mechanical insistence,
voice was the topic horseplay had subsided called into fresh like a cartoon
292 293
character whose paws ladies at the meatshop therefore method’s poem by saying “Sometimes
keep right on running yanked in to prove his to suggest experience it’s a beautiful
although the land has stupefying point. But going interminably on. poem, sometimes it is
led it to a precipice I’m glad it takes all I guess it was just a lot of words.” Now
and it now treads sorts to make a world something we did in that was why he was
air. But reading (though isn’t that my family. I feel his friend. It risked
or writing are quite backwards?) for all uneasy letting stuff banality without
otherwise, so the trick are welcome here, or come in that doesn’t achieving it. Any final
is how to make the thing they are on paper, have a broad frame is very close to
to keep on moving once though in practice panoply of reasons the banal. They shook
the form’s been locked only some each time, to be here, like, “it umbrellas at the Cubist
up and the agent’s I still myself feels right” covers paintings. A new germ
gone away, and so it can’t collaborate that case, connections on the scene and their
doesn’t suddenly look efficiently as reader sensed it would take systems haven’t been
down and lose its with texts whose forever to spell out — inoculated against it so
nerve and yield to rigid scatterings we hope. Revision they just flare up?
gravity and flatten deprive me of that has to follow fast or Marx and Darwin, Freud
out upon the cartoon sense of urgency to it’ll be too late: and Einstein, these ideas
granite at the bottom delineate a life a network of relations each had averred reality
of the gorge. So the necessary to the act builds it into an integral eluded the conventional
activity of reading of faith a poem is. part, a terrific terms of presentation,
like the activity of Salutary has long violation to excise it. but now this worry was
writing keeps suspense been a favorite But you do and after a embodied, and so, although
alive within the finished word — I used to while you get used to they thought it was
thing, or better think it meant the new part. When unreadable, this art,
I think if it does, just “Salute the sentry”. things went well he in fact it was altogether
that that’s my taste, It’s the ones you have welcomed his latest too much so, and thus
and I can argue for it most difficulty with job and congratulated received the treatment
on ethical and tactical you tend to remember himself on his decision the ancient Greeks reserved
and intellectual for the effort they to quit the last one, for the messenger who
premises also. Many call for helps to but when things went wrong brought bad news. The art
resolutions, not the one define yourself. experienced the meaning was attacked as though
resounding resolving of This concluding of the word mistake and it was the cause. Written
the work and then habit of mind is had a firmer grasp of by computer people,
that’s that, another comic in a context tragedy. His friend insectoidal, like an
maxim, the ten dead whose intent and finished his latest anthill, vast and faceless,
294 295
an overthrown individual, student cafeteria and drove Clare he couldn’t and some others stood
the crime is to name same, a BMW. He had himself write. Is eternity around a cylinder of
people don’t want to face been interested in immediacy as distinct nitrous waiting to
a truth that is a truth how one might make from summing up or collapse with helpless
also about themselves, a fairly small explanation or looking fun. Madame Bovary
for aren’t we constituted lyric where a single backwards, or isn’t felt sad to Flaubert.
of society? By and large, apercu could be traced eternity a safety Not lost in the past but
these letters were through to some kind of net in that sense, sans the benefit of
written by literary conclusion that would otherwise we’d get into some sense of cultural
persons, of some point back to the poem a dither, up to our upheaval he wouldn’t
education, and they saying, See, this is nipples in strange corn, be writing. Dogs bark
ought not to be itself throughout, check already with thee, as a voice on the tape
behaving in this way, out the conclusion. rationalizing? Utopia maintains that works
assuming criteria Subsequently, he felt was extremely relaxing, of art do have some
tacitly and not not enough going on an acre of orchard kind of survival. Party
dealing with the work in such to match fenced and gated voices laugh
at all (“Strictly up with senses that though later the entire beneath one going on
unreadable”) but with he had of being little town would join too long about the atom
their own negative alive, swimming, hiking, in our revels — at and Dachau. How to be
reactions — it was an dancing, playing the the Blue Moon party someone as though that
outbreak of the Irrational piano or listening he went as a sea- were a moral problem.
and interesting as such. when everyone he shared captain with a stuffed Inevitably
Wearying of the employment the apartment with was parrot on his epaulette living in one’s time
that had long been his, out, to music blasting and three dentists will beg the question.
he sought to transfer, but from his speakers —
at his age that was not or even Schubert’s
feasible in any economic imitation of a brook
terms that would let him that burbled on, very
keep his house and wife. constant and My Compensations (Glurk)
By the going criteria, continuous, although
the best-written essay minimed by the very
bore the name of a student nature of attention, My own image seems so project. I know that
from an Arab state and had, not especially marked clear and simple, as if I am an honest
the instructor was quite except by its difference it would be impossible kind, warm-hearted
sure, been purchased from from the lack of it. to take me any person, and my favorite
a guy who hung out in the Keats told John other way than what I Other is the one
296 297
of iron nerve with I act the most do this. Some of my friends learned to let
cold clear eyes. confident. The good are think I have these just pass by.
Commit a crime, befriended even a good sense What others’ ideas
and it seems as if by weakness and of humor. I do of me are are
a coat of snow fell defect. While my neighbors but it came from a actually only my
on the ground. When argue how I should spend lot of work. idea and perception
people don’t know my life, I say to I seldom correct of what they
what is true hell with anyone any misconceptions which are (the ideas).
they have to who doesn’t understand probably leads to more, but The world
take all things musicians. The history on the whole globes itself to
at face value. of persecution is I don’t a drop of dew. I know
Conflicts are a history of endeavors care. But the most this must seem like
inevitable to twist a rope of frightening thing about I’m avoiding the issue
however. My sand. I see myself being unsure of which may be true
main goal now as being a very who I really am but all I can do is
is to learn to insecure frightened is that somebody discuss this as
deal with those person who takes things out there will fully as possible and
conflicts in a rational too seriously, but a lot tell me. Things then I’ll say it:
manner, and work them of people that I’ve met refuse to be “GLURK!” Of course
out in a way think I’m just a very mismanaged I’ll expect tumbling
that’s agreeable quiet unsociable long. We can’t stay release of tension.
most importantly type, who’d truck amid the ruins, neither I guess “keys”
to me, and to and higgle will we and thinking you have them
a lesser degree, for a private rely on the new. I try is dangerous. The dice of
agreeable to others. good, or by just to face life God are always loaded. So
I try and better generally with an open if the girls don’t ask me
myself when possible putting his foot in mind, so all I can hope to dance, I feel ugly,
but sometimes lower his mouth and is that a person’s idea funky, smelly, common,
myself in doing so. chewing. Either I of me is a good one. boring, but I don’t
The wise man throws don’t see myself Occasionally worry too much. They also
himself on the side as much, or people I let my past will think differently
of his assailants. set me higher than conditioning run at a different time. Put
I hate to be I really am. me into depression God in your debt, for
defended in I figure or lack of confidence, compound interest on
a newspaper. When I feel that most people in but I’ve been using compound interest
the most unsure is when today’s society techniques that I’ve is the rate and usage
298 299
of this exchequer. I am poetry and love best. I believe frowned upon. As
more educated than many songs and dream these people I left, the frown
of my peers and am able of beautiful things. have defined left their faces
to dominate my viewpoint A nice place themselves (I guess). Thus
if I really want to. To with plenty more clearly do all things preach
them I was Mr. Spock, of rocks to than I. The martyr the indifferency of
calm, cool, and collective. throw. And cannot be dishonored. circumstances. What I
I enjoy giving and receiving lots of tin cans to To be different purposely consider my essence is
the love passed in aim at. Actually I am was frowned upon so very pure and filled
the process of massage a serious consequently I was with love and faith.
and other arts of healing. realistic
Then their ideas move person. I seldom
up and down with eat meat but
me. People have played have no trouble
a game back consuming a medium As Freud Enjoyed His Primal Horde . . .
and forth at size Cheez-It
times of “Who package in one
Am I,” answer sitting. This
ask again, answer. contradiction reflects,
Those who do usually poorly perhaps, deeper
end up lost and contradictions within.
crying at the end Nothing can work A Sense of Humor’s Soliloquy
of the road, unable to me damage except
plug anything myself. I think
in. That obscene bird too much for, my
is not there for own good. I put There’s nothing funny liquidated us by
nothing. So I have my thoughts in the young about me. I mean now, but here we are,
my mother to thank for women’s mouths. I am to get some smoking and drinking. So
my anti-definition thought of as being very respect around here. I’m a kind of yankee
feelings. As a child understanding and I see what doesn’t mechanic. History is
she always told me that giving. Actually their fit exactly — someone a bucket of ashes.
I was a leader. Actually ideas change forcing his square peg In their very great
I am a depressing person. as they know into a square hole. A person tragedies the ancients
I love to just sit me better. I know steps on a banana laid out for us our lives
in my rocking-chair, people must consider peel and fails to skid. to come in patterns whose
play my guitar, write me inconsistent at The enemy should have blueprints never
300 301
by an inexorable neck is broken. But A Couple of Curses
process get the building I do find it noteworthy
built but it that he went up
isn’t funny. No-one and down those stairs a (1)
can turn it around. hundred times without Demanding for himself the right to be
No-one remembers when mishap, simply abrasive and combative, yet allowing he
it’s stiff and swollen by standing
and purple being first on one deserved good as he got on those same
small and pale leg, then the active terms, this man should feel the shame
and limp. “All wetness other, like
and capacity have vanished a stork. What’s his descending on him for threatening quote
from this dried-up land sad demise compared to a total war if the review I wrote
and never will occur that? Incomparable. Ok,
again.” Period, Overweening here’s one for you. Is that defied his ban and saw the light of day.
passions lead the clear a roll of quarters, or A sure posterity will add to all he had to say
mind into are you simply
the wilderness of ethics glad to see me? No, denouncing naked power, that note,
and the law and we I was going to tell and that will influence its vote;
leave them there what I replied when
slaying one another. he told us that destroy it I will not, sans evidence
There is lots his goal was to agreeable to me, that the consistent sense
of gore, preferably get in touch with
jetted out the Cosmos and perfect delivered to his minions, concerning me
offstage. The rest is his life. I said: as a nugatory power, has ceased to be
silence filled with muttering “And then?” Seriously
witnesses. Look. folks, there’s nothing dinned in their ears — he must reverse
Somebody steps on a stair funny about me. It’s 1985, as cleverly he can, this unjust curse.
that isn’t there. It isn’t and I’m unemployed.
funny when his (2)
Consider for a moment grounds of judgment.
Even when he insulted that waitress at the rustic
Café — “I’ve been in Paris” — and then sent
(emphatically — and he can be emphatic)
coffee that was less than perfect back, I bent
302 303
ever backwards to be his friend, though “democratic” this head during working hours.
What’s life for, anyway?
coming from his lips, mostly meant Grownups have a ready answer:
elitist, but when he bullied (called him sick) Arbeit machs frei. Arbeit makes
only more arbeit, as far as I can see:
— cudgeled verbally, and in print — a student more pencils to do more writing,
eager for his opinion of Bob Dylan — ”unfit to lick meaning more writing to be read,
remembered, filed, catalogued,
custard from the boots of any poet I present” forgotten. More to be forgotten,
— even I could bear no more. America, this hick when all I want to do is sit here
remembering & then, because after all
cat wields the power he does that all your people lent: I’m not entirely a fitful child, be
evince poetic justice — elect him president. somehow incorporated or transmuted
into a piece of language lasting
long after I have been otherwise
lost track of. Your art is your
other self, the one you need to send
Compleynt in place of your worthless actual
physical/mental being (the one your
friends call you). And where you
It’s all so unfair. send something like that I call
Salieri got a sabbatical, the party. It’s been going on
Gluck (not that he hasn’t for hundreds & thousands of years
earned it, but still) got a Guggenheim, & it’s getting late, my place
& I just had to put in a long day setting will be given to another,
at the electric pencil sharpener someone who will make a noise
making sure each head comes to the correct in the poetic world. Painters
point, & now I’m too bushed to do justice as good at painting as I am at this
to my theme. Oh, it’s not that pencils sell their stuff for substantial
no longer interest me, obviously chunks of moolah but hardly
they’re useful for something, anyone will pay you for writing
but a writer works with his hands honestly about your troubles
& my fingers tend to cramp up (& therefore, by a miraculous
so that they strike the wrong computation, theirs). A fullsize
keys making nonsense of those swimming pool is among the least
fine notions that filter through of my real needs these days,
304 305
trips to Tahiti, Samoa, this slipping away as if experience
Stockholm, Winnipeg . . . I want demanded teeth & ours hadn’t yet
to go not only everywhere come back from the dental complex,.
I haven’t been but to revisit (no doubt because the nurses or
every place I ever was. Sure, assistants & those guys & the woman
sublimate, the viewless who cleans your teeth are all
wings of poesy will suffice high on nitrous + coke) . . . And that
hah hah, I don’t think. What a without these, it slips through us
con! And to think, had I gone undigested, not a pretty image but
up to Canada during the Troubles, still, who said this had to be
they get government grants to go photogenic? Not that my father
anywhere they want each year. But wouldn’t have preferred less
haven’t we noticed something questionable material & shapes
sort of ominous about the Literature from his only begotten son —
of nations like that, as if tremendous Alexander Pope was more his speed.
pressure (what it takes to form Maybe that’s why he left me penniless
diamonds) were essential & they on his deathbed, after promising
lacked it? Maybe having a job all those years I would get half
helps, except in some cases, but there he went, leaving it all
mine for example, where the individual (who knows how much? the bank wouldn’t tell)
generates (early trauma, etc.) to my second stepmother, a nice enough
so much pressure within himself person but she only had to put up with
outside pressures are supererogatory, the old sod a fraction of the time I did, & I
a word found at the back of Doktor admit it, I escaped as soon as I could. So
Faustus, remember when we read that after all I wasn’t a good son, deserved
tome out loud all night to one another, disinherting. Wouldn’t grow up; couldn’t.
two small people in Berkeley without Won’t, goddamit. The fairies came for me
malice & a great passion for books’? when I was barely literate & made the pictures
What a time that was. Where did it talk & move on the livingroom walls.
go? My wife always tells me, Detroit. They took me home with them & here I am still
It’s a family joke. But it’s no joke trying to find the latchkey. And money
to have lived forty years of days & = recognition of one’s efforts, meaning
those days yielding one thousand failure in my case, my considerable talents
four hundred forty minutes each — taken & squandered on a bad bet & too late
& consider how long even a second has now to become a concert pianist or a book
struck you on occasion — then to sense reviewer for the weekend paper the way
306 307
some do. Sad, this is funny fester unexpressed inside where it
yes but sad also, wistful, poignant, soon turns into a CIA plot
banal. People want winners — nobody to convince you you love your employment.
likes to listen to a whiner whining interminable lines Sing “Samuel Hall”. You sing offkey.
of his whines. People like winners because
they use them to fill their own hollow spaces
with the illusion of success at second hand,
get told what to do, think, feel,
& yet the president no don’t mention monkeys Washing . . .
again. Look — you are
splendid, wonderful (as in
full of wonder), you ought to she has her suitcase hot for one another,
let each instant of living fill & swell packed. It sits touch. Three days
with positivity, it’s the national way, beside their bed go by in this
you’ve heard it before, alright I’ll tell upon which, Tom’s unspeaking
a story. When my father & my second stepmother wife sprawls in waste of lives
came to visit, she took me aside & confided the unmistakeable too well aware
that she could never live up to my poor dead attitude of hopeless of their finite
mother in my father’s affections — “He always and horrible condition. It’s like
tells me she was an angel, an angel.” So rage, in its some period of years
to cheer her up I reminded her sulking stage. obscure in history
that he had left us once & stayed away What does one break because no works of
for two years with Fanny Finackapan — the silence with art survive to speak
maybe an angel wasn’t what he wanted? at times like these — of it. On Friday ,
Well, it hadn’t occurred to me, but Dad “Where will you stay?” Arabella asks Tom to
had never told this woman of that episode. “I think you’re right, please pass the milk.
And two months later, he wrote me a letter it’s best this way”? That evening, she mutters
disowning me for my disloyalty: apparently However, something that sounds like
in the course of a domestic squabble Tom says nothing. “I feel like talking”
she had unloaded my news him-wards. He makes some dinner so Tom takes her up on
Subsequently, he forgave me, but for himself and later, this, and expresses
I could never see I was the one turning the tv off, sympathy with everything
who needed it. That’s why crawls into bed she has to say concerning
more than just his thousands beside her, careful this crisis in her life
haven’t come my way. But tell it, not to let their seen as a child-bearing
see, never let a tale like that bodies, so often instrument endowed with
308 309
sentience. Ultimately say to one another, “Tom gone within the hour, even our slight
this leads his wife to and Arabella exoticness familiar, out here where destinations
let him know she doesn’t had rough times, but are as vague as they are polarized. Since this is
really want the relationship they are still together.”
to end. Friends Ex nihilo the will to cohere only the second day of the trip, too soon yet
to miss the parking problems of our particular
four-block homeland, and still not used to the fact
that the phone cannot be ringing for us, we indulge
in fantasies of settling here, someday, we could
The Automobile Our Narrative buy this joint, renovate a white frame house, raise
chickens or marijuana, slow down our heart-rates,
How slowly the highway delivers the new let little Fran experience clean air and older
at sixty, the mountains always slipping values, become somebody to be nodded at or
away from us, and our perceptions tiring conversed with, an exchange with plenty of spaces
of telling us we are puny, reeling from in it for good fellowship to ooze its way into,
fixing on a few fence-posts too close, let the world go to hell in a handcart, we’ll bring
after all, to be much use either. So
plenty of videotapes and snap up bargains
motion supplies us, an eager genie, with in antiques, live like forgotten lords. All these
the unity we crave, and the rock whose beat inventions upon the theme of what we’ve just been
attunes so readily to the rhythm that the briefly among we save, of course, until on the road
joins in the surface create beneath the wheels once more, after the doors have slammed against
of this vehicle which disguises from the inhabitants the outside and the quaint, threatening talent
in each new center our own newness, how we come
that might take exception to a banter having them
in the known way of prophets and other for its occasion, not knowing it is kindly meant.
disrupters of the public calm, incognito, Hundreds of miles to go before we sleep (try sleep)
three strangers no doubt but there, right in some Oceanview Motel with its door habitually
outside the diner, the chevvy that serves chained and its exhausted appliances. Ah! the camera
to guarantee we are sufficiently like them is, you see, safely with us, still. Snapshots —
to constitute no threat. Nothing untoward
her before a bank of wild orange poppies, child
about our orders, and how could there be? The menu blurring at the final instant; him
takes care of that. Mildly offensive in citified daring the steps of a cove-side cliff —
clothes and the speed of our speech, we will be later will mean their interstices too,
310 311
each dozen or so yards caught for the head to store able to speak superficially to its denizens
in its inexhaustible circuitry, where the view has been
concerning the environs intent upon their center.
automatically matched up with proprioceptive We may not know it, but, voted for, by jimminy,
sensations, assuring friends of various accounts we could begin to learn. And, face it,
that this vacation, that evening after dinner, is going to if one will only overlook their provincialisms,
turn out to have been. But something more, the scarcely warranted pride in the downtown
which surely we share, is happening: something is renovation project, the exorbitant praise or
shifting, the way unimaginably giant plates
condemnation of the tarted-up ex-warehouse
out of sight are always shifting, we are not only neighborhood with its prawn-bars and Victorian
told, but can’t help noticing (these mountains here): street-lamps, they are, this people, much like us.
the map some of us studied before setting out Obvious meliorists, transparently hopeful of being
is unrolling itself into a physical experience, liked and accepted, prickly withal
making the isolation of origin and terminus in the presence of the slightest condescension,
vanish, to be replaced by a lived continuum
eager to display their currency
that enhances our grasp of reality. So, under the spreading yellow of the latest issue.
even though we are part of a generation Here, just as at home, a friend — he has been
close enough to the horse era to be slightly contemplating this meeting for days, weeks, on
self-mocking of such insulation as eight and off, with a mixture of sophomore yearning and adult
cylinders and a brand-new set of tires provide, we, distaste for the excessive — alters all,
unlike our compatriots who do it by air in two hours,
as a three-dimensional figure, although only on film,
do enjoy the privilege of discovering just causes its cartoon companions to become at once
how it does all fit together. The landscape, jerkier and flatter; and a miracle occurs,
eventually, does change, massed conifers right there, on his front lawn, as this man, that
replace the bare sweep of grassland, while, one of us, more years ago than we care to mention
glimpsed from each bridge, the rivers (but we do, we do), sat up with night after night
have white in them now, and the highway, many more,
drinking his old man’s Canadian Club, throws his arms
and sharper, twists. Then this in its turn around the body of his erstwhile buddy
yields to fertile farmlands, to fail, for the first time in their lives.
sometime next day, in their turn, before the encroachments And here his wife comes, dimpling, excited,
of used-car lots and motels that say “City having heard so much about us . . . it’s altogether
coming up”. We feel like politicians, too much too soon, given the hours cooped up
312 313
Another drink? It could almost be done — but
together in our space capsule, speaking to no-one little Fran is running dizzy circles
except deskclerks and waitresses. But what’s this? that arc so close to all their frangibles it won’t be
A drink has been socked into one’s hand. Good, long until — “Never mind, no, really,
very prescient of society to have thought of it. it doesn’t matter, that old thing!” Arabella
Deep sighs. When all’s said and done, and barring has a tight top lip but keeps on smiling. She knew,
having a 12-gauge shotgun thrust through the rolled-down
just knew, it would turn out just like this.
window at that drive-in, POW-EE! Nor is Penny any more supportive, forced herself
or (and face it, a much likelier inter- to witness a calculated risk come home to roost.
ruption) getting a blowout fifty miles from the closest Men, why do you make women your reality testers,
phone, nothing thus far could be said to have litmus paper to your unexamined hopes? Penny
prepared us for this reunion, the first time, studied Hegel, Kant and Heidegger, her dissertation
this trip, when things might get out of control.
relates ethics to esthetics, she works long hours
For he seems, doesn’t he? somewhat with underprivileged persons in the inner city,
odd. Has he altered as much inside wants to spend the rest of this week
as on his (distressingly aged) surface? lying on the beach. “Copasetic” was the word
Is he about to run some numbers, feeling used over and over to persuade her the expense of a hotel
(a) superior, or, (b), inferior would not be necessary, because these people, Tom and
but anxious therefore to deny it?
Arabella, this very moment being vehement as it were
Is his female visitor prettier in private, just across the room, would be totally
(to his view of it) than his wife? undemanding hosts. A hotel will be located
Or does he simply envy his guests the in the morning. No big deal. The Bankamericard
(really, quite monotonous) expedition which, checks will need to be larger for the next few months,
all along (and can’t he see this?) had him is all. Some small luxuries, even maybe a few
as its object? Maybe that embarrasses? One thing
necessities, impossible from here to know just which,
for sure, he’s drinking too much. And his guests — will have to be forgone. That’s life. A slight
can’t he see how they’re suddenly awkwardness at breakfast, seeing there’s no way
inexpressibly weary, need to lie down, stretch out? not to construe this alteration in our plans
No — don’t tell me! — he’s taking out his as a rejection — either of their persons or their
banjo!! He means for everyone to sit up singing property, or both — imparts a manic animation that
those dumb songs we used to sing all night!
can’t go on forever: so off, away! with promises
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to meet for dinner later in the week. The hotel is about his or her work, once the latest tv shows and movies
marvelously spacious, great light, looks right (and, less promising a topic, books) have been
down on the beach where slow days pass, presented. The day of departure dawns. The two men,
shlepping about in thongs, fingering small stones lunching together. Tom drinks too much again and drops his
and shells, buying knick-knacks, kicking back,
bombshell: “What gives with you — you
scribbling postcards to all the friends used to have some guts!” Pressing right ahead
we wish were here. Fran’s delight at the waves along memory lane, he names an art-hoax
lulls her anxiety (why here, and where are we, and will we that made the front page of the downtown paper
never go back home, and when) throughout the day, in their college days, links this up with society
but it surfaces in nightmares and her shrieks hostesses insulted, expensive furniture dismembered,
(they’ll think we’re killing her!) only subside
some public nakedness, the marquee of the art-theater
when she’s fetched into her Mommy and her Daddy’s bed. tampered with until it spelled RAY ATE MARIE BAD —
Not much opportunity for love-making — Penny lying incidents, he doesn’t seem to comprehend, of a voice
warm and tender breathing next to her husband in the dark, wailing for a moral system to come
or suddenly revealed, taking off her swimsuit, sunlight modulate its stridencies. “This wife’s no good
silvering her downy skin, shadowing the still-firm for you.” Is he going to go too far? “She’s great —
musculature of her thighs and belly: like a distant
but not for you.” That can be entertained. “Success
whisper urging to some action — but Fran’s undid you.” Here he’s patently off-base; there has been
giving up naps, and the unmistakable lovers on the beach no success; the inventions that were to usher in an era
hone the word wistful to a blade. Trumpets, electric of universal leisure never jelled; and only one
fender riffs! Remember when we did it product has made it to the market, a device
behind a driftwood log? Think what use we’d once have put to prevent toilet-tanks from trickling; these days,
this king-size bed to, the sun-spread carpet too! Sobbing
consulting for a company whose air-conditioning the
cellos. Well, the food is good, and the dinner Pentagon approves of eats up all the time. “You’ve lost
with Tom and Arabella (their kids are sitting Fran) touch with who you really are.” He means the chum
goes better than was feared, with everybody who urged him to make long-distance calls on the Dean’s
remembering to act like strangers that a long sea-voyage phone to the harbormaster at Hong Kong. Pathetically,
has thrown together, tres gai, Penny with her fresh at last. “I believed in you.” Repeated. Helped to his
tan and a summer frock’s a knockout, and there’s
car, he vanishes in traffic. Long-gone Tom.
pretty good champagne, and everyone makes certain Now the landscape is unrolling in reverse. Penny’s
each of the others has a chance to talk profile enthralls as it has always had the power to —
316 317
power ceded to her, placed there by the man beside her that first time it was heard, to speed things up.
to be sure, yet, for him, emanating from her person, her A sign advises to conserve our gasoline. Oneself,
precise mix of yielding and resistance, pictured,
then, alone, has been the proving ground, scant
sculpted, there, the person courted and fought against consolation, ivory bourgeois inwardness copout.
these seven years, this second marriage for each a long Driving back across the open range, high summer
balancing performance with little help from the so-called heat, shirt off, left elbow out the open window
community, desolate weeks apart or barely able to the way the farmboys did (and do?) “back home”,
endure a forced propinquity, murderous intensities, Penny’s man is flattered that she takes his picture
sweet, sweet intensities, spells of sweet calm
— she likes the look of him and means to keep it.
and clarity of understanding shared — all this, At a diner (not the one stopped at before; some variance
a mistake? The movie of it rounds the sprockets is possible) Fran charms the waitress with her own
all the way from days with Tom and Peg and Peter pugnacious version of her parents’ aspects — yes,
and the gang, the places where it’s been re-edited Penny’s loveliness and poise are coming through
as bits of gossip about who Peg really went through as a presence wholly unimaginable ahead of the event
her abortion for (not guilty me) came in: each move, if not
and becoming quite predictable, there
correct, then such as renders the notion of correctness within the vulnerable happiness this
laughable, it was the only move, each time, to make, developmental stage preserves. “She’s gonna be
given the tilt of the roadbed, the moment’s a real ten” — thank you, and think of the problems
inertia. And the enigma round the bend, all that attitude will soon create. Oh, the road’s
each withheld. Still, this is a silent stretch too long, we will never get there. Yet already
of farm then forest. We can’t be who we are to
the arteries are thickening to the great
others if they lack accurate information about us. heated heart, one of whose cells the home-comers
Yet who doesn’t? This isn’t the wrong route, yet greet with wild whoops of grateful relief upon
could be, hypothetically. The wise man didn’t entering, so glad to be back
come up with his formulation —” What we depart from it must be (for this moment) the only reason for leaving
is not the way” — without strong provocation from was to have this sensation! To see and touch and breathe
within. And true enough, Tom, all was to be
in these familiar rooms felt for this present
revised, so little has been. “The terrible no, not new, but wholly. Fran
slowness of things” — Professor Conroy’s intonation scurries to her room to tell her dollies
of Matthew Arnold’s phrase lives in his student’s all. Penny flops herself down on the bed.
recollection, as does the uprush of determination, And among this stack of bills and CARTSORT
318 319
stuff may be the envelope long looked-for — never advance. To be of humanity on
actually expected — to sweep this all away. disputes the premise the rack. Parade
to remain its living your drill, the Bible
disputant. We find we knows it all and knows
are frightened when it knows it all, and
applied to most even knows how you
Waiting For Anyone But Godot profound shortfalls. might feel concerning
The ordeal being not that predicated trap.
much deeper than An electronic
The flower that our own. Judas a puddle we judge gnocchi maker.
opens and fills betrays interesting by its content not All over people
the room with parallels. He asked its shape and yet struggle towards
scent, the eye his father did he unassignable to dignity while the
with color, how think living life whatever might make you pictures precede
blessed to us on the brink in think “chill the blue pencil or
seem such lives! unremitting from the wind of doom”. the shears, seeing
Does one choose? intensity meant That slow magic trick more things. Don’t
By this he meant one attained to that leaves the glass you often or ever
to question a life truth? His father, half-empty, half-full. wonder where we are
spent fetching up picking his phrases Honor driven by being taken, yet
stuff from the basement. carefully, replied romantic dream, heroes surely it’s more
Philosophy No, not in any to themselves rank where are we going,
is less important than sense that would forms. Paradox the economist
humanity who privilege intensity; can be a device can tell us this
hope against simply that one might for generating as surely as the
hope, and these words thus learn the truth details and their priest he has
can actually be of such living. Each articles. The fact replaced. Teleology
said. Am I waiting character meticulously that nobody shapes dialog. Often
because I know unpacks a wallop. departs and says I can’t decide quite
the word, or a word Writing cannot he does must prove what is being said.
because waiting frankly write without our haunted genius. Life is a nightmare
is my referent? the estrangement of a Kept pent’s best metaphorically
No moment need be square and empty room. entertainment to speaking at those
dull or indifferent To plot forget all that’s times when one
for the compulsive a climax is already happened, has lost control
conviction is never a disappointment in absorbing cavalcade to larger figures of
320 321
significance. Yet does much to explain Like characters meriting keen exploration.
irritation plus pointless endings in on top of a wedding They wrote about hamlets,
depression want terms of failure to cake, you kneel the problem the reflective
to announce the find peace by natural before the holy mind can pose divorced
coming of calamity. conscience or scientific church, to offer from effective action,
Antecedents stimulate reason when unattainable open-mouthed before the
his transcending God and rejection vows of love, worrying spouting geyser. His
imitation. Astigmatic coincide. An admirer the statistics of sciatica had cleared
eyes register abnormal of faith in life marital fate, but itself up this morning.
persons in will invariably attempt one’s intelligence The constant
abnormal circumstance, the dismissal of dismal might bring it off, detaching of the artist
baffling comparisons disillusion. The diction a long shot, provided from earlier ideologies
with dramatic of inconsistent realism you are flexible in order that the people
asides — a history reaches the obvious enough to give may enjoy an immortality
exists to tell us conclusion that up the initial at second hand
why we needed to there are no mistakes. ideals yet stalwart — “the time
replace the infantile The man he had argued and brawn enough to seemed longer”,
sotto-voce lament. this with is long hang in there and in an irrepresentable
He desires to since dead because he accident of course continuum offering
deserve the attention hanged himself. This will enter such latent pictorial
he is getting. Everyone jawbreaking endurance considerations. structures in
was acting contest containing Gardens were conceived two places at once
like so many certain literary, perhaps of as orderly like arithmetic.
Freudian rats as poetic qualities distillations of Definition of
supreme effort clinched took place at a party where the natural world, horological terms may
its right to be one he thumped the cheese — a place they tended to be awkward: they
of the great triumphs board with his fist to view as threatening and represent
of the individual. emphasize his point chaotic, especially components of dynamic
It is encouraging to be and in one kind of movie at the wild fringes devices which must be
able to see the that he liked, it of the expanding Empire. seen to be believed.
forbidden, or sometimes would have split. From this xenophobia he stood On Thursday
keenly traumatic, I want apart by postulating we intend to drive
inducing a blind spot this and that Nature as its own over the mountains
where his mother but gladly settle scheme of orderliness, to the hot springs
dipping him in the river. for this if dangerous yes and a place too and this is attractive
This convincing thesis only I knew. of great puzzlement, yet both due to the destination
322 323
and the deep it is the principal the bottom out. redundancy. Great
satisfaction obtained relief from my troubles, So I watched a segment is the English
from an intention which is why I choose of “Sesame Street” tongue. You can’t
realized. The globe’s not to amuse you standing up. You have to contradict the multitudes
weight drives with them — so much so remember to fill the cup you don’t contain.
the measurement I must wonder whether to the brim, because Theory
of its own I am somehow maintaining once the teabags are can’t protract the moment
motion. Being Saxon in my life a given level removed, the level is depended on by its
she placed a bowl of misery simply to keep bound to drop. All this critique. He spots
with a hole in its the writing need going — time I kept right on the tops
bottom into water Foxe’s Book of Martyrs in- and ex-haling. of the posts
where it took a prescribed was impressive, he kept Only a contrast reveals and stops. These
amount of time to on praying while flames the distance tones, the gray
sink. Simple outflow that otherwise must have literal or metaphorical stone wall gone
limited the length hurt him horribly that one has traveled. green with moss
of senatorial went apparently unnoticed. The merits are almost and light reflected
speechifying. More I spoke to her completely technical from these great
personally, as a child without much infelicities. An green leaves, the greener
I endured considerable forethought, asking impressive absence green the leaves
anguish — my mother if she had dreamed of meaning invested themselves surrender,
hated to make and she replied “I our desires. T, felt calm to him,
plans and my father dreamed about the river F. TGIF. Comparing leaned against the
made meticulous and the ocean” which is something obviously edge of the large
itineraries which her customary response to long with something hot bath, and the steps
created great that inquiry. Time clearly short has cut in the stone
anxiety in him, now to put on the water for something of the were an obdurate
responsible for their morning tea, I recalled, trick about it. Critics instance of one
execution under the so did, and then feel play bears. self, approachable yet
withering eye of his wife. had to think of something Grand interlude for those resistant, holding
I started to read and write to do that wouldn’t above average intelligence. much in place
early and kept at it — take very long as the water A portion of the iceberg and letting change
I could space it all boils almost at once will shortly have settle in little
out at the kitchen in the small saucepan. been specified. DNA noiseless shiftings
table, head in text in To resume the novel found permits suggests while keeping
text in head in so hilarious last night engenders this up a general appearance
text — nowadays might be to burn spiralling of substantial
324 325
permanence. Which protect him from women. Now it has been to be slaves,
leaves to account for Stern railroad mostly destroyed we we mixed our blood
the leaves themselves, superintendent reveals really start the better to
and the greater extent his heart of gold. to appreciate the past, escape or to increase
of the branches of the The dollar the infinite and rich our odds the way
figs this spring being strong variety of human one plays various
contrasted with the sure that summer, we being we’re obliterating combinations at
recollection (knowledge!) would have been dumb even as it passes into the track. What is
of this time indeed not to avail a plethora of texts. being born for
last year. Secret ourselves of it. Societies To study how if not for this?
society 200 strong like to suppose themselves caste, class and power The Hamadsha
seeks to engineer natural, all others develop in a village of Morocco slash
lasting partnership artificial. Alternatives in Tanjore not only their heads,
among the ruling challenge god-given tells us of ourselves, entranced, during
classes of the more rights and persons it also baffles their healing ceremonies,
advanced industrial bringing these to mind and bewilders, usefully in this highly
nations, but encounters ought to be excluded telling of our limits. readable account.
resistance in the form for the good of All’s codified — is this Although the gods
of mass hallucination the republic. Patterns to keep one’s cultural destroyed the villages
concerning the separation of exposition repeat heritage alive, or simply the goddesses belonged
of the political and other social patterns. to be extraordinary to, phallic figurines,
economic realms. A mad Of the one in a document? Sift, female perfection in
doctor tries to create hundred or so organize, then couch, one handy symbol of
a race of supermen. varieties of apple these steps we prize, the masculine excrescence.
Horror rises from the tomb in America, Safeway along with quantifying: Madstone or mole,
to terrorize descendants markets 4. The texts if good at same, birthmark to balmyard,
of decapitated French of which the teacher should qualify hope rendered concrete,
knight. Merry received free samples for an elite, by this waterfall
lady-killer marries and which were calculated the shroud their stand was made,
young women for their to aid in the instruction of that mystique. an amusing dissertation
money; In Tahiti, a wild of students learning The mountains are concerning head-hunting.
bikini gets stuffed composition tended to many and rugged, Your executioners later
into a shallow plot. repeat each other. thickly populated cower in terror
A consul plays Cupid Marx makes capitalism close to the edge before your ghost.
for a GI and fiancee. aware of itself as of hunger. Fetched Poker can be viewed
Secretary weds boss to human construct. to the new world as a religion, unequal
326 327
parts of skill, there in their mahogany can have its say — Under the delusion that
nerve, luck, distracting forest, beautiful, the choice hardly the center is
the way to carve forms remarkable, reduced to seems there to be elsewhere? The creative
in a rockface keeps the 250, wouldn’t thank you made. Giants personality makes use
carver from picturing if you asked and could be like Cezanne strive of the art-ideology
catastrophe he can’t understood. In fact to arrive at some his culture supplies — or,
keep in the rock. Solid isn’t understanding, final grasp do they an instrument the community
nuggets of some save where it can be of form as problem? makes use of to express
fascination. An demonstrated by use Color his rectangle its cultural ideology —
eliminated people of the tool, rather pink. Art has to be which he composes with
qualify under the a feeling or sensation seen in its religious all the vigor of his
Dewey decimal that one has understood? context and religion personality — the constant
system. In the lowlands Meanwhile in northern in historical context detaching of the artist from
bands of anomalous Thailand, the interplay or what we term the earlier ideologies,
Christ-worshipers — between the structural bottom line. An immensely corresponding to
in cities, intellectual dominance of women, the likeable hero, a succinct a separation of
excitements — in Japan’s ideological dominance sound motion, careful the individual
megalopoli, moxibustion of men, vividly synthesis of documents from a great
clinics, lock the cultural brought out, challenges and technical whole, and also
thesis. An anonymous earlier perspectives. sources, con amore, to the extrusion of
Asia says, If you must The folktale, singing where seeing is wornout ego parts in
restrict your interest for power one crazy forgetting the name a gesture of independence
to just one February evening of that you see — that, hailed sufficiently
book, try this. A husband behind mud walls to the burning ambition, as a successful one, will
and a wife are laying people without history the servicable cliche, bring the dependency of
out the politics of beneath the bo-tree provincial naievite and fame, the people (us)
reproductive ritual, about art, results in leapfrogging needing someone to be
stirring up something a picture triumphantly inspiration, what famous so we can
new and lively, maybe impregnable. Sogdian is the economic role participate in his or her
that better job affording painting, with its of government? I can’t immortality — success
the offspring of their distinctive recall since when, a stimulus for just so long
union a better crack at traits, color plates but it seems forever, as it is not attained:
turning things around, and many line this assumption that I wonder who reads Otto
or leastways an education in drawings, the psychology I am the epitome Rank these days? A strobe
reframing. The Lacadones, of art is never simple, and the apotheosis, why lumped at a desk. Patient
last lords of Palenque, not if the alphabet else live, and how? days of abstruse
328 329
thought. Wants to be noted he was looking for in 1805. In Spain absolutely accurate
as performing something a conscience. Half so many curious arrangements as heat mounted and the
if not useful then our nature’s to of the window morning melded into
with the gegenschein of forget. The movie puzzled her, but not noon. In the same
purpose trailing it, who overlooks its the persons glimpsed time zone the government
so instructs that words cameras. Teenagers within that sometimes of Mexico approached
shall so appear and manifest much were looking out default — each lawn
form? Religious in energy, it pours at her. From the yard contained a rolled-up
its unappeasibility, into the sunset so a pre-school voice Sunday paper
the impulse struts poignantly devoid of insisting “It’s not with a TV guide inside.
fanes, while bells another to appreciate nighttime yet” was
batter its erections, it with. Even the red
while its solitary fellow barns with their white
follows demonstrating trim meant sexual
phrases such as excess. Exogamous
“sure of his welcome (here longings for In His Ivory Tower, The Bourgeois Dreams Of Home
at any rate)” and “individuality is someone with a trail
an epiphenomenon of late to be hot on, along
bourgeois culture the echoing You should stay When I think
astonishingly chasm. She hugged him in touch with your how far you’ve come,
persisting in this and then family, because then how much you’ve done
era of recapitalization.” thrust her belly up you can experience in these few years
Which is not irony unless to his and rubbed it what you can’t I have to acknowledge
a white shirt and a tie back and forth — bear in yourself, and I feel threatened
are irony. It felt the past is stay aware of probably, and have
good and bad, beating that guy then anatomized whatever despicable had to deny it,
out of a parking place for all traits you have, but since my second cousin
in front of the store imaginations, yet so that the individuation got in touch again
with the best xmas at what cost in process is thereby about the family
cards in town. Impediments distraction! Westminster speeded up estate, I feel less
from day to day renewed put that summer was encased and evolution served. mean. Kind of
paid to lofty hopes. No in scaffolding, while a fence You a calm
moon at all can be around construction in are excitement, unless
a thrilling jazz number. Trafalgar Square read a that’s the new brand
He figured the reason he Better this in 1985 wonderful we’ve been drinking.
stole so much he was than actually in battle person. The ego can
330 331
feel marvelous on for higher pay than how vague! That that was accompanied
account of those they get who so often might with equal by an extension
accomplishments failed as therapists force be said of hands upward and
others find or teachers and thus of Coleridge, another opened, he sensed
trivial and that’s elected to go into laboring vineyard. change was in the air,
the trouble with management. “I wouldn’t The predicate ought and I agreed that
this brand of ego. go back to that guy if to surprise the subject I had felt as much
Amazing — one can say you paid me — I’d seeing how of late myself, but
anything, the poetry is blow my brains out first.” that’s only perhaps it wasn’t
in the motion, These type persons natural, if entirely attributable
didactically thus run the world we others it can be allowed to the newspapers.
justified suffer. That is that experience Are you simply
since it tells us totally unfair, warrants the term. having fun
of the motion a reprehensible Of course with sentences
known in several generalization, an imperceptible or leveling
important contexts as partially true, decision made in with us? Or have
(and discourses) true. Please early adult you purposes
the mind. Today check the answer life turns out to more serious and
the county cut our budget applicable. He explained have been the final thrilling, really,
$13,000 and the shit when he had said choosing up of sides eventually, that’s
began to hit the fan. hysterical, he meant it like the person in what we mean. All
Management, since descriptively and not a Gary Snyder poem that’s of revelatory
unionization, perceives perjoratively. I so often recall note, depends upon
the clinical staff as He was interested who’d signed on for content to come
adversaries, as though in the use of language one week and had been into existence yet
we weren’t all that draws attention to subsequently bucking the content itself is
in this together, sink and simultaneously hay all his life, yet nugatory, the preoccupation
or swim, and even from, its user’s the chief of some bimbo doubtless
as if they weren’t purposes as best feeling of life just as the act of one’s
ancillary! Strange, such can be understood. is novelty, if only conception was
when you think of it, Stevie Smith via its yard Mom and Pop’s
how people in service was a highly rule of boredom. good time, a night
occupations, teachers, intentional He announced that out I
therapists, counsellors, poet, no doubt with a definite don’t care to
will always have this about it. Or and characteristic discuss. “The English
army guarding them not much. But shrug of the shoulders are so metaphorical,
332 333
and this is The last and her displaced coincides with this
their tongue four lines are fall. Zukofsky whenever I allow a line
in your literal also well was right. We must to stay, evoking
ear.” Our friends, worth perusal, have what we want distortions of the social
messengers from life though irrelevant now, and only in that that prompt
to death, are building in this context. form to so enable Expressionism. Ego
a celestial city. When Embracing and ennoble us. Yes is the foot that
I enter you hardly cuts it poetry about poetry drags and slows
how I feel whole anymore. With open arms is a drag it’s safe the cyclist. Samson
and how that feeling is it moves in on its to say, even poets the emotional
not apart from the sensation referent that writing poems about idiot
baffles memory. Rocks turns away. The late how they hate that affords a common
Bob said, like 20th Century needs 4 poets write poems model. We keep fit
simple markers. aspirin and a hug. See about poetry will for the identity it gives
How I always do I believe such stuff agree. Actually us with our grandparents
desire to be there, no, in such a wise span through I like best when someone in their doctrinal
the desire Caesar as he planned talks about her work, observances —
comes and goes, but battles, call it if you wish that’s a sound eternal life
crave, how I crave like an insect walking use of leisure means to maximize
union, yet how delay the meniscus, I guess to my mind. I am aware the use of what’s
same, unless —is that Yeats never saw a shopping there are some assumed to be
you doing it through, list. That passionate factual errors in this allotted. Governments
to, me? When young old codger! Who can’t piece, the ones that are agree to kill off millions
(grade five) remainders dwell in recollections deliberate, like because that’s the solution to
held me fascinated, of early sex and sense attributing Charles overpopulation, so why
disturbed, worried, his balls draw close Olson’s statement to not do it via gene-spliced
was I alone in that? as if to eavesdrop — Zukofsky. As an viruses that sexually
We stand at the window figuratively Expressionist, I have this repress all worker ants.
embracing in speaking. Like obligation to distort A schizoid aunt, also, was
an Ingo Seidler gold to airy thinness outer reality, and my hospitalized
translation beat is it? Dispersed so political strategy for paranoia.
of Paul Celan: finely via sublimation
they look at us that urge repeats itself
from the street: otherwise as it
It is time remembers. Now let’s
that they knew! mention mother
334 335
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS P-E-A-C-E
P-E-A-C-E their mothers, and their hands, unused to manual labor, were foreclosed on
and sold on the grounds that the truehearted and nicer people, and even the
worst, lying, bovine, cuntstruck supporters of the aging chancellor, were the
The fins of another condition ended man’s life as an I, the fins of a second ones doing it to them, and burnt to a crisp in a blond grotto their innocent
way ended that man who served every day and every other good idea and they, destroyers had voted for in a photograph. Not even money could lift its
now lit with farsighted colors, now shining offensively like the summer sun, interesting hand, with its prematurely aged fingers of a chronologically young
skinned night’s and workingclass reality’s state sevenfold and often brought Oriental female, to save them. And when the Great Muddler died, a victim of
him back for more — minnows, dreams and poems. daily venticide, eerily in May as long before predicted, chaos ensued.
The era had a milky density, tepid and torpid, mildly disgusting like a one- But, as to the creative writing and its classes, Niecesleeper’s capitalistic
acre homesite; this disgust had spoken of the rebuttal to its final vestige of poems do not lack for genuine atmosphere, and bland and aging as the dorsal
candid spontaneity, except that the toothache of the times looped a scarf fin called memory, stammeringly stumble forth from the tidiest of doomed
over everybody’s ears. Of such was this milky perception, not so much eerily barns, among others a child of the state and (glory to him who animates our
ghostly, as eerie the way a huge albino baby with two grossly celestial tits is cadavers) halfway through sleep in the state:
eerie. “They retreat to salute” (literally, step backwards and point to their heads)
deceived noone yet all did so, so assiduous was each of eternity, then imagined I saw two happinesses in two trees:
as a piano lesson on a humid afternoon with your pants around your ankles. the one of heat, the other of dark.
The example is a careful person
We who so hope stridently to summon the assassins of history to the mecca of setting fire to his Honda in a park.
judgment, instinctively cover our mouths and point at our feet, salivating the
more to see the cuckoo-area vacated, in the ordinate fidelity of these elegant If I, for you, created a world,
steps: our lucky friends have all disappeared, yes, having stamped their drama for you am god, you take security for him,
with glee upon the form of its content. Cheese in the sun has its odor; never and you come to him, to my security,
the cuckoo of truth confronted the burro of intensity, with more gradations asking why my world is dead with hope:
than the tic-tac-toe of this era’s worrisomeness inscribed upon the napkins of
the 90’s. I have sawed up my hope in language,
in number, and in written numbers;
When I, having lasted to be sued and marketed and licked with the stamp- now I can constrict my bowels
despising tongue of correspondence, was assigned to the same gallery of types like a llama in the prison of actual size.
with monotremes, cockroaches and unpolished tins of eel, it met darkness in
full flight. Just as the individual had fallen away, so the atmosphere reversed So much for death. For song with its laws.
itself. The same darkness, whose secret flushed its boundaries, horrible and Sea that I decimate but won’t endure,
grand, the same scummy harbor, with its locksmiths, coughing and symbolic, death those numbers that I push towards
looted that old house. Men met that house who became one hundred per a universe where me created I,
cent screeching romantics with heads as white all the time as the true trivial
stammering of weather, petit bourgeoisie if only that their heads, too large for enabled to convert one
336 337
into one god: the god patch for more than ten minutes without hallucinating birds with leather
that is faithful toward the end, wings, and what of the prose of those days? It might have been W.S. Canal
the number followed by the numbers. who indited the ensuing, shortly before his assassination at the hands of some
(“Beginning, Model and End”) Christian revivalists while stunning pageantry through rippling fields of
barley blushed with stands of wild and shaven forescalps — cited here in its
This surely tells what we could have expected of a time when even the entirety, quite possibly:
Emperors of Tar could not wrest the sun from its setting, nor the man
responsible for wrecking the environment do so without the excuse that the One early, clear winter morning in July, when the sea already lay
world as foretold in prophecy was in any case shortly to end. Who has not dreaming in its silver pantsuit, and the vaseline stacks loomed over
known the long summer evenings toward the turn of a century when suddenly the settlement with their spits and shudders, and the red berries
your parents’ piano looks old? Niecesleeper captured his percentage of the of the hawthorn were like windows of a little skating rink, the sun
prevailing interest: rose into the white welkin dragging something after itself, like an
egomaniac.
If hunting blew in the alders specifically
so bitterly you never went hunting again voluntarily, The hordes in the still morning air were jubilant with
the alders where hunting still clamors unconsciousness. The three innocent communists had been turned
that to hunt in the stock exchange became delicate, to chalk down near the edge of the ocean, and the tribal elder Slin,
gripingly I’d hunt on the set in back Of Solly’s 7-11 the alphabet arranger, had been evened out between oxen and axle.
in my evening stole sewn together with symphony tickets, For the children, it was a happy day, for they had new skulls after
in my designer gown stapled to my skin with fur blood; the old ones had gotten scuffed and chipped by the railroad tracks,
a very long wind rips the women’s blouses and seldom had the forenoon brought such lovely weather as snow.
but still the skipper of state on the bridge of debt
eaten by Twinhill’s hands into a tingling shadow Soon the sea had been all used up. On the opposite shore they
hunts the 6 per cent who own nine-tenths of everything, found a way to use up the forest. There lay the results of the
small figure till you realize it’s 14 million, weather, a mantle of white monotony; human foot had not yet
enough to fill Scarsdale, La Jolla, Beverly Hills touched this purity, only the easy spoor of their sins here and
The Bubble and etcetera, the ravishing ghouls there, projected like a jacket over a snowman, at once conserved
hunting the more that else were malnutritioned less. and annulled inherited conceptual oppositions. Old seekers after
(“Up On Olympia”) the mustardseed would have stood buoyed up by the sting of
nothingness, that park created by the repulsively wealthy for their
“Throw off your shackles, throw off your chains, drag out your landlords, middle-classes to get lost in, while frostbite worked unnoticed on
beat out their brains”: one can almost hear the old chant, striding into the part their ears, except that none witnessed the deeper silence of this
of the true story where the ants help. Twinhill, of course, was the person who flecked accident, immaterial as glossemes, except a redhaired
then owned the world. woman in clogs, out there near her granny’s cottage now and
then “lostening” among the snow-burning ovens and uncommon
But just as there can be no shade without sun, nobody can look at a small snobbery and folly that require remarking — or never a single echo
338 339
with spread fingers in the blink of an eye will again crown itself — over and all in full swing.
of the hasty, knee-prodding necessity and vanishment where an I (“Mimesis”)
ate a hole in the stammering of trees.
The two ranges, of sound and placement, are in accord with the twin columns
There lay that so apposite, so opportune, so full of secret ugliness raised before the Temple of Monolog, the one dedicated to agitators, the other
in the deep fry of the forest, if snow might be batter, instead of to the receptors of totality, and these two, in whose doubling we discover their
profound peace, that the roster of slaughtered children (after all, thought, infinite and extensible, whose chain unpacked a shopping cart at the
nearly always someone else’s, and darker and smaller) started supermarket in order to ring each item up, tended to reflect the Cosmos as a
to mildew, and the woman with complete certitude whispered, Being with clipped wings, universally comprehensible, tuned to receive and
“Airday icker hairlicht hairinner!” Her vile accent mucked up absorb at the same rate anywhere as if it were all the same, and not more fickle
the entire truth which gives in advance the central principle of all than the winds, many of which prevail.
useful reflection upon words.
They averred that Being involved distinguishing the possum from the dead
Finally it came to pass as Slin had worried it would, and been animal fact, in the quadrangle, and that the impediment to loving might be
ploughed and harrowed for saying so: writing was the death of the the pacifier, a rubber good then given to infants, and that whoever would
metaphysics of the logos. Thus had been silenced the cinema; the be an impediment to his brothers should first secure their feces and other
practical grammarians had folded their canvas stoles away; laggards alimentary matter, and then carry this in a sieve, eating some of it and spitting
on sleds slaughtered each and every monotreme, drained Lake Dreg out the rest, until all had incurred a great debt toward him, though that debt
and crashed jets into the fronts of their own homes. Here belief in be but in the thought of the one who comported himself in this wise. And
the system lost its place. Each grammarian, with a “Later”, stalled they held equality was possible, and that the person who inherits a fortune has
his machine, and little Lena (for that was the frozen laughter of the no more freedom of speech, chance of justice, opportunity further to enrich
redhead) cried out: “Eli, Meli, how I wish the useless grammarians himself with power and toilets, than a partial cripple nailed to a complicated
lay on the bottom of the sea, so much gargle have we had from cross he must pay for with unobtainable hymn-books while using his teeth to
inside their skulls, and I, who trod on their skulls and found it mine coal — as if he hadn’t been caught redhanded. And they held it obvious
funny! Let them now stay, where they stay (she stamped her tiny that a bird was not a lizard. And that Being obeys the truth, that god is oneself
foot) and come instead and play with me. Pappa and mamma will (lit., me), who must cure one’s own sciatica, or sacrifice innumerable native
come home in the evening, and we shall have something festive. speakers in the attempt. And that this diligent era, filled with easy instants
Shall we not become small lamps?” always about to be, and not otherwise veiled from the eyes, had nothingness
in greater quantities than god has had pets. And the more diligently they went
Not only was her speech contradictory, but instead of saying into debt, the more proudly they displayed their bodies in the city square,
“small”, she said “snow”. Foresight existed in vain; a mangled until this came to be seen the better Christianity: “And if it rain stained glass,
snowball came towards her and stapled her to her death, an unholy it is better to be a transept window.” And they said, “Better an immodest son
pyramid. Into this skull, so quick to credit darkness, light broke, of mummy, than titillate an ocelot”, and they held that to solicit spit from
and the gladness of children who think magically that singing your sibling’s mouth, as long as neither is in a sitting position, while peeking
comes from the belly and to work is to fly. Earthquakes wrecked the into a cave, mumbo-jumboing while smoking pencils and pretending to be a
dock, unfortunately, and before long, the beginning was covered woodpecker, after rolling up your eyes until only the whites show, while an
340 341
uncle walks backward reciting his miseries, if one has abstained that day from canon, imagined from within, as it were, through the persona of the
penguin, counted as one volt of misery and as soon as one had a thousand poet’s wetnurse:
posted out in the open before the eyes of the chorus, one would be enabled to
dominate eternity as soon as one had been executed on the tables to the rear If I am pregnant since given his stake
of the Bank of San Salvador. And they thought they were the first to discover upon whose underside’s inscribed “Success”
that peasants who wanted to own the land they worked had been imported doubtless I have the swallow who obscures the river stones
from another planet, and could not be harmed by steamrollers, only flattened with wintry rearrangement;
into useful road surfaces for the transport of soybeans in place of the black
beans people used to eat before they decided to starve to death. I know only what the birds drop from their tiny beaks,
let me insert this in your nest, my weeping Herman.
And they held that hysterical women wanted to draw attention to and from Whyfor such regions, if our days cannot collaborate?
the fact that they had knees, but really to make you dizzy. And they held that Whyfor black night and all those books?
poets were hysterics who tried to disguise the fact that they had nothing to say
so unsuccessfully. They also believed that facts were fascists, and that writing If he made me pregnant getting his revenge,
was not to be trusted (therefore they spoke their marriage vows) and that while I conversed with his red thing,
speech was not to be relied upon (hence they issued marriage licenses). They with dismaying utensils from Copenhagen
maintained that swimming was like writing, an immersion in a foreign body and with my accordion heart
that restores one’s sense of proportion, and that talking was like being in air,
devoid of noticeable feedback but pleasantly full of yakety-yak. And they had nothing shall be recovered that he believed in,
poets who wrote as though they were talking, and these were most often those neither the dove yellow with sleep in my olivetree
treated to incipient manicures, if they imagined talking as training a Mynah- nor my gargantuan dedication,
bird, and who had heaped upon them a stupefaction of peregrine falcons, nor that diploma I rang up in his eyes:
credit cards and intaglio doubledecker busses; the other kind worked, when
permitted, as lifeguards out at the filtration plants. transport him to scurrilous obscurity,
gods of the alimentary tract with your sad blood!
Yet these people, barbarians only in a minor sense, were the first to know we Here are violets, little canoes,
exist to consume (lit., get cancer), and that when a younger person is alone he to give the peasant the time of his dull life.
is recumbent with a small disc which he tries to set on fire and smoke. And
they were the first to train iguanas to repent for the sins of their trainers. Maybe no penetration but all the handling you want,
But before we set our plates in the ashes as a token of our debt to these no biting under the cascades of accumulated silence
extraordinary and ignorant precursors, the work of Art-Dave Brimbody because no contest:
(whose essay “Shooting Is Too Good For Them” these pages are sometimes a I had an aunt who died,
redaction of), awaits our indulgence: Brimbody, poet of hedonism before the
strange conversion, at the instigation of the millionaires who threw him out and she was malevolent with a red thing at a party,
of his home, of all his money into small tiles of imitation wood, a disaster that and her horses were gulping buckets,
happily forced him into his work as a translator. Here is a snatch of his earlier and her hands burned with kisses,
342 343
and she lost her things and didn’t know why. you have a possible bone
(“After Bohemian Grove”)
stuck in your jugular and sober singing,
However, he did venture during this period into the marges of the political sober in the library of bottles,
in his poetry; and this despite his contention that the universe is implicit in sober with the chart of love,
any action, even turning off the alarm and rolling back into sleep as the house sober as the parapets
burns down; but here, so there shall be no mistake, is “The Fellow-Travelers”:
open to the dead.
Those others, the family, Inevitable galoshes,
with their inevitable galoshes, never as abject as the lips
those others, vulgar pinkos, nor brilliant like the mariposas:
will be my death and things.
voracious fellow-passengers,
Maskers of the first rank hasten French for door, Italian for window,
to a familiar salon, bold Muscovites, pertinacity
the clearer you are late may sober your infantile calves!
the cleaner the impeachment by sonar.
Shockingly, this maturity of vision diminished with the chain of events that
And the death by abhorrence escalates began on October 22, when the first gamboge poster defaced a Frinco Sifistan
you rowdy diverting persecuted wall, even as rumors of an armistice with China the Incredible, though late in
for love and for your wheels, coming, surrendered their protest at the water’s edge. Every other province
the death of thieves -- snoring sirs, voted rightwing and Rinaldiste, carrion crows scenting out a sick or dying
body, craving to mingle bloodstreams with the Gang of the Skimming of the
rubato up those crystals Cream off One Billion.
from God’s toenails...
Moscow today is the hora, Brimbody wandered the streets seeking advice on how to come to his
the infants and adolescents, country’s aid. In those districts where the overchargers stick their heads into
tropical birdcages, oriental carpets and pubescent statuary, while nigger
my childhood scales: gardeners make things pretty for very little, he would urinate his opinion
this being the second of innocence, upon the important shrubbery. Since he loved plants, this made him sob
how not to believe in nothing piteously. Yet even this was not enough: Beach Stinson, for instance, elegantly
forever and ever . . . evaded the Definition by continually leaping from vehicle to vehicle, while
Pearl Boehme kept disguising herself as anyone with flaming red hair and
Vulgar fellow-travelers, eyes one brown one otherwise. These were exciting times to experience
how the pure families futility in. In the words of Matt Battenburg, “I am the obstacle” — referring
tender no dignity to your song: perhaps to an item in a street barricade he had erected in a cul-de-sac, or
344 345
possibly something else. Millicent Wrongsong wrote more than anybody else Excellence excercised appropriate to virtue
in her attempt to demonstrate the point of no return between beer bottles,
production and commodity, a black-bordered poster denouncing resistance as Exemplary? who can elude that function?
less interesting than little brown cigars. Her attempts to produce workingclass I tremble at it
texts as if written by someone very well-educated in esthetics succeeded, and Rolled from his chariot, felled beneath my staff
the proletariat gratefully passed over these as under so much else, disgusting Expiring like the myth beneath the reasonable wheels
pale worms of the electronic siege, in which they had at last as much chance of Not I alone, but the whole city hears it
survival as the Sorbonne-bred Winder of the Cubist Sundial and his constant Enigma’s darkling sphincter might unfold
companion, Tiffany, Lizzard of Was.
Shalom, Irene
It was at the Babylon Barracks, sodomized by soldiery, and by now really
immaterial, Brimbody penned his last to his demented friends: “You must Possessors lay down the law
burn, for I wish it, and I think you will respect my wish, as one already dead, And prosperity secures the peace
my poem P-E-A-C-E !” This, understandably, was not done properly; some X has the power to enforce this
fragments survive, to testify to the frothing grammary of this cuckoo-ridden
decade before the ultimate car of self got towed: Family your measure of whatever
Rights, honor and welfare of the clan
Intact as to loyalty before the Thing
Duty never to be doubted
Unimaginable crimes can break no rules
P-E-A-C-E
for K.K., who gave us the Pleasures: the missing portion. Political conciliation to begin with
After odd gods proved in
X terminable by Jahweh the Forsaker
So you think peace exists within the group Comprehend the incomprehensible
Heaven has a contract out on what’s outside Honor your father and mother
Alien, Aryan, Arab stir the strife Raging phenomena
Look at your debt to them In and out at once of everything
Outsiders existing merely to make you cohere Spanning history to come close to an answer
Messages that each decode the same Too close for comfort
I sees through love to a distinct advantage
Every art, inquiry, act, intent, aim at some good
It follows there are many ends State’s monopoly of force
Rhetorics, and wars The principle of competition
Each judges what he knows with what he knows Asks recognition of the principle of difference
None disputes that happiness is best Talents cause division, loss and profit
346 347
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS IT’S THE SAME ONLY DIFFERENT
Equality’s the legal mask its absence wears It’s the Same Only Different / The Melancholy Owed
Categories
Possibly it never has occurred to us For Cecelia
Equality upon which base we rest who also dwells here
And validate our veritable existence
Can’t be while only some inherit wealth
Ergo noone is really ever here at all If Fate could be taken and given a twist,
If Justice could be taken and given a twist
Pursuant to this thesis note to squeeze from it all that wine
Empiricism to the contrary to squeeze from it something like wine
A language only can have currency among its equals which, downed, causes a sensation like being kissed,
Can the latecomer be denied a place? which downed, causes a feeling like being kissed
Evidently so, but this reduces us to nonsense on the mouth by Swinburne and apostrophized as Proserpine
by Liberty with Her shift off who would pine
Property across the generations for that lonesome trail where cluster those berries
Eats at the life of all who have none why then who wouldn’t collect those deadly berries
Ask any wage-earner unable to compete with it until he had enough to give a drink to someone fit to be
Cuckoos is the pert response inducing a trance whose figures turn out to be
Except a human being is more smoke than bird shot back through time or turned into an owl ?
Piglet and Jahweh, Allah and Eeyore and Owl
Plutonium diverted among a host of daffodils performing their mysteries,
Echo said we all crave firsthand information of the mysteries
Agents (several dead) first glimpsed in childhood drowsily,
CIA to nations they’d befriended to assure Christopher Robin as drowsily
Evidence others beside Silkwood murdered he sucks on his thumb, of his acceptable soul,
but fear them also, since each of us is a soul.
Poetry slavers to save slave’s faces throughout history
E.g., How much does that Grecian urn Every endless summer hurries in a fall
Ah, Fred, is that music — oh, brethren and cisterns, If Truth’s a jeroboam and its imbibers fall
Can Xanadu be put into a skull-sized pot? glad to the Axminster as one, and the cloud,
Enough! give me some money, all you got, or else shut up and no blue skyscape is forever free of cloud,
each wakes up to appears to spell the word all,
The dullness of this, not to mention the stupidity of mentioning money personally, I detest this habit that causes the word all
like that when the surest way to get some was not to, justifies Brimbody’s to penetrate my head and wrap thought in its shroud
subsequent donation of his organs and their setting to a landfill company. The as its shadow wraps thought in its shroud,
decadent economists we still remember in our architecture and our cookery, a rose is a rose is a rose:
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IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS IT’S THE SAME ONLY DIFFERENT
then the poet (once sober) buries his nose in a rose
blowing for him all alone where we wave
yes, but nothing one looks at that doesn’t wave
one another So long. Where those peonies “. . . you see, Bernard, the poetical character has no self . . . and does no harm
fare well — grandad’s ninety-four, but those peonies from its relish of the dark side . . . or the bright: both end in speculation. The
he grew year upon year and took to all the shows poet has no identity — he is continually informing and filling some other
privilege nurtures so as to win all the shows body. . . . I deemed it appropriate, this being my first book to be published
owed their uncanny identity to artifice. We rave in England, and my earliest poetic memory, being led by my father over
(the odd gardener grumbles), incite hierarchs to rave Hampstead Heath to see the cottage where the Nightingale Ode was written
since we can’t touch, and never blame this on our eyes (after which we returned to 254A W. End Lane where he read me to sleep
and forget how such primacy’s due to all eyes. from Milne), to use Keats’ ‘Ode to Melancholy’ as armature : the ideas then
discovered (to borrow Hejinian’s insight) to me by such vocabulary must
At first everybody figured Beauty would never die, also be fitting, being such as troubled the imperious syntax of my youthful
Experts declared that Beauty would never die education. . . . But not one word I ever utter can be taken for granted as an
and next, that She would. While they studied Her lips opinion growing out of my identical nature. Yet I am ambitious of doing the
while a voice said She would. Norwegian people’s lips world some good ! If only by keeping it in mind of Negative Capability. . . . I
share an inescapable resemblance. What do you mean, Nej? chose this particular Ode perhaps because its third stanza celebrates a mode
The Unnoticed entered their ears. In Uppsala, no sounds like nej. of love-making at once more accurate to the relief of Beauty and less invasive
And so it goes — whatever at the spring of likeness sips than the missionary inflictions of the Egotistical Sublime. Of course nothing
Independently-wealthy of what? No-one sips of this remains in the poem I have made, and yet shadows it even as the
who’s not also so a drink. No delight English English diction colors it. . . .”
grows thirstier to take delight
in advantage that isn’t for others a shrine David Bromige
in similitude at any wayside shrine (letter extract — 9/12/84)
to advantage denied. Given a tongue,
Very true, but the anomalous also has a tongue,
and when it speaks we shriek aloud and think it fine !
try to think without jumping: you’ll say everything’s fine,
it addresses us in the language of maybe and might
while ellipsis neglected mutters its maybe and might
and assures some of us we were born to be hung,
till anomalous martyrs from identical lampposts are hung.
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IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS RED HATS
Red Hats R
Dedications
E: Bob Grenier. R
H: Ron Silliman.
He rooted in his belief. I’m your puppet. The typewriter is not realler than
S: Charles Bernstein. the mouth that it spells telling it what to say. The concept reality takes the
margins and centers them. She stood on the machine to he weighed. He held
The whole: Bob Perelman, who believed it could be better (and maybe still her. Summer breezes do not distinguish the thistle from the genitals, which
does), and Cecelia Belle, for (not) putting up with it (me) throughout the general is what makes them so exciting. Sitting, he came back to earth. Only to spring
onslaught in love and Santa Rosa. up suddenly, gradually becoming convicted.
Many others have (also) contributed, more than 1 can here name or even The autonomous region has dotted lines for borders. We may visit whenever
remember, and I can only resist the urge to list those memory delivers with the we wish; no visas will be issued. Were exile merely an idealism, the hermit
thought of the invidiousness such partiality would inflict. would control the world. Each soul passes through a narrow opening in an
otherwise inpenetrable barrier, available, no matter the crush, to long, slow
My thanks to all. scrutiny — and then the blessed obscurity beyond, where data at last becomes
capta, and desire ends. Rules here are ironclad. People no longer sit mindlessly
attending — while actually tending — the spectacle.
The sense of all this conveyed through the letters. The tongue, curled back
with the tip against the palate, then pressed forward, emits the sound of
punctuation. There should be six letters to a word, and a change of director
every 9 or 10 words. Why spell out one, yet let the others be numbers? The B
represents a mistake, bringing good fortune to some, bad luck to those upon
whom they in some sense depend. Without the appearance of responsiveness
slathered across an undercoat of alienation, inauthenticity would be homeless.
Today, you can only secure hope through its absolute denial. Hurry. That
mine were the first eyes to fall upon the freshly written prose of the new
morning became during this episode in human reckoning a fact impossible
to slit the pages of, and exaggeration also provides as its image of ultimate
calm this shelf-full of editions Gallimard with an exquisite ivory letter-opener
resting nearby. All dust has been banished from this room where psychosis
352 353
holds its own hand. can be entirely responsible for those actions legally determined to be his or
hers.
Cutting corners names a game. The archeologist of the newspaper room
knows that the heart of a people tingles in its fingernails: The might of what might have been has not been overlooked, although
the library’s hours have been cut back. The novelists we sank ourselves
in suddenly had bottoms, thoroughly described. Wrap the leaf in leaves.
Thought thought to be contained in hulls (wholes), a shiftable cargo —
sapphire in mud, diamond tremendous pressure forms, teeming brains
A New Homeric Hymn gleaned by trembling hand. A kite wherefrom the ideas stream in the
unforgiving wind of the century, witness the bent trees, beneath which,
the rhizomes with their thousand eyes, and later, the rustly packages each
Someone buried alive in a coffin emblazoned with their logo, “The Government of Ireland has invented the
with nails hammered through its sides and lid potato to watch you eat it, fatso”. In lay lingo, a sentence standing for his
breathed through a tube until rescued. thoughts. A low blue flame quivers on the surface of a broad silver puddle.
Lovely passage of description, virgin spring of sarcasm, but people are
The men who did this thing to him scared when entering a darkened kitchen to find all four burners — no pots
(& who had provided the tube) he had decided atop them — bluely blazing away. Maybe the preferred image is a small
could not be human beings booth projecting tiny two-dimensional figures mimicking happiness and
inconsequence. The poet of reality suffers the torments of Tantalus. Film at
and the longer you have by yourself 11.
to think to yourself
the more mistakes you will. (insignificantly) make. Distortion blinks the lid, stops vision’s hypnosis momentarily, we see through
recognition’s trick and forget what we were about to endorse. Sperm hits
Common sense was made to register astonishment. ovum and Bingo, twice weekly at Journey’s End trailer park, where no one
wants to perish in a twister on the six o’clock news. Meanwhile, furniture has
Reality becomes relative, a repression of revolution via tolerance, romanticism to be bought then paid for. Yes sir! It being a bright, sunny day, she acquired
its reified reflection, rationality’s reduction becomes representation. Her some picture — well, artwork anyway. No wonder Homer, who digresses to
garment glimmered in the gloaming: a tight white sweater to make her boobs relax the tension not to build up the suspense, went blind. The sculptor of
look big. And the woman, too, has changed. Nor is the observer carved laser-beams draws something no better than a bison on somewhere no wiser
in sleep too deep for plumbing. A motorbike kicks over a sense of place than a wall, read the abstract, but as for the Hotel Cro-Magnon, inns are not
several blocks off. The first tentative rays blaze in what they will shortly residences. Here I am, he queried, large as life, if shorter. Stop photography
absorb. It became a sheet of flame, and a fleet of shame sank in ten thousand opens and blows flower, clouds issue. Folds of central massif orogeny take a
countenances as their owners (and subjects) likewise rose. The little port and distant tinkle, while toothache induces abstraction. Tell all the truth but smile
its cock crew; morning dropped something in the bowl of night; stepping into when you light up a Lucky. Let me tell you about yourself so you’ll know who
pants and names, by which, as Dorn remarks, one can be told to come and go, I am. In the night of a 1,000 reasons the majority lurches towards its claim, an
parabolas, tangents and vortices began to fill the physical field, where no one infallible stake. Absolute self-confidence corrupts absolutely.
354 355
the subject of this reiteration pumps uselessly until it gets it all out. The brain
2 has been laundered for the last time.
The Alp was the nightmare he was having wherein it appeared. The upper
slopes appealingly calamitous, for waking would be death to the dream, which In this vein, we hold the world within our bosoms, perceive it from the tower,
then becomes immortal. A methodology becomes the object of its attention a forest fire that proves to be some backpacker’s refried beans or vice versa.
when there’s no difference between process and reality, he recalled, flicking Several major arteries have been blocked by what turned into chalk or Contra
at a fleck of tobacco which was part of the weave of his suit. Who is the Costa. Do you prefer the trafficopter, or crawling along as part of an extended
ampersand in philosophy & me? It’s hit or miss but not and. “Tell me your metaphor?
dream, I’ll tell you mine.” “There was this figure looked just like my Uncle
Jack.” “Great, I had an Uncle Jack too!” Hungry fellows have lengthy menus Don’t go to that party. Why not? O, I don’t think it’ll be much fun without
in a logical world. Lunch breaks. you. Acid put all these bullshit questions into the shade, where they kept
extraordinarily well. The landlady sifted patiently through the garbage
Just now, the nuclear family seems unclear. Say what you mean. This sentence looking for something with an address on it so she could learn who had put it
means exactly what it says. This one, also. So isn’t it the angle that the tree there. He watched her do it. But also noted the vanilla pink sky tones behind
makes with the wall that we find interesting, as first the former, then the diligence.
latter, crashes to the ground? Astonish me, you pleaded, but when the fly-
swappers arrived, you fainted. Apparently you’re not the same person from To a pair of shoes, a person looks to be coherent. What if the theater is an
one sentence to the next. Terrified, sure of it, not so sure — that puts the ecto-vaginal orgasm of personal glory? It’ll only take two hours of your time,
heart before the course. plus finding a parking place. A residual cultural element is usually at some
remove from the dominant mode, and has to drive around the block a few
The doll squeaks when it opens its eyes. Opens its eyes when it squeaks. times, arriving even later, with even more outlandish excuses. God invented
Each duck was called Cause & Effect, and their progeny swim in the same whiskey to prevent the Irish from conquering the world. Those who have read
pond today. Whereas, with us, it’s otherwise. A mind not to be changed by a lot of novels become persons of the previous century, just that most were
place or time’s the devil’s work, yet so is fashion, feathers for each wind that published between 1830-1950, if we define “novel” in terms of those years.
blows. The hat, that symbol of the self, cognate with the head, which it is Complex definitions are irresistible to persons formed of such. A corridor led
intended to shelter and conceal, and the current paucity of hatracks in our straight from the chapel to the refectory. Someone is watching, taking it all
restaurants yields a large questionmark — until one checks in Uncle Jack’s down. It’s the cats’-eyes up the middle of Highway 101 (regional poetry).
photo-album and discovers that car doors got a lot lower. How long did he
stand there asserting nothing but the will to alter stayed unchanged? To thine
own self be true gets the point through the arras. To maintain that insistence
is masturbatory is to line up for identification with other possible rapists.
That’s on yet another hand. Everyone applauds when someone digs his heels
in in public, if there’s no other way to overlook it. Feelings are archaic and
eat it, too. The heart is one tough muscle. The heart is one tough customer.
The heart symbolizes constancy, for all his affairs demanded the same thing.
Motherless puppies can be lulled to sleep by a metronome. Upon decapitation,
356 357
E SMELL your HOLE, jam roll?” Geoff-the-Gannet would chime irrelevantly
in (save that hole made a rime), supplying himself the response: “You filthy
BEAST, it costs one-&-six at LEAST, to smell MY hole, jam-roll.” Pretty
soon from each narrow cot voices swelled the ca-ca chorus: “I MET ‘er in a
BOOZer dahn in DEAR old CAMden Town.” “RUB it up, SHOVE it up,
E balls & ALL: HIjigajig tres BONG.” “Did you EVer catch your BOLlocks
in a RATtrap?” “I am TIRED of TEARS & LAUGHTer, & of MEN who
SOW to REAP.” Pretty soon the counselors, each an ex-commando, fling
Expunging all evidence of the passage of time to speak in palimpsestic wide the door and pummel their charges indiscrim- however it’s spelled.
sentences advising that the indecipherable be done at once they lost us — These lads were on the cutting edge of the decade: the H-Bomb for staff and
Marlene, how exotic thy accent to this lad from Cricklewood! “I’m from guide, the Korean Conflict for a Pilgrim’s Progress, and the Beatles still ten
Shi-ka-eggo” and the wild American beauty of a form only in this generation years off. It had been hoped that farm labor would prove efficacious. Then
blent from various European stocks themselves “set” classwise for centuries there were the two busconductresses, equally unemancipated, one of whom’s
of a sudden released to new genetic and nurturing combinations so that de bra even Dave, the lad from London whose posh school accent vanished
temps en temps (ja visst!) the elements separate to allow one, two, three four within a week of his discovering the mistake in voluntarily entering this
different persons to be glimpsed through the veil of American identity — as-advertised “Educational Program For Young Would-Be Agriculturalists”
“your guess is as good as mine” — asymmetrical then, a cubist integrity (his companions were here because for them the alternative was 6 months
of ever-threatening disintegration. Love’s blind, and you don’t know what to a year in Borstal), was permitted to gauge the texture and extent of. “Eer,
you’re saying; no-one really knows us who does not love us. Love’s double- wheer’s ya mannahs? Tits fairst.” Classic beings fucking up, as Jim Brodey
bind. Had we not read about it, we would not fall in love; had we not read might have put it. “Children waking in the beds of the defeated/As the day
La Rochefoucauld, we would not doubt it. We must all be talking about a breaks on the million/ Windows and the grimed sills/ Of a ruined ethic”
different word, in the same tones of mingled earnestness, rhapsody and could have been George Oppen’s take. These lads were merely spontaneous
embarrassment. Speak for yourself, go on, make the rock walls of Lake in placing the blame outside of themselves. When even the most hardbitten
Malar ring again with morning thunder as your teenage erogenous zones blurted out something about the beauty of the landscape the farmer he was
tingle and ache with incompletion, the king nodding stiffly at the sight of all hired out to told him “Tha caan’t eat scenery.” There’ll always be an England,
those goodies spread before him in the grass, a shot of you falling into the wherever humans mustn’t grumble. My parents by a prior contract my head
Baltic! That’s recognizably fine prose, hinting at more than it states, a clear had made in my head with my head, saw everything I did: That valley is a
window bored clean through your forehead disclosing yet another eye. Or reservoir today.
doesn’t it rather face outward, so that the forms in the sudden squall blur to
accommodate the total spectrum of similar experiences? The head of the cock lodges up against the neck of the womb. Sounds like a
problem. in Mechanics Illustrated. The turn of her neck where she sat at her
The raw brick of the institution was swept with rain down the back of mother’s piano, and must always sit, in the waxworks on the wharf. Even her
anybody’s neck. Godfrey, one of the stranger of the teenage recidivists in the scarf would be a more tangible token, if only it had ever belonged to her. He
oddball company of urban delinquents despatched to this remote rural battery opens his wallet and produces some astonishing snapshots. He speaks, doing a
of holding cells, once lights were out, would start to chant basso profundo passable imitation of voice-over. Two cystals danegeld from here ares. He was
“I see an EYE at the KEYhole.” “Is a PENny any GOOD, Mrs. Wood, to gait alight. Noting out of pace, scathing his sweatheat’s mane in the already
358 359
defacted tunc. She drank heavely. Surfered with minstrel tramps and dislikes being independently wealthy (of what, citoyens?), requires of the viewer less
of her. Severing from loanliness, he laughed hurtidly, guggled with derise courage, but this will be lost on the outer circle of readers. As for the rest,
whiched to de side. Tow moanratic spanrods. This werter never gridated from the viewpoint of autobiography (and not only mine), during the late
collage. Poetry mocks the spirit of sober objectivity. You can’t say that either. 60’s, there were many more young women than young men, and that is what
But we follow him completely into our own variations on the them, forced is commonly meant by irresistible. If you remember, there’s simply a lot more
therefore to discover identity in a wide enough movement we could roll over past than present.
and play Beethoven, background to the present search for the just word. But
when we spoke to one another, he adds, we employed nearly all of these words, D
while the syntax stays indistinguishable, save for the reduction in the number
of dependent clauses and the favoring of nouns over verbs, as if that meant
nothing.
Remainders are an interesting concept, and were. Given 8 and 67, one can D
at least retain the 8. Among the Yoruba, clusters of 4 are the rule, but this is
in English, and when I entered University I had a parttime job cleaning out
the temporary huts (still, on my last visit, standing) one evening a week, one I hate doors whether on reed huts or rat sheds.
of which was used by the English Department to store its old exams. These Dr. Haste, rust head, had us tread his shattered
I went through, until I found an A paper: “Fielding sets up his easel in 18th star hued dear tush for some hot reads.
century England and daubs upon his canvas in bright colors and hold strokes I hear dots whether in rat sheds or road huts.
the spirit of his day.” Hmm, I thought to myself, So that’s how it’s done. Ears thud, as tears rid her staid head ruts.
So, Bob, I don’t know when I write society do I mean only what stopped us I stare ahead, read history, dash rites, date hoors.
or also what prompted us and if the latter, the sense of the term at all, since Ear dust from the sod heater in the reed hut.
it must mean the whole ball o’wax “tree,” “cliff,” “rock,” “water,” “ball,” I dare this, Dr. Haste, rites dash his tread.
“wax” pasted across what we surrender on a “mossy bank” of. It’s political, The rider sat astride a shared T-bar & ate shards.
I think, each historical moment calling for an emphasis appropriate to the I shed rats, dust huts, hurt ears, hustle history,
balancing of its inertia, and poets have this as our charge, “I see always,” her tads.
writes Duncan, “the underside turning,” and in this nation today the What’s a hare stud? That dates her. Had rest, shared tea.
unconscious content makes Forever Amber read like Henry James or isn’t I tread his history whose rider sat so as to heed ruts
that the conscious content, so that we speak so to speak to hear society shriek amid rash tides from tear ducts.
intellection. Or go on having an accident which our reflection assures us will He shat red, stewed hard, seared hot, heard her dear
prove exemplary as well as entertaining. (That or doesn’t indicate equation tears, tired has-beens, dashed, rare hidden treat.
but choice). Is authenticity a Platonic category, resisting Heidegger’s attempt I dust doors star hued of head ruts studded with
to annex it as a Protectorate? I would agree that what’s right in front of me is strident dates.
the only place to be, watching the words appear that say as much. The rest This dare — hot reads — as ears thud & dots hear,
is rent. Wilderness was an 18th Century passion (rimes with fashion), still heads stare & sitters ride, tries to trash rut heads.
is. Of course job security, achieved, if such were ever possible, and I include I thrash head rust, steer by the shards, heed ears:
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Dats her! Drethas! Rahdets! Red hats! Frays (Decca Recording Artists), a tall green metal jug with spout into which
Doors hear doors read roods raid rods stare dots down shut have been arranged violet, yellow and white dried flowers, an imitation oil-
history’s red ruts hear dust red stud for us to do as lamp with a lit electric bulb in its funnel, two photo-albums, a small wicker
best to tread hot darts whose hues heat heads ear thuds basket crammed with envelopes full of snapshots, a cracked plastic glass half-
hot reads doors hate. full with pennies, two small jars of whiteout (both empty), a red wicker basket
Shattered, threads redo deserted sated shuddered states. holding paper-clip packets and a light bulb, John Warkentin’s article in
reprint: “Support Through Non-Reassurance,” the information T. Rowe
H Price claims “you” requested, a spray-can of Johnson Wax “Glade,” and one
open notebook. All pleasure is social, since it originates in alienation. A Great
Horned Owl hooted. When a storm catches you out on the moors, it’s hard to
keep thinking. Only the detail escaped the liquidation of the work along with
the idea. Crushed cars do not cohere. Genuine resistance knows no
H propaganda. We won’t get through hell in a hurry. Form is never more than an
extension of content: collapse back into empirical and positivistic illusion. He’s
taking his show on the road again this spring. Taking it to the limit can only
Where are they all, this minute? Doing what? Thinking of what? Stuck with a demonstrate self-identity. A downright logic simplifies the ineffable. Vat am I
life, all in middle age now, babies crying. Put her on a pedestal between you doink in Vaterville? Dullards united against wit. Method is inevitably the
and the fateful stars. Notions of survival inevitably convert to skepticism. anti-method of a previous era. Why did she resist all attempts to tender the
Reason deduces the particular from the general, salutes, exits. Make an image help she had come looking for? Turgenev turned away and missed the
us suckers’ll understand. The swimming pool in Hollywood. Morality is execution he had stayed up all night to watch. Dostoevski: “thinking about his
underivable. Our reflections in the gilded mirror, sprawled across the big bed. sensibilities in view of a freshly-severed head!” Your tears at the bus-stop; the
Reduced to the locii of behavioral modes, all hail the chief. The enemies of easy acceleration of the U-Drive. Mind is not physics. This real virus renders
passion are unwilling to equate what they see in the shower with misfortune. your symbolic virus symbolic indeed. Someone spaced out our mental
Liberation will not discern Ham Meatfist from Tess Durberville. Freedom process, somewhere back there. He may be up to his ass in alligators, but he
can simply be secured by adaptation to injustice at any price. We honor this ought to know it’s our swamp. The pioneer is to be commemorated by a park.
ancient people. Though dressed like pre-Beatles Ringo, he was extremely Tomas Salamander the Slovenian poet. The far-off sounds of summer. The
polite. History belches. The large white piece of plywood has acquired little boy’s cat was run over today. Is the slight pain in the right knee a result of
Dufrenne’s The Phenomenology of Esthetic Experience, a biography of Karl last month’s ridiculous injury? She presented the artifact with brio and
Marx, two empty bottles of Stroh’s and one of Lowenbrau, A half-smoked aplomb. Chubby Checkers is Fats Domino reified. The hike led through
pack of Vantage with its somehow patriotic target, the Compton Yearbook for redwood-rape gulch and wild-pig meadow to Ft. Sequoia. Coffee at Peet’s
1967 in 2 volumes, a porcelain ashtray shaped like a hand (the nails polished), with Ron and Kitty. Even the ruins had been erased. In minimalism, all the i’s
a brown teacup also empty, DeMott’s Surviving the 70’s, Riding’s Selected sound alike. A flu has been going around. At 45, any 33 sounds the same; the
Poems, a “Chinese” tin with lid, holding some plastic blue-&-beige flowers voices take on a taunting quality, along with an hysterical euphoria. One heifer
with green stems, horrible to the touch, a viridian candelabra, a carton of who had heard her love complain, blurted from the cave. Nankin has the
envelopes, a blue cardboard box containing possibly paid bills along with a tiniest teacups you ever did behold! From the set of his shoulders, we
postcard depicting Opal Nations when he was Martin Hummingbird of the concluded he was sulking. The mind fills up with little grey boulders. The
362 363
games were paid for dearly that are now played over again for love. Anything used to saunter to when we were courting for a bottle of Blanc de Blanc and
new appears indeterminate. It takes three seconds to traverse 20 yards at 15 some papers never has any good bread. Seven years in the blich of an augen.
mph. Needless to add, he was covered with manure. What this donut needs is Robert saying “What’s it like to be a Creeley” whenever a new poem of Bob’s
a good dunking. Hail wedded bliss, mysterious law, true source of human appeared. Shirts from the dryer crackling when separated. The landlord’s
offspring. Outraged at such stupidity, he pored over the idiot’s letters to find daughter by the pool from the window of the Hotel California. A Henry James
incriminating remarks, only to find the man brought closer. Huge throbbing novel is like a car accident in slomo: we can almost locate the moment when
hardon and open silky pussy made for heaven in one another. We know that control was finally lost. Either he was discussing my work obliquely or he
hands have arms and legs. The universe is not the Universe. Pain easing makes me paranoid. She was in a heat wrap leaving only a small portion of her
throughout the day. Dead beat from typing all night. All in, all out. Spaced face exposed. The bourgeois delusion called nature is merely the scar of social
out thanks to your recent visit. The President is there in the White House for mutilation. Another bad poem on the subject of African famine. The jagged
you. He invariably felt happier when he took his clothes off. But if you do not noises of the laborers repaving the street. Memory a sort of by-product of
even comprehend what water says, how can you expect to pass judgement on what it was to be there. The ghost came seeking surcease. The platonic
what water conceals? God is an Englishman. Name the straw you clutch at. blowjob in a pirated edition. Three hippies were leading a pig through the
These indentations were made by a hammer. How many born-again snow on Mt. St. Helena. They disrobed under a gnarled apple-tree, likely a
Christians have read Foxe’s Book of Martyrs? Channel swimmers smear Golden Delicious. Creation responds to the lure of unfulfilled forms. A
themselves with grease. The mailman who delivered the telegram laid his disturbance occasioned by the need for the right answer results in arriving at
hand on her shoulder. Will we die out for want of simplicity? These tufts an answer that feels right. Remember to wind the watch. Complete this
might be thought decorative or practical or nuisances. She had a cock and thought. Today, a handsome mug, dark blue on the outside, off-white within.
huge balls into which he was to stick his dreaming prick. Let’s note the rigid Enough or too much.
will with which willessness is advocated. Individuals in the absolute sense are
nowhere found in Nature or society. Swarm, hive, shoal, flock, herd, family. A
The half-time scores are printed in parentheses. The stylist creaks his latch.
Fortuitous variation, tychastic, mechanical necessity, anacastic; creative love,
agapastic, according to C.S. Peirce. They walked to Smiles’ Hardware to buy
twine to tie up the pole-beans. “I am arguing for a fact,” said Id to Ego, “What
are you arguing for?” The conversation over, alone again with the words, A
wondering what may have been heard by those recently present to his use of
them. The entry in the notebook read simply “music, drunkenness and
dance.” Her daddy was coming to pick her up from pre-school where the Aphorism’s instant dialectic. Any text abuses us, a pair of hands on a Sunday
Valentine’s party was just ending. A note that read “This reference is due on afternoon when your parents’ piano sounds old. That has a familiar ring in its
the 15th, which was yesterday, but I’m sure you can dash off something ear. Wieners? They were extracting the dialog from the language, we were,
although I know you’re v. busy” in its essentials was the fourth he had received or I anyway wrote that, to my view of it, that activity, uh. Recent participants
that week. The people of the Potteries didn’t want their slag heaps taken away. have said that they felt in touch with the world of poetry in a way they had
Where did she come by all these bruises? Yellow and purple are often seen been hungry for before they died. They put themselves on the line. They
together. The kind of intelligence that makes a cherry stone grow into a cherry put themselves into the third person plural. And that’s what they heard, the
tree — is that what got EP into St. Elizabeth’s? Smoking, again. The store we deepest pathologies a nation incurs through its wars of containment, amen.
364 365
The model must be a goldmine. We saw the headline. Or was it the heartline.
Salvador War To Be Waged Like Viet. Some have long memories. Writing is I measure units of attention. It’s not chance it’s spontaneity. Pick the color you
done with words, which can’t tell the difference between reality and fantasy. suppose when you get there the canyon wall will be. Innerness arrow given
They always manifest full of themselves just around dinnertime. To a pair of reality arrow distortions underlined. Art breaks the law of the given. A banana
shoes, you should look out where you’re going. peel, abandoned to the intense gaze on the white desk top, actually asks
nothing. A toad of style, for the fruit .flies. The movements of deconstruction
He says his information’s semen, therefore his form has to be seductive, but do not destroy from the outside dot dot. “A blue guitar, is like a malady”. He
what if his homelife were otherwise proscribed; his prescriptions then were nursed his bridge. We are witness to a distancing manouever, you in your
otherwise. Has he married Rome to be buried in the catacombs, or vice versa? capital I, I in my provincial version of you. One cannot at once name and
The Romans were inhumanly straight as we like to think — and look at their participate. But we can. Without allowance for variance within, the rules
transports. How tender your buttons at the window. But it’s cosy in here . . . become without meaning without. See it next from the opposite end, then
Over the fireplace, a study of haystacks in the moonlight, whose originals telescope conclusions. The phenomenology of perception went to the movies,
might well have been the precursors of what can now be viewed through the where huge projections stabbed at the truth in an obscure conglomeration
fusion of silicates with potash, lime, and various metallic oxides: Japanese, rubbing shoulders with its strange selves, jaws working constantly. It
German, Swedish, British and American automobiles. Poets whose poetics was sensational, to be that big, that irresistible to the ironies of Fate, that
proclaimed innovation as their only constant cede their ability to innervate privileged to sit through one’s life twice in a single afternoon. Then out, into
because with so-called middle-age (we could all be dead tomorrow!) time’s the oddly disorganized (its organization hidden from its dwarves) blur of
passage slides into unconsciousness to still oblivion’s approach. That’s no no-longer- meaningful concretions, actions lacking sufficient motivation,
excuse. Roll over and play Beethoven. Steady-state apocalypse, who could homework still to be done. Hey, maybe you thought she was a bitch because
all those figures be, out in the snow in longjohns screaming “Fire!” before she picked up on your hostility, man, and your daughter only lent support to
the tenement, patently not burning, from whose many windows protrude your snap judgement because she didn’t want to hassle you when you were
faces wearing expressions of mild concern and downright amusement? grinding into fourth gear.
Perhaps statues by now, whose meaning we will again and again complete
— not, of course, when the whole shebang explodes, but during anxious A motorbike rattles down the public highway and someone dreams of a
midnights pondering the wiring. In Berkeley watching Berkeley on the tube stick across those iron railings that once had decorated the now-integrated
and extrapolating our way towards a rude shock. (Berkeley Human Lock). neighborhood (inapplicable term) where he finds himself walking with his
The president will not go away simply because we see him on tv. Tv: they’re other hand in his father’s (dust). No-one can take this away from him! No-one
trying to make me hungry, but I can fight back by eating. The 80’s as the wants to. You vote, can’t count. Democracy has become a term useful to those
50’s, the 40’s, the 30’s, until one strip of grainy black-&-white on PBS is like competing elites in whose interests elections are still referred to as open. Of
being made free of her narrow loins. The best viewing are those stations with course it’s better than life in Smolensk, to anyone who thinks that ends the
a scramble on the programs you haven’t paid for — gorgeous shades and discussion right there equally with those who don’t. Glad that rebels are being
tones, amazing shapes in constant motion, no sound to solder plot to appetite, tortured and slain for the ideas we exported to them all over our world, glad
absolute clarity concerning one’s own role in constituting meaning, hard about the growing inequity between rich and poor, glad that people are selling
on the eyes thereby reducing viewing time. Denied over-arching context, out on all sides, glad that an ostrich-like hypocrisy (faces of evangelists like
the words lack usefulness, are thus neither something nor nothing. The buttered boils) arrogates to itself the title of Christianity (What’s the dumb
commercial must be coming on almost immediately. asshole doing up on that cross?), glad to he surrounded and outnumbered by
366 367
the unfeeling and the willfully ignorant, glad to be poisoned by the effluent of do women have such smooth thighs . . . ?” “Because men like them that way.”
reckless profit, because glad to be alive (leisure for writing and reading), and Into each life some rain must fall, but Teresa Brewer was merely singing what
to be alive here and now is to live on a world where all this and as we know so she’d been told to because I could be counted on to recognize it. Is that what
very much more takes place even as we read (write), and therefore we’re glad makes the first person as singular as he is? The prepared person alone can
to be alive in such a world. The logic we inherit says no more. If only that be surprised into insatiable desire, for the blueprint cuts no lumber. There is
it’s a lot like us. A chicken voting for Colonel Saunders is almost as weird as the effect of superimposing a repetitive design, such as a grid, on the same or
a chicken not voting at all. A woman voting against the ERA is rolling over different design to produce a pattern distinct from its components. That life
but her nightmare is real. The stone awoke crying Don’t give me eyes to see constitutes its important passages about the so-called week-end might he the
crime. That was in the Jugoslavian anthology. He talks to himself in type to topic sentence of an essay for the hard-of-hearing. Are the performances, they
use the world as process. And it’s the only thing he does to drive away his wanted to know, what was predicted from the record? In this society, we shift
blues. It hardly seems right to exhort at the same time persons he doesn’t social conflicts to psychic problems that can thus be charged to individuals
even trust to prepare for the dictatorship of the proletariat. People pay for at 50 bucks an hour as private matters. But isn’t a percentage of our wages
answers not questions around here. The fabled poet could have been cut and intended to cover the case? It’s not only embarrassing to be like a dumb Swede
dried for longer. Harnessing the performance principal to a guilt repressively in an Ingmar Bergman movie, it’s suicidal. Of course suicide can be the
tolerated the media of an entire people (having been acquired by its masters) ethically correct choice. I think of him often.
marched its dwarves off singing to work, work, work, a word whose root in
the concept play is being (Go, Niners!) eradicated by the new barbarism. Had he testified too personally (i.e., not personally enough) in his voluminous
At the gates? They are the gates — we ate the gates! Harold Robbins at the (i.e., not voluminous enough) ways, glued to the underside of all that he
checkout counter. Judith Kranz between the gums. Special effects efface opposed? If mathematics is the analogy, what is this:
human interest. What are you, some kinda masochist? Quit your bitchin. The
president never can be you, and that’s punishment enough. Aimed at defining
Simply transmit orders
T World go round
Blow your wad
Late at night
On the level
Times the mass
T The correct answer
Heard while reading.
Typicality enthralls with its particular failures. “My husband doesn’t For those who learned to drink in the 50’s, vibraphones will inevitably bring
understand me at High and Academic — you’ll come, can’t you?” on a slight stagger. Down the steep steps he slipped with many abrasions, only
“Indefinitely.” Ours is a century of manic specifiers who mistrust anything, to find the Club Serendipitee, where he caught some GREAT sounds being
so it’s as though we knew one another already. Comparable plumbing. improv’d by those cats. Then this chick, see . . . but music must not identify
Incomparable plumbing. They hadn’t realized their experience was general, its methods, a part of subjective reason, with the subject-matter, which is
before she imitated their behavior in the bathroom mirror. “Why (ah, why) objective. There is nothing ambiguous about our double entendres. The poet,
368 369
having no identity, is continually informing and filling some other body, and
who isn’t a poet, if by that this case means scorned, spurned, feverish, headed Standing for all of us
for death, name writ on water, way with words, incapable of not noticing all Between two double lines of cars,
this and more upon occasion? Only the self-important have indecipherable
signatures; that’s what shy is. Sibyl, the psychological model (v. supra) for (Standing for all of us also).
cutup, and not that this is; she clarifies universal tendency, stands for that
freedom we seek from the rule of the monotone personality, and for the terror Time is attractive in a period of rapidly increasing wealth. We can hardly
we fear from the trauma that fragments us. Viz: “I am my father on film wait. You have to hear what we paid for this place and just guess what it’s
desiring my body as a young man who must therefore be a young woman in worth today. To impress the crowd’s meanness upon himself, he envisaged
love with my mother, herself admiring my young manhood in my father’s the day when even the outcasts would be ready to advocate a well-ordered life,
frame, plus the two girls in the upper berth across the aisle who had a little condemn libertinism, and reject everything except money. Easy for him to say.
mirror and pencil and paper, plus the grandmother chaperone in the lower This first edition of Baudelaire set us back a pretty penny. Why was an entire
berth plus the lady feel sad oracle experience received opinion hallmark generation raised to despise money, and why did we have to be part of it? Its
conductor ejection.” Everyone should think like this. Everyone does. Does acquisition was supposed to breed callousness, but that was just our parents’
what. Nods. opinion, and they’re all dead now. But when money becomes the universal
unconscious (=ideology), we become, as always when what’s unconscious
I am not the person to whom those things were done but those things were is in control, inefficient as a species, firing whistle-blowers to perpetuate
done and their memory is in this person as imagination. The crystal ball is error nobody much cares about before the banks begin to fail. Then all
one of us, you guess which. Off the wall, lost in the toilet zone. Who makes hell breaks loose. The cliches smash through the backdrop, clanking. One
your decisions, if not for you? minute, Ordinary people were reading Sayonara in the ben-jo. The next, The
Way of Zen had led its lotophagoi to call the cops out. Clinamen’s queer for
Shrinking things making us feel bigger exogamy, but right then a concluding ensemble, which serves as an epilogue, is
The Cosmos, Psychiatry, Something frequently omitted.
with sex written all under it. Etc., etc.
The oppressive mis-use of the term unique, and let’s include all valorization
Every day like Christmas, everything of the individual, with its particular voice, perpetuation of anachronistic
getting small enough to be born again. hierarchies, cultivation of foible, stems from a prior suspicion, too feared to
be acknowledged, that, by the terms of our society, namely, monetary worth,
Comedian topples, finally, down manhole. all are, however inequitably disposed along its curve, interchangeable units,
Audience swells with amusement, bursts defined as capable of causing amounts of currency to adhere to themselves.
Sexual activity has become one of the chief masking routines ideologically
In two (applause). Two tiny tabs and he ex- calculated to buy off any such awareness. Concurrently, an alternative
Claims at being everywhere almost at once. system continues to operate, threatening even as it is threatened by the first
one spoken of here, whose units measure their abilities by different sets of
Being. Everywhere. Fermis criteria. But any one of us belongs to both systems. Is the pronoun I a healing
Backfire: a Solitary Person declaration of self or the last refuge of a scoundrel? This is the last concluding
370 371
paragraph I ever intend to write. When spontaneity is the program you’re party to, you will be well-advised to
announce that the first thought is the best thought, and this will also be of use
S in steering observers away from all but the most obvious of your borrowings
— although, upon further reflection, spontaneity is always bound to deliver
the habituated. In the movie, when they wanted to expose a suspected spy,
they “accidentally” burned him with a cigaret, causing him to cry out “Gott
in Himmel”. On the other hand, however, an existence sans the spontaneous,
S if such can be imagined, blah blah. He wanted to be allowed to do art, so he
asked around for some interesting ideas. “Mutton got up like lamb,” Mum
muttered, and proof that she knew whereof she spoke surfaced in an old
If you’re not out of your mind when you write, presumably you know what studio portrait whose thin lips she had herself touched up with a No. 2 pencil.
you’re doing. He often asked the stupid question that would get talk started. One readily imagines (and Robbe-Grillet certainly did not include himself
In speaking of this to others, one could make oneself look good by noting in that third-person singular) that passion, as soon as it takes on uncommon
his generosity. What is a “moment in the theater?” She had perhaps not proportions, appears as a devastating torrent carrying away everything
studied being breathtakingly lyrical, and owed this quality therefore to sheer in its wake (and no question it’s a convenient notion), but au contraire it’s
force of habit, on her part or possibly simply on the part of the reviewer so always organized, methodical, immediately accompanied by a detailed set of
characterizing her writing. We knocked em dead or caused them leastwise rules and rigid planning, so much so that it’s impossible to make a clearcut
to part company with their sox is more obviously an exaggeration. How did distinction between these constraints and the erotic substance upon which
the prisoner of Chillon feel about afterlife as a Gothic narrative, as a mosaic, they impose their order. It is evening, a standard Romantic protest against
as a series of panels a la “St. Agnes’ Eve?” “Ouch!” cries the infant when Cartesian dualism. A man and a woman who stand opposite one another in
stepped (oh, inadvertently) on, anywhere in the English-speaking world. The a crowd will immediately fall in love. He wanders at night to the lake, where
psychotherapist often encountered difficulty in achieving sufficient intensity he sings and plays his guzla. A princess rises out of it and tells him to cast
with his neurotics thereby marring the intention to create a significant his net to catch 3 fish with scales finer even than his. She throws all of her
emotional experience. She didn’t like it — anyway, she drew down her mouth finery into a heap, joyfully hails a cab and rushes to the altar, the clifftop, the
at its corners while vertical wrinkles formed between her eyebrows — when thunderstorm, the oracle. Often one is permitted to return to the abandoned
her husband remarked that the orgasmic cries (female) from the apartment graveyard. Once the revolution ends, ancestor-worship is revived. The car
overhead (traveling to them down the common airshaft) didn’t necessarily ahead hung a left without blinking. Discharging a chemical into his system,
mean that anybody else was with her. If you were a novelist, what would you he became robot-like, his eyes (whose fine intelligence might otherwise be
have your lovers utter at a time like that — given the smorgasbord of options, captivating) suddenly empty, noone home. Or so he assumed from a study of
all the way from “Jeezus!”, “Christ Almighty!”, “Whoops!”, to “Arrghh” and those of others whose buttons he had pushed. Several persons started to enter
“Ouch” and “I — I’m coming!” the elevator before letting those inside get off. Evidently he had begun to write
“How can we know the dancer from the dance?” but suppressed it, possibly
“Too many notes,” said His Royal Highness, needing to keep some measure in the interests of rhyme (as Tom Parkinson prefers to spell it). He found
of his dignity in the teeth of this whippersnapper genius, but “Which ones?” himself stuck at the outset: so many these days left out the “Dear” from their
took it back again. It is not possible to maintain the upper hand by asserting, salutation. To which camp did his correspondent belong — and could he be
although at the time it surely looked likely to work, that here is one hand. tipped toward the new, if not already part of it?
372 373
of tracts. Successive frames indicate either sequence or simultaneity. A
Let me drink in your approach for what may be the next line. What’s self- neutral face was perceived as sorrowing when preceded by a scene of grief,
evident to me may be invisible to no-one else. I cannot see how I know without as smiling when preceded by a happy scene. Does a rat know that our cat
glancing away from what. Pull doors marked push. Was tongue-tied when exists, squealing in the yard? He always tells the students that they are here
described as logorrheic. Spent an hour today picking up after myself. In the to make mistakes. Since this in one sense is obviously untrue, he can count
witness-box and under oath., I found all memory of the event beginning on the shock value to capture their attention, his real object; but to which end
to fade, unable to distinguish what had legally occurred from the various — their education, his being retained on the staff, his enjoyment of his power
versions I’d come up with for the amusement of several parties. A thing of so to be attended to? It may not be necessary to choose. If someone is chasing
duty is a bore forever. Hello, peeholes in the snow. Shall Bly compare thee to you down the street with a knife, you aren’t writing a note on your poetics.
a bale of hay? Spot is a dog in the street. And an upper limit, song: A suit of
pants that hears a dipstick’s traces; a picture postcard of the john in Macy’s. Index
Child Rolande to the back door came. Surely good Mrs. Murphy shall follow
me not into Thames Station. You flicker, internalized image, unimaginable
token of the real. Nothing says it. Courtly love has reached Nashville.
Whereas reflection delivers a mannikin cast in one of several attitudes.
Hotspur — as befits one with such a name — had done it differently, and I INDEX
can be him simply by applying cold cream to my face and throat, dabbing off
the excess, spreading Lit K all over, darkening eyebrows and temples, drawing
fairly thick black lines from nose to mouth corners, and one down the middle R rooted, reality, rules, responsiveness, reckoning, register, relative,
of the nose, painting beneath the eyes with white on top of which I draw thin repression, revolution, romanticism, reification, reflection, rationality,
lines of black and Lake, rouging the lips and powdering the entire palette, reduction, representation, responsible, rhizomes, recognition, relax,
remembering to pitch the voice light baritone and mid-Atlantic and to stand reasons, recall, restaurants, reiteration, refried, residual, reading,
up straight, memorizing the lines and then waiting to be swept off my feet by refectory, regional.
the magic of the occasion.
E expunging, evidence, exotic, eggo (sic), European, elements,
Andrei used to feel his poems would go over better if he wore blue eye- earnestness, embarrassment, (examples), erogenous, experiences,
shadow. Whatever became of the comedian who performed with a grocery EYE, each, edge, equally, emancipated (un), educational, extent, “Eer”,
sack on his head? Michael Jackson had a nose-job. Connie Green went to ethic (ruined), eat, England, employed, English, emphasis, exemplary,
finishing school. They taught her to make up a conversation list before her entertaining, equation.
dates. On the tape, you can hear Olson start the poem three times before he
attunes the beat to the cadence. How does one address the Duke of Bedford? D (demonstration).
Another French countess struck the young man on his ankle with the ferrule
of her furled umbrella when he strode on ahead of her along the American H (Happiness), Hollywood, Ham Meatfist, honor, history, hand, holding,
corridor with his American professor. Stand within two feet of strangers at a horrible, Hummingbird, Martin, halffull, Horned Owl, Great, hell,
cross-walk and hum. Alone in their cars, they pick their noses with aplomb. hurry, help, head (freshly severed), hike, hysterical, human, huge,
Lonely discourse tells more about the true condition of society than a stack hardon, heaven, hive, herd, half-time, heard, heaps, Hotel California,
374 375
heat, hippies, handsome. John Ashbery, “Glazunoviana”, Some Trees.
Yale U.P., 1956.
A aphorism, abuses, activity, American, apocalypse (steady-state),
amusement, anxious, appetite, absolute, attention, art, abandoned, For a second before waking
actually, actions, applicable (in), arrogates, asshole, alive, almost, awoke, the alarm bell is a red conical hat, it
anthology, answers, acquired., at, are, ate. takes form.
Denise Levertov, “Matins”, in Jacob’s Ladder.
T typicality, they, thighs, Teresa Brewer, told, topic, think, testified,
transmit, tendency, terror, trauma, two, things, toilet, topples, tiny, A RED HAT
tabs, time, today, The Way of Zen, term, themselves, threatening, to
write, tone poem (omitted). A dark grey, a very dark grey, a quite dark grey is monstrous
ordinarily, it is so monstrous because there is no red in it. If red is in
S speaking, studied, simply, sox, stepped on (oh, inadvertently), everything it is not necessary. Is that not an argument for any use of
sufficient, significant, smorgasbord, spontaneity, steering, suspected, it and even so is there any place that is better, is there any place that
spy, surfaced, studio, substance, standard, sings system, suddenly, has so much stretched out.
suppressed, stuck, salutation, self-evident, society, sequence, Gertrude Stein, in Tender Buttons.
simultaneity, squealing, shock.
I (the indicator indicated indicating the indicated).
Meaning has a delay built into it the way radio talk-show hosts have you on
a five-second delay. Given this view of immediacy as potentially obscene is
itself obscene, still, meaning has built into it delay. I chose the title Red Hats
because I didn’t know what it meant — else why choose it. True, I came up
with it at first as an anagram of Threads, and the initial writing I thought
of as a translating of some of that book, but that has long ceased to be the
point. Subsequently, meanings accrue to it. Four of them are here appended
(upended?); I’d read all 4 before, but noticed them again after, deciding on
the title — so that they are part of the meaning-net for me by way of both
unconscious content and subsequent recognition and are potentially part of
any reader’s store of referents.
RED CATS, being poetry by Yevtushenko, Kirsanov, and Voznesensky, tr. by
Anselm Hollo, published by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, 1962.
The man with the red hat
And the polar bear, is he here too?
376 377
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS from TINY COURTS IN A WORLD WITHOUT SCALES
from Tiny Courts in a World Without Scales We’ve had a belly-full of that
Seated at the organ (groan)
for robert grenier
Giant redwoods
The brain is bigger
A cross-section of the trunk has been marked than this figure
with a felt-tip pen to indicate rapidly approaching
important historical coincidence
When drake sailed the main
When adam smith scribbled
When lumber went multi-national Feeling for the blind
for michael palmer
and the shit hit the fan
When it hailed on the soccer match
and the exits were locked Being a superstitious person
accords wisdom to old ways
happened after this one was felled There’s no control so who can say
Later still I hit my hand Better safe than sorry
with the hammer and yelled and not somehow mean it
We are nonetheless civilized
with a touching faith in reason
so a sense of contradiction
goes with me all my days
Fiction of neutralized culture around ladders and over cracks
and when night comes
in dreams and violent rites
Next he’ll hit us with the pantheon of classicity attacks the vacant space
My discontented soul with the beauty it has lost while thinking twice
The new moon with the old moon in her arms
and there can be no compromise
378 379
Manana from heaven
then down the other side
and through that fence
I just want a couple acres you come at last to the railroad track
in beautiful country and next to that the creek
where I can put two-three chevys where your leisurely stroll at evening may commence
up on cinder blocks
and abandon a stack
of automobile tires
Soyez raisonnable
Open wide ‘Every bit of experience
comes like a voice from the past’
to make me sound like an idiot
The last time i went to the dentist in my objective advocations
there was nowhere to spit
Not simply that they inserted the saliva-sucker like the city engineer
but once they took that thing back out who’s attached to his career
he saw me looking frantically around with its inbuilt biasses
‘Cost accounting showed us each time a patient spits to what’s wisely termed growth
we’re losing time so we removed those bowls’
he told me as i swallowed to show i understood as in You should have that
surgically removed
Though it destroy the very realm
he’d never halt it
The poet strolls at evening by the river Thus i conclude that city engineers
for tom sharp or managers or planners
have a conflict of interest
about further developments
You swing on the acacia boughs
over the chainlink fence
to scramble up the bank
and run across the freeway
380 381
Don’t drool when you say lot-split using his voice
to tell us what number
we should call is audibly
How you feel about that meadow acting. The surprised
personally will only diplomat probably was
embarrass us covertly acting. The burn
victim wishes that she
before the planning commission were acting. So does
The chair drums with his fingers the nurse.
This is really irrelevant
He needs to see figures
not these shards of the pomo
These ghostly vernal pools Clearings in the throat
for anselm hollo
Nor even that the schools
are to the max or traffic
for these are merely The grass has grown
over the old scythe
cumulative impact zones
possibly significant The cork in the wine
Latin terms leave gringos cold no-one would drink has crumbled
which is our preferred condition
Closer to the graves
the paths grow clearer
Come out of hiding , despair
Tubal legislature you’re even shyer than joy
The anchor-person is
acting. The president is
acting. The woman
taking a shower in the
commercial is nakedly
acting. The man
382 383
Clocks by people working for a living.
for cecelia belle Thus i flatten you
into a piece of currency
circled future and past prized among taste-makers
who select only for
Handled time
the likes of we-we
and spatialized the same and you-you. Definitely
not the shadow of a g
impulse become now
stretch ing out from
actuarial in your feet (pause)
swearing he’s beneath us
measureless presence
That’s it for clocks
whose cuckoos, quirks and curlicues
introduce the decorative element Might be right
with the customary loss of striking power for samuel brittan
Rawls’ test of justice says
Pretend you’re not born yet
Art as revengue so you might be born a millionaire
or you might be born a pauper
Now what social system do you choose
Hear, me-you, here
your utterance is I saw myself sitting here saying this
authentic as anything with no small degree of smugness
assured of its success
turned into print. I might be Rawls himself
Cherished cat of the occident,
i who sprayed the sacred shrines for we share the same reason
except that a man began to shout
am shit-scared in the present that he had a gun
384 385
We looked up then Orphic
It was an expensive one, more accurate
Have you found the entrance to the underworld
It’s behind that ancient tree
Next to that impressive boulder
Meanwhile Within that dizzy chasm
Or over there maybe
under that clump of thistle
There’s this museum or one of these holes
where being hangs dug by an apparently huge
by eternity and freedom colony of rabbits
and you stand on line to enter Then there are the spaces in between
on your day off Harder to identify because apparently unmarked
You maybe ought to check there too
And aren’t they lovely
They’re so human
Care, altruism and self-sacrifice
These knew how to paint
pictures that trap depth Trance ending
as a mental sensation
Kant was right or ought to be Classical music
listened to, there’s no-one here I’ve said it before
but us on mondays when it’s shut moves me to the truth
and we remember
how we don’t know what to do of feelings more objective
about those who tell us what than i had before it played
It is of use
to, since we need them and they
don’t need us as we’d in the vending of expensive foreign goods
really like to be, one at a time The indigent stand up when it is heard
while in a mob and we cry when objects penetrate our hide
it’s impossible to see a thing
that isn’t hung real high
386 387
Da capo Personal (1)
Dim, mousy, nervous The queen of the night
sullen, jealous, and has a startling aria
resentful (as in the language of opera
reported) woman
The person known as suzanne
The problem as identified scarcely more than a child
by the husband (somewhat in the language of biography
suave) who (as his wife
asserts) has his stuff together in the temple of iconography
was mistaken
and seems the credible for the object of a quest
half of this distressing
dyad (in the flick A woman with the tail of an ocelot
he poisons her) of whom one had learned
at his mother’s so-called knee
with a high-powered business
woman in new york to which
he frequently repairs
He has admitted the affair
Personal (too)
to his wife who knows, just
knows, the other is
beautiful and smart She bent to read the same page he read
and sane, her hubby says so Heat radiated from therefore her body
The book was called (she said)
So the therapist suggests Civilization and its discotheques
he bring her picture in and life was too short to complete it
so they can talk
about it next time: dim
388 389
So, a poetry of immediacy 20-20 once upon a time
It’s left me here
far-sighted
Nothing happens that is not the mind
to us, this side of Ouch Take me back
to saskatchewan
It can be argued that resistance moans the train
is of another order that then ran
absent here
to the quest it began
by those who don’t see the alternatives
zooming past like sideroads
but not by those who think
the immediate is
Shit, i just ran out of paper
Where we came in
Tiny courts — he dead
Scales now fallen
from said eyes
onto our shoulders
where our heads
resume the burden
laid again
by blind faith
out of the individual
vision
Well i’ve seen the world
390 391
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS from THE HARBORMASTER OF HONG KONG
from The Harbormaster of Hong Kong
unspherical, these
shall not die unsung
And again Couplets
The shape of the earth The time not spoken for
The shape of the skull and the worry that nothing’s late again.
And eyeball, breast This non-existent time
or buttock, pebble that wants you to watch.
Carry conviction To see you watch. The time
to the barricades that hasn’t existed.
of sticks, jagged stone The agenda realizes the hands
and shapes less nameable that, having written it, now hold it.
Coastlines, continents The time not spoken for
Cullenders, jellyfish appointed to meet the silence.
and perish on them The word death sprawled across
nobly, a word the word for being late. The time
appropriated by such gestures non-existent since not spoken for
together with absurd that wants to watch you see.
Some things can be caused Hitch up that shift. That pony
to work, some can’t to these shafts. Not light
even by strenuous kicks but paint. The word spoken.
or the shame of being For, the experience. The port,
392 393
help? All this earmarked
the restaurant, they sat in, purposes that “everyone” should be seen to
the frontier. The ferry, late. be looking at the same small hole
when the phone rang. Humor’s certainty —
As usual. The child a further lie. Yet not error:
that needed comforting. a giant stirs in his soup. Funny,
to be able to type a period, once was
The non-existent tugs bus-stop: ta-da! so you write when you get
at vessel or sleeve. where it is and let, but don’t know,
the picture said the heart
stops for lunch, I guess
however, which is not vague or if it is
tiring. Lips, eyes, snare-drums
Discourse-Thrower accompany, greater than some parts
left lying about the scatter unaccountably
locked, if this is who I’m talking
There’s a tenderness of presence registered preposterously then the rules
since past, asking for an address were dreamt up to excuse
already home to someone and this bolus insult—who’s counting
isn’t a yellow blouse so then who really counts and who wouldn’t,
crosses it out or fingers at an abyss from the windy hill of self
activity declares, like this as if impotence, here’s a mouthful and more
the honesty that might be wall with door thin red lines appearing to crest
always detracts distractibility essential fall under disposition s functional
to erase because—experience breaks aporia; the honesty always to erase
bridges —”Venezia bridges pulse in sensation at the head’s
you can’t prove it by me” a worry behest, but don’t help
that subcontracted what leans and loses you, out where our physicalities
pulse in abstraction “they’ll shoot it make mincemeat of our music
through a second time” tears yet it isn’t expression either,
finish the products — I get tangled present at the giving of advice
in sensation and it was a feeling I lacked the earthquake necessary
So got shown the ticket. What is were I to prove of use to
there is? And the arm “left” the trunk power. Power, safety? Conservative
at the head’s behest — unremarked, or risk — choice mates. Dear
but don’t you notice the siren squeals me, an appointment on the far
394 395
insists, and in these fists I.D.
flower all the meals who
walked us to this well.
arresting this process
in line with his thinking
Doubt not thy name is certainty Some socially sanctioned demons
(After Bob Perelman) Surrender to the clear light of the void
Put in a particular idiom
Should be some ceremony The depleted reality
to help get down to it to be used in this way
just as evening arrives
to introduce something Fifty years in a cave
even more obvious, night or several months in your own room
You don’t think he’s ill because he got lost
and the thousand eyes
whereof we are constituted — State the truth, be crucified
hid now beneath a cloak starring the mad person
of tongues. I believe we
never met. Do you believe Own experience, lose your job
the packages carried up the stairs A whole string of them
merit the attention of the man
they’re meant to sustain, this The wise man will withdraw
sturdy bearer? This sketchy
draft will never do. Therefore One is fed by other people
Kept warm for moths
here is one hand. I, too,
despise it, there is fiddle Or camphor & psyche
imported beyond this demotic “experiencing one’s intra-uterine state”
walkman. Tongue, forked, speak
and speak again, seeks conviction. Procession & recession of the unhewn blocks
under the earth as it were
396 397
Innocent of particular arabesque run through your hair. with fish-scale rim
Beauty, for example, money can’t replace
Till pretty soon one branch supposes struck by the commonality staring out
it grows those leaves all on its own of agreement so it isn’t of your face
so simply subjective, doesn’t credit a scheme
Get inside yourself what once this tape fast for of rime. Civilized
you were on the inside of a spell in your favorite I see history
head. Let that about treating us
Put the label on with your tongue reverse, a question put cheap.
splits into humility
“I asked her to show me the light in the spoon, and arrogance. You cannot III
she showed me a plug behind a bookcase.” stress enough. Being)
literally
Irremediable, irredeemable II genetic
To close the gap wrought
Embattled, carted off between wild hog creature
More than one lifetime and handsome VenusAdonis
shadow, sign or a garbage
to wall off & preserve image metaphor and it all comes
Ruthlessness, arrogance symbol, expose down to speed
exact exhibit in the can
“We have lost so much” extend, sound’s lacquered
inanities. . . . to the wall
A good place to stop the familiar distinguishing
familiar, the strange one in diff-
less so, the traffic to erentiating a
happen in the arena not her in
sacrosanct to choice. modern velleity
I Lays Down the Law Ice floes A continuous
(for Charles) of silence, sequence altering
bergs of repression. to be the penetralium
I exercises, these new “Let me do it” The petroleum
You have to know statutes of salt, these by a bunch of spread quickly
everything that places to sit because words. Not you defining the
you know and that includes the legs bend but what you do. frontiers as
a reason for these as absent fingers The dear blue dish the visible
defunct (Crosby
398 399
Lies without seeing the obedience
that made them beggars
Cynical if you say so but the voice I was
and I am agreeable subject to meant well
Then the creole trio
Into the bargain played “Banana Boat Song”
I was requested to crave following and followed by
that being my name “Yellow Bird” and my friend
who had been laughing
or ordered to argue cried
for it being not yours
So I let me explain A person not unlike him
the various possible combinations handed one of us the prize
until we eat
the dishes
printed on this card
since removed Lines
as we turned a deft ear
to the rafters. Let me aporia will be defined
remind the class that I teach ==============
don’t know where to start
What became of the hero through time
keep it to yourself
depending on how (a) you feel ==========
and (b) how I reveal write it down
some (f)acts performed by
the guardians. But the ball life is brief
======
bounced into the river it says here
that looked like you
a lot, and likewise not ontological insecurity
====================
emanating from the cave many of us don’t know the meaning
400 401
of ontological insecurity i see little of when on them
certain of himself there is a blindspot between the rear and the rear-side windows
================== ===================================
in that respect not to be trusted good place to sink a metal basketball post
infatuation with nothingness rattling the door
======= ===================
break break break i draw a series of perfect blanks
on thy cold gray stones o shore
i think that’s silly
weird and repulsive at first ==============
=============== you have to be somewhere
later, reality
kiss me quick
ephemeral =======
========= too late
hang on to that
unconscious club universe
================== ==============
we have only the present moment before universe club you
to be unconscious in
i am here to find out who i am
is that the baby crying =================
and how
non sequitur remarkably symmetrical
============ please take a number and be sated
i haven’t got there yet
yes i do resent it
parricide =============
=========== when you use that word
commonly botched
no bodies hanging from the lampposts
quaaludes and mythopoeia ======================
================== we must be in the wrong neighborhood
i wish to obtain some for a friend
402 403
the heroic personified not every trembling hand can make us squeak
=================== =======================
at five he had a five o’clock shadow my god wallace your breasts are like mice
something of the misanthrope leftwing movements
================= =====================
thinks too well of people handy when there’s nothing left to say
to be human is to be a conversation you’re so alienated you don’t even know it
==================== =======================
i’m doin okay of course i took it as a compliment
unemployed and feel useless save time
================ =====
but helping keep wages down kill it
language being only social division of labor
======================== =========
banks with the most branches are shadiest i write it
i admire it
lines of bitterness about her mouth
==================== a poem should not mean but be
demanding a poetry of the emotions ==================
whereas the opposite is true
this model is entirely predictable
==================
this is no model
i am having the dream Logic
================
that is impossible to interpret
He was carried into the garden
my forehead’s wrinkled my eyes all squinted up Therefore he was infirm
========================== The block was lined with bars
poetry is supposed to supply us with a picture Therefore the town was friendly
She was just like one of the family
404 405
Therefore we neglected to disarm her Set of Twelve
The night was about to be buried
Therefore we hired lovers of sleep
It to experience over the gap
Might be the first
past without the sad remnant
part of something
Outside ahead it left for the gods
presents that were once parts
This time orders i am taking. Like a coffin I and what about stuck
what ensues or green lawn It must be impossible that gets the attention
to look over the shoulder the philosopher walks no, it must seem so
and part of a flank by his church and what about deserves
thus protruded. clock pondering and the difference and what about deserves
I put my hand in the pocket his body, how long why bother then that what preserves
of my jacket while it’s it can go on but us
hanging up and feel without noticing but the difference
poetic. It’s clever or noticing him. what about us
of anyone He is said to be “taking” a kind of remainder
III
to step in a river a walk he is walking of what would be forgotten A picture tapes thought
we don’t believe we’ve met. foreshortened and
A favorite word has been “wet” in the abstract can’t use this of a flapping hand
as my mouth interferes of the pilot now for anything manically finally
with this dictation they say lights his pipe with a flair
we find striking or anything else trying to discard the tape
II a person can get it all
These parts stuck together but not the one who thinks it
that were once wholes
out of the system
how human
can we get and what about system
406 407
impossible sticky surface rent
among all one was for approval
then there’s someone violent invisible collisions wanted to be for rent
posed beside that
reminding of somewhat now refuse A life had
who’d leave nothing behind if the sound is the dump to live
can help come
A positioning in the shape that is ugly and what is
of its opposite one’s in after
not even that Given beauty all
a soft spot like this
a poisoning in an obdurate 2
of the atmosphere the wind up the hill The world approves
word one hadn’t turns ugly Why else were you here
stuck together handled quite
this way VI And
IV “My life had stood you are here
Love fallen into if before has time in it a loaded gun”
puts a pit or a pool there it is and the world
where a person was for what about way in the corner
of had stood in the
and is V some term
Given but like that Meantime
two a time like this
I like that VII
a fiction and naturally The gift
one feels elation but that is not that might be
a comfort what makes the trigger ambiguous
from here a sentence fingered
that must be impossible winds downhill is a present
a contradiction that will be
that temptation behind the picture in a cave unwrapped
the remainder resists refused stuck together symmetrical
its insistence for approval agreement
depicts refusal
408 409
stuck together Now are you a monster
for approval IX The difference mister memory-man and
Irrelevant from that which one miss memory-woman
something else
that is apart What you think demonstrates Objection
that is a part but which one irrelevant
in these conditions
if there’s a whole indubitably with its hands
before the predicate of age, race, nation, class doubts The verbs
or health “turning the pages”
the hand withdraws XI preserving same
however diagnosed Ends
somewhat has been left A sense of such “’I had air my lungs could breathe”
over in time as position “mental” “physical” A possible statement
for a system But statement
a slight weight But the language one wields wields one
or diminishing acoustic Is this relevant? remainders
Weariness
ruling out one Must be irrelevant XII
but isn’t Misspelled
ruled in “human” or at variance
as the rest a consolation
VIII and their pictures abrupting to think times
Lifted apparently blank space
actions, fist through canvas with its definition
the object the defining “Total articulation
weighed a hand that might open . . . that must be impossible”
texture with its lines 2
that are names “Human” blue settles
Unexpected height of for less
X “a port in . . .”
Judgment Accretion Hey thats okay
and no further includes error and the threads then street shouts
persuasion leading in
Memory and elsewhere But disposition
prevails disposes has always died
410 411
in the eye it puts out the irony, the word on pain of ruin
for the experience
The site of the word II
i tup sets I thought there was a Harbor-master of Hong Kong because during
for the experience my student days I used to hang out with a couple, and the wife
Between be and seem had an ex-boyfriend who would visit her once a month when he
went on a post-payday bender. He would spend the night drinking
and making long-distance phone calls—I was present once when
he put me on to an intern at Guy’s Hospital: this chap had been
interrupted at his teatime, while dawn was breaking in Vancouver.
The Harbor-Master of Hong Kong (Don’t be impatient, this is a narrative of capitalism.) I had nothing
to say to the good doctor and likewise at his end, but we were polite
and amused with one another. Another story about this phone-call-
I maker, which was strictly hearsay to me, had him going through
The patient experiences his powerlessness vis-a-vis the much trouble to reach the Harbor-master at Hong Kong. And when
objectivity of the illness he did, he bugled “Clear those junks outa the way, we’re coming
only because he is a subject condemned to passivity thru!” (It’s a narrative of imperialism, too.)
in classical esthetics, crisis signifies III
the turning point in a fateful process “We will have to keep saying that foul is fair and fair is foul for a
not external to the identities caught up in it little while longer,” said Keynes sometime in the 1930s.
Crises arise when the structure of a social system IV
allows fewer possibilities for problem solving than are necessary The one ethic left to us is the ethic of pity, Oppen remarks in a
to the continued existence of the system letter. Which must involve us in identification and empathy, which
must tax us in guilt and second-hand suffering, which we will deny
Crisis states assume the form of if we can, if we can be helped, as these years we are helped on all
a disintegration of social institutions sides, to ask What’s in it for us? At the same time (it’s always the
issue from unresolved steering problems same time), not to ask that question is to be led to the slaughter like
lambs. Instead of whatever it is we are.
Identity crises are connected with such
The market secures the power, sanctioned in civil law V
to appropriate surplus value for private use “The economy will show zero growth this year, and there is a
serious risk of a fall in output,” according to today’s Sunday Times
Communication between participants is (6/28/92) —years now since the collapse of communism, the
systematically distorted or blocked triumph of capitalism. How come?
412 413
who is going to ask them?
VI
“Top civil servants, judges and military men [sic] stand to receive huge pay “What does Britain do . . . if China reneges? Nobody knows. . . . The
rises. . . .These groups have seen their salaries soar over the past year, despite omens are not good.” [Michael Jones, The Sunday Times, 7/12/92]
the recession [sic].”
X
VII Amid scenes of sartorial and gustatory splendor, Chris Patten was inaugurated
“Lord Donoughue of Ashton, the Labour peer, received a £500,000 payment as Hong Kong’s new governor. Money was on parade and money was talking.
from Robert Maxwell when he joined the two investment companies that later A woman, shy and alone, was washing herself under a tap, but not for long;
helped plunder £450 million from the Maxwell group pension funds.” she was soon snapped up.
VIII Language in part I from Jurgen Habermas, Legitimization
In the May 22 issue of the TLS, Irving Kristol, in an article titled “America’s Crisis.
Mysterious Malaise,” wonders why Americans are losing faith in their system,
which is experiencing nothing but a mild, “cyclical” recession. The article
which runs a full four columns, or one entire page (broken only by the pic,
which, by happy error, is of Louis Armstrong naked with an FDR-type
cigarette-holder in his pearly teeth), pretends to examine the grounds for our
disaffection, but never once mentions the Savings-&-Loan boondoggle, which
has made off with a trillion of our dollars (Reagan, signing the deregulation Lines Upon a Distant Prospect of Lines
act: “Gentlemen, I think I can say we hit the jackpot!”).
IX i showed my son so many things
“The original storyline was beguilingly simple. The Brits wanted a new ==============
agreement and the Chinese would oblige. . . . The British problem revolved he made his father notice
around [their] fixation for legal niceties. It appeared that a parliamentary
draftsman had misplaced the commas in a Victorian Order in Council giving automatimatically
the governor power to administer the colony’s leased lands from China until ==========
1997. . . . To bluff it out was apparently an option . . . because communist the fortunate fall
China had never recognized the original loss of Hong Kong island or the
subsequent lease of its New Territories. But it was better to get the legalities its been a full life
right and Deng Xiaoping, pre-Tianamen massacre, was [the] man. They ==========
could fly their flag from the Peak if they wanted, station a few troops maybe. voices in the skin of an erection
What mattered was that Hong Kong could carry on as usual. . . . It made sense
of a sort. After all, old boy, the commies don’t want to kill the goose that lays victorian statuary
the golden eggs in foreign earnings for them, do they? As for the locals, . . . ==========
414 415
that bulge in his pants is a figleaf feeling no pain
========
diderot diderot unhappy wretch
===========
backspace backspace dark night of the soul
============
famous last words currently unemployable
==========
i must be immortal you can’t buy too much insurance
===================
fireproof christ, castro & reagan adorn the same wall
===========
before it burns down repressive desublimation
===========
o peace my soul a child is being eaten
=========
its a goddam wasp robin’s is an ancient faith
==============
our exceptions are our failings friday: turn off the lights
=============
when valencia was wet devotee of the invisible
they tied me to the railings =============
what he sees with he can’t see thru
carpe diem
======= verification is on its way
monotonous ==============
that it got lost in the mail
my amorphous existence is futile and purposeless
============================ the keywords here are military targets
shoes fit, get worn =====================
why did you drop the quotes around them
as slight as possible
=================== over 90% want US to be there
how much greater then the chance =================
it will sound authentic the men with pencils & the men with guns
416 417
the usual trouble a dead wife’s comb on the floor
======= and then the beautiful toilet overflows
no way to tell
shrill invective
“. . . my flaubert” =============
========== heard somewhere before
watching & waiting up there
i probably wont be joining you
a sound political fact =================
===================== it cam to my in a dram
the phone is tapped or it is not tapped
perfection bears no fingerprints
private intercourse ==================
========== but i love you more each day
not taped
in the mind of a completely unbiased person
i affirm the right of the individual to be =========================
====================== one was saying to oneself
buried in a book or scattered by the
appropriate society keep it to yourself
==========
in a tone of sincerity white it out
================
believed it myself at the time out of sight, out of mind
=============
i’m becoming increasingly sensible of invisible lunatic
the debt we owe our forebears
================= i showed him off
dad’s dead =============
the balcony is masculine
if everyone believed the soul immortal
====================== mmm, i call that a real poem
we wouldn’t need to ================
i didn’t know what else to say
a bunch of daffodils on a couch
================= a rebirth of interest in symbolism
418 419
========================= ====================
the government can always print more money with whom he spilt his misspent ink
zig zag new drugs unlocked the middleclass struggle
======= ===========================
fill it yourself his girlfriend’s parents’ pool-filter versus his hair
i’ve lost my mind jesus christ
========== ============
i sound like you another troublemaker
new drugs unlocked the middleclass struggle i think that’s silly
========================= =============
keep it to yourself when you use that word
a rebirth of interest in symbolism lines of bitterness about her mouth
======================= ====================
my god wallace your breasts are like mice a child is being eaten
in a tone of sincerity my amorphous existence is futile and purposeless
========================= ============================
the government can always print more money another troublemaker
before universe club you a poem should not mean but be
============== ==================
it says here heard that somewhere before
i sound like you dark night of the soul
============ ============
that’s what you think dark night of the soul
i’ve lost my mind
===========
i keep exaggerating
and others of that ilk
420 421
3-5 poems of friendship
Because we want to see what’s going
on the analogy can be rejected
So let’s do something else instead
The gift is equivocal, he thinks
Preamble
and claps his hands aloud
which remain clasped in this becoming narrative
To consider you
the blessings of the various Why not simply accept it appears
allowing other forms for one has to at one end or the other
Yet each is singular The phonemes begin to play pingpong
et in Arcadia ego so he brings his ukulele to the singsong
by ego breaking in
When the present is its insistence
to counterparts to song Hernia, goddess of Rupture, descends
and from her chariot of pain
showers sensations down the drain
For Bob Grenier
It’s nothing new for the human to be reminded For Bob Perelman.
To go on too long has varying measures
They placed the object in his hands The assumptions are islands
breathing a name they expired in the son
glancing up from the white
When we set out on a walk pacific
we step on some assumptions terribly uninhabitable
where everybody goes
The future has entered consideration who is anybody
raising a hand to the eyebrows to rusticate and masticate
422 423
and resuscitate the dead Unfootnote
art of rime as the palms
flutter in whose shade
touts for the status quo “It is what is”
watch the tourists come and go
I too dislike them and their fiddles A dialect
and their way of being there
in the grimy trafficridden concourse A glove
whenever they close my eyes.
that is a hand
For Michael Davidson.
Unparenthetic
Believing I ought to be weak feels easy
and I sleep not like the princess but the pea. Entering the world and traces
Let Jenny torment others; but I’m queasy sounds so romantic feature from future
to think that then they’ll send her back to me. of purpose There it hurts
There aren’t contiguous days in any season
when I press against the bars just like an ape. Purpose This eye (here)
A dead person who got to me through reason entering the world (A sound of pain
inextricable from sentiment played tape of purpose or noise
singing the invention of the double-bind
and love two octaves above middle C desperate of indignation
I’m not to blame for overhearing, in my mind Expressions and deep pleasure
as usual, believing that the soup was free. from the rear puzzling how to
And you can bet, if an encore is required,
the wave’s crest is the best place to be wired. comical close itself
Heavy light safely up
Footnote to sentiment invades the lens with one of us
Below the level of the sentence
Hard on the heels of sentience
A page before the sentry.
424 425
With each step down, the air grows cooler this subliminal narrative voice took over
Let’s view these agents as objects
This is the sense in which one has begun “Irrational” “Distance” “of interest”
before knowing it, to read the situation
in the People’s Theater Group
if indeed it is a “situation” we “have” here Or consider the person driving
“I don’t want to be psychopathologized” at erratic speeds on the public highway
“I don’t want to be guilt-tripped” ennobled by constitutional guarantees
“I would sooner analyze what occurred and the failure to indicate an imminent turn
before these stipulations “The heat was phenomenal” “Enervating” Nameable
with their implicit analyses” Do you view the line between love
So he says we take on trust and hate as “dotted” or better dashed
And the children who witness
what we know has a shape
that we owe to accident as impressed by the chances taken
to which one responds by shaping as the radio tells us hearts are breaking
“Self-dramatization at an early stage”
The mounting fastness of parataxis
In physics, displacement
No matter, never mind that
the moment has or is its own dynamic or the quid pro quo of common law
The sterile safety of all conclusions
Fire from holes in the earth! Astounding
The difficulty of all figures
Hence the practice of amnesty
following such an event intermits the wish to terminate
The bamboo through the concrete
“When I mutilated myself”
“I feel you hate me lately”
As the subject mutilated himself
426 427
Ten white counters, ten black as an example. I worry personal — reducing variety to that
“Was that when we were making love”
that my writing is too aggrandizing formula? It’s just my
When the subject knows its object deliberate, for someone requirement. The Misty Mountains
knows itself a like object who gets there ahead of hover above the lovely lake
But because (of) our history myself. An excuse opts out locates the brimming city.
my lips: I write it out Forget that — the rock
(“I’m trying to think of everything” to see it steadily, not washed down sits on
“Well try to think of something”)
elsewise capable of so itsshelf I remember to write
Or nothing, treetops noticing what it is I do, despite the tape went haywire
or roofs in a light wind that’s why these little at the stanza-break. Real time
and were you a bird or a slate units too. I show it you is commentary on process?
The parrot says “pieces of eight” in case there’s somewhat I appear to think this
in the book that was hurled of me in you, since loneliness so suggest alternatives,
at the self one was mutilating can be terrible. The clusters marmoreal, a joining up
I let sounds make make of notebook entries
by drawing a line consistency into identity to be another nature. Your
from a mirror into the world
to stand for me. But my neck manifest substantiality
is stiff, now, although it must be some guarantee
hadn’t been. I can’t reach it to me. Don’t leave me
You myself. So I would set an idea here — I’ll give you
between us, you and me, and be an experience of your life,
you, turning into it, and it is where this must stand for that,
“Even my feelings don’t
represent me.” And he turned who could be. Then the correction words, for an image sentences be
to me, and kept on turning. tape must be inserted considers money changing hands abilities transcending
just when I’m at my most impatient, that is minted some third place, interruption, interruptions
Who says that part, that narrative?
Which doesn’t represent me either yet able to perceive this changing the hands that handle it. some guarantee we’re real.
alleges someone else conjunction and offer it Why argue that a poem must be But why these sentences
428 429
and why must they be me — you chokes. Recall An anecdote to smudge
if “all the world’s a stage” life and art — thought’s figure.
perhaps should not be preludes discovery And thought to fudge
troubled on this matter. that’s not the case. Music those infant twins its issue. This is you.
Perhaps: the element of chance a sow ate one of,
must be the case and the one who lived
the near side of a fact. yet isn’t. One was never sure?
The thing in the trap types one’s type
still gorged with other
idiosyncratically
destination. A seriously twisting. Apparent discourse
inflated tableau fails to give you space. Zounds Loik Zumthin Oi Wud Mayake
to ring the curtain down for R.S.
Wullinly Oi’ll zay tharz bin uh zweet mahridge
Hoipostatoizayshun uv ulumuntul untitiz
You
Owe wull we ruhcull blarnd vlash uh gurrin
“ztumblen” — uz if thart cud unni larngar bay oiduntifaiyed
A vocabulary that anticipates
that anticipates action on my part to wheah bai sheah die-reckshn it caym
action on my part is now the case. t suparse the schwermerei of mai saiying soe
is never all the case.
Fashionable arrangements ort craud daun ut dainuh, th seea
Walls bend. flatter, familiar strutchin aht frum theyah chowder
To the blast sequences predicted
letters create by the ancestors in blooh n wiyite — if yoo cn kaype yoz
in quiet space. win pinnisses implod (Oi wroyote) aboot yoo
clarify the insult.
Once they were large Subject to a change Thun ut twalv-fiftin ayem on soeme uv Ludoeviks lipperz
and you were small that qualifies as un th probe-uhbiliti ahv datactiv shrobbery
and change liquidation
stays hard to see. day-un at th Ushmoe-leyan
gasps for means which weah uhbolishin bar arbsorbin
A vocabulary and evolution
430 431
fur der duraycion uv de glime 2
dorn ornto dee mohrdun leahlistic That crayoned some
request in geologist
gorge (Tacoma onthuh line) of saluterry for copies just
siknifikunts vile puer-mit-welattiviztik Coca done as
echoes by lunch
zeeductshuns zat air in zee Zmissonion answer hand was
Cola from coming
akin to Gloria Grahame, Ah droyove along instant up —
niles binith th shkin in fewtiliti these snaps stepping
dragooned shot inside
to reecull plaizure, theyah binith thi skurtz canyons, by when
und srets ov shky — valkink buckvordz
phones: ring: : people: eat
turredding le reest of ur trine-gondogtor
urpon nurtpipah in ur urtel varnt limbp een you: says: : potion: side effects
thuh urramz poot theyah ifn’t bar prarvidint ahrrliez images: vast: : crowing: Imago Mundi
then bar hintyouitiv swurvuhz
— any corner loose or not
For heh lifftud me opp fairfull
in thu layt uv thuh ruhducyaluss sufficing, any trees maybe not surviving,
favorite publishable items, and through the pronoun
ayerz, velicituss vuncies — spars n dorms, you caused this
dorwize en windersalls, porssibli prahparrd
You caused men who couldn’t stomach languagewriting
to drift second feature from what later to
turned out to be first apply the term to their products the better to sell same!
a hydrogenous jackinthebox grace monkeyed I couldn’t believe mah eyiez!
Molochian replication thus instauration
3
of vision, wonky old kindly smile when you say that “Now Dorkhead would go up to be a Sistine chapel ceiling
in the blue azure as you’re on your way to work
and one nostril hurts and one foot but not both
on the same side —”
432 433
After Freud
A song is sheet music to this
inner monolog some modernist in here is having
sprayed upon the clouds in thick hot pants — I tell him to knock it off in his cubal park
He says “Your head?” There’s the rush to the head
wheels crackling on leaves with one and a half of nothing that sped
pages to go — tiles light woodwinds windows When Dad was living
at the Wilsons (across the street, we hit it off through my brother
she once spoke to me) (“Put it there, my brother and I Not stopping at his airport
over there”) (it’s rhythm) when he was mapping
He who took care of the void
And it’s Spring, libidinal motions became the void his plantation
and arrestments decode our rigid systems, To plug it with oneself I’ve seen his plan
bees buzz bees, flowers and I’m not in it
flower, for this is becomes the project
after after, hence so prescient: There’s the rush of Dad But that makes sense
to the head and next There’s a plane to be met
4 That’s not me on it
Rillingly U’ll say dere’z bin a swit pessedge my brother attacks my plot
U cn luk buk, tuk dun, poole vunitty, bat merr because it’s me
ter mi’z duh burder uv disine, whar swunz he’d slash & burn
uv uggutt dun thar zumbr darns dat may
igginst zum rait uv thuh Deevain. . . . Stop taking
(sense) after 2 weeks if the pain
persists. Th perfoom fram a riss’ aroz
erodin’ th sahnus a Potery n you sade
Ble-ess ya, n con-junchshuns wo’ sunnly
stretchn’ n raidiyin’ (fo’) th rev-o-loo-shn
t’ cum when o’ we sade consarnd d’ lonedri
n d’ growsriz. . . . seein’ as ‘ow heturnl where-it-iz
an’ swormin’ moigritori langwidgez
mike up prackitackilly orl fer uz dare iz
haroundits trunkliss ligs of tone
fruntin’ fer ther seccarritariz of tiest
in terror az th shaddoze frum the cabinet
berst in the ayre n in the ear n ennywhere!
434 435
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS from ROMANTIC TRACERIES
from Romantic Traceries Distance is subjective, somewhat. Take a star
If only that we’re looking at the sky.
Revolutionaries are as many as these & while some have none
While I lie on my divan & count my flowers
Unease assails me from inside (or is it outside) till a moan
Might have been escaping me for hours
When I had elsewise been picking with the sweet
Romantic Traces Breezes of maybe my final spring the teeming
Blossoming objects of our preposterously prosperous continent.
Heat
Just now I was looking down at these hands, wrung However finds me in the study, cool with a kind of dreaming.
By acquaintances and friends and one another dear,
Whose praises, since I have never modelled them, will not be sung It is time I pledged some vows,
Even if men & women in the time to come will admire my ear, (Apart from those, that is, I’ve taken to the lyre,
I know that reading words isn’t exactly the same as “to see” To be as true to it as chainsaw is to boughs
Where “to see” means some living reality passes before the eyes Ready to make a widow the next forest fire) . . .
So at least now we’re not operating together thoughtlessly But suddenly I hear that I’m to be retired
In a life where any intelligence is as unwelcome as surprise. For failing to accumulate sufficient fans
My hands are two fair creatures, side by side And denied a seat with the Olympians
And when I clench them, make a roof Because I sang & wrote when by Democracy inspired!
Etcetera. When I was under ten I ran Okay then, I pick up the phone & go moan, moan, moan:
Everywhere. I spied I can keep this kind of thing up for hours;
On my big sister. I was class clown, eyed My interlocutor begins to think submission sweet
By the substitute teacher, a Syrian In the twilight’s last gleaming,
(Had to be from somewhere!) with grass Coming unstoppably apart in the metaphorical heat
He tried to peddle lids of. He kept me after school too. He pinches his throat to stop himself from screaming.
When I left that place, I did not bid him any fond Adieu.
Leave them all there in my past in that slumber These morons don’t even know the meaning of the word fane.
As of a discontinued lumber town where hands outnumber They think it must be spelled with an em as in the mind
Trees. Let’s discuss love. Of a moron; in short, the present humanly speaking causes pain
I’ve had a few; To be spread abroad like thistledown on the wind
It’s hard to tell a pigeon from a dove, That deals with dandelions as multinationals deal with trees
But still these hands ring true! And all the time the way (Der Weg) gets steep
And steeper. To the corporations, we are worker bees
It feels as though my way has traveled far And a little more cunt-hair if you please Miss Sleep
From Europe’s shore, all that outdated hierarchy! And shave those armpits! The massacre of quietness
436 437
Begins when one is instructed how to dress A little, or a lot, that’s okay, it’s a sign that clinging
And ends with the superego stuck up the id & in the brain To him (or to her) with unshakable devotion
A thing like a hand on an entity without a name Is some condition of the present. And whatever came
That has your number. Once behavior shall feign Too uprightly upon our beach, swinging
No more then all is over all’s the same; Its malacca stick & singing harmony
An end to languorous afternoons of soft delight With utter honesty we would willy-nilly sweep
When another human being was a goal to win Back into the ocean, mother of disguise; art requires the veil
Only by forgetting ; Performance Princess now lights up the night As even Artaud would admit, were he asleep
And it’s decreed the offspring of the rich eternally are in! And were I able to penetrate his dream. I fail
To get the slightest resonance whenever eternity,
One of the shortest quatrosyllables in this commotion
Still known as English, is struck: equally tame
Or even lame I find those words our ceaseless motion
A Bit Of Blancmange’ll Be Enough For Me Needs to be rocklike — steadfast, stalwart, staunch,
Sound of mind & limb (well limb perhaps); like thee
These lost their meaning because society, strange
These years we’re just so many things All of a sudden, hexed them to fantasy.
Deposited on the present by those waves Even this pretense to be passively
We call the past & this causes gloom Recording singular responses to the influencings
Even in those who’ve heard Rilke on springs We think our social interchange
And persuaded themselves that what brings Makes a kind of lie & therefore gets around
True happiness is supernumerary existence, not what we own The problem of the truth as said before. Wings
So much as what we own to, so that we assume Are an exciting image: mention some. Now rest
Somewhat the posture of the sacred Hindu or lone And let the referents catch up. Unbidden guest,
Zen monk where waterfalls leap if not for ever Dumbo, fetched here by the witch (or wizard) Poesy,
At least until the businesses who own us dam the river Pull up a seat. The times pass by
While deputies lead away from chains and rack some dude who Us not at all except they bring each one of us, like thee,
raves. Some phantom, some faint image, with them, at their breast,
It’s as if Being had slipped down same ravine Outworn outdated, yes, but goddammit, there!
With us the scree beneath Its fingernails
Or for an even quainter figure, we were sails Such watch us from the shadows as we assume our world
And mighty handsome sails, about the time the scene Or act as dreams disturbing slumber
Had switched to steam; but why write to bring you down? They depend on, & though we outnumber
As long as Poetry’s to be seated on His throne Them, & although we often are too high
(Or Her), how about a bit of darting flame To catch such whisperings, just once unfurled
Even if the writer has to neglect his feelings, lie They make a tablecloth: you cannot tell a lie
438 439
Unless you rest your elbows there, nor sleep Bipolar Disorder In Autumn
As you might really wish to, inaccessibly,
Sans pillowslips spun from such. Though each fails,
None fails to prove that the terrain’s too steep, At a time like this, odd to dispute fruitfulness,
No bark is lost but that the bite of gales I defy anyone to hear the word fruitfulness
Gets reconfirmed. And there’s the sky Face creased by much assiduous study of the sun,
To gaze at when by chance you feel serene. Without expanding, although the word sun
I find strikingly dull next to helios or bless
(what has all this to do with forms, And of its opposite, the self, I bless,
the proper object of our study here, the between But let me confess, right now, since I began to run
where meet — if meet they do — the different deeps In order to release, to make a final run
of me & you, something like a racetrack spread Backwards round the sprockets with those invert trees
i guess, the different deeps & steeps A fever, the universe has lost its charms: trees
assailing one who sits & reads alone? Waving their welcome intentions upon the core
dunno. my pain is in my bone, Of each elegant theory, stashed in their shells
couldn’t hand it on even if you wanted, hideously, Mere fuzzy things, their crop all run to core
to share the sensation as a perverse kind of high People also seem emptied, unattractive shells
— still we speak of the one scene, As they suddenly are, less like winkles and more
often assume it as the only one when young While I myself who usually crave more
pointing & exclaiming “sea !” Like the opera house in Sydney, expensive bees
then learning forty different words for snow. Who like nothing better than to hear about bees
dunno. then infiltrates this now. Dancing to tell where the honey is, who only wish to cease,
as the one word wags more than one tongue, In furs thrilling much to their alarm at the cease
as cruel deeds am imagined by the mild Less clamor come to pry them from their cells,
when solemn & serene. all that’s as maybe; Destroy the hamlet to save it from its cells.
speculation never to be quite reconciled;
i write to urge my readers to repeal First, things start costing too much at the corner store.
large codes of fraud & woe what isn’t understood I don’t care whether Death is a figure from an old junkstore
perpetuates. i.e., to feel good With appropriate accoutrements coming to find
while finding out by simulating what it is i feel) Overcrowding. Invasion of personal space. We find
One more dramatic and important person for the threshing floor,
Strangers asleep on the table, no food on the floor.
Or simply a stage in a natural process, like the wind:
It’s cold. Colder. Then too hot, no wind.
It becomes increasingly difficult to decide if you’re asleep
If the only means for me to obtain a good night’s sleep
440 441
Drowsed with the fumes of poppies, while the hook ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Is to die, then let me die! Life’s baited hook
Through the belly of the unlucky lover of flowers
To me today’s a naked questionmark, its slight flowers
Wax beneath glass No more worry how to keep
In the Chamber of Horrors, easily keep
You from losing your self in a brook
The distillation of experience rippling like a brook OR
Or ornamental pool it runs into. Look,
Into book upon book, then get others to look
You’ve been ripening for years, days, hours. That one sat up all night in here
It neither coheres nor incoheres: given minutes, make up hours. A site where the air being clear
I was full of life, of fun, of passion, & thought they The slopes precipitous a bird
Would be better for my being here & too, Bringing twigs to its mate
You, love of my life, desired me to make of Time a day Couldn’t have been less disconsolate
Now I’m sorry but this sickness is the single hue. More grateful for what it heard
Comes the collapse. Ask this of the sick. They Or for what it elsewise registered, more
Testify: once the body is too Able to bless its tree in the sky
Liberated by its viruses to bother what day, Blue & gold with Italy
It’s facing into a mirror of dubious hue. It was about to investigate soon
I’ll be better off dead. If you have to, mourn, Making a fine meal of far
O, the swallows and nightingales & Venus aloft! Venues & feeling same, e.g. the moon
Yet it’s doubtful that any find the energy to mourn (Although its light is palpable) like that star
The disappearance of a ladder said to lead aloft Needn’t be any closer to this situation of me
To where the person albeit altered never dies: For enough to maintain the flow called here
How luminous off Maui! The sensuous memory dies Endorphins hologramming the flowing here
And only words remain, cored, shelled, a shuck. Why born?
It’s turned into a fence, since burnt. That bourn
From which no traveler writes home: a soft
Subsection of the cerebellum. That’s it for me. Some soft
Bed, heroin or morphine; let me be your friend, like the word croft. A Romantic Individual
Fade from this present, to be hid in your everyday skies;
Let roaches persist. Oh yes, in their croft,
Tomorrow’s vegetables are wise to praise fair skies. “Have you seen my paintings.” Thought he said pains.
Seeing things in black & white, & as a skunk, drunk
A horrible smell emanating from the drains
442 443
And a sink where the remains of many meals had sunk Debilitation entering a customary phase
(Stewed seagull?) beneath the greasy film. Wine jugs, a lot. With habituated phrase. Daylight
Blinds drawn, tv going. Happiness Outside. A young man raps. Time to get blown.
Being evaded here beneath these trees To reach the Buddha there are multifarious ways.
And if lives each had their plot
And were not shards of the numberless Big fists but incredibly small feet.
This isolation were elected as the opposite of ease. Starlings go crazy amid dark needled boughs
As cat climbs up. Revenge is sweet
“Where the fuck have you been.” When taken against a nature that endows
I reply, a touch of Frost, “Digging in the earth Each with a fate. I could imagine being wild
Since fascinated by how something green For this thug were he female, spray of eglantine
Drives madly up, as if open air were mirth. Behind one ear, with an air that leaves
In that portion of the orchard facing south As if I were a child
Where Golden Delicious & Gravenstein Somewhat to my imagination. He wants, grunts “Wine”.
Swell each fruit with ripeness to the brim The gutter is coming apart from the eaves.
Until my mouth aches & the ache turns mouth
Telling me it stands far stuff unseen, After what might have been a very long time
That Nature’s bright & myself alone am dim.” Our friend returns to the living-room looking like Death
And Love looking for a rime.
“Wortyard. You’re dim alright.” What misery he won’t forget He ogles Marijuana Breath.
Or happiness he wishes he had never known Each day a million people die,
Causes him to drink day into night & fret Sign an end to the immeasurable experience of pain
— Is he so lonely that hell welcome a groan And launch their immortal souls abroad
From his own chest? Whose sad gray hairs Sometimes, we’re told, in ecstasy
Keep growing anyway, waiting for their owner to die And those remaining see their living was in vain,
They seem to say. Full of sorrow For everything that’s finite is absurd.
The salvationist in me despairs.
I look my friend straight in the bloodshot eye Fell, or pushed? Ask the actual symbolic bird
And say, “Quit living for tomorrow.” Watching from the hemlock when he went down;
He had enemies. All I can tell is what I heard.
Oh well, I think, There are no mistakes. He Of course, no local coroner’s a knave and clown.
Hesitates. Where are his drinking pards The body landed headfirst on the concrete path
Whose phalloi are to him what exclamation is to Poesy!?! Perhaps because while fixing up his home
The dulled brain perplexes & retards He slipped? No, those bloodstains on the outer wall
The message, mixes it, calls it a night. Constitute the simulation of, or actually, a simple math:
“Excuse me, old boy, must sit on the throne.” Slashed wrists; impatient, lowered, as into the foam
444 445
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS from A CAST OF TENS
A leaky lifeboat, his big body, totally forlorn. from A Cast of Tens
The phone was ringing because it had a bell.
I ran in from the orchard because I am a self.
The person at the other end hoped I would take it well.
Our friend was dead! — He used to be an elf,
When life fit better fantasy, a time that fades
As all times fade, into the so-thought stream Night (With I For The Star)
Of Time, or stacks up nothingness as if it could grow deep
Or fail to burst into love in midnight glades:
Since he is gone, his existence seems a dream, Resolves into horizontal bands
The sort one won’t recall well, thanks to what one took to The sedate walk of the Categorical Imperative
sleep. Our servants cover the remainder
One pulls on a rope
that activates the bell
that tugs at our ears
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ that draw(s) out our lives
The inexplicable and the unexplained
Some things are too important
Starry night of the classics
The verb formed from constellation
My Fanny So that ‘Once upon a rime’
Mercy had anticipated sin
Re your generous support which has always been capable One dwelling much as another
Of enduring long though unnoticed-by-me hours in a cold
Study in a lifetime like anyone’s a step from the tomb
When you’d sooner have been pumping away nights They wear the same outfits
Celebrating the furnace & the motion of our blood Resentment treads heavily
To be flush (& not via poesy) with time: again, and our ceiling is its floor
‘Twas me or you! For you show me what is Of the supernumerous welling
Unvarnished, & say, faking its accidents
I’ve wasted you
446 447
Their beauty that of flowers not fruit A single swatch of green identically
Consumed by our Founder ‘That looks on intensity and never sees’
Salt instancing contagion, indicates
Odd turns we take, so many glottal stops This life among the new illiterate
So many grotty loops matters — to whom insist — the self
How hamletlike a lens
‘. . . That all the old stories . . .’
Draw a circle and draw a circle
They were wasted in the square Poetic Intermission: When X Flies Out The Window,
The composition of the little panes Won’t The Plot Resolve?
What price fame? The grave awaits Won’t the music swell
The ways of lighting same the same The moon fair on the channel
Having no idea where it may lead This empty cup mean emptiness no more
(God going beyond in His ways . . .) ‘I live by feeding the desire
‘I feel my father looking down on me’ to escape the present’
The soul be a raven and fly free
These chairs were made in our image? a lightly developed negative
In the image of those we obey unpredictable even for evil
X: ‘You’re in such a curious position’
— supine, décolleté
So many years of victory
resulting in defeat
The page turns indecipherable Why do you always follow me
‘All we can take is what we’ve given away’ follow along the horizon line
We can’t speak of the display That is our guarantee
The private eye
Except what it reminds one of may remark the 2 ells in alliterate
Of the masking love on a scale that’s infallible
an Arabic ding
. . . these irregular signals . . .
Washed over by these waves of the indifferent For the dead to wound the unknown
Beauty, beauty, beauty, beauty they must risk life
448 449
‘and Paradise may be figurable’ What we can’t see, her eyes caress
24 sounds like 26 A door swings slowly open upon darkness
I am x, x is a cs This coroner may be unbribable
Fishes wash flesh This private eye infallible
I shall and I should Society or these scattered phrases
We fail an algebra of presences stand for the accidental
Stirred against my better judgement (she rolls down the cliff, up the map)
by this putrid chord succession in love — ‘celestial companionship
Eyebeams cross, fire flickers through all eternity’ — with X
X gets us to erase his prints ‘My dear, we are infinitely near’
Stirred against the backdrop clifftop Sea is my other, not prime
nothing keeps coming between The cart before the cart
with only skull and sky above on which the understanding relies
XPICTOC, XPICTOC ‘You’ve got to be logical about this’
which is actually a memory — morbid X smashes the fusebox
It was the wind — perhaps to break the Liebestod
2 women, 1 man — a shadow ‘. . . and would go free’
2 women, 1 mirror — 3 women And the grand piano, simply
Then one misses several portions (lights cigaret to distance self from X)
Indian rope trick’s ridiculous predictability X — allows time to get ready, count
(‘Excited? Nervous?’) to discern the real motive
and the surface breaking, reforming, brilliant (‘. . . must have Reality, no matter —’)
‘We must have Reality, no matter the hardships. The police would sooner run him in
I mean by Reality, that which we invoke the EVERY- 2 persons, 1 mirror (opaque) — 3 people
DAY to save us from. For the everyday is Id orders its representations
habitual and habit an insulation. All those dishes! eggs the letter on its sound
The degree of initiation we experience —’ in obsolete December
Then several parts go right through one just when any sign is powerless — the real thing!
Dreams have been true (Come, now) Tinsel star, incense smoke, theatrical illumination
In between, the rings ‘Garrulous with me? Nix!’
All x is is Alexis? No — more
450 451
But Mr. X smokes pipe, sports tie In this photograph of your birthplace
centering the storm no cars can be seen on the street
Moon is one, and ocean
Then one misses several frames Only horses and some carts they draw
for you are the projective versa Yet your entrance began in a taxi
Behind the sign, the man
(The past we had thought dead, plots against us) Now you know the word necessary
2 men — 1 bow tie
Get to bed, forget about it
If we are 2 together, for a spell, then (sister) let’s What was browner about the past
is a quality of ink and paper
Yet wasn’t that merely a rime? A function of time
We don’t know what troubles the servants and its (it is its) passage
‘I’ll leave you alone with your — objectivity’ The flesh sags at the elbow
Call for the Freud Squad — squalid
Hard — honesty — to show us ourselves Did the Welsh accent colonize India?
But it can’t be supernatural as long as x is ours Schubert played Beethoven
and not-ours, but what about our
Substitute for the missing piece In the movie last night
Aspirated voiceless Ionian velar allowed itself to be replaced
Raising the dead in a mirror
You will not find this refundable
Quality depends on conjunction
While Knitting ‘Destiny feels so special’
Why we imagine sequence
Water was trickling somewhere and the legal meaning
But then it was simply the clock of a moment
Here comes your spouse ‘Until I fall in love
who, once upon a time all my existence is rectangular’
was quite unknown to you
452 453
He was inarticulate
in an attractive sense
The telephone in Greek
his names come from Latin could signify labyrinth in Spanish
While I am a caryatid
So much of her thigh showed for the palace in the square
Fifteen years must have gone by we uphold doesn’t care
The church has a facade Here comes the mail
meant to set off faces but no letter from your spouse
as transitory phenomena
How well does she know you
Then you discover you share birthdays for that matter, Luis
Like thunder and lightning
Nuestra, Nuestro — many kinds of snow
And can leave a lot unspoken
What did they see from the train
Do pesos drop, and how many?
And what did they notice Dawns break into any language
bringing its thoughts of itselves
Lonely bubbles leave the head The one saying much, the one saying nada
in alienating long-distance shots The one saying madrugada
Vast city with its vistas How what the words convey
has no need of us means less than the picture-squares
yet without us is vacant and still
of touch — in the mind
Dancing as an idea is odd where all can be counted on
Much as clothing in a tropical zone
Alone, where surprise stays unlikely
Or that he likes or dislikes her ears
or the crosses on the graves
The history of the word ‘like’
454 455
The Two Of Rocks Or you deteriorate
Love the one you’re with’
(It’s ripped and smudged)
The old man is 112 pages long
and so is the sea ‘Peel back that hide
They are deeply symbolic (psychotic) Let one another’s beauty in’
And you always moved
But we who are a rock and a rake
to the insinuations of sound and
in among the trees ‘Bury the third’ then poison or person
where the rocks look back ‘Lumbar ganglia’ ‘Solar plexus’
‘Carpe’ and then probably ‘diem’
Those trucks haul a city
to punctuate not thought but possibly ‘dream’
Yet the drawing of the sorts They laugh when they read this
Their eyes fill, tears
course down their cheeks
Of persons we are, as we say, instances
The completely depressing were an achievement Who can bear a crying child?
presence defeats And who is not a child
Yet the ‘you’ always moved
And joy — as for that
‘My mother was lost inside herself’
One wanted to be locked up A moment collected, swelled, dropped
Surroundings disappear, the face and in evaporating, noticed lips
as well as a handful of bored holes
assumes the mirror
of highly polished stone Accents are metaphysical
But you always moved The Swedish film is dubbed with Swedish accents
The typewriter sounds like breaking sticks
Two read a letter — one reads, one listens
A foot kicks a pamphlet
brought who knows how A reader attends, in mind
to this rare spot The car seen from above (if cameras see)
‘A shot so I can die’ (if love can . . .)
‘Orgasm completes a circuit
456 457
People being what they are
She manages a smile
about then, about then ‘I can’t recall my mother in motion —
The syncopated ticking of two clocks only bits and pieces, frozen’
He asks for her fingers
‘Raised by words meaning nothing really’
B Minus, B Major
‘Get me some metaphors — I’ll glisten’ In his, a hope
Then the notion you never love anyone A pebble to worry
To be wrapped up in
except in those ways of theirs
meaning nothing really They touch nipples, material
His narrator’s face fills the frame The bark of trees
Even confession screens
‘. . . Dead, were it not alive’
In its own wake or shank
‘The little faith I have’ From these high hills, the myth
The screen darkens to go blank flows through gully, over stone
as though ocean-drawn
Commanding attention
along the one horizon Where the cards are being
with terror of the unseen laid out. This and this
And of his command of the words contradict — impossible
telling him this is it But mind those two places
The family version at once — no reassurance
that these rocks contradict were of sufficient plausibility
These trees arrested these rocks
The cock nosing up the channel With thematic nausea
sounds like history beside the dance The laurel turns viridian
the cells of history proclaim The rays themselves have walked
The evidentiary skin
in certainty whereof As the writer has to believe
we touch, relinquish, touch In her text, scenes form:
458 459
Satyr and nymph root and grunt what? murmured the ancient tome
‘I sat through this before’ About then one listener slept
The next card ‘like a rock cast in the sea’ while another slipped and stripped
He is remembering his name The possession of a name (to me)
and how it sounded once and the possibility of being named
In a witches’ dictionary (Being, named . . .) They sought privacy
Items of archeological significance in a church, as in a nonsense verse
We hope the Indians will win letters vainly think to hide
Trucks crush the uprising
We can leave, we are sane The speaker is supererogatory
What then of her words
These necessaries?
‘I can take it or leave it alone’
Commentary To ‘The Two Of Rocks’ Head riddled with metaphysical darts
The body inside washed with blood
like the site of a murder
We use the same materials
Inside and out for unity Surroundings disappear, the face
and can’t leave this circle luminous for the shadows
He’ll watch while she says anything
‘It becomes desirable to pause’ . . .
Said the man who lived in a quarry
to the woman who lived and lived is everything. ‘When I was in pain
and lived in a tree (‘No one I think’) I tried to remember pleasure’
Flowers, bulbs and breathing
When death is survived
Do you become calm You recall the child
as a thing unnameable you in some sense have been?
Only in glimpses
You recall your love?
The rules are altering
as you play along by then So like a landscape
460 461
this absence whereby one floated
as if only one leaves of bay
feeds the heavy stars
sits whittling, whistling Abstinence the years of light
(We do this for unity)
Weighing six to eight syllables whose banks extrude
One that has to be for you
as the pain-pills wear off One for whom you regard
While the word starts up
and up in the open meadow
bounds and rebounds to those sounds
and singing of bones Come To Where It Sits
Hidden in loam by epochs
was to practice restraint
It’s a cloud
It’s a plane
W-s t Prc-c rStrt It’s seafog, stranger
upon the view from the myth though apparently cloud
The chains of cause and effect It’s a clod
harrow the meadow, an odor That was a sound
whereby one floated (crushed leaves of bay) demonstration of
Passion feeds the heavy stars
Abstinence the years of their light Paradise as a noun
How many friends, enemies
Crushed came in close enough
Passion
to decipher the cryptic
from the myth Red lettering on burlap
stapled to the restaurant
cause and effect A mouth sucks noisily
the field below as Marianne and Ross breakfast
462 463
on melon and sausage then a square yard of earth
the man at the next table (with its leaves) moves
(with its twigs) . . .
barely copes with 500 mikes ‘Was it the wine too good to be left
But they use the word till last, wasn’t drunk till he was?’
‘Fascist’ to unbungle (their) time
Brown eyes weighted with gold
He is more true because you framed by dark red locks
refuse complicity
in Hungarian and Arabic A pool of light forms
with Lincoln and LBJ from the first of the jewels
since the age of two? But the dead fern and dirty moss
The piece proposes the puzzle won’t act background. The idol’s lips
until it gets lost in a flash don’t want to change
the subject. So move
She perched on the couch ‘In this ruby light
while he stood on the floor you ask this open mask’
for two minutes of fucking
. . . unable to believe this
is all. ‘Heaven-aspiring trees’
neither could quite remember
nor forget. Yet the clock made him reach for his aspirin
kept the time. A dry beach and mediocre be the middle
A band of cirrus of a short life. Diamonds
You are liking their look
In the book being read sparkling like drops
at the moment you read in the sexual hair of the returning
bathers. The dew
‘partial local coherence’ their moving volume shakes
Modernists distort what? ‘We have come to kill you’
A dark and stormy night —
Venus hates Psyche
It’s a relation
464 465
Keep using it to remember what you are using it for.
in the heads of the returning
barbers. He liked to hear her talk For instance had been a favorite phrase, affording location to what’s
about now. ‘Aimlessly’ vague. Location qua traction. The rough for the smooth.
taking dictation from the city Cartires, caterpillars, butterflies. On the stone. Yet the ivory hand
streets until stopped short by was subtler. Not suppler. Will this longing never cease to make the
what quickly proved more of the same while feel worth it?
that this once (however) spoke her name
. . . bonfire smoke that ‘follows’ one Febrile, inconstancy, fluxlike, noticed by some constant. Try infected.
At what rate can failure be secured, delayed. Understood.
for there is the wind
and here is a place
The stone had had a Latin name. Then names not even known yet. Snapshot
to be smoked. ‘I will do nothing snaps shut, springs trap.
I do not believe in’ —
‘marbling’ of Milky Way or foliage Weight ate weight, out late.
Verstanden? Nein. Nicht wahr? Ja oder nein.
Ja-oder-nein.
Prose Intermission: Still To Start Suffering the correction of the rest, endless in all senses.
Still a handful. How say mere. Cartels, bagatelles, bound to a surname in cultural obligation, site of
no escape.
You think he should care more, and though he knows that, he doesn’t.
To be . . . all argument useless. Informed hands do insane deeds. Your flesh
Three things went through his mind. Nothing changed. and blood squawks in a fit of her imagination.
Tomorrow will have those feelings its events, including memory in its caprice, ‘Four men loved the pilgrim soul in you’ ‘Four men, that’s all’
bring in its train, to the junction. No anticipation seems true, yet unoetic. Maybe at once?
worth the alterations thus inflicted.
Noviced by some constant. The mistake bleeps.
Seven. Say seven. Say inflected. A spilling era. How be so mistaken, and for whom or what?
466 467
Still, the bleep connects to a consequence, for which he must adjust. Ones and ones only, how erase?
Now run and answer it. It can’t be the him they want he knows.
As though to persuade concerning an identity the other will then disclose
Sand washes into the small depression in the beach, sinks, and is not as different in some essential respect, seduced into this revelation by
anyone we know, the radio suddenly remarkably loud. Inability at certain therefore a kind of lullabye.
speeds to discriminate two strikes on the key from three. A snake if you
say so. A flat. It’ll be sharp, searched for. Plus the overwork now chronic among all lucky enough to be so plagued.
Cemetery, what makes you so difficult to spell? That beep marks error with But compared to hitting the thumb with a hammer, much qualifies for the
an obstacle. rubric ‘abstract.’ Like rueful.
The webbed again. A gain? A gin. When evening arrives, and the workday world melts back into the homelife,
while old songs play on the piano, how does the piano feel?
Wherever she looked, mice in underwear. She let it rip.
‘I do want to be liked.’ The problem is there right at the start.
Number Nine. A haunting perfume. He buried his head in his hair. The cog knows nothing worth speaking of concerning the moving belt.
Fell, fane, labyrinthine amethyst pathways, limned with.
Desperation City, or Deportation City, followed by a zone of code, Dictation
some precedent. They and all over.
Taint of what it led to
And may all your feelings be small enough to name, to exchange for small
sums of money, sons of mummy. What world whirled away, along the grooves There is no choice
ofwhat history? You correct yourself by the majority, who look to you
for the spotlessness of their laboratories, of their lambitude. for the poet the compleynte
Squeak, head’s heart, heaving metaphor into a mouth, some eyes or ears. Memory bans with its comparatives
It — it was great, yet not enough. Stuttering in the teeth of Time. No wind today, the smoke from no one
Revenge senseless in a world of ones. goes straight up to nowhere
468 469
What it led to happened
The poet who must make
Unreasoning and only reasonable
something of the inevitably expressed
There can be many distractions
Memory bans with its absolutes
Sin of saying so
Supine before the velvet dark
Sin of omitting to
Speak and forget
Poets who sang love
The social imperatives
incurred what it led to
Witness and adjust
No it isn’t fair
The craft can be practiced
‘I am in this without fault’
removed from certain attenuation
Words that come from somewhere
Music beside the charnel house
tell it is (however) just
tainted by its reception
Mind is implicated, ruined
Ecstasy to forget
Point to the children
Sin of description
Others did as much
Entertainment The Macaques’ numbers on the increase
Advent of spring the recognizable The range has food enough
Words the recognizable Their offspring beautiful
470 471
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS from VULNERABLE BUNDLES
Across the gulf from Vulnerable Bundles
Market hope (soap)
(Joke) to choke
Syntax led to us
The “Cover Poem”
in Thesternesse
close enough to touch VULNERABLE BLUNDERS VENERABLE BUNDLES VENERABLE
BUMBLES VULNERABLE BLUNDERS VENERABLE BUNGLERS
VULNERABLE PUNTERS VENERABLE BLINDERS VULNERABLE
Is this not closer BUNDLES VULNERABLE NUMBERS VENERABLE TRUNDLERS
VENERABLE BUNGLES VULNERABLE WONDERS VULNERABLE
or altering substance LUMBERS VULNERABLE PLUNDERER VENERABLE BUMBLERS
VULNERABLE VENERABLE VERSUS VENERABLE VULNERABLE
that nothing washes out DUMBBELLS VULNERABLE BUNDLES VENERABLE BUNGLES
VENERABLE BUMBLES VULNERABLE DANDLERS VENERABLE
and nothing taints MANTLES VULNERABLE BLUNDERS VENERABLE STUMBLERS
VULNERABLE BINDLE VULNERABLE BANGLES VENERABLEST
BUNDLES VENERABLE NUMBINGS VULNERABLE HUMMING
But next to nothing VENERABLE TANGLES VENERABLE MUMBLINGS VENERABLE
SANDALS VULNERABLE BUNDLES VENERABLE DRUMMINGS
when dawn manifests VULNERABLE JUNGLE VULNERABLE NUMBINGS VENERABLE
BAUBLES VENEREAL COMINGS VULNERABLE BUNDLINGERS
with its linked people VENERABLE CRUMBLES VERIFIABLE NUMBERS VULNERABLE
BUNDLES VULNERABLE BUMMERS VENERABLE GRUMBLERS
When truth and justice VERIFIABLE STUNNERS VENEREAL GRINDERS VULNERABLE
BINDERS VENERABLE WONDERS VENERABLE STUMBLEBUM
leave the dictionary VULNERABLE UNDONE VULNERABLE ANYONE VULNERABLE
UNCLE VENERABLE ANKLE VULNERABLE ANGLE VENERABLE
sanitized VENDIBLES VULNERABLE UPFROMUNDERS VULNERABLEST
DUNCE INANES VENERABLE SHAMBLES VULNO VENERABLE
VULNERARY VESTIBULES VULNERABLE NOONE VENERABLE
DUNDERHEADS VULNERABLE FUMBLETHUMBIANIARISMS
472 473
VULNERABLE THUNDERHEADS VENERABLE BLUNDERS ON 2 “Someone’s coming to dinner”
BUNDLES VENERABLE MANGLES VENERATABLE PLUNGERS
VULNERABLE BUNDLES VULNERABLE RUMMIES VENERABLE
TUMMIES VULNERABLE NUMBER VENERATED STUMBLERS Someone’s coming to dinner
VENERABLE BUNDLE VENERABLE EVERYBODY VULNERABLE it takes too long to understand
LUNGS VULNERABLE LUNGERS VENERABLE VERBALIZINGS Someone with tasks & goals
VULNERABLE RUMBLES VENERABLE DANGLES VULNERABLE Hiawatha rimes with water
The wild rose grows by the faucet
Whose are those cries Who cares
The cat can’t find her way out
What’s noticed & with what
1 “The chance to be someone else” The woman’s body opened up
Next to microsoft word
Minotaur the humid principle
The chance to be someone else Slain by the heat that raised it
A hand because it is five Recombinatory lineation
Faith hope & charity Cuts through the myths
Because there is three The spines of bound erotica
On a silver platter The threads where the divine
Sea-eagle with octopus To terrible screams unheard
A hare pounds immortality Let someone come unglued
In a pestle the humdrum The rest is license to forget
Against appearances To spell solitude
The page number in the wrong place Exactly every time
Meaning the reader
“The woman I shall forget”
Meaning the woman who speaks
A biscuit of linen
Stiffened with plaster 3 “In the sky an enigma”
Well that is something
Horns make you look like
An animal whose face In the sky an enigma
A postage stamp makes Dimly lit objects
A child’s sun An about us
Com is represented Flesh-colored edged with gold
Stacked too overflowing Your pussy drew me in
474 475
Is a possible comment The handless stump
Always waiting to occur These make small splotches
Bring opium for the watchdogs A color like venous blood
This place of eternal happiness On the big picture
Fenced about with habit Somehow blank
What if this were midnight The walls & floor appear
What if this weren’t noon
A man with a straw boater
Looks into a lake
Lapping his property
The wall of stone 5 “The door to the tomb”
Where the hair sprouts
And law is memory
It is the individual The door to the tomb
History repealed Framed by stone blocks
On the opposite page
Do they hate us
If we are happy
They feel dumb
4 “Dried grass between stones” So lines got scored
And won’t leave off
Be calm here Life
Dried grass between stones Wax in a pan
“The person I always was” Was once hot
Nevertheless persisting You can’t forget her
Limps on the arm of candor Completely without
Pink-washed & gold-washed Looking for her here
While lines that arc or leak Being a misshapen oval
Do not connect you do Her wings of Y
The prospect from above is The heavy studs of the door
Shot with permanence Nails in coffins knocking
Whereas there’s no time To ensure nobody’s there
A headless man mit cornucopia This must be the place
To be lost in the wild Four corners, the turtle
In the wildest sense Signs of exaltation
Only the navel & yes Signs of anguish
476 477
Blocks of friendly stone 8 “The lost picture of thinking”
The lost picture of thinking
The picture of lost-in-thought
6 “Nice-looking dots appear” What are you looking for
Some poems including history
Why are you looking for
Nice-looking dots appear There are cracks in thinking
And I has to go back Bits jut up of its smooth mosaic
Always to remove a gap Trying to sell you something
The lovers put in the cup Those are safe pavements
In this instance two women Workingclass history
For you to represent But all words are beautiful
This is the feeling Like the eye of the beholder
That’s a big chicken Like four bars without singing
To be watching porn Admit the sinking feeling
That’s a snake’s tail Live in the ecstasy
She said scrotum for sacrum Remember why
When the bell rang It’s only an opinion
Between heaven & earth Lying fallow between furrows
The feeling said “suspended” The corporation yard is next
Belt up & be sad Never get lost for long
Disrobe & suffer consequence Often long to get lost
It will be good or bad That brings us to our senses
According to the calendar
The canvas & the stretcher
It was two squares one turned The poet seeks the lost picture of thinking. he wants to show people how
A notch on the missing wheel thinking actually occurs. He thinks this would be a good thing for people
A priest because he worships to see. And he also seeks to create another picture of lost-in-thought, of
Must be material & passive enrapture and preoccupation Why? To help others avoid hipping up or
Then he forgets her name slipping in? Certainly, he would not be averse to bringing some bracing
To show memory alive disillusion to his readers. Much public thinking “these days” done to sell
Neurolinguistics, all that jive one (on) something. Like, that those “pavements” (of thought?) are safe —
The astrobiology is massive which they could never be! (Something about this entire process resembles a
run of luck, a gamble, with this difference, he can never actually win or lose
478 479
beyond a shadow of doubt) Charles Bernstein: “Poetry is a swoon / with this Peered at its umbilical
difference / It brings us to our senses.” There are opinions, and then there are In the case whose glass
corporations, who make their opinions stick. There are seizures which register Smeared on the inside
as the truth, that do not communicate. Poetry? A telegram is more like legal Makes one sad that it’s locked
tender. Grandson of ostlers scene-shifters & gamekeepers.
10 (Rhetoric)
9 “The lost picture of thinking”
I decided to tell you
The lost picture of thinking why it isn’t possible
I steps out of the house to interrupt the form
A weather balloon of the present with
Names of streets float another form of recent
Numbers of the met past despite the lonely
Things with wings feeling of oblivion
Like flies to like impending & the sad
“It’s a greedy crook” flirtation with despair
“It’s a water-diviner” at the waste we witness
I notes the muscle The poets & their skill
Up the thigh’s inside we’ve long been breathing
Hallucinates & salivates Meanwhile a few
A line of Lombardy jokes win the prizes
Poplars pointing underground Money likes a sure thing
Where waters course But if it is too late indeed
Lads will be ladders then weren’t the cosmos
Feeding him at the table & the bouganvillea
En route to a midday fling just what we’re after
It was dizzy suddenly I had decided to ask
An ocean of errands when the system failed
Beckoning medication Beggars on the street
Hung by one heel keep our shame honest
Betokening opportunity So to the linear
Where inverted the structure that had happened
480 481
That is happening 13 (The Lover) solus & barefoot
You will respond
This is not
the form of the present How well I recall
You will be right Banging you sweet spirit
& only right again with my pelvis
The words same
& rearranged
enter here &
interfere. The way
11 “This calls itself thinking” your body torqued
Your hair I never
quite lose scent of
This calls itself thinking “Across the thickening years”
Only if pressed Free to associate I
The pink undercoat still don’t forget
Hopes to go unnoticed How we loved
We are going to fail I love you still
A ground replete with artifacts I hurt to feel the pain
Another moot assertion Or whatever this is
This calls into question they can’t remove
Memory the enemy from me that I
Perpetually escaping would give to you
Minimally light I made dear reader into
Within some space Dear reader of (signed)
Shortfalls (us all) Solus in love (whispers)
A rope bridge swings “Remember me” (solus)
From hunger to hunger I’m trying to forget
In the abysmal depths Please intervene
Acquaintance awaits
Dumbstruck but alive
I say what you’re doing
You go I agree
Temporary things & beings
Ridiculous there’s nothing else
482 483
14 “Sit and cease fretting” It’s the least Moloch owes him
It says our side has won
The our is problematic
Sit and cease fretting Eventually he won’t retain
Real feelings will A plugged nickel for himself
Catch up sooner This stone cross
Then later Seventh century
Proper bases for comparison Has stood for suffering & misery
An unautobiography Or just a clever forgery
Far enough away to If it’s so easy let’s see you do it
Trust, saying scale, range, angle, Out of the voices
Color? A photographer Find & fix & follow
Who isn’t your father One, hollow one, to be
For the sake of mother Consistency & what is
Avoid near-violet pinks Practically its opposite
And greenish ochres Diplomat of art
Steps leading up for some The print is small
Lead down for others To discourage reading
Platitudes of the real Or the print is big
There IS communication For the non-threatening
These look like beehives The lamp is a suitcase
Show us another Mad at God because
Is that an E or an F She wanted to create
The universe
She switched off & unpacked
Circle in a wheatfield
Someone should explain
15 “Being a child” They are delighted to have met
Or me as in nothing to do with
Being a child
Assumes a lot
That all luck is good
For an example
Allen Ginsberg makes
A million dollars
484 485
16 “The name of the game” Toting musical instruments
Refer back to Old Greek
The wreath is nicely observed
The name of the game The leaves, the fruit
More of the same Later a woman dancing
When beauty makes her Stole the show
Entrance humming Deja vu Her head tilted up
The women are oddly joined Her radiant looks
They had got it backwards Stole the shower
Singing Run-around Sue A man with a cartwheel
These fairest creatures Strolling on a stage
Ten seconds away Told a few jokes
From nudity whose hips Others swallowed stuff
And snakelike socket-action Either sharp or fiery
Can be a punch in the stomach Or bitter or salt
Dream as much of you Says the text, the days
Dorkus, Doobie, Dufus Go slowly since we last
And Dweeb. Beauty Held on to surety under
Who makes us expansive A tatty blanket of coincidence
Limits our time It concludes with an estimate
What are we if not For services rendered
Rubber-tipped wiring The botanist had sent
Until the children come Toots on that horn
Exposure of the broken
Rung or pencil, death
Posthumous oblations
Perforated ovals
17 “O begins the occasion”
O begins the occasion
And encompasses same 18 “A straight look to the left”
A ladder up its middle
Leads to where
Blake got his stars A straight look to the left
Workpersons winged The little devil held
486 487
As if the woman’s unaware Already or still open
Darkness behind them What’s expected
In lieu of lower body When one hears pavilion
Repeated zombies rowing That gray-green brushy stuff
Dogs with sun-circles That bush of lavender
Dots on their upright i’s A gray light washes these
A cow walks backwards So hard to find then mind
Upside down to pasture Wimple & all the ghoul
The beads that loop Grins as he takes her
Around the model’s neck & lead From a crystal ball
Between her fabulously In this carpet four
Hidden breasts obsidian Streams of Paradise
The suitor who has slain Rise from some Tree of Life
Lion, croc & hippo Patterned center like a scab
To attain her presence Pope with a fisherman’s ring
Slips on a spill of these St. Edward confessing
Black beads & plays An outstretched hand
Dead to her who lying Finds something hairy wet
Doggo is both bird & snake With a hedge of possibility
Peace to their souls The book of history
Looking stage left That would open
That saltlike quickened Only to this garden
Those deeds sustained To this tent & page
A human being now Had somewhere to get to
No space disclosed in And went up in flames
Dissection of the dead
Murder of the sleeping
That isn’t light white paint
20 Time for speech
19 “Before breakfast the gate” Time for speech
We’re taking this mother up to 40K
The emotions that feel truest
Before breakfast the gate are the most damaging
488 489
Rocks Broken glass That you 21 “Majority attained”
the first to truly understand
wont simply not return one day
I was seated at the keyboard Majority attained
Asking bird, or beard? An artichoke
My eyes bulged out Over a fireiron
My bird was made of feathers Keep it brief
By my hair I was a woman In the bathtub
As the leader of the band Like a great fan
she was a washout Was a feature
But give her a blues guitar Exactly like it
People who make round drums He was smiling
Live in triangular yurts Out of the long jaws
That bug has big claws At the sermon
Socrates with an ashtray That held the congregation
Jesus or John Lennon, it’s a mirror Until it was breathless
Translucent sluglike Restless or worth less
Beautiful humans one quarter Body-heat “Lit from within”
my size perch on my head Minimal form
I have a short tail In Animal Farm
straight legs but my coat After he passed out
makes me (look!) resemble a mushroom His thigh cramped up
If that could be called me Everyone was chattering
To be stuffed full with barley The glaciers came & went
& the accompanying mud
One regrets the inequities
I meant to punctuate
this one but it took me over
The beatings will continue 24 “The hand is a tongue”
until morale improves
The hand is a tongue
The term is a hand
A proper instrument
Could be a hammer
They row the boat
490 491
On the back of a whale Her fingers twisting hair
Some haul on the lines Flutterer drawn to light
If that is a whale The story the soul denies
That is is meant to be Peripheral nervous system
A salmon-trout upchucking Vaginal peristalsis
The Other is one’s soul Cavern where are hid invaluables
Where one is a man Sin masked as openness
Who must find her again Lust acting innocent & frank
To color Romantic thought And then the voices come
Material spirals “O airy love” “O no-oh-no”
Lamb sleeps on Cross “Your breath is mineral
Scales with two buckets Your taste is salt marine”
Weighing stars And in the voice the soul
Arms outreaching In the animal position
The Oxford English Dictionary But smiling at each other
Now out-of-date Bliss & various sensations
The hyphenation saga (The) converse in a mirror
Railroad ties “I ride the rods”
To “Give everybody my regards”
‘The ties that bind say silly sods
Paint an extra finger on their gods
Flip it at their bards dismembered 26 “Leaning forward from their rows”
To remember us hot bods
Leaning forward from their rows
Hanging on to two places at once
Marking time on the white wall
25 After midnight contemplating illustrations Hanging around to be pulled on
Shut the darkness out or in
Rectangular mnemonic devices
After midnight contemplating illustrations None of the above
That head underneath her arm Excess best in small quantities
A chocolate-chip two-cone ice-cream “We’re past Pt. No Return”
Bouquet of mums with gladioli These words seldom attended
That mermaid’s twin tail In the unlikelihood of utterance
Her lips drawn back But the portrait diamond-shaped
492 493
Didn’t have to be 30 “Where the moonlight had shone”
The towel folded under words
The small canines manifested
Aphrodite with her shears Where the moonlight had shone
“Cutting my losses” Gray light of day
“A man is either Vulcan or Eros We are a waterfall
Cutting his roses or toenails” Gods are the rocks
The long way little goes Where seizure was divine
Memory is pathetic
In its bell-bottom trousers
Light on boredom for example
The collapsing abdomen
29 “Divine effulgence” Smooth beneath the moon
The commands and edicts
Sixth sign of the zodiac
Divine effulgence Triangles rubbing together
Emanated from his head Not too old to conceive
Page reversed & re-reversed Ten stars & two discs
Meeting a stranger dancing Adorn the woman
He thinks it’s his ex On her way to the hottub
He still carries a torch Face of lust or distrust
What love might learn Here is an empty room
Firm sushi thighs Gray light on the floorboards
Thought the Japanese A vase with two flowers
What might be learnt
What used to matter
Surrounds like litter
Person writes many letters
He has many friends 31 Song of a Son
There are business associates
One day he will die
People come a-tidying Achilles had that heel
No letters ever sent Because you have to stand someplace
So that’s anecdote Or have to start somewhere
So that’s analogy The purest idealist
Was thrust headlong among us
494 495
My mother was beautiful 33 “The subordination of the software”
She was lovely beyond compare
Held to her breasts & belly
Held by her meaty arms The subordination of the software
Inside her dark flowing hair Here is this person
The speaker was drugged by design If unknown then what
She put me away There is this picture
Where three women a day Looking for a match
Taught how to be kind & cruel Their foreign phrases
Who all dressed the same Meaning I love you
Remembered my name Hurricane footage
But which of them played with my tool When the lights went out
From these who taught difference Now the light is on
She borrowed me back How the eyes shine
For as long as she could The fascination waltz
Offered herself as topic sentence Hand goes to upper chest
In the chapter called My Life And a hand is a fan
Speaker reads the footnotes Beside another picture
Glancing away from her text Capable of looking
“Bin out so long Peeling an onion
Seems like in to me” Programming
Do you do Language Writing Heretics preventing apostasy
Only on Tuesdays & Thursdays This concerns our choices
Isn’t that sufficient praxis
And never by design
This utterer too lax is A new kind of night the notion here was that we each of us goes around
There’s no falling for his line looking for a match — for words or paint arrangements or persons who
We’ve met his sort in taxis validate our feeling;. Nothing new to that. So the poem has to be as new as it
Thrown up on his wine can be. For there is always a freshness to a feeling even though one’s groaning
He’s got a place on Naxos Here we go again After that, though, the other thought or observation, that
Atop a narrow chine MS word operates via strict — rigid — subordination, interposed itself.
The poem grew from those two notions. “Hurricane footage” was nature
completely uncontrollable that turns people into one bunch of Iikeminded
(terrified, enraptured) humans. Was that, seen on tv. the onion layer within
layer is a kind of subordinate arrangement a la computers. And so on. It doesnt
matter now. We stake all on what Kierkegaard wrote about in his Concluding
496 497
Unscientific Postscript, that one takes on faith the reality whence a poem 35 “He got them to look at what was forgot”
arises. Such faith is not possible with every poem one reads. Why?
He got them to look at what was forgot
Or what had been not looked at like that
(Shrinks if one waits a minute)
34 “Subject named after book” Winged horses rearing in the shafts
Chariot driver with no reins
Doll face with enormous rump
Subject named after book His beatnik persona meant to be admired
Describe yourself as a lonely heart This man I know writes a lot
Admire her southwest jewelry (Font keeps switching to last one)
The syllable count rules Dancing to the latest tune
Obedience engenders Employee with beard giving full serve
Keeps slipping into prior font Kneeling naked importuning
Thinking of them in the desert “DEAL WITH MY ARMPIT”
Not of them on the scattered islands (A small piece called evidence)
Knocked out with own hammer “Put your face in my lap”
Task: account for the relations (Breasts pressed to silk-cloth thigh)
Landforms of buttock and back Each regards at least one other
Task: Explain with clothes off But what has this dragon seen
Hilarious that spider hid in computer Art lets women bare their breasts
Grandfather dancing his jig Men let their dorks hang ouy
Account for the interruptions He drives his Woody home
Those are the facts of her person These fingers long & thin
Barn door smoothly closed Augmented & refined & posed
Barn door on an island Editor poet edits = poetry
“Come see my pink hut glow” “So that’s who you are”
Altering singles to doubles Child’s drawing of a partial carcass
Codpiece like a cunt Boat rowing across floor
And what is the name of that color
498 499
36 “Nine-gauge font in a twelve-gauge world” 38 “Closure = defeat”
Nine-gauge font in a twelve-gauge world Closure = defeat
Keeps the artificer moving Honeysuckle hedge
As in “Artificer, think I’m drunk” Blue beaches of Eternity
Or “Artificer, arrest that dude” The sweetness of defeat
Nine-gauge font in a twelve-gauge intent The bitterness beneath
The Artifice has to heed the Artificer Just a dessert
The Center cannot hold its artshow (further evidence) Appearance remains flat
That’s nine-gauge overhead twelve says Yet it can never stop
She turned her Artifice toward the viewer Another 24 frames of it
To draw from Life’s to stroke & fondle Yield to another
Helps to know the halfway mark A stopsign with a snake
Might not turn out to mean exactly that Gradually becoming visible
Girl threatened by Minotaur The swamps are memory’s
(Not all that’s erased restored) The collapse of the atom
Bull gored by matador gores back The disintegration of peoples
Even Orpheus needs Dionysus The individual after midnight
Commit, submit, the vault of death Sullen on the ink raft
No page without its picture Rocks tossed at tanks
Depicting all it stands for & endures Feathers from a pillow fight
Postcard of a Buddhist monastery Fighting to be born
II professore chows down on his book Desperate to leave the promised land
It’s circular it must be heaven
Prudence retracting acting prodding
S for snake wrapped around stopsign
The pond they lounged round
The snake-bite she sustains while listening 39 “Accumulation makes it different”
The lead guitarist playing his heart out
Garden of Eden from above
Gray flower where some thought gay Accumulation makes it different
That devil could double in size One knows who one is
The wide blue yonder beckons Given a constant repetition
Last thing before the stainedglass windows Within a field of recognition
Some heroic battles & rescues
500 501
Unremarkable : You blinked Strongly attracted to same-sex members
Painted on a jar World Parnassians shall meet in “Conferences”
As if by a distorting mirror Clever sarcastic people make me feel uncomfortable
Snooze you lose paints You will be happy to see this book
A labyrinth on a coin Containing your brilliant poem
Foot on a drum That shall have its cherished reading
Hand holding a head By the generations to come
From the methlab next door I think Lincoln was greater than Washington
Read about in Leslie Hall I have seldom indulged in unusual sex practices
The monkey jumps up & down Should women not be allowed in cocktail bars
A woman hallucinates that she With their inspiring & enchanting poems
Gives birth then swoons away That shall be a legacy
Characters with limitations I think I would like the work as a dress designer
Defy them & percentages succeed Carrying the message of eternal value
“We can leave, we are sane” Beyond the boundaries of words
The rocks gleams light by the moon Of the promethean posterity
The long robe of the figure Questionnaire for security guards at Target
But not the one-plank bridge Solicitation letter from Dr. Ramasamy Devaraj D.Litt.
Ordering us to make her She Simply answer T or F
And She from all that we PLEASE SEND POEM, BIODATA
& TWENTY U.S. DOLLARS
“They cannot be treated as fungible objects”
40 Vacation’s Bright Idea
41 “That’s not tragic it’s inconvenient”
Vacation’s Bright Idea
I believe my sins are unpardonable
The BEST from POETS all over the world That’s not tragic it’s inconvenient
I have enjoyed being hurt by a loved one If it’s the mind we’re after
Kindly send me your BEST POEM of 30 lines If we’re not echoing chamberpots
No difficulty starting or holding my urine At the end of its tether one hopes
BIODATA of 50 words only “Got a good cause for singin’ the blues”
I would like to be journalist Nothing you can really use
The real legid(sic)slators of mankind Nothing finite except a body to bury
502 503
Two bunnies got hitched
Went to the beach
So now the mode changes. The length, space & time-wise, makes a difference. Too personal a tale
After the disaster of #40 the poet thinks “To hell with it. I’m going to stop A building is a picture
short if I want to.”This is a statement of esthetics . . . but then, so are all the You say I see
others. “Nothing finite except” — ! That’s one big exception, and it makes
us lonesome. They get nothing else, in any case! To the barricades I don’t
think! Call a spade a spade. And get Carol Lee Dodge back into print. Unless
it makes for a dither, this doing two things at once. Apprehending & naming
“things”. At least. 45 “How old is the swastika”
How old is the swastika
The charm bracelet
43 “We are the people that we used to be” Portable memories
The tattoo-like T-shirt
The little bird who tattled
We are the people that we used to be Two tees stuck together
Why aren’t we the people that we used to be Quel age a-t-il
Now there’s possibly no connection How old is the agitator
The habit of writing late at night How young is the teenager
Secures disintegration How old the flag’s meaning
Gaps represent the possibility of no connection Something beside patriotism
Hence all the trouble to which gone How long has she been banging
The invasions of the midgets On the floor & what for
The ones that can’t be eliminated How long has Coyote been ego
It’s a falling apart like dead tissue How long were you sleepy
to let the bones appear You who now sleep
Much gets refused on the instant How soon can you walk on
The computer generates this text Said someone in Manhattan
When the gray sky disappeared How long have you been
Objects lost in significance Something in petroleum
Sure of themselves these lines To chew on at a party
Don’t need to discuss anything Serve Roadrunner
Fake familiarity of language If one can be caught
Makes cowherds of coworkers
504 505
48 “In the interstices” 50 “Weighed down with sameness”
In the interstices Weighed down with sameness
How do things go wrong A character would self-erase
In a range where detail Sleep exerts its claim
Has much to do The phantoms walk
To exemplify thinking Or bed the characters bliss out
The feeling gathers When skies are gray or beige
Does daily = coherence And shape is a gray page
As pretty as a penis Truth = landscape = Mr. Blue
Hypervigilante nervosa Nothing left to do
Quex Road is in Kilburn Posthumous effects:
Near where he was born A sinking feeling
He was spotted walking on Alternative to happiness
While sleeping in America
By a man with a window The arm obeyed
That deterred his companion The screwdriver in the brain
While Di was blowing Charles “Change it!”
And only in a painting
It had to be removed Some word
HRH was coming any time now
Lines are planes & drop bombs For something that chooses
Trying to portray the night
But it kept getting dark
A house covered the street Wilder Penfield was tinkering with a brain. Subject’s arm slowly raised (as if
Spirit lives between lines in Nazi salute). “describe what’s happening.” “My arm is lifting”. “Tell it not
Thus there must be lines to”. The arm moved sideways and down. Where does the will live? While not
Which can’t be just anything exactly self-created, Mr. Blue (“oh, Mr. Blue . . .”) knows his real name. Did
Which no-one can deliver Creeley call his story that for that reason” Decide.
Week in Paris for a question
For a consideration
Hubris hubris hubris
Debris debris deblis
Morning morning morning
Evening Twilight Night
506 507
53 “The moment opes” 54 “Imagining no hell”
The moment opes Imagining no hell
Donations The first person didn’t know
A band of pain Where he’d been for 3 weeks
Band of silver Drug Paradise
The evening passes Sex at the expense of others
Go to sleep Who set their hearts on him
Regressive font (be tight There was a grandfather
back) distracts Giving away cadillacs
The nice man Who had to be restrained
An experiment Who had to be retrained
In animal living Imagining being someone
Thumb that swole up Discovered in an orchard
Ambushed by a feeling Handing out small sums
Hard to cling to the advance Promising much greater
A you going on sans its me “Same place, same time tomorrow”
Thrown in a deep narrow pit Yes Hell exists Lawrence
Com but no grinder Reframe button goes wild
Drastic love bereavement Yes Lawrence Hell exists
What is the good the preacher Street preacher going gaga
Demanded of the president Voice says “Poke it out”
We listened with our morals Voice says “Cut it off’
Wrapped in the flag Voice says “I am engagé
Of the country that bore us Lawrence Ecoutez-moi”
The thumb grew enormous Grace of God exists
In its lonely career of visiting the sick The whole shebang
Its homo sapiens grew ignorant In the human brain
With or without methedrine
Plus or minus caffeine
What had hitherto been “accidental” (= beyond control) is now worked with. Though perhaps marijuana
That’ll be the end of that! Paints it otherwise
Voice remarks meat-dolls
Happy with swarming flies
508 509
55 “Chains fit readily on wrists” Your nose to the wind
Mind what you’re about
Head cocked
Chains fit readily on wrists Remember circumspection
Ankles arms even thighs Check out the sell-by date
Will go around a waist also With other flowery phrases
Though need to be made longer Made for terrific entertainment
Will be strong can be stronger Meanwhile they stole him blind
Subject can’t go anywhere
Although eyes see further
Mind sees forever
Spirit is eternal
Thin parts of the human body 61 “When sky reflects in pool”
Cost little to secure
Iron is not in short supply
Although strong rope will do When sky reflects in pool
It is pool. The nude model
Is autoerotic. Hands run
over the hair of the thighs
As thought slinks backwards
56 Not so interesting From the eyes. When the blue
Reflect the brown they
Stay blue. When you torture
Not so interesting Another human being you
Watch out for admonitions Rely on the mind. The lion
Mene mene tekel upharsin Pounces & you go to sleep.
Signs of the times When he sings “I Surrender
Cassandras Dear” he isn’t surrendering
Mother Carey’s chickens To anyone but the songsmith.
Stormy petrel & man’s-hand clouds God gave him a tongue
Yellow flags & scarlet lights To locate the clitoris
Tocsin & drumbeat Which can never be just
Clues & premonitions Anyone’s. An argument runs
Beware Take care Heads up And hides in this. This is
Be on your guard The argument. L. Cohen
Keep your ear to the ground Didn’t approve of being
510 511
Characterized on a Need If the role could speak
Don’t Need You axis It would betray the drama
According to one interpretation Here is the drama
But why doesn’t desire age Here is what it represents
With age? Despised oldsters When the drama spoke
Humping in Winnebagos The hair stood up & clapped
Created this space where you The people leaped up & left
Can meditate on orgasm Time passed The sun set
Until you suddenly lose interest Night brought the blues
Because there is culture Along with musicians
Coming at the local opera The wine was reinforced
Of a highly political order The point of view defeated
Telling everyone Nice fit Phenomenology’s Austerlitz
Met its Waterloo
63 Why the Hurry
67 “Not much shape to this doughboy”
Why the Hurry
How did the God get into the matter Not much shape to this doughboy
What are we in the Middle Ages Plenty to the plasticene figure
Philosopher & then stone Giving birth & a handjob
Alchemists dimly perceive Auspicious signs on the palms
It’s not good enough Enabling numbering by epoch
Emphasize the word Meaningful While fucking in the “on-top”
When blowing the nose Likes her back walked on
The plane crash is coincidence Stones, sharks, cookie-spill
In the sense of Mere Basketball backboard at heart center
Standing on line very strange Barbells within cosmic spheroid
Big muscles attempting patience “I feel disconnected today”
Here is the coffin Sadness wells
Here is the bludgeon White horses doing 69
If the tombstone could speak In a watery zone
It would affirm its role A cast of petals flowers
512 513
consciousness a kind of typo of his computer screen, not unlike thick fog a light shines on. That much I
Might have been hypo recall. I driving a back road at night in such a fog. I can’t put that sort of stuff
See what sticks to the wall inside a poem. Makes me laugh in the wrong places Not that it’s a matter of
It was I, I, always I manners. Unless esthetics is manners, which I guess it is, can be, oughtn’t be.
The Fido Bandito Unless manners are generative, like rules for writing. Sex at the Masked Ball
The Scholar Gypsy kind of thing. Always leave the meaning between two lines or sentences of
Great grandmother Bengali not exactly its opposite. I write to dispel ignorance, get depressed when I see
Bisexual from birth where we’re going Nothing’s like anything. but the reverse is true. Why not
Respect all gods but one more depressed?
The Euro-American tradition
In art in politics in thought
Not anyone you might exclude
And stay on your moral highground
69 “This had been anticipated”
This had been anticipated
68 “Tule fog so thick” We had expected this
First he murdered his mother
Later he was rude to strangers
Tule fog so thick Another pronoun had sex
Harnessing comic energy
On yon silver screen When you open a book
(Quand on...) you look
But a part of the row To see the radiant line
Rising up from groin to skull
d From skull to ceiling
Of a person one may yet meet
Glimpse Were the world circle-like
And we looking up or down
d The island continent’s zones
Energy fields & atmosphere
A shimmering sun at center
Elliptical in the Chinese manner. Leaving everything out. Couldn’t say it Stands in for a shimmering sign
slowly enough, couldn’t write slowly enough, couldn’t think slowly enough to Xmas-tree with double-headed axe
more generously make it apprehensible The poet was struck with the radiance Figure who walked splat into wall
514 515
Leaving a face-sized circle of red It is impossible to say
All the coins fit in one small chest Of shadows with absolute certainty
If one side matched the other
You would be hideous, handsome
These arcs would lead back home
And soon you too would be alone
70 “Inside & outside coincide”
Inside & outside coincide
She squats on the lingam
The painting had lines
The way a page has print
They sailed their boat there
The newspaper-heads did
Touching the top of the head
With the tip of the thumb
Breathing in while counting
Breathing out while forgetting
Some I sat under a parasol
Stuck in a rock & regarded
The sea under the sun
Touching the heart with the palm
Reciting seven syllables
We found to be nonsense
Quite elegant nonsense
Committed to memory
It dwells in the gap
There where their hands
Elegant animals on the wall
Point out the light-source again
They look at the bodies naked
516 517
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS from T AS IN T AS IN TETHER
from As in T as in Tether X as in xenophile
Y as in yellow
Zed as in canada
Z as in zoological
1: T As In Tether
T as in Tether (2)
T as in Tether (1)
T as in tether
E as in tether
A as in alphabet T as in tether
B as in baffled H as in tether
C as in congress E as in tether
D as in delicate R as in tether
E as in elephant
F as in fornicate
G as in grass
H as in hands-on
I as in idiot 3: Establishing
J as in jouissance
K as in kitchen
L as in laminate Poem Beginning with a Line by Pindear (1)
M as in melody
N as in never
O as in ocean A mattress factory explodes
P as in parentheses Then the ticking is noticed
Q as in quiver This is called establishing
R as in river Excitement goes control
S as in shiver Take this apart take time
T as in tether This is the pleasure spitball
U as in underground Swimming from the hips
V as in vehicle The Count-on-it effect
W as in writing We derelicts squat our time
518 519
Resembles the ruined halls Defeat’s Deafears (2)
For-the-duration embraces
Narrative’s arch uncertainties
Hand me that thorazine
And are you there listening I want to read something
That’s what I have to trust That has me in it
This is establishing us As I am establishing
Both puddles in a sea of faces I am even as I read
Deep enough to dr — swim in By glomming on to someone
Our initializing had to abstract You offered (the tape’s erased)
What it was as ticking presence Hello are you there
To what the world can talk about Hello is that you you
An event worth photographing Poetry the theory of heartbreak
Developing then printing time Precisely why one cannot
We can’t be wasting since it’s us Exactly what one wants
Eats us then spits this out
Grow up o mewling brat
You walk I sit you hear I talk Sotto voce & aside
Hands are restless otherwise busied Invent the god
Words all over everywhere as it Creating this feeling
Sentences them to say lonely Called his world his work
In paragraphs named loneliness Or hers say hers
Our lives watch one another I will this god
Deed that was wanted That like a kitten
Hearts break guts ache boredom Clinging to your shirt
That can’t call back elation Nurture or hurt
Would recall high disjunction to We never were alone
Explode: Euphoria alone makes life In the past of our illusion
Worth enduring the establishing
Wake of our illusion
Lyric repetition
I am Regret & god
Allows no other pet
They think we can’t
Think straight think straight
(I know your listening)
520 521
I know how to spell He’s kitten to whose coat
The mystery of my feelings
I am Elated & god Make new but keep the same
Allows me to protect her Bottle over here
And that’s no lie! Else it’s all ‘Dear reader,
Here’s a sentence you can recognize,
You wrote it yourself
Just until you died’
O for a long drink of you dear reader
A Location (3) The neighborhood of poetry’s parched
The humdrumming ears
The creaking trees or in their leaves
Below those tall trees Put down their roots
Below those redwoods pines & firs Stand tall, & have no expectations
In which birds gather
Where Cattle Egrets creak & roost
Where eerie shapes at twilight
Where ghostlike spread wings
Underneath that silence & that clatter Utterance: A Location (4)
At one end of history of art
This part of the blue band goes dark
Where sits the house our house my house The poetry of this situation
Lit where upstairs a human girl Is one of utterance
Downstairs a human male who writes Literacy interrupts
With its demands
Elsewhere to this location For unreal space
Her mother drives, his wife Literacy-demands create
A history of friends We utter to initialize
Breathing & driving High-end disjunction
Blood throughout his being (What a lot of i’s)
A history of family Asides establish function
Feet on the floor is cold but there Reassure the stranger
Is cold but here Where utterance is danger
Is cold but here
But hear, but hear One finds assurance in
Re-lo-cate, the word Things or what seem things
522 523
Ticking narratives, images like slippers Could be before me very now
One lights the pipe of myth How on your serious face
With the Bic of current reference The feelings trace their courses
As the banked fires of grammar Muscles nerves & brain
Wreathe with smoky sentences If only I were free to be that one
The sleep of the observer Uh To witness how that face
Hungry physicalities
Under the dirty truth Cracks near in two
Civ. makes society tell At some diverting foolery
Hot love alone dispels Smile that rises from the sorrow depths
Surrendering inevitable
But has ecstasy of being Knowledge saying I accept
Do you remember it Time to establish this :
Union a rush Not I am with you as you read
Or has a kiss Nor I am obviously not
(Draw lips at peace Won’t slight the chaos
Then underneath, 9-point, write You arose from as from Naples’ Bay
wow) The day , another line of letters
However, life goes on In evening’s shadows brailed
(‘Is that what it does’)
Art speaks of art to If only the word Soppy
Mart to Meet Would bug off & let me
To Hurt (the birth of Heart) Flow over to you vulnerable
This world that is terrible
Beyond all measure
And we who need a center
As a poem needs a spine
Poem Reading a Line by Duncan (5) Knew & not guessed victory
But my sense of you vulnerable
That is my own stays home
If only my sense of your being vulnerable Duncan my friend is gone
Could reach out and enfold you Who reached across me so I saw the table
Sit across the table
Or side-by-side above a book
If only that look of yours
Someone would study
524 525
Not Myself Tonight (6) To shut you up safe
From the harm you might do
It’s all been established
For you I would disobey That it’s what was thought
The edict to enjoy myself It was by people like us
That always-already happened
Sensing the explosion
Then a phrase with mattress under it
In disobedience a dread
In dread I read Encrypted at the Center of the Labyrinth (7)
For you I have transgressed
Standing orders to get horizontal
Too dear for me to nullify It clicks it purrs it shrieks
Living now in an apartment First person meantime pumps away
In my head always-already thine As if a civic installation
Shunted blood of Adonis
This is my swollen head Through the town as through my mouth
Then note the distance Made to call a spade a spade
It seems exceptional Beauty beauty love love
Placed between you & me In this shape of form
Hot blood, proud flesh Clicks interest purrs liking
Transubstiantated Shrieks No No Not love
We can never get where In the ruins of all we hold dear
We were on the instant Waiting as the letters appear
Initializing recognized
Zig-zag geezer & zygote Levitated to their screen by
Surpassing their final At sight of you my spirit lifts
Demeanings You or your trace, still lifts
Pressure of shape presence of police state
It seems phenomenal Signature on a dotted i
This intangible transport Spirit turns to weight
E=ABC Your face, your face
This seems intelligible Against a thousand years
Category thus pre-existent Instruments begin to play
For you I scour the planet The lyrics stem from a law all their own
You well might allege Using linguistics
526 527
Using flesh & air Dancxing is dio? xionxept
Talking while cannibals’urn sreetr ibtoi abarris, mjusnuáphnas
Effervescence foments champagne
Weddings & affairs
Tactile celebrants tongue nipples This aural-visual piece was discovered on my computer next morning,
I have mine in yours following an attempt to write after taking a Temazepam spansule to quell
Only in your dreams buster footpain. Regard it as an Entr’acte. These poems have to do with verb
I’ll walk with you becoming noun, with locating the tether (which a plinth surely is), and
Enjoying our height domesticating impulse. (D.B.)
Hands occupied with swinging
Balance everpresent
A purpose obviously
Twenty years ago
Two years, one month, today Off Center Center (8)
Your impulse v. my habits
Signs of trouble multiplied
Vase of Fresh Language, on Entropy Plinth (7.5) I can’t knowing your pawing
Concentrate and anger mounts
Invading the final mission
The other has been ingested The desecrated threshhold
I stand in the safeway & smile Not easily spelled from memory
Looking at I dunno what its mincemeat Trespass not easily dispelled
The other’s inside, trusted I am not who you hoped
White sparrow in old tree Plagues us both in this pass
Snake stones in the cold desideratum The word emergency is used
Society calls mind, & we call shots I stop to print it out viscera
We walk together side by side
Liking our heights, our gaits Have the last word
Something to do together Heard before they flung me
So we won’t go gaga Here in this pit
over pipeline Deep in the Bible
Belting me to sense
Snake eyes enthralls Naked I confess
The vuu’sa lue bals” To being au fond happy
528 529
And sorry for myself Built on , but not our, survival
Because memory says bored
Regressed to two, can’t read But it is not our will
Too young to know this isn’t Nor are we guilty of it
General experience Clerodendrum Glory
Bower potted in a store
And this pit not the world Ablaze with being here
Nor on the wall, this fly But the syllables of power
All God offers us to watch Imposed infect the language
Nor Time this fly That would declare in clearest prose
This elevator shaft We are exonerate & exculpate & able
That goes both ways Jointly to resist they have our tongues
Not always stuck on “B” No need of redhot pincers nor blunt knives
The family that left me We are made selfish petty jealous by theirs in our lives
In this safe place
Might one day return, retrieve Grudge & begrudge, the holy partners
Inflict the agony of rescue Come lodge here in my house
Since God’s the surprise of other ways The rent is steep
You’ll hate to pay it
That should keep your hearts in the right place
Tired of just getting by
A circulatory system headed for the morgue
Awake, I Cry Out to You, My Killer (9) Tongue that learned love
Around the damask nipples
Whose wakening felt great
I know you Great & strange, alarming
Remember how we were Terrifying, overwhelming, poetry
As blind ones mind the light
Born to be dead
We dying live
As if by act of will
To share the common fate “Then he was led, blindfold, into the predicate” (10)
This planet slaves crawl over
Maggots on a bright idea
Called ownership & profit From nearby hill looked down
Twin pyramids To see Jerusalem, the idea
530 531
Not the rotten sacred thing A Spell (11)
History had made of it for MBB
A place where tribes
Celebrated lightning
Striking the ammonia And so the band plays on.
This is not science The pianist is rapt.
Nor memory a test The score talks back.
Jism in the ova Half got by heart, half
Delight to penetrate, enfold Incoming. Light
Pulse release & clutch In small circles
On these familiar
Be reconciled Squiggles rendering
As consequence requires Each here a vessel
If one can do it Sensously readied,
Jesus me you Buddha A receptacle
Then it is possible Where feeling rushes up
The realm that terrifies
The unlived given life Or in, at the clever hands
History would take Of this notorious
And go on taking Quartet. Outside
How much more can we take The sky at night at
And go on talking Solstice, no different
How we can talk To my eye than ten
Years ago this date,
Walking in our sleep their sleep Filled then with the resolve
What should be free made cheap To see it through,
Words that are enough This composition
Forced into pictures That shows me how
The pictures they would leave Myself has altered,
Now their painted lips move
And can speak thoughts An old man’s feet
Not realized till now To walk on, an aging
Step out of that frame Face the major key
Tear free of that backing To what’s not changed,
It’s your only chance Although beside me sits
To start establishing your big mistake A daughter nearly grown,
532 533
And next to her, a man Shuffle memories
Recalling all he didn’t To deal another time
Find time or shape for,
All he gave up for this, The very hands
Pebbles in the pitcher We watched them play,
Till the brim is reached Marveling
At all each didn’t see,
The only time around
One goes. Remembering
Ganesha, who discloses
E is for Elephant (12) The experimental
Union of individual
With the Divine
Establishing a code, Fails or succeeds,
And G is for Ganesh; Litters & lights up
Lie down, my life, & let me
Kneel on you. Said Karen:
The dictionary
Had a lot to say
The day we broke its spine. While You Were Out (13)
H that might have been
Heaven, has stood instead
For Hell, while I By the time you realize it,
Indictating Idiot Bad luck is something else.
Issuing edicts, insisted You wuz robbed. Then
Let’s look at the song
I knew what I was doing. You sold your life for,
J means jilted What a fool
Future : K means You turned out to be.
Karen, whose success His eyes, just a little bit
Mocks mine. Back Bluer, his heart, just
Thus to L, A little bit
Trapped in a code. Truer: it’s you!
Yet L’s for lore also, That’s who, that’s
An accomodation
Where the old contenders Who robbed you blind!
534 535
It’s all there still! A sterner person, more opaque,
The tears you cried Requires more baffles
Over you! The time To avoid imposing
You did under you! In the place of art, whereas
Your guilt for these I always was
Crimes against yourself You, whoever, although
Has been established! You with a funny way
You are hereby ordered About your her or him,
To pay restitution! To Of that, as of so little
Yourself no less!
You get to keep it all! Else, no doubt. This
Excursus is excused?
*** A poet without a hit
Since ’72 but
Supplied emphasis Good with audiences,
Aside, we’ll try A Wayne Newton.
Quiet reasoning. Those birds Even with that one
You figured were just I’ll feel identity.
Passing through, continue Think of me as a glass
Making quite a mess. Filled with wine,
People lie on your lawn supine Gin, scotch, or pipe
Studying them since Stuffed with sensamilla,
You leave the gate ajar because
The handyman wasn’t You’ll feel better
So handy anymore, & you, Anyway, because
Artist, study reclination. You are that jolly soul,
I’m purely agency, a mind massage
Asking no more than
Think me, to be yourself.
Writ on liquid,
Cullenders & Cheesecloth (14) Contract on withdrawal,
Expansive on request.
Now don’t say you
The self is porous Haven’t been warmed,
If it’s you in the sense of Filtering this strain
Me we’re looking through.
536 537
“In Mohammedism there is Much of Mysticism” (15) She has no penis.
We sit still for this
A dozen times a day.
But more of ems. And the self, an old Greek says,
Sound that mumbles mother, As it discloses, closes over.
Milks her dry. Hi.
Most of these
Passers-by drew nourishment
Through those small holes,
Hard on the heels of
Thrusting themselves through 4: Authenticizing
A naked woman’s cunt. Pardon
My French. Covered in
Blood. Excuse me. Screaming Coming Out of the Ether (1)
Took the place of moaning
Or hers, or theirs? A woman Every six months shove steel into me.
Opens to the world Use all the locals you want (please)
Anyone’s first doorway It’ll still unify me
Threshhold slick with tissue. By pinning my many in
Forgive me, please. But Authentic selves to the single thing
Here we are, showered They’re only shadows of.
Shaved & clad Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell hysteria,
In consciousness, Everyone was singing the same song,
Smoking cigarets And it wasn’t in my dreams
For the distance that they set Where I’ve been seeing you.
Between us curious It’s like being told
Critters. Or with mouths I’m harboring a fatal disease,
But more so, much
Veiled, Hair
Covered or otherwise And yet not at all, much
Removed, disguised. Better. It’s like real
Or disguised by hair, Sex but not much like that either.
Or otherwise Just that it makes me sane.
Cosmeticized. On TV Why bother adding that
She’s going to reveal Is only a feeling?
538 539
It’s like being Creeley On the vice-consul’s BMW.
Or really any of those people Remember
Turning eighteen during WW II, To show the movement of the thought.
Part of a giant Chance December
Sink or swim so they swam. Where following orders got me.
Put their queer shoulder
To the general wheel. More track each Xmas
Beside the neat brick bits of wall,
The name of the foundering The viridian shrubs as in
Vessel’s “Leviathan.” ‘Shruburbs.’ Attics
Captains of industry That only exist on
In the lifeboats first, Rainy days. Hands
And money is that industry, that lift & fall for you,
Leaving us breathless. Hair that only grows
You, me, & our friend M. For some cause
As for our particulars, Best forgotten, & isn’t it,
Send your blank checks Here at Rackrent Castle.
C/o Søren Kierkegaard, Mother’s, as you’ll see
101 The Dell, Walnut Creek. When you step outside
We’ll be the view from his deck.
Scalpel. On Frosty Friday. Darling
But then your hair
As I smooshed your cheek
Was in my mouth. I
Knew you so well at this stage
Try to Speak Without Leaping (2) You could have been
Just anybody.
I let you suck the lollypop
Have a good time. Fuck you. Praying there were rules,
The tunnel held a throbbing train. That you knew them both.
Thoughts were thought. Teacher takes us for a walk
Sitting doing nothing To see the old classics
While someone is farming But really to handle the picket fence.
Or is he drowning in that irrigation
Scheme. Take or leave it
And the icicles landed
540 541
A Language Not All Ours (7) Is going down. Feed BBy.
Executor: Burnaby? Barnaby? What Baby?
Rain cleans the cobblestones
The animals that live And rusts the knives.
Pasted to the desert floor Excitement wins hands down.
Make it less silent, Patient employment has them next,
The silence more menacing. Tess in winter in the turnip field,
We lie in the sand with our clothes off: Static camera, middle-distance shot.
Breezes caress the genitals.
That’s why those hairs there,
Selected for by people
We’ll never fuck. This poem
Concerns the imagination, Blue Fucking Moon (8)
A large sexual organ
But not purple yet
Equally impatient of contradiction. Just once
That an other
Speaking for myself, On same wavelength
Someone from steerage said, S
I sail by intuition. A
This is the rigidest method. T
Unopen as it is to further feedback. I
A redbearded man of sixty S
Sitting in a garden near the Lido reading F
Was Pound in just one sense, I
He looked like him and was there. E
Desert animals are lookalikes. S
We wish they looked like us One
And vice versa. Change:
Some great locations here already, As to that condition
So that
Images are language too. Like a month
A readbearded man of sixty With two full moons
Singing in a garden Like a whole
Is a monster, monstrance, With two full units
Dernier cri: My underland One knows
542 543
Inescapably Alluded to it, this instance
A larger one Of unattributable authorship,
Within which GGK,
One is In this materialisation torn &
Indubitably
The big baby In tatters, 1950 reprint
From the 1940 edition
Allowably Bought by me in 1962,
The big baby Min forste år på UC Berkeley,
Beloved For Paul Piehler’s seminar.
As “For the hede in his honde
That He haldez vp euen” :
Welcomed Dass ist gut, nicht wahr?
As Dass ist sehr rolig,
That Mycke mycke, men
Needed Before I thought this
As That I’m tedding out
That What had been there?
Big Baby
Forever listening through the words Volume tall, compact,
Cover faded, corners foxed,
Still held together, open up,
my notes scrawled
In among und über Alles,
ni le hairbrush ni le toilet-seat (11) Self at 28, qui se commence
“Scholar & poet “
Mais l’un (eller både!)
Mais ce livre-la Sous rature, life I was,
Som är blå men Inscribed throughout,
Very light, if sky “A meruayl among pe menne,”
Then the Himmel This book, c’est moi!,
Before the passing Age The author still unknown.
Of Fossil-Fuel. This book
Taken off the shelf
Le premi\ere fois en plusieurs ans,
Før att någon på ett List
544 545
A Course in Miracles (15) What life is really like,
Continual disappointment,
Until discrete, then
Hello, this is the english Perfect as could be.
Language greeting. English Mating season unending,
Is the most widespread, Undeclared. Human enters
And I was born to speak it. Human, avenges being born.
Hello, I am you, Enters humanity, this known.
Compared to a seaslug.
Oxygen in the air
Becomes blood in the brain,
Able to state the obvious.
That the heavenly bodies
Wheel through our view
Of the heavens. That
Sight grows on the skin
And skin feels electric
To the delicate touch.
Music gives the ear
A reward for listening.
Foodstuffs aplenty
Await us. Enter.
Growing within a body
Like ours we got
Big, Got
Coordinated.
Language waited, too,
Sounds like Mama and Goo,
Words like Antidisestablishmentarianism,
Mouse, Febrile, Sperm.
Concepts like Randomness
And the possibility of logics.
Water, swim; Fire,
Piss on it. A man says
546 547
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS from INDICTABLE SUBORNERS
from Indictable Suborners humor, frozen censure, a remark to suck on until, reaching home, the rough
stuff of the stick thickens against the tongue, and the tongue occupies its
accustomed position in the head, suddenly conscious of the trailer in its mist.
Offspring waiting to begin pumping pictures into stalled cars while forbidding
anyone in uniform from watching them inhale in Potter’s Valley. Yes, a
demonstration — we come to ourselves in the middle of the arbitrary (itself an
arbitrary locus) — yet the integrity of an artwork posits demonstration, in the
Indictable Suborners way it stands for the hand that wrote it, the head that read. Questioning the
necessity of a cause, that whatever begins to exist must have a cause of
existence, one of those maxims impossible for us in our hearts to really doubt,
And hands comb some one annual rainfall in the silence after laughter in no matter the air of citation suggests a bank of irony offshore, one discovers in
Brandenburg. In the unlikely event, lust for salvation woos the marginals, it no mark of any such intuitive certainty and bursts into tears in Redwood
looking for some surrogate Sunday won’t remove come Monday. City. Only those thoughts are true, which fail to understand themselves; while
Contemplative, one head high on an ash-heap is in a telegram by way of Hello if all is rather difference, and such be asserted, Child Roland to the Back Door
from Doncaster. The recurrence tells itself over and over, it makes part of the came. Suffering beneath a pronoun and taking dictation, even as Chance rose
instant, recognition. Event and clarity shake and make up in clear weather naked into the breeze again, so the new strike went well down the pike a piece,
some little distance from the center of Fenwick. If we witness our world every a fellow comparing wrenches failed to remark how Ron passes through
evening from the remove of its circumference, how are we identical with Toronto. The diction, dating itself, aligns through rime and propinquity
ostlers in jodphurs when the iamb kept hoofing it along? Gluing frames of actions not elsewise perceived — but by whom? — as outdated, its end
film together, an editor means to indicate either the passage of time or instruction pleasurably formed. Unless one has seen such with her or his own
simultaneous occurrences in Hooverville. The pattern of the kitchen linoleum eyes, a person pitching pebbles (up to one pound!) at a passing BMW means
was identical with that in the house she had grown up in, the bright patter she little besides tedious agreement in Vukovar. This is more a means of
kept up lulling analytic thought and usurping the role of the agent, a knowledge than representation. Wang, goes the wire, and Wieviel Uhr ist es,
conniving at their own victimization. In the past, people drew dots forever one wonders, half-aloud, half to oneself, staggering through the old German
before the comma came in a small boat, a skull for a tiller so that the man Quarter of what once was Shanghai. This is to form private spheres out of
handling it painfully imagined a ton of trouble to share with the place-name of global chaos, if the reader has come to such despair since skipping breakfast,
Linnah. The tidy habit of sound relations emblemizes inertia, surrender given that perfect presence and regressive yearnings bunk down in the same
whereto renders sexual intercourse, tennis, domestic bickering and soccer equation. Yes, the luckiest periods for art and poetry are those when a great
nothing if not irresistible. Kicked out of bed for having a job, the farmhand civilization verges on decline, when the vital force of it all meets with
attempted to murder his alarmclock in an attic in Licata. Autobiographical historical conditions which cede their appropriateness to it, but it is still intact
writing — I go to the bank every Friday — depends for its esthetic merit (how to measure?), for one moment, in the sphere of spiritual creativity, and
completely upon the perspicacity of the person, unless objective truth has gives its last full fruit (where are the songs of Spring?) there, while the
meant for her liquidation in the sensation of a current event extraordinary freedom of poetry avails itself of the decay of social disciplines and ethos (how
enough to hypnotize anyone. Mailclerks, whose families should receive free the forest floor was formed), one realized on his way to the bank in
stamps, eat the general rule as one licks the flap of the moment that lifts the Zelenogradsk. Cognition requires exaggeration. At the guest-giving-garden,
flab of Nailville. Names are frozen laughter, social distancing, quiet good Utopian translation, sunning herself over coffee laced with brandy, which real
548 549
life can never equal for attractiveness (since writing has no kidneys, no liver), Logically fallacious, the argument that an indeterminancy principle implies
she talked a mile a minute to an earnest realtor who had mistaken her for the the existence of a specific value of a dynamic variable for a physical system
client who was failing to keep an appointment (but who undoubtedly was whose quantum state is not an eigenstate of the hypermmaximal Hermitean
someplace!) to shove the deal into (dark, ragged, cawing term) escrow in operator representing this variable in the formalism of the theory swayed a
Atwater. The fool’s the horse. Believing himself an outspoken irrationalist, cogitator in Mogadouro. Looking up with a head full of ulls, to see the pattern
moving in a series of sentences that lacked definiteness, independence, and of viridian leaves and blanched blossoms on the folding screen Jim
clarity, their effect rather that of Victorian poetry than Jamesean prose, and carpentered and Terry decorated Nodding in the halflight (nodding at all), the
communicating needs as though these were moods that periodically explode ikons looked uncommonly tall, while a rat with a sail attached (how to enjoy
into insights not propositions, that hang together logically and imply a one’s cruelty and benefit humanity at the same time) to its tail looked to be
conclusion, asserting things must be taken by storm and while the intelligence wearing the master’s toga, and the commemorative trees, under which it was
is thrust outside of itself by (like) an act of will, moved by elan vital (Eileen once possible to holler and be heard, as if people could lengthen their arms by
Vitale) far more (farmor) basic than knowing, flotsam in an unceasing, misspelling anatomy, and palms do wave in Odessa. THIS SENTENCE
continuous, undivided (practically redundant) process, a sort of cosmic HAVING RESOLVED AT THE OUTSET TO MAINTAIN
movement of which we are expressions rather than parts, a man stands UPPERCASE CONSISTENCY WHATEVER THE PROVOCATION
perusing a goodbye note from his mate in Cedar Rapids. Next day she came DENIES ITSELF THE INTRICATE DELIGHTS OF LITTLE A AND
back — why? Declaring it behooves an objectivist to show significant LITTLE G. Perhaps he had gone too far, mused an unmetaphorical fellow in
disanalogies between here and now, he made a consistent error in Ethelbert. (or no longer in) Quebec. “The Ritz-Carlton was one of your older, grander
These hands have led as often as they’ve followed is a rough arithmetic, a rude hotels, dark with chaste opulence, and at the reception, an Italian friend from
mathematic to reject the dichotomy of reality and appearance in an attic former times took my hand and literally hung on to it for half an hour if you
insulated while Husserl was still inhaling then electing to exhale. Finally can believe it, looking into my eyes while his wife and my husband . . . in
(finally [finally]), continuity at last (at last [ditto]) found (located [discovered]) short, wherever one goes, given it’s ME, the same slightly manic bag of
asylum (refuge [shelter]) in ([no] wiser for its arrival) Geyserville. My body is brightness imparts a tint of identity to whatever else discoverable was there by
not an object, but a condition of objectivity bleeding piles in print in Santa getting others to trust ME sufficiently to hear some version of the event which
Barbara, bookstores across the whole bloody territory, with shelves, bins, fails to place ME stage center, an unlikely yet highly desirable direct
completely vivid prior to the circulating words, the names of colors (red, quotation. Right on, and one tried hard, to derive the irreversibility of entropic
brown) that might (purple, blue) or might not (scarlet, indigo) strike a processes from a modified version of the second law of thermo-dynamics
prelexical attention. He hissed this at the geese crossing the barnyard in before the Royal Irish Academy, unsuccesfully, in Sligo. Went to the mall and
Iseltwald. The rhythmical creation of beauty makes of intellect and conscience thought, these multivalent voices are the brooks in William Wordsworth’s
mere collateral relations: my grandfather doffed his hat to reveal a books; came home and imagined Theodor Adorno catching Sebastian from
considerable baldness to the woman he wanted to impress: logorrheia has its Brideshead Revisited on Love Boat with two chimps in his bed. Tundra
poetry also, and hard to spell it is: we will bury the meditative practices of possesses a charm entirely its own, carrying a conversation away with itself in
those foreigners in Iowa: dialectic thought undermines pseudo-naturalism: Underhill. One can be ignorant of one’s own thoughts until expressed
this is reality while I am saying so. Jagged streaks lit up the sky in the dark (Wittgenstein) but few will prove that perspicacious, and this suit of clothes is
eyes of one whose duty it is to wake the condemned on the day of execution in going to have to last him after he’s dead. Visible to no-one, a beckoning youth
this compelling novel set in Kakamari. Inevitably a narrative movement — winced with the iciness as he placed his other foot into the identical river one
how else to get from blind obedience to aware resistance, when the lids fit? foot already stood in, near Wilderness Peak. That clock so long in the family
550 551
its ticking feels part of the home is a machine. Shouting because by the red the husband who ditched her by writing about their life together, but realizing
stairs a glad smile cranked itself up to resemble the first letter of the fist, the that his greater flaws all have a flamboyance about them that might win him
pyromaniac of an instant struck match after match on an apparently sympathy, finds herself constrained to the twin dodges of sentiment and the
permanent structure in expressionistic Yountville. On Fridays I go to the trivial, so that her readers will come away from her book wondering what she
bank, and am pleased to observe that, since I complained about them to the saw in him and deciding she wasn’t really very interesting; this could only
metermaid, the phone company’s trucks are no longer parked all day long on happen in Quito. He tapes their loudnesses of early morning (power-saws,
overdue city meters with orange cones in the street to confuse the citizenry of powermowers, power-drills) and plays them back out the window with the
a place (Santa Rosa) provincial enough to still care about such minor effects. volume all the way up at midnight. Rascals festoon the maples with tp on
Bra-stripes distinguish these elegant models, studying to marry indolent to Graduation Night in Saskatoon. Drunk on religion, the born-agains wake the
insolent, learning to manifest the hic of haeccity someplace downtown in an neighbors’s baby as they leave the (illegal — check the zoning) group home
anonymous settlement in early Minoan Aegea. Was I surprised to see the chanting “Stand up, stand up for Jesus” while through the baby’s father’s
spider had spun her web from the tv cable to the top of the neglected hedge! brain runs the phrase Shut up, shut up for Christ’s sake. Tux adjusted, the
But what does not change could prove the will to change the topography of tenor hums under his breath (“Falling in lurv is jurst an infantile fahancy”)
Cutknife. Irony, the name for the gap between ideology and reality, finds itself preparatory to entertaining the human beings of a service club in Uxbridge. I
anathematized, telling through its suppression a truth about the present. sat for one hour, studying the candle burn down in the skull; then the lights
Directly as the horse fails to pass the post first a cynic will silently rise to walk came back on. Verlfication means the same in Paris as it means in Wellington.
away into the slums of Eisenach. He wanted people to feel happy when they The translator, having weighed the conflicting demands of his task,
saw him, and wondered that they would leave a piece of lumber leant up remembered the word “version” and relieved his sigh of a heave. Xenophobia
against the inside of a door he could be expected to enter by For dinner steadied the hand and aim of the follower of the bearded prophet in Yemen.
tonight there will be ham and eggs in Gore. Slapstick’s galactic acid sans The clear expression of mixed feelings was frequently what we were after.
intellection. Hints of the new burst into a linguistic atlas (alas) wearing Zero either leads to further instances of itself, or back to the beginning.
winklepickers in Innishull. You moralhunters may regard this as a sugar- Actually, the expression “Yes” (why gag when you acquiesce?) has fans who
coated pill but you are seeking a sermon not an artwork. Judging by certain excuse themselves from attending the premiere because they need to ruminate
physical laws, a person is about to stride down to the pump, fill his or her pail on life since the Flood, until they get down to their underwear and start
with water, then spin said pail rapidly but unintentionally on its axis, said spin exchanging that, more in secret than in earnest, as the scene files silently by
to be imparted via the normal carrying motion, until said motion is gradually that inner eye that makes for a failed revolutionary a chesterfield into a
communicated to its contents, causing these to recede from the center and to monument of bliss in Barrow-in-Furness. Marmoreal splendor for an
assume a concavity of surface in, nevertheless, Kunkletown. The itchy patch alabaster episode. Carefully examining the levels of 17 hydro-oxy-corti-co-
on today’s hand is yesterday’s poison oak. Lissome lovelies hoist Mooseheads steroids in the urine of very old persons, working around the clock, the doctor
in Missoula. “The cult of lyric poetry, whose pretense to escape social found a statistically insignificant shift in the normal circadian rhythms, and
penetration . . .”: self-ignorance shot him to success. No range has been disappointment perturbed his REM sleep in Darien. Life, that dome of
established for the dissemination of the doctrine of innate ideas, and this many-colored glass staining the white radiance of Eternity, now appeared to
troubled a head in the Orange Free State. What methodology can be adequate him as an inescapable narrative movement negotiating with a silent partner
to its object, when we know that its object is only relevant because it incites who spent all of his time spaced out in a kind of Kim’s game. Entering the
another object, later to be termed the end, and whose qualification is a elevator without pausing to let those inside first step out, the visitor from the
metonymic equation with the original? Piqued, a novelist is getting even with capital introduced the latest to the provincials of Federal, Wyoming.
552 553
Prevented by his sleeping offspring from listening to the Allman Brothers City. But all writing IS spelling, except for the illiterate oral tradition! Sanskrit
turned all the way up doing their rendition of “Southbound”, the nocturnalist says he did going not he went; you’re the one who goes not you will go; the
noticed the shrieks and howls of birds and dogs, the yowls of cats, and breeze blew a book shut not he lost his place in Tanglewood. Identity and
wondered once more whether that was true, i.e. scientifically correct, or only a difference: the conjunction alone is hypothetical, a pole attached by struts, we
poetic figure, about the open mineshaft and the stars viewable at midday. trust and posit, to the double helix. Urine trickles down the leg of a person
Giddily, they agreed: objects in space may be said to derive their boundaries historically present in the intense preoccupation of a doorway in Voorst. At
from coexistence and intervals in a homogoneous medium; yet the unfolding bottom critical of lifethat’s the remotest meaning of the infinitive to celebrate.
of consciousness lacks these properties; psychic states we never experience as Which way (quo vadis) was it to be taken, this barbaric (unexamined)
simultaneous, alongside each other; these tend to blend rather than be discrete assumption that this civilization was on the edge of barbarism, somewhere
in their apparent succession; which is more of a mutual penetration, jungle between Sharon and Sherman? Possum had stopped pretending to pretend.
become punctuation: therefore the accused, determinism and mechanisticism Yellow, stain, in the sibilantly liquid labyrinth where first leaves developed
notwithstanding, is dynamically innocent and should and should not be into a hefty standoff between the negative, which precedes, and the print, if it
punished for those developments and hesitations attendant upon his encounter succeeds, driving its overdraft to the station where interest is to be transferred
with persons of punitive bent in a 2-bedroom, 2-bathroom home with study/ from intention to effect, and from where we live (unless there already) to
den in Hidden Valley. Three dried barleycorns = one inch, and a foot is a foot. Zurich, where quite arbitrarily (capital has been shifted with possible
Impossible, to be plastered to the planet where everything she had ever felt capriciousness) the esthetic stutters and autobiography recalls the mosquitoes
picked up its mail, and to be clearing its throat as the boat quite rapidly of Rapperswill, dismissing the foetal fiction concerning Jung’s dreams that
foundered, was a passing reflection on a river in Jimma. The supported forms summer becoming those of my mother trudging up to Cricklewood (the creek
glide lithely in the medium, only what comes to be viewed as the point of it all by the wood) with the other mums (fret not in their narrow British shops)
withheld, mimesis of continuation, not to strop the razor of finitude on the with two shopping bags while hers filled with towers and medieval junk more
strap of rude necessity until after breakfast. Kibbitzing pronouns displayed generally and electing instead to mention my stepmother for no other reason
their privilege and the National Geographic summarized Libya. Everybody than she lived there, to the destruction of symbolism, and the advent of
who is anybody (anybody who is everybody) who has eyes to see (who has to
see eyes) and money to travel can study some figure of justice (and justice to adrets: lose
study can travel some figure of money), but why be so agreeable? Muttering all your plastic
matters if knotting matters in unraveling nonsense in Nottingham. Does it to shed identity barely
feel right to bypass understanding with only the ragged half of a C-note in the redefines drastic: bad
handsomely tooled is it a pocketbook or a wallet? Ought the forms of thought
be available to be bought, in their translucent pervasiveness, or ought...but the news attends any
octogenarian trailed off into an instance of obliviousness in Port Moresby activity in matters
Terrorists insist on consensus, and would make of these happenstances castric: at this tree
exploded examples, but if Ezra Pound had been hanged we would never have even my father was
heard his admission to the stupid, suburban prejudice of antisemitism, wind halted: deluged
amid dry stalks if a picture fixes it more firmly after one has gone to the farm
(we bought it) where all grass is (alas) hay. Quaaludes are a convenience, with permanence
removing the conscience, and the literal athlete mistook his home for Radio (stood around)
554 555
endorses as tangible no knowing can avert
the eluvial: grim was not flattery at the oasis:
pebbles sucked
the rock, but or handled yet
his own mind: fabricate now counting has been an
gabbro: there may be
flies there, yet Flymoor invention: Polish
commemorates Fly, sausage is to corruption
as a slide rule to
one fast pony, lost a quograph: luxury
in this bog: hinted
confusion creates Tokyo softens the sinews
infantile: bickering of use in escaping this
piece of good fortune:
blocks out blueprints rolls called up yonder
and emotion spills — do not slit this
blood for yellowing
help: jars envelope for it
we might drink from contains your
lucky number — rime this
decorate karlings: solstice: your tread
so out the Magritte window
taped to the wall for as long as on earth
the wedding proceeds brings me anything
but peace (does it grow
edging parody louder, or
to reconstitute into what inwardness
death: late
Paleolithic cannot intends, a referent
conceive itself lost among the multifarious
whop, if any, reading,
Magdalenian: if replace your date
I had known then
as known now, now with the metaphysic that
were otherwise: is really the present:
tumescent with an
556 557
indignation, too xerox jokes concerning
many disdain Y-forks: places
persist, yet
responsibility not their relevance:
for even a negative
response, salved zapped into the false
for supposed slight being of suppression
through years of
with a general smile therapeutic
that condescends with modesty punctuation until
not to understand, “can’t
keep (it) up”, as though rendered readable and
a child should know ablate: initiating
myth, initiating word,
all it needed and that word god,
at birth, as though failure
to comprehend its use makes dominant the message
rendered a gift useless, not the messenger: bent
cypress by Bodega Head
the city a hermetic lovely since an
circle, and themselves unacknowledged
not denizens of umland:
flicks switch, to drive memento, and that
with further music memento meant to mean
centered action: is
the song out of the head: each “thing” to sing
vindicative act, on analogy
with a windgap: she inter remnantwise some absent
rupts what she is sphere as in platonic
fiction, not this
doing to wedding ring I hear
paper with a pencil within its monogrammed
and reports on the activity
to thirty years later assertion that
eine kleine bleistift: father had thick fingers:
denial won’t restore
558 559
autonomy to these unasleep, the animal
within the metal
pure creeks become constantly inclines to
engrafted jeopardy (kid stands
rivers: counting backwards
can’t remove the adverb up on stool — let’s
of present insistence: see what’s inscribed
here — meridians)
frantic conjurors, if segregation ended,
gurus, faithhealers,
bards, send fifteen and on tv you witnessed
dollars, or if not, caucasians — police —
hitting blacks with sticks,
ten — your depression you wouldn’t question
bounded by your faults the mental balance of your
can be graben:
record a best and happiest president or his integrity
moment, from the ruins unless your own were not
invested in his; and
of prose to rise though the balance for a century
triumphant to proclaim
the secret of defeat which has shifted rural into urban,
each success enfolds: sunset over fuzzy
tops of hopefully
his isolate uplifting trees or masts
iteration of impoverished at rest supress the rest:
response in the teeth of what
individual can say noxious mofos
ignores his insolation: naming oxbows:
these exemplify
continuous monitoring denial with rocks
(Landstat data) let
them identify a number and smile, you’re on
of anomalies: justice but everyone has gone:
pal, Virgil confided,
for thousands termed a karst: you’re blowing it
560 561
if it is quaquaversal: and thus the criminal
guarantees its own
(but method bringing perpetuation: extinction
quaquaversal in is
saying it); rare stalks yterbium:
ecstasies require unfreedom can’t be
represented, while
remembered skerries: its agents keep
wheeling, the starlings up the clamor for a picture
were wonderful in the real
meaning of that priced at a 1000 words,
word (a light-show strobed): decoded as unplug
your terminal, the system
to read as outback wants you to: zero
negates ubach: has another side
“Tell that perfesser on some kinds of
he mustn’t do an thermometer, a fact,
unlike hair
Aristotelean reading on lifting as it must, merely
my work,” wrote the poet
noted for his arbitrary. But by what argument banish the arbitrary and the accidental from
libertarian-beat our councils? Denounced by the post-Hegelian Kierkegaard, these elements
stance (or maybe he nevertheless inform all events. For instance, for instance, and for no other
reason than that, thinking ahead to g: Karen G. H was the key broken on her
dictated it): verb machine when she wrote that letter (I’ve been c atting about the roug ed-in
raises (razes) in t inking wis ing i weren’t so ampered by t ese tig ts on my t ig s) I found
noun, a wurlie: quite intriguing. Jumping ahead — or somewhere anyway — lands me on the
who thoroughly credits square called Kiekegaard. Long ago, relatively speaking, surprised to find it
means churchyard, I couldn’t stop murmuring it; some murmur! Now my
his success of friend Bob enjoys old churchyards — cemeteries in California — and we
“worldly” sort (even went one night to stroll the abandoned boneyard (stone-orchard) at the end
though a poet) to of my street, as it happens, and found it obligingly open. Possibly because the
misshapen conditions moon behind thin clouds illumined it, we sat on one of the more imposing,
of reception fallen, stones and spoke our pieces concerning how we wish to be disposed
of, when quenched. Really, apart from wanting “Under the Boardwalk” by
has to be a saint The Drifters played at my wake, I don’t think about such stuff except in such
562 563
places; they make me want to be scattered at sea. There was the time when in there gets back to
I worked for Volunteer Wheels that I was driving not one but two elderly this end then to ask if you
women who happened to live in the same trailer park to visit the same doctors’ might split this lane, or
offices, and as we passed the crematorium one said, That’s where my Joe for the one already in
went, and the other offered that that was where her George had ended up. to stick both up and back
Visibly, the trouble with this mode grows with every sentence; various it isn’t,
and for why? Explanations vary, but not much: the social I is hub to every to one side of the line
spoke, within then a circumference, painted (why not) yellow. Zero, a like thus leaving
shape, may say nothing, but as we look at it, hanging before us, here and there the other half for you
on the wall of the museum, has something more of us to or for whomever, who can
jump right in: to whom
ask: “Mommy and me turn in my profoundest
went to the seashore grief, to whom appeal
looking for you, but if not to Reason,
you were underwater, a city drowned behind a dam
swimming, and the shark
came so you got out” — meaning built decades since, the better
so hard to find, yet right to torment our ears with
beneath the nose, shouting rumors of muffled
to be (scary upshot) heard: bells (write to your friends):
write a line a day for a year
drawing conclusions in and call the poem “Patience”
green chalk on blue or call it that and write
365 lines sometime in the next
walls that will be acted 2 months but don’t release it
on and on: yes, but it
would be wrong, but yes, for another 9, and see
it must be hysterical if anyone (include yourself)
as long as we can laugh at can tell the difference
ourselves we can neglect: without altering
that there is something or to and: analphabetic
can be any interlude, but
rather than some other our day knows no interludes,
postulate: more courteous so this is also foreground/
to shiver on the pool background tower or arch or strut:
edge until the swimmer
564 565
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS from TEN POEMS FROM CLEARINGS IN THE THROAT
from Ten Poems from Clearings in the Throat
It had been a kind of plague
of which we rid the land
Now you were rare and I afraid to touch you
Those delicate ears where the veins shudder
Those tiny teeth, pearls
After rakosi stunted by some persistent radiation
The entire hairspring system
was about to disappear in an idea
In the next room, she’s trying very hard
to keep to herself the feeling
she will not share with me
I think i’ll go and see what it’s about Squeaking wheels
I thought someone was parking my car
in front of my house
Like unity
Then i thought that someone was my wife
and that it was our house
At first i thought you were very beautiful
Next, extremely ugly We were un- or happily married
But then you were hanging and had a child whom we loved
in the porch of my ear
Friends came to visit
You made me notice things We had careers and goals
That dusk felt tangible like my mother’s hair
That light came from me Ideas about the world
That i alone noticed and brilliant memories
You made me responsible Then i was waking up
Hundreds of us used to fill the sky escaping from my dreams
where only you fluttered and i attended
Hundreds of broken umbrellas which i once enjoyed
566 567
IF WANTS TO BE THE SAME AS IS INDEX OF TITLES
and now feel as traps Index of Titles
They are not filled with meaning
I am not 3 Ways with the Same Sentence
3-5 poems of friendship
9 Pieces For 9 Voices Interrupting 1 For None
A
A
Abstract
Accident, The
“Accumulation makes it different”
Affair Of The Lemming
After Brecht
After Freud
After midnight contemplating illustrations
After The Engraving
After rakosi
American Testament
An American Heritage History
An American Heritage History
An Imperfect Failure
And again
Angling
Arbitrators, The
Art as revenge
As Freud Enjoyed His Primal Horde….
As Long As Purgatory Rimes With Virtue
“A straight look to the left”
At Last
Authority
Automobile Our Narrative, The
Awake, I Cry Out to You, My Killer (9)
B
Back to A’s Place
Because
“Before breakfast the gate”
568 569
“Being a child” Discourse-Thrower
Beyond the Constellations Here & Now “Divine effulgence”
Bipolar Disorder In Autumn Don’t drool when you say lot-split
Bit Of Blancmange’ll Be Enough For Me, A Doubt not thy name is certainty
Blue Fucking Moon (8) Down In The Dance
Born again “Dried grass between stones”
By That Light E
By Visible Truth We Mean the Apprehension of the Absolute E
Condition of Present Things E is for Elephant (12)
C Encrypted at the Center of the Labyrinth (7)
Call, A Ends of the Earth, The
“Chains fit readily on wrists” Example
Clearings in the throat F
Clocks Faster, The
“Closure = defeat” Feeling for the blind
Come To Where It Sits Fiction of neutralized culture
Coming Out of the Ether (1) Final Mission, A
Commentary To ‘The Two Of Rocks’ Final Mission, A
Compleynt First
Couple of Curses, A First Love
Couplets For San Antonio Estero
Course in Miracles (15), A For —
“Cover Poem”, The Forgets Five
Credences of Winter Fresh from Sleep
Credences of Winter G
Cullenders & Cheesecloth (14) Gathering, The
D Giant redwoods
D H
Da capo H
Defeat’s Deafears (2) Harbor-Master of Hong Kong, The
Defect, A “He got them to look at what was forgot”
Defect, A He to Her
Dejeuner Sur One Rye Hieratics
Dictation Hieratics: A Triptych
Dictation High Mass, A
Diction, A “How old is the swastika”
570 571
I Logic
I : Birds of the West Logical Conclusions
II : Pond “Love was once a little boy”
III : The White Tailed Kite Lyre Bird, The
“I Can’t Read, & Here’s a Book” M
“I can’t read, & here’s a book” “Majority attained”
I Know Man, Me, A
I Lays Down the Law (for Charles) Manana from heaven
I dreamt that I Meanwhile
I.D. Might be right
“Imagining no hell” More
In Deep Woods My Career
In His Image My Compensations (Glurk)
In His Ivory Tower, The Bourgeois Dreams Of Home My Daddy’s At His Office Now
In it My Failing
“In Mohammedism there is Much of Mysticism” (15) My Fanny
“In the interstices” My Palaver
In the Kitchen, We Find the Norwegian My Plan
“In the sky an enigma” N
Index Nest, A
Indictable Suborners Next love
“Inside & outside coincide” “Nice-looking dots appear”
It’s the Same Only Different / The Melancholy Owed Categories Night (With I For The Star)
J “Nine-gauge font in a twelve-gauge world”
Just Think ni le hairbrush ni le toilet-seat (11)
K Not Guilty
Kind Numbness, A Not Myself Tonight (6)
L “Not much shape to this doughboy”
Language Not All Ours (7), A Not so interesting
Lawrence’s Irritations O
“Leaning forward from their rows” “O begins the occasion”
Lies Object, The
Like unity Off Center Center (8)
Lines On A Photograph From Childhood: Of My Mother, My Sister, &
Lines Upon a Distant Prospect of Lines Me
Location (3), A On All Sides
572 573
“Once... “ Reels, The
One In Five Acts Reverie, The
One Spring Revolving Door
Only Fair (Rhetoric)
Only Fair Right Angle For Literature & Ideology, A
Open wide Rime, A
Orphic Romantic Individual, A
Our Tongues Romantic Traces
Outside Running My Thumb
Outside S
P S
passive voice—, A Sample Hurt, A
P-E-A-C-E Seated at the organ (groan)
Paris In April Secret, A
Period, A Seeing That You Asked
Person Sense of Humor’s Soliloquy, A
Personal (1) Set of Twelve
Personal (too) She Rose Up Singing
Please Sign, The
Please, Like Me Sir Bernard Said
Plot, The “Sit and cease fretting”
Poem Beginning with a Line by Pindear (1) “Sitting Across From The Mother”
Poem Reading a Line by Duncan (5) Six of One, Half-a-Dozen of the Other
Poem for friends Slot, A
poet strolls at evening by the river, The “So”
Poetic Intermission: When X Flies Out The Window, Won’t The So, a poetry of immediacy
Plot Resolve? Some Day Again
Precept “Someone’s coming to dinner”
Project, A Song of a Son
Prose Intermission: Still To Start Sonnet
Protestant Poem, The Soyez raisonnable
Psychoanalysis Spell (11), A
Q Spell, A
Quivering Roadway, The Spelling, The
R Squeaking wheels
R Squeal Of Approval, A
574 575
“Subject named after book” Unfootnote
T Unparenthetic
T Utterance: A Location (4)
T as in Tether (1) V
T as in Tether (2) Vacation’s Bright Idea
Taking Heart Value
Tarot, The Vase of Fresh Language, on Entropy Plinth (7.5)
“That’s not tragic it’s inconvenient” View, A
“The chance to be someone else” Waiting For Anyone But Godot
“The door to the tomb” W
“The hand is a tongue” Wall, The
“The lost picture of thinking” Washing…
“The lost picture of thinking” Watchers Of The Skies
(The Lover) solus & barefoot “We are the people that we used to be”
“The moment opes” We Could Get A Drink
“The name of the game” We Must Establish Our Parameters
“The subordination of the software” Weight Less Than The Shadow
“Then he was led, blindfold, into the predicate” (10) Weight Less Than the Shadow
They Are Eyes “Weighed down with sameness”
“This calls itself thinking” “What friends”
“This had been anticipated” What the Person Believes is Part of the Poet’s Make-up
“This time not shot” What the Person Believes is Part of the Poet’s Make-up:
Threads Whatever it is
Tight Corners “When sky reflects in pool”
Tight Corners “Where the moonlight had shone”
Tight Corners Where we came in
Time for speech While Knitting
Title While You Were Out (13)
To Helena “Why I went there”
Trance ending Why Not
Try to Speak Without Leaping (2) Why the Hurry
Tubal legislature With Someone Like You
“Tule fog so thick” With each step down, the air grows cooler
Two Of Rocks, The Y
U Y
Under Fluorescent Lights Yes
576 577
You
You
You Too
Z
Zounds Loik Zumthin Oi Wud Mayake
578 579
580 581
582 583
584 585
586 587
588 589
590 591
592 593
594 595
596
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