Jack Spicer

When the trains come into strange cities The citizens come out to meet the strangers. I love you, Jack, he said I love you, Jack, he said At another station. When passengers come in from strange cities The citizens come out to help the strangers. I love you too, I said I love you too, I said From another station. The citizens are kind to passing strangers And nourish them and kiss their lips in kindness. I walk the unbelieving streets I walk the unbelieving streets In a strange city. At night in cold new beds the welcomed strangers Achieve in memory the city's promise. I wake in love with you I wake in love with you At last year's station. Then say goodbye to citizens and city Admit this much—that they were kind to strangers. I leave my love with you I leave my love with you In this strange city.

We, the Research Assistants and Teaching Assistants of the University of California, wish to register our protest against the new loyalty oath for the following reasons. 1) The testing of a University faculty by oath is a stupid and insulting procedure. If this oath is to have the effect of eliminating Communists from the faculty, we might as logically eliminate murderers from the faculty by forcing every faculty member to sign an oath saying that he has never committed murder. 2) That such an oath is more dangerous to the liberties of the community than any number of active Communists should be obvious to any student of history. Liberty and democracy are more often overthrown by fear than by stealth. Only countries such as Russia or Spain have institutions so weak and unhealthy that they must be protected by terror. 3) Oaths and other forms of blackmail are destructive to the free working of man's intellect. Since the early Middle Ages universities have zealously guarded their intellectual freedom and have made use of its power to help create the world we know today. The oath that Galileo was forced by the Inquisition to swear is but a distant cousin to the oath we are asked to swear today, but both represent the struggle of the blind and powerful against the minds of free men. We, who will inherit the branches of learning that one thousand years of free universities have helped to generate, are not Communists and dislike the oath for the same reason we dislike Communism. Both breed stupidity and indignity; both threaten our personal and intellectual freedom. [ c. 1949 ]

I The bartender Has eyes the color of ripe apricots Easy to please as a cash register he Enjoys art and good jokes. Squish Goes the painting Squirt Goes the poem He We Laugh. II It is not easy to remember that other people died besides Dylan Thomas and Charlie Parker Died looking for beauty in the world of the bartender This person, that person, this person, that person died looking for beauty Even the bartender died III Dante blew his nose And his nose came off in his hand Rimbaud broke his throat Trying to cough Dada is not funny It is a serious assault On art Because art Can be enjoyed by the bartender. IV The bartender is not the United States Or the intellectual Or the bartender He is every bastard that does not cry When he reads this poem.

Dear Gary, Somehow your letter was no surprise (and I think you knew that it was no surprise or you would have tried to break the news more gently); somehow I think we understand what the other is going to say long before we say it—a proof of love and, I think, a protection against misunderstanding. So I've been expecting this letter for five weeks now—and I still don't know how to answer it. Bohemia is a dreadful, wonderful place. It is full of hideous people and beautiful poetry. It is a hell full of windows into heaven. It would be wrong of me to drag a person I love into such a place against his will. Unless you walk into it freely, and with open despairing eyes, you can't even see the windows. And yet I can't leave Bohemia myself to come to you—Bohemia is inside of me, in a sense is me, was the price I paid, the oath I signed to write poetry. I think that someday you'll enter Bohemia—not for me (I'm not worth the price, no human being is), but for poetry—to see the windows and maybe blast a few yourself through the rocks of hell. I'll be there waiting for you, my arms open to receive you. But let's have these letters go on, whether it be days, years, or never before I see you. We can still love each other although we cannot see each other. We will be no farther apart when I'm in Berkeley than we were when I was in Minneapolis. And we can continue to love each other, by letter, from alien worlds. Love, Jack [c.1951-2]

Imagine Lucifer An angel without angelness An apple Plucked clear by will of taste, color, Strength, beauty, roundness, seed Absent of all God painted, present everything An apple is. Imagine Lucifer An angel without angelness A poem That has revised itself out of sound Imagine, rhyme, concordance Absent of all God spoke of, present everything A poem is. The law I say, the Law Is? What is Lucifer An emperor with no clothes No skin, no flesh, no heart An emperor!

zeus: It is to be assumed that I do not exist while most people in the vision assume that I do exist. This is to be one of the extents of meaning between the players and the audience. I have to talk like this because I am the lord of both kinds of sky—and I don't mean your sky and their sky because they are signs, I mean the bright sky and the burning sky. I have no intention of showing you my limits. The players in this poem are players. They have taken their parts not to deceive you [or me for that matter] but because they have been paid in love or coin to be players. I have known for a long time that there is not a fourth wall in a play. I am called Zeus and I know this. thersites: [Running out on the construction of the stage.] The fourth wall is not as important as you think it is. zeus: [Disturbed but carrying it off like a good Master of Ceremonial.] Thersites is involuntary. [He puts his arm around him.] I could not play a part if I were not a player. thersites: Reveal yourself to me and don't pretend that there are people watching you. I am alone on the stage with you. Tell me the plot of the play. zeus: [Standing away.] Don't try to talk if you don't have to. You must admit there is no audience. Everything is done for you. thersites: Stop repeating yourself. You old motherfucker. Your skies are bad enough. [He looks to the ground.] A parody is better than a pun. zeus: I do not understand your language. [They are silent together for a moment and then the curtain drops.] *       *       * And if he dies on this road throw wild blackberries at his ghost And if he doesn't, and he won't, hope the cost Hope the cost. And the tenor of the what meets the why at the edge Like a backwards image of each terror's lodge Each terror's lodge. And if he cries put his heart out with a lantern's goat Where they say all passages to pay the debt The lighted yet. *       *       * The focus sing Is not their business. Their backs lay By not altogether being there. Here and there in swamps and villages. How doth the silly crocodile Amuse the Muse *       *       * And in the skyey march of flesh That boundary line where no body is Preserve us, lord, from aches and harms And bring my death. Both air and water rattle there And mud and fire Preserve us, lord, from what would share a shroud and bring my death. A vagrant bird flies to the glossy limbs The battlefield has harms. The trees have half Their branches shot away. Preserve us, lord From hair and mud and flesh.

Nothing is known about Helen but her voice Strange glittering sparks Lighting no fires but what is reechoed Rechorded, set on the icy sea. All history is one, as all the North Pole is one Magnetic, music to play with, ice That has had to do with vision And each one of us, naked. Partners. Naked. *       *       * Helen: A Revision ZEUS: It is to be assumed that I do not exist while most people in the vision assume that I do exist. This is to be one of the extents of meaning between the players and the audience. I have to talk like this because I am the lord of both kinds of sky—and I don't mean your sky and their sky because they are signs, I mean the bright sky and the burning sky. I have no intention of showing you my limits. The players in this poem are players. They have taken their parts not to deceive you [or me for that matter] but because they have been paid in love or coin to be players. I have known for a long time that there is not a fourth wall in a play. I am called Zeus and I know this. THERSITES: [Running out on the construction of the stage.] The fourth wall is not as important as you think it is. ZEUS: [Disturbed but carrying it off like a good Master of Ceremonial.] Thersites is involuntary. [He puts his arm around him.] I could not play a part if I were not a player. THERSITES: Reveal yourself to me and don't pretend that there are people watching you. I am alone on the stage with you. Tell me the plot of the play. ZEUS: [Standing away.] Don't try to talk if you don't have to. You must admit there is no audience. Everything is done for you. THERSITES: Stop repeating yourself. You old motherfucker. Your skies are bad enough. [He looks to the ground.] A parody is better than a pun. ZEUS: I do not understand your language. [They are silent together for a moment and then the curtain drops.] *       *       * And if he dies on this road throw wild blackberries at his ghost And if he doesn't, and he won't, hope the cost Hope the cost. And the tenor of the what meets the why at the edge Like a backwards image of each terror's lodge Each terror's lodge. And if he cries put his heart out with a lantern's goat Where they say all passages to pay the debt The lighted yet. *       *       * The focus sing Is not their business. Their backs lay By not altogether being there. Here and there in swamps and villages. How doth the silly crocodile Amuse the Muse *       *       * And in the skyey march of flesh That boundary line where no body is Preserve us, lord, from aches and harms And bring my death. Both air and water rattle there And mud and fire Preserve us, lord, from what would share a shroud and bring my death. A vagrant bird flies to the glossy limbs The battlefield has harms. The trees have half Their branches shot away. Preserve us, lord From hair and mud and flesh.

A Translation for Robert Jones A diamond Is there At the heart of the moon or the branches or my nakedness And there is nothing in the universe like diamond Nothing in the whole mind. The poem is a seagull resting on a pier at the end of the ocean. A dog howls at the moon A dog howls at the branches A dog howls at the nakedness A dog howling with pure mind. I ask for the poem to be as pure as a seagull’s belly. The universe falls apart and discloses a diamond Two words called seagull are peacefully floating out where the waves are. The dog is dead there with the moon, with the branches, with my nakedness And there is nothing in the universe like diamond Nothing in the whole mind.

Your joke Is like a lake That lies there without any thought And sees Dead seas The birds fly Around there Bewildered by its blue without any thought of water Without any thought Of water.

Any fool can get into an ocean But it takes a Goddess To get out of one. What’s true of oceans is true, of course, Of labyrinths and poems. When you start swimming Through riptide of rhythms and the metaphor’s seaweed You need to be a good swimmer or a born Goddess To get back out of them Look at the sea otters bobbing wildly Out in the middle of the poem They look so eager and peaceful playing out there where the water hardly moves You might get out through all the waves and rocks Into the middle of the poem to touch them But when you’ve tried the blessed water long Enough to want to start backward That’s when the fun starts Unless you’re a poet or an otter or something supernatural You’ll drown, dear. You’ll drown Any Greek can get you into a labyrinth But it takes a hero to get out of one What’s true of labyrinths is true of course Of love and memory. When you start remembering.