Anne Waldman

(Jesse Helms & others...) I'm coming up out of the tomb, Men of War Just when you thought you had me down, in place, hidden I'm coming up now Can you feel the ground rumble under your feet? It's breaking apart, it's turning over, it's pushing up It's thrusting into your point of view, your private property O Men of War, Censorious Ones! get ready big boys get ready I'm coming up now I'm coming up with all that was hidden Get ready, Big Boys, get ready I'm coming up with all you wanted buried, All the hermetic texts with stories in them of hot & dangerous women Women with lascivious tongues, sharp eyes & claws I've been working out, my muscles are strong I'm pushing up the earth with all you try to censor All the iconoclasm & bravado you scorn All the taunts against your banner & salute I'm coming up from Hell with all you ever suppressed All the dark fantasies, all the dregs are coming back I'm leading them back up now They're going to bark & scoff & rage & bite I'm opening the box boo !

I wore a garland of the briar that put me now in awe I wore a garland of the brain that was whole It commanded me, done babbling And I no more blabbed, spare no lie Tell womanhood she shake off pity Tell the man to give up tumult for the while To wonder at the sight of baby's beauty Ne let the monsters fray us with things that not be From a high tower poem issuing Everything run along in creation till I end the song Ne none fit for so wild beasts Ne none so joyous, ne none no give no lie Tell old woes to leave off here: I sing this into a scallop shell with face of a pearl & leave all sorrow bye & bye.

Spooky summer on the horizon I’m gazing at from my window into the streets That’s where it’s going to be where everyone is walking around, looking around out in the open suspecting each other’s heart to open fire all over the streets like streets you read about every day who are the network we travel through on the way to the center which is energy filling life and bursting with joy all over the screen I can’t sit still any longer! I want to go where I’m not feeling so bad Get off this little island before the bridges break (my heart is a sore thing too) No I want to sit in the middle watching movies then go to bed in my head Someone is banging on it with a heavy stick like the enemy who is he going to be turns into a face you can’t recognize then vanishes behind a window behind a gun Like the lonely hero stalking the main street cries out Where are you? I just want to know all the angles of death possible under the American sky! I can hardly see for all the buildings polluting the sky until it changes into a barrage of bottles then clears up for a second while you breathe and you realize you’e still as alive as ever and want to be but would like to be somewhere else perhaps Africa Start all over again as the race gets darker and darker and the world goes on the way I always thought it would For the winner is someone we recognize out of our collective past which is turning over again in the grave It is so important when one dies you replace her and never waste a minute

“That all these dyings may be life in death” I was living in San Francisco My heart was in Manhattan It made no sense, no reference point Hearing the sad horns at night, fragile evocations of female stuff The 3 tones (the last most resonant) were like warnings, haiku-muezzins at dawn The call came in the afternoon “Frank, is that really you?” I'd awake chilled at dawn in the wooden house like an old ship Stay bundled through the day sitting on the stoop to catch the sun I lived near the park whose deep green over my shoulder made life cooler Was my spirit faltering, grown duller? I want to be free of poetry's ornaments, its duty, free of constant irritation, me in it, what was grander reason for being? Do it, why? (Why, Frank?) To make the energies dance etc. My coat a cape of horrors I'd walk through town or impending earthquake. Was that it? Ominous days. Street shiny with hallucinatory light on sad dogs, too many religious people, or a woman startled me by her look of indecision near the empty stadium I walked back spooked by my own darkness Then Frank called to say “What? Not done complaining yet? Can't you smell the eucalyptus, have you never neared the Pacific? ‘While frank and free/call for musick while your veins swell’” he sang, quoting a metaphysician "Don't you know the secret, how to wake up and see you don't exist, but that does, don't you see phenomena is so much more important than this? I always love that.” “Always?” I cried, wanting to believe him “Yes.” “But say more! How can you if it's sad & dead?” “But that's just it! If! It isn't. It doesn't want to be Do you want to be?” He was warming to his song “Of course I don't have to put up with as much as you do these days. These years. But I do miss the color, the architecture, the talk. You know, it was the life! And dying is such an insult. After all I was in love with breath and I loved embracing those others, the lovers, with my body.” He sighed & laughed He wasn't quite as I'd remembered him Not less generous, but more abstract Did he even have a voice now, I wondered or did I think it up in the middle of this long day, phone in hand now dialing Manhattan

I turned: quivering yellow stars in blackness I wept: how speech may save a woman The picture changes & promises the heroine That nighttime & meditation are a mirage To discuss pro & contra here is mute Do I not love you, day? A pure output of teleological intentions & she babbles, developing a picture-theory of language Do I not play the delicate game of language? yes, & it is antecedent to the affairs of the world: The dish, the mop, the stove, the bed, the marriage & surges forth the world in which I love I and I and I and I and I and I, infinitely reversible Yet never secure in the long morning texture A poor existing woman-being, accept her broken heart & yet the earth is divinity, the sky is divinity The nomads walk & walk.

I am putting makeup on empty space all patinas convening on empty space rouge blushing on empty space I am putting makeup on empty space pasting eyelashes on empty space painting the eyebrows of empty space piling creams on empty space painting the phenomenal world I am hanging ornaments on empty space gold clips, lacquer combs, plastic hairpins on empty space I am sticking wire pins into empty space I pour words over empty space, enthrall the empty space packing, stuffing jamming empty space spinning necklaces around empty space Fancy this, imagine this: painting the phenomenal world bangles on wrists pendants hung on empty space I am putting my memory into empty space undressing you hanging the wrinkled clothes on a nail hanging the green coat on a nail dancing in the evening it ended with dancing in the evening I am still thinking about putting makeup on empty space I want to scare you: the hanging night, the drifting night, the moaning night, daughter of troubled sleep I want to scare you you I bind as far as cold day goes I bind the power of 20 husky men I bind the seductive colorful women, all of them I bind the massive rock I bind the hanging night, the drifting night, the moaning night, daughter of troubled sleep I am binding my debts, I magnetize the phone bill bind the root of my pointed tongue I cup my hands in water, splash water on empty space water drunk by empty space Look what thoughts will do   Look what words will do from nothing to the face from nothing to the root of the tongue from nothing to speaking of empty space I bind the ash tree I bind the yew I bind the willow I bind uranium I bind the uneconomical unrenewable energy of uranium dash uranium to empty space I bind the color red I seduce the color red to empty space I put the sunset in empty space I take the blue of his eyes and make an offering to empty space renewable blue I take the green of everything coming to life, it grows & climbs into empty space I put the white of the snow at the foot of empty space I clasp the yellow of the cat's eyes sitting in the black space I clasp them to my heart, empty space I want the brown of this floor to rise up into empty space Take the floor apart to find the brown, bind it up again under spell of empty space I want to take this old wall apart I am rich in my mind thinking of this, I am thinking of putting makeup on empty space Everything crumbles around empty space the thin dry weed crumbles, the milkweed is blown into empty space I bind the stars reflected in your eye from nothing to these typing fingers from nothing to the legs of the elk from nothing to the neck of the deer from nothing to porcelain teeth from nothing to the fine stand of pine in the forest I kept it going when I put the water on when I let the water run sweeping together in empty space There is a better way to say empty space Turn yourself inside out and you might disappear you have a new definition in empty space What I like about impermanence is the clash of my big body with empty space I am putting the floor back together again I am rebuilding the wall I am slapping mortar on bricks I am fastening the machine together with delicate wire There is no eternal thread, maybe there is thread of pure gold I am starting to sing inside about the empty space there is some new detail every time I am taping the picture I love so well on the wall: moonless black night beyond country-plaid curtains everything illuminated out of empty space I hang the black linen dress on my body the hanging night, the drifting night, the moaning night daughter of troubled sleep This occurs to me I hang up a mirror to catch stars, everything occurs to me out in the night in my skull of empty space I go outside in starry ice I build up the house again in memory of empty space This occurs to me about empty space that it is nevered to be mentioned again Fancy this imagine this painting the phenomenal world there's talk of dressing the body with strange adornments to remind you of a vow to empty space there's talk of the discourse in your mind like a silkworm I wish to venture into a not-chiseled place I pour sand on the ground Objects and vehicles emerge from the fog the canyon is dangerous tonight suddenly there are warning lights The patrol is helpful in the manner of guiding there is talk of slowing down there is talk of a feminine deity I bind her with a briar I bind with the tooth of a tiger I bind with my quartz crystal I magnetize the worlds I cover myself with jewels I drink amrita there is some new detail there is a spangle on her shoe there is a stud on her boot the tires are studded for the difficult climb I put my hands to my face I am putting makeup on empty space I wanted to scare you with the night that scared me the drifting night, the moaning night Someone was always intruding to make you forget empty space you put it all on you paint your nails you put on scarves all the time adorning empty space Whatever-your-name-is I tell you “empty space” with your fictions with dancing come around to it with your funny way of singing come around to it with your smiling come to it with your enormous retinue & accumulation come around to it with your extras come round to it with your good fortune, with your lazy fortune come round to it when you look most like a bird, that is the time to come around to it when you are cheating, come to it when you are in your anguished head when you are not sensible when you are insisting on the praise from many tongues It begins with the root of the tongue it begins with the root of the heart there is a spinal cord of wind singing & moaning in empty space

Art begins with a lie The separation is you plus me plus what we make Look into lightbulb, blink, sun’s in your eye I want a rare sky vantage point free from misconception Art begins with a lie Nothing to lose, spontaneous rise of reflection, paint the picture of a lightbulb, or eye the sun How to fuel the world, then die Distance yourself from artfulness How? Art begins with a lie The audience wants to cry when the actors are real & passionate Look into footlight, then feed back to eye You fluctuate in an artful body You try to imitate the world’s glory Art begins with a lie That’s the story, sharp speck in the eye.

After Brion Gysin / William S. Burroughs All writing around the sides the persons a galaxy all writing resounds a hot history. All writing is in fact cut-ups history will decide games heated and heated economic behavior. To rise up scene all sounds of Tahrir and inside supply side threatened. A long delineation. Longer than I would be counting. This, a whisper, this the end of whisper time. Rise up and wiser this the streets of the world. Commission overheard in spin a soldiering one. What streets of the world to spin rubric’s yes yes commerce, no, a no, no. Tanks of the blown-off world. He is my beautiful offshore a caw caw of major spills and elsewhere no, no. Cut the dialect the binary the dear word so precious and forbidden. They use the machines to take the streets of the world. Horizon my headwater cut cut the cable my beignets my else an appetite “poor politics, poor poor pols.” Waters of the world in media cut cut the lines manipulate desire and show the word show the Man show the tablets a Paleolithic grab all the twilight fields of discontent that shadow governments rise up people of the world of many wounded galaxies of discontent. And hear you, people of the word. What room? The gray we reach to. Assume that the worst has happened deporting Rom explicit in the gypsy purge meeting with Popes in the streets of the world. Subject to strategy poor poor pol a scrutiny. Its link its drill its Bandars. Condemn Salazar and the interior ministry of fisheries and assume the worst in writing cuts his exterior of life the glib industry, the selves behind the tyrants. My loaves and fishes in deep deep water. Is at some point classical prose, my no, Bulgaria my no Romania my Haiti my Egypt, and gypsy environment come to this coastline America ruptured pipeline to awe caw Gulf Stream is seated cut cut to other fields ripple effect and your domino will fall. And the bomb fall down. Cutting and rearranging factor your opponent your domino history will gain introducing a new parity binary Assange dimension your strategy. Will history decide “caw caw caw.” How many Rom yes yes discoveries sound to kinesthetic a gulf of everyone. She wanted to soldier a gulf of anyone. She wanted to soldier out of here her long delineation longer than would be counting. Cut through this leak of revolution the future will come out. We can deport Rimbaud now produce accident to his color “Voyelles.” Exit the colors you drain me of. And new dimension to films cut cut Sarkozy cut Hollande the senses the place of sands, gambling Rom scene all sounds all colors tasting sounds, France, France smell all streets of the world. Wake up, all colors of all the burqas tasting sounds of the shadow world. Cut cut when you can have the best all: Anthropocene. Welcome to the Anthropocene. Rom the gypsy in everyone. In a collage of words read heard decipher, Rom arise outbreak of military strategy, sound of voice a pitching wail will sear the wall will wall the sound will break the word will suck the variation clear and act accordingly history will decide the streets of the world. Caw caw introduced the cut-up scissored remembered gulf renders the aroma in memory of my despotic elders. Aroma of Rom. Let the dolphins in and act accordingly. If you posed entirely of prearranged cut cut determined by random leaders no Merkel cut cut G-20. A page of written words no advantage to leak from circular Salazar. Interior from knowing into writer predict the move the mood, no go back will step down will will step down. Circumpolar water and denizens within arise. Streets of the world arise. The cut variation images shift Rom sense advantage in processing to sound sight cut cut sound to arise. Visit of memories New Orleans Florida have been made by accidents is where Rimbaud was going with order could live could systematic derangement of the gambling scene, cut cut in with a tea party lullaby then hallucination: seeing and places that arise the streets of the word. A long line’s delineation to random future streets of the world. And they our nuclear future to deny deny. Our man in rendition and cut cut the torture oh streets of the world arise to cut back forms else mammals suffer a dead Mubarak. Rearrange blunt the word and image to other fields Rom, no France France rise to streets the USA the USA of the soldiering world. We’ll see how calm politics will become. G-20 outbreak of temper Germany. Of temper BP. Condemn the masters UK France corpse or carp on it but no longer predict the move, cut cut other fields than cuts your writing Egypt your Yemen your Syria your Libya your Mali.

Awake in a giant night is where I am There is a river where my soul, hungry as a horse drinks beside me An hour of immense possibility flies by and I do nothing but sit in the present which keeps changing moment to moment How can I tell you my mind is a blanket? It is an amazing story you won’t believe and a beautiful land where something is always doing in the barns especially in autumn Sliding down the hayrick! By March the sun is lingering and the land turns wet Brooks grow loud The eddies fill with green scum Crocuses lift their heads to say hello Soon it is good to be planting By then the woods are overflowing with dogwood, redbud, hickory, red and white oaks, hazelnut bushes, violets, jacks-in-the-pulpit, skunk cabbages, pawpaws and May apples whose names thrill you because you can name them! There are quail and rabbits too—but I go on too long Like the animal, I must stop by the water’s edge to have a drink and think things over * That was good. The drink I mean I feel refreshed and ready for anything Though I’m not in Vermont or Kentucky unfortunately but in New York City, the toughest place in the world And it’s December Here someone is always weeping, including me though I tend to cry in monster waves then turn into a fish wallowing in my own salty Puddle! Look out If you aren’t wearing boots you’ll be sorry and soggy too * This season’s cruelty hurts me and others, I’m sure, who’d rather be elsewhere but can’t because of their jobs, families, friends, money It’s rough anyway you look at it But what can you do? It’s worse elsewhere, I’m sure Take Vietnam No thanks I think about Vietnam a lot, however and wonder if I’ll ever “see” it The way I’ve seen Europe, I mean Those pretty Dutch girls! They all ride bicycles In Venice you travel by boat or foot The metro and the underground register like the names in connection with them: Hugo, Stephen, Stuart, Larry, Lee, Harry, David, Maxine What does it all mean? I never ask that, being shy In this apartment in which I dwell these thoughts pass by I hope you won’t mind the mess when you do too * You just walk in up a flight and you’re in paradise A cup of coffee, an easy chair, a loving person waiting for you who’s washing the dishes, reading a book Outside someone’s worrying about love and not sitting down either He’s probably freezing his ass off right now! And other vital parts which would feel great in the country, taking a walk, a hike, shoveling snow Though you can do that right here * The hub of the universe is where I am in a night whose promise grows with me, unlike the snow melting in the gutter Whatever I do, it is beside me I look out the window, there is night I sit in this lighted room knowing this night Night! Night! I wish you’d go so I could go to the post office, the bank, the supermarket Why aren’t they open at night? I wonder Then realize I’m not the only person who’s considered in the grand scope of daily living There are those fast asleep who want to be and would be horrified if the post office, the bank, and the supermarket were only open at night for you can’t be all there all the time I myself am only here part of the time which is enough For there are other places to run to Uptown, for example, where energy rushes you like some hideous but intriguing chemical you can’t ignore and you want to absorb the wisdom these buildings have How do they feel so high up like that? Pretty good, they seem to say in their absolute way But it’s the people inside who turn us on By then you are gone off in a cab and you are not alone I am beside you The streets are familiar from just traveling through We rarely stop and when we do there’s a reason Which is too bad We miss a lot for this same reason * They’re probably feeding the chickens about this time The smell of chicken feed overwhelms me The rooster crows on a 7th Street fire escape Breakfast is ready There is a forest by the river near the barn where things are happening, a whole new world on the edge of dawn * My little world goes on St. Mark’s Place To be not tired, but elated, I sing this song I think of The Beatles and The Beach Boys and the songs they sing It is a different thing to be behind the sound then leave it forever and it goes on without them, needing only you and me Here I am, though you are asleep The morning of December 3rd dawns on me in the shape of a poem called “Giant Night” It must end before it is too late All over the world children will celebrate Christmas And families will gather together to give and take this season Other religions and customs will prevail in their own separate ways having nothing to do with Christmas Soldiers will cease fire Some won’t know the difference but might be able to sense it in the air The smell of holly, pine, eggnog The friendly faces of Santa and his elves All these will add up to something and be gone forever Just like what is here one minute and not the next.

eviction people arrive to haunt me with descriptions of summer’s wildflowers how they are carpet of fierce colors I bet you hate to see us they say and yes I do hate to have to move again especially from here destruction brought to place of love the uneven smiles that win she’s a business woman blond tints that glow at sunset as profits rise alas what labor I employ but to ensure a moment’s joy sets branches trembling & arms chilled dear one long returning home, come to clammy feverish details, muffed sorrow I turn to throw a tear of rage in the pot never remorse but hint of scruples I’d hope for it is error it is speculation it is real estate it is the villain and comic slippery words the work of despotic wills to make money I scream take it take your money! make your money go on it’s only money, here’s a wall of dry rot here’s an unfinished ceiling, just a little sunlight peeks through this (lark, no luminance! exquisite St. Etienne stove doesn’t work icebox either too hot or frozen firescreen tumbling down kitchen insulation droops is ugly & a mess ah but love it here, only surface appearances to complain of, nothing does justice to shape of actual events I love but a fight against artificiality its inherent antagonism, bald hatred of moving and problem of thirsty fig tree in Burroughs apartment wakes me I don’t want to go down there yet & how to orchestrate the summer properly the problem of distress & not denying pride from it too atomized to make pleasure of melancholy & an uncontrollable enthusiasm for throne & altar I want to sit high want simple phalanx of power independent of everything but free will & one long hymn in praise of the cabin! it is a confession in me impenetrably walled in like aesthetics like cosmos an organ of metaphysics and O this book gives me a headache dear Weston La Barre let’s have an argument because I see too clearly how rational I must be & the kernel of my faith corrupted because you have no reliance on the shaman & outlaw or how depth of mind might be staggering everywhere except in how important science is science? no he won’t he fooled by visions whereas I wait for dazzling UFOs they announce will arrive high in these mountains I repair the portal even invite stray horses in have a little toy receiving station that sits by the bed at the edge of night all thoughts to place of love all worries to this place of love all gestures to the place of love all agonies to place of love, thaws to place of love, swarthy valley sealed in wood, log burst into flame in home of love, all heart’s dints and machinations, all bellows & pungency antemundane thoughts to palace of love all liberties, singularity, all imaginings I weep for, Jack’s sweet almond-eyed daughter to place of love, & heavy blankets and terracing & yard work & patch work & tenacity & the best in you surround me work in me to place my love dear cirques, clear constraint, dissenting inclinations of a man and a woman, Metonic cycle all that sweats in rooms, lives in nature requiems & momentum & trimmings of bushes dried hibiscus & hawks & shyness brought to this place of love trees rooted fear rooted all roots brought to place of love, mystery to heart of love & fibers and fibers in sphere of love a whole world makes spectators of slow flowering of spring & summer when you walk to town for eggs and continuous hammerings as new people arrive & today we notice for first time a white-crowned sparrow out by the feeder with the chickadees & juncos & I missed that airplane-dinosaur in dream nervous to travel again, miss buds pop open to shudder in breeze, their tractability makes sudden rise of sensibility you are shuddering too & your boy laugh comes less frequent now you’re drawn into accountability, will I return to find all stuff tidy in silver truck ready to go? it’s you in this place I lose most because it’s here in you I forget where I am, this place for supernaturals perched high in sky & wind, held by wind in stationary motion as bluebird we observe over meadow or caught up with jetstream dipping in valley’s soft cradle power & light & heat & radiance of head it takes power & light & heat & radiance of head it takes to make it work while down there someone building replicas of what it feels like to be a human multitude, fantasy molded clumsily, spare my loves and love of glorious architecture when you really put outside in, the feeling of cloud or mountain or stone having developed an idea of idyllic private life & sovereignty of spirit over common empirical demand I tell you about renunciation, I tell you holy isolation like a river nears ocean to dissolve and cabin becomes someone’s idea of a good place discretion you pay for it wasn’t mine either but sits on me imprints on me forever splendor of fog, snow shut strangers out gradual turn of season, ground stir, pine needle tickle your shoulder, peak curve, fresh air.