Alice Notley

Nothing will hurt you that much despite how you feel the stress on your back shapes your insight this splendid November rain Toussaint. I find you by your marks, he says an imprint But when I summon you, I talk to—I say— my memory of your face. It’s kind of crazy to others. They’re not very interesting he says. When I first came to this country, and now I know the language I say, but I had in a dream spoken it many years previously. That is, not the language of the dead the language of France. I took one year of French in 1964 and then nothing but once, in 1977 I spoke French in a dream all night: I was in the future I moved here in 1992. Country of the more logical than I? though the people of my quartier know and like me, even as I a foreigner remain strange You do everything alone a woman said to me. There are ways to care without interfering but the French speak of anguish frequently they are conscious of emotional extremity a terrible gift. It’s all a gift, he says . . . some haven’t been opened. I’m not sure he said that it’s nearly my sixty-seventh birthday today though it’s the day of the dead hello we love you they say.

He seems to be in front helping me look out of my foreheaded self. Listen to me: prone night. I was its actual first child cutting a path with my sword through its vapors. Then I subdued night until the desert was clear and a disk shone above. I am the hero of the struggle between de- spair and illumination, which is not a shaky buoyancy but claritas. The name of life or that you see at all. Just look. If you kill yourself nothing will happen. No choices but pedestrian actions a lying story: you have done nothing. You can be a detail — a scurrier — garbage you leave, a fit of nerves, propagating that. The front of my looking out pulls beauty taking me taking you. The scab in the sky is gone. We have to go beyond our calculations and the small words. Why a golden fringe on shirt come quickly riding the best horses. And nux is what night the worthless was, as I sang, We don’t have to believe the petite poetries. Hooves are pulling us across the yellow sands: lost in a word, led in a word I got there. I can never turn back, you see and you can never turn back.

You must do battle with Eros       I am more worried about space, pressed for details collapsed in chaos with my sword holding up the sky the girl said. They cared not for love lying ever that they loved But I your leader wounded in gender and bleeding for Eros fought it away from my true beginning as now. Always climbing that hill in several ways. One goes past the Baptist Church and through the ugly trees, houses I only visualize in dreams you have no right to pursue me to my origins man as bipolar as the one candidate, forgettable as the other. We once lived in a postwar barracks blue heated by a black stove of assumptions Eros a youth admits no equal; Aphrodite the slut; Chaos is whom I admire that keeps forgetting love in favor of this terrible mixity I am for example ... these poems. Out of the pre-beginning a different beauty. They want you to confess something like in church, that a man will save you. But I am your leader savior and poet I am your general out of the desert thee most ardent void precursor of love Eros approaches again not the man but quality sculpted genitals arush with the words of unreason: I will never die. Which I is I if I can remain chaotic I’ll tell you who you are that you’ve never anticipated, but know the only one. Without a thing. To be is not to have; nor to belong; nor to have been born. You are not the child of earth. Beauty still thy name.

All things belie me, I think, but I look at them though. Well boys, at least you’re not dead, right? What’s the date today? Until something. What? Of the lady of the whitening blow. I’m ashamed to keep on babbling as if I’ve always been oneself, diamond flow through. Humble flannel skeleton. Grin, laugh unbecoming Living at the bottom of the water may have been obvious all the time. But I forget. What’s my plot? Hand of a child, paw of an animal. Paint it red & make a pawprint in the psalter. Protect her & give her back her hat Entangle her dreams in demotic and Warm her feet; cheat the judge & protect the tree from which he was carved. * And now that I’ve explained the situation Jesus my frame hurts, you say. Fucking pain. Hey come & empty my ashtray once more & don’t get so excited. A gentle heart was broken. Whose? No one’s It’s a figure like a frame among medlars & briars. Hand me that piece of that, just that, yeah. I don’t mean it, I’ve never meant anything because that’s not what I do, in the mountains I call home How can I tell you of my wound? it’s round & silver & headstrong, it’s nothing more than temperament born of a custom involving a circuitous journey This is all wrong. It rains today, my son’s singing love songs of this country, already being ten. * And if to withstand this nocturnal pollution of the tiny wanton stars with bent hook clauses of misprision I’m supposed to sing the melody of an unexpecting part. . . Hey a pretty honey come a listen to me while I evening, darling, your messages, what would you think then? But I wouldn’t do that. Light surrounded oranges towels clouds. You don’t think you’re my you. Not here not you. You still think you’re he. she. Because I wouldn’t “you” you, would I? I only “you” some other he. she. I who write poems. When she writes them, it’s different. . .A world of words, right? It’s only my version of The Entertainer Nothing truly personal, I’m way above that. I’ve learned about it for a lot of days. I’ve been to see the doctor & you have to have shots for it. 17 balls of yarn & a sewing machine. * No I wouldn’t know why anyone would want to write like that. I should never have had to do it. We were used to this other thing we always know like when we’re here. And you have this clear head & you’re seeing things & there they are. You don’t notice they’re spelled. That’s how you know you’re alive. I never saw you

I don’t have any sentiments would somebodything thirst my quench how about about my mediocrity of character? I dance with the dead divinely in my dreams I’m stricken deaf when I mention it my babies cry they want everything quick! here. un- mentioned as character should be like the purpurine it needs must be carved in, please Have you heard of the roguess elephant with the brilliant diamond eyes? She is the puppet of the dictionary where is her beautiful orange juice? puppy foot! When your father dies he doesn’t let you swoon into aventurine or spray of lily (pearls) of the valley you do not bifurcate you may supplicate play yourself to your camp heroine self—play it Lady play It but delete no matter thank you for breakfast today we will visit with the ear syringe be the current density honey flower ice egg I love you as a fan loves air. oops it’s I vice-versa I told you about that character She is a bezel awaiting the plop of a ruby she must grow chronically and I can’t end and I can’t lie here He held him in his own heart then may I in my eye now me

At night the states I forget them or I wish I was there in that one under the Stars. It smells like June in this night so sweet like air. I may have decided that the States are not that tired Or I have thought so. I have thought that. At night the states And the world not that tired of everyone Maybe. Honey, I think that to say is in light. Or whoever. We will never replace you. We will never re- place You. But in like a dream the floor is no longer discursive To me it doesn’t please me by being the vistas out my window, do you know what Of course (not) I mean? I have no dreams of wake- fulness. In wakefulness. And so to begin. (my love.) At night the states talk. My initial continuing contr- diction my love for you & that for me deep down in the Purple Plant the oldest dust of it is sweetest but states no longer how I would feel. Shirt that shirt has been in your arms And I have that shirt is how I feel At night the states will you continue in this as- sociation of matters, my Dearest? down the street from where the public plaque reminds that of private loving the consequential chain trail is matters At night the states that it doesn’t matter that I don’t say them, remember them at the end of this claustro- phobic the dance, I wish I could see I wish I could dance her. At this night the states say them out there. That I am, am them indefinitely so and so wishful passive historic fated and matter- simple, matter-simple, an eyeful. I wish but I don’t and little melody. Sorry that these little things don’t happen any more. The states have drained their magicks for I have not seen them. Best not to tell. But you you would always remain, I trust, as I will always be alone. At night the states whistle. Anyone can live. I can. I am not doing any- thing doing this. I discover I love as I figure. Wed- nesday I wanted to say something in particular. I have been where. I have seen it. The God can. The people do some more. At night the states I let go of, have let, don’t let Some, and some, in Florida, doing. What takes you so long? I am still with you in that part of the park, and vice will continue, but I’ll have a cleaning Maine. Who loses these names loses. I can’t bring it up yet, keeping my opinions to herself. Everybody in any room is a smuggler. I walked fiery and talked in the stars of the automatic weapons and partly for you Which you. You know. At night the states have told it already. Have told it. I know it. But more that they don’t know, I know it too. At night the states whom I do stand before in judgment, I think that they will find me fair, not that they care in fact nor do I, right now though indeed I am they and we say that not that I’ve erred nor lost my way though perhaps they did (did they) and now he is dead but you you are not. Yet I am this one, lost again? lost & found by one- self Who are you to dare sing to me? At night the states accompany me while I sit here or drums there are always drums what for so I won’t lose my way the name of a personality, say, not California I am not sad for you though I could be I remember climbing up a hill under tall trees getting home. I was going to say that the air was fair (I was always saying something like that) but that’s not it now, and that that’s not it isn’t it either At night the states dare sing to me they who seem tawdry any more I’ve not thought I loved them, only you it’s you whom I love the states are not good to me as I am to them though perhaps I am not when I think of your being so beautiful but is that your beauty or could it be theirs I’m having such a hard time remembering any of their names your being beautiful belongs to nothing I don’t believe they should praise you but I seem to believe they should somehow let you go At night the states and when you go down to Washington witness how perfectly anything in particular sheets of thoughts what a waste of sheets at night. I remember something about an up-to-date theory of time. I have my own white rose for I have done something well but I’m not clear what it is. Weathered, perhaps but that’s never done. What’s done is perfection. At night the states ride the train to Baltimore we will try to acknowledge what was but that’s not the real mirror is it? nor is it empty, or only my eyes are Ride the car home from Washington no they are not. Ride the subway home from Pennsylvania Station. The states are blind eyes stony smooth shut in moon- light. My French is the shape of this book that means I. At night the states the 14 pieces. I couldn’t just walk on by. Why aren’t they beautiful enough in a way that does not beg to wring something from a dry (wet) something Call my name At night the states making life, not explaining anything but all the popular songs say call my name oh call my name, and if I call it out myself to you, call mine out instead as our poets do will you still walk on by? I have loved you for so long. You died and on the wind they sang your name to me but you said nothing. Yet you said once before and there it is, there, but it is so still. Oh being alone I call out my name and once you did and do still in a way you do call out your name to these states whose way is to walk on by that’s why I write too much At night the states whoever you love that’s who you love the difference between chaos and star I believe and in that difference they believed in some funny way but that wasn’t what I I believed that out of this fatigue would be born a light, what is fatigue there is a man whose face changes continually but I will never, something I will never with regard to it or never regard I will regard yours tomorrow I will wear purple will I and call my name At night the states you who are alive, you who are dead when I love you alone all night and that is what I do until I could never write from your being enough I don’t want that trick of making it be coaxed from the words not tonight I want it coaxed from myself but being not that. But I’d feel more comfortable about it being words if it were if that’s what it were for these are the States where what words are true are words Not myself. Montana, Illinois. Escondido.

I don't see the point of remembering you; you're too boring, Iowa City, Iowa, much duller topologically than Needles, California. I'm here in the Rebel Motel, with my grape-colored sweater and maté tea, whose smoky odor's bound up with first rooms and foods here sex and snow. I write about Needles Herman and rocks, the story's called “As Good as Anything,” and in it daft Herman—true local of Needles—says “Rocks is as good as anything.” I figured that out summer after first love affair in New York: hung out, home, at a rock shop inspecting geodes and thunder eggs Arsenic samples and petrified dinosaur dung. What can I say about Iowa City everyone's an academic poetry groupie, I haven't yet written a poem, there's a bar where for 25 cents a meal of boiled egg and tiny beer. Really I don't know what kind of poetry— what's the name of the make they use here—or what kinds of poetry live people write in the world. Is there a right and wrong poetry, one might still ask as I patronize, retrospectively, the Iowa style, characterized, as I remember, by the assumption of desperation boredom behind two-story houses divorce, incomes, fields, pigs, getting into pants, well not really in poems, well no “well”s and all in the costive mode of men who—and the suicidal women— want to be culpable for something, settle for being mean to their wives and writing dour stanzas. God this is bitchy I modeled for art classes that's rather interesting the hypocrisy: nobody needs to paint nude women they just like to. So here I am naked for art, which is a lot of dumb fucks I already know, same with poetry. Written and judged by. Those befoibled guys who think—you know— the poetic moment's a pocket in pool; where can I publish it; what can I do to my second or third wife now. Nothing happens in Iowa, so can I myself change here? Yes I can start to become contemptuous is that good or bad, probably bad. In New York I'd developed a philosophy of sympathy and spiritual equality: out the window, easily, upon my first meeting real assholes. “A rock's as good as anything” there are no rocks in Iowa shit-black soil, a tree or two, no mountain or tall edifice, University drabs, peeping Toms, anti-war riots, visiting poets treated like royalty, especially if they fuck the locals or have a record of fighting colorfully with their wives. You can go to the movies once a week, like in Needles. You can fuck a visiting poet;  you can be paraded before a visiting poet as fuckable but not fuck. You can write your first poems thinking you might as well since the most stupid people in the universe are writing their five hundredth here. I'm doing that now. What difference does it make. I like my poems. They're as good as rocks.

Okay part of it’s here. See it, I want you to see my brother, dead smiling in a red short-sleeved shirt, You look so much better I got through. How does time work for you? I can see where — when — I felt bad. Goes past. I’m not in it any more But this change hasn’t happened in time — a kind of before and after but no ... continuum. You look brilliant! I never let you down — he says — did I? It wasn’t possible,          Why not? Sisters and brothers are loyal, we are the primal particles. I saw how we connected to make a shape in the eyes of the beholder who chose it: But we are not that. What I see is free to change its outline. My story: the shadow of one. Why did I shrink into a story? It’s easier to talk as a person, but why? I guess we decided to, talking. Coyote throws the stars up into the sky.

No tone of voice being sufficient to the occasion Flash that’s all, that we’re here. Are you ever sarcastic and unlikeable       Mentally we are the cast of one epic thought: You. How many of you sweep through me, as I ride the métro leading you, because I have to and not be poignant oh who’s written anything poignant since ... An old woman of indeterminate race, in white hat and scarf, no teeth staring back at me. He sounded brittle and superior last night, do the dead do that; Grandma had a plethora of tones of voice compared to anyone in this anthology. Our anthology, he says, being mental is complex as hell. How do you keep track of your poems? Any- one remembers what they like, but you have constantly to emit them ... Everyone’s at me, Drown it out, thinking of an icon emerald-throated. I see the alley house at night dark I’m trying to be pure again, but I want all the tones. When you’re dead you can have them ...  thick marine dark from the fencelike oleanders and a moon calling to white boards. Enter. Lie down in your own bed, in the room where Momma found a scorpion.

May I never be afraid especially of myself but Muhammed Ali are you telling the truth? Well you’re being true aren’t you and you talk so wonderfully in your body that protects you with physique of voice raps within dance May I never be afraid rocked and quaked the mantilla is lace whose black is oak But if I’m dark I’m strong as my own darkness my strength the universe whose blackness is air only starry lace But if I’m alive I’m strong as life Strong as the violets in Marlon Brando’s fist his dissemblance flourished into truth She took them I’d take me too I do and my Ali I see you a hard bright speck of me the savage formalist authentic deed of gossip a kind body