Robert Pinsky

The legendary muscle that wants and grieves, The organ of attachment, the pump of thrills And troubles, clinging in stubborn colonies Like pulpy shore-life battened on a jetty. Slashed by the little deaths of sleep and pleasure, They swell in the nurturing spasms of the waves, Sucking to cling; and even in death itself— Baked, frozen—they shrink to grip the granite harder. “Rid yourself of attachments and aversions”— But in her father’s orchard, already, he says He’d like to be her bird, and she says: Sweet, yes, Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing, Showing that she knows already—as Art Pepper, That first time he takes heroin, already knows That he will go to prison, and that he’ll suffer And knows he needs to have it, or die; and the one Who makes the General lose the world for love Lets him say,Would I had never seen her, but Oh! Says Enobarbus, Then you would have missed A wonderful piece of work, which left unseen Would bring less glory to your travels. Among The creatures in the rock-torn surf, a wave Of agitation, a gasp. A scholar quips, Shakespeare was almost certainly homosexual, Bisexual, or heterosexual, the sonnets Provide no evidence on the matter.

Pindar, poet of the victories, fitted names And legends into verses for the chorus to sing: Names recalled now only in the poems of Pindar: O nearly unpronounceable immortals, In the dash, Oionos was champion: Oionos, Likmynios's son, who came from Midea. In wrestling, Echemos won—the name Of his home city, Tegea, proclaimed to the crowds. Doryklos of Tiryns won the prize in boxing, And the record for a four-horse team was set By Samos from Mantinea, Halirothios's son. And Pindar, poet of the Olympian and Isthmian And Pythian games, wrote also of the boundless And forgetful savannas of time.What is someone? The chorus sing in a victory ode—What is a nobody? Creatures of a day, they chant in answer,Creatures Of a day

Imagine a child from Virginia or New Hampshire Alone on the prairie eighty years ago Or more, one afternoon—the shaggy pelt Of grasses, for the first time in that child’s life, Flowing for miles. Imagine the moving shadow Of a cloud far off across that shadeless ocean, The obliterating strangeness like a tide That pulls or empties the bubble of the child’s Imaginary heart. No hills, no trees. The child’s heart lightens, tending like a bubble Towards the currents of the grass and sky, The pure potential of the clear blank spaces. Or, imagine the child in a draw that holds a garden Cupped from the limitless motion of the prairie, Head resting against a pumpkin, in evening sun. Ground-cherry bushes grow along the furrows, The fruit red under its papery, moth-shaped sheath. Grasshoppers tumble among the vines, as large As dragons in the crumbs of pale dry earth. The ground is warm to the child’s cheek, and the wind Is a humming sound in the grass above the draw, Rippling the shadows of the red-green blades. The bubble of the child’s heart melts a little, Because the quiet of that air and earth Is like the shadow of a peaceful death— Limitless and potential; a kind of space Where one dissolves to become a part of something Entire ... whether of sun and air, or goodness And knowledge, it does not matter to the child. Dissolved among the particles of the garden Or into the motion of the grass and air, Imagine the child happy to be a thing. Imagine, then, that on that same wide prairie Some people are threshing in the terrible heat With horses and machines, cutting bands And shoveling amid the clatter of the threshers, The chaff in prickly clouds and the naked sun Burning as if it could set the chaff on fire. Imagine that the people are Swedes or Germans, Some of them resting pressed against the strawstacks, Trying to get the meager shade. A man, A tramp, comes laboring across the stubble Like a mirage against that blank horizon, Laboring in his torn shoes toward the tall Mirage-like images of the tilted threshers Clattering in the heat. Because the Swedes Or Germans have no beer, or else because They cannot speak his language properly, Or for some reason one cannot imagine, The man climbs up on a thresher and cuts bands A minute or two, then waves to one of the people, A young girl or a child, and jumps head-first Into the sucking mouth of the machine, Where he is wedged and beat and cut to pieces— While the people shout and run in the clouds of chaff, Like lost mirages on the pelt of prairie. The obliterating strangeness and the spaces Are as hard to imagine as the love of death ... Which is the love of an entire strangeness, The contagious blankness of a quiet plain. Imagine that a man, who had seen a prairie, Should write a poem about a Dark or Shadow That seemed to be both his, and the prairie’s—as if The shadow proved that he was not a man, But something that lived in quiet, like the grass. Imagine that the man who writes that poem, Stunned by the loneliness of that wide pelt, Should prove to himself that he was like a shadow Or like an animal living in the dark. In the dark proof he finds in his poem, the man Might come to think of himself as the very prairie, The sod itself, not lonely, and immune to death. None of this happens precisely as I try To imagine that it does, in the empty plains, And yet it happens in the imagination Of part of the country: not in any place More than another, on the map, but rather Like a place, where you and I have never been And need to try to imagine—place like a prairie Where immigrants, in the obliterating strangeness, Thirst for the wide contagion of the shadow Or prairie—where you and I, with our other ways, More like the cities or the hills or trees, Less like the clear blank spaces with their potential, Are like strangers in a place we must imagine.

I. Invocation It's crazy to think one could describe them— Calling on reason, fantasy, memory, eyes and ears— As though they were all alike any more Than sweeps, opticians, poets or masseurs. Moreover, they are for more than one reason Difficult to speak of seriously and freely, And I have never (even this is difficult to say Plainly, without foolishness or irony) Consulted one for professional help, though it happens Many or most of my friends have—and that, Perhaps, is why it seems urgent to try to speak Sensibly about them, about the psychiatrists. II. Some Terms “Shrink” is a misnomer. The religious Analogy is all wrong, too, and the old, Half-forgotten jokes about Viennese accents And beards hardly apply to the good-looking woman In boots and a knit dress, or the man Seen buying the Sunday Times in mutton-chop Whiskers and expensive running shoes. In a way I suspect that even the terms “doctor” And “therapist” are misnomers; the patient Is not necessarily “sick.” And one assumes That no small part of the psychiatrist’s Role is just that: to point out misnomers. III. Proposition These are the first citizens of contingency. Far from the doctrinaire past of the old ones, They think in their prudent meditations Not about ecstasy (the soul leaving the body) Nor enthusiasm (the god entering one’s person) Nor even about sanity (which means Health, an impossible perfection) But ponder instead relative truth and the warm Dusk of amelioration. The cautious Young augurs with their family-life, good books And records and foreign cars believe In amelioration—in that, and in suffering. IV. A Lakeside Identification Yes, crazy to suppose one could describe them— And yet, there was this incident: at the local beach Clouds of professors and the husbands of professors Swam, dabbled, or stood to talk with arms folded Gazing at the lake ... and one of the few townsfolk there, With no faculty status—a matter-of-fact, competent, Catholic woman of twenty-seven with five children And a first-rate body—pointed her finger At the back of one certain man and asked me, “Is that guy a psychiatrist?” and by god he was! “Yes,” She said, “He looks like a psychiatrist.” Grown quiet, I looked at his pink back, and thought. V. Physical Comparison With Professors And Others Pink and a bit soft-bodied, with a somewhat jazzy Middle-class bathing suit and sandy sideburns, to me He looked from the back like one more professor. And from the front, too—the boyish, unformed carriage Which foreigners always note in American men, combined As in a professor with that liberal, quizzical, Articulate gaze so unlike the more focused, more Tolerant expression worn by a man of action (surgeon, Salesman, athlete). On closer inspection was there, Perhaps, a self-satisfied benign air, a too studied Gentleness toward the child whose hand he held loosely? Absurd to speculate; but then—the woman saw something. VI. Their Seriousness, With Further Comparisons In a certain sense, they are not serious. That is, they are serious—useful, deeply helpful, Concerned—only in the way that the pilots of huge Planes, radiologists, and master mechanics can, At their best, be serious. But however profound The psychiatrists may be, they are not serious the way A painter may be serious beyond pictures, or a businessman May be serious beyond property and cash—or even The way scholars and surgeons are serious, each rapt In his work’s final cause, contingent upon nothing: Beyond work; persons; recoveries. And this is fitting: Who would want to fly with a pilot who was serious About getting to the destination safely? Terrifying idea— That a pilot could over-extend, perhaps try to fly Too well, or suffer from Pilot’s Block; of course, It may be that (just as they must not drink liquor Before a flight) they undergo regular, required check-ups With a psychiatrist, to prevent such things from happening. VII. Historical (The Bacchae) Madness itself, as an idea, leaves us confused— Incredulous that it exists, or cruelly facetious, Or stricken with a superstitious awe as if bound By the lost cults of Trebizond and Pergamum ... The most profound study of madness is found In the Bacchae of Euripides, so deeply disturbing That in Cambridge, Massachusetts the players Evaded some of the strongest unsettling material By portraying poor sincere, fuddled, decent Pentheus As a sort of fascistic bureaucrat—but it is Dionysus Who holds rallies, instills exaltations of violence, With his leopards and atavistic troops above law, Reason and the good sense and reflective dignity Of Pentheus—Pentheus, humiliated, addled, made to suffer Atrocity as a minor jest of the smirking God. When Bacchus’s Chorus (who call him “most gentle”!) observe: “Ten thousand men have ten thousand hopes; some fail, Some come to fruit, but the happiest man is he Who gathers the good of life day by day”—as though Life itself were enough—does that mean, to leave ambition? And is it a kind of therapy, or truth? Or both? VIII. A Question On the subject of madness the Bacchae seems, On the whole, more pro than contra. The Chorus Says of wine, “There is no other medicine for misery”; When the Queen in her ecstasy—or her enthusiasm?— Tears her terrified son’s arm from his body, or bears His head on her spear, she remains happy so long As she remains crazy; the God himself (who bound fawnskin To the women’s flesh, armed them with ivy arrows And his orgies’ livery) debases poor Pentheus first, Then leads him to mince capering towards female Death And dismemberment: flushed, grinning, the grave young King of Thebes pulls at a slipping bra-strap, simpers Down at his turned ankle.Pentheus:“Should I lift up Mount Cithæron—Bacchae, mother and all?” Dionysus: “Do what you want to do. Your mind Was unstable once, but now you sound more sane, You are on your way to great things.” The question is, Which is the psychiatrist: Pentheus, or Dionysus? IX. Pentheus As Psychiatrist With his reasonable questions Pentheus tries To throw light on the old customs of savagery. Like a brave doctor, he asks about it all, He hears everything, “Weird, fantastic things” The Messenger calls them: with their breasts Swollen, their new babies abandoned, mothers Among the Bacchantes nestled gazelles And young wolves in their arms, and suckled them; You might see a single one of them tear a fat calf In two, still bellowing with fright, while others Clawed heifers to pieces; ribs and hooves Were strewn everywhere; blood-smeared scraps Hung from the fir trees; furious bulls Charged and then fell stumbling, pulled down To be stripped of skin and flesh by screaming women ... And Pentheus listened. Flames burned in their hair, Unnoticed; thick honey spurted from their wands; And the snakes they wore like ribbons licked Hot blood from their flushed necks: Pentheus Was the man the people told ... “weird things,” like A middle-class fantasy of release; and when even The old men—bent Cadmus and Tiresias—dress up In fawnskin and ivy, beating their wands on the ground, Trying to carouse, it is Pentheus—down-to-earth, Sober—who raises his voice in the name of dignity. Being a psychiatrist, how could he attend to the Chorus’s warning Against “those who aspire” and “a tongue without reins”? X. Dionysus As Psychiatrist In a more hostile view, the psychiatrists Are like Bacchus—the knowing smirk of his mask, His patients, his confident guidance of passion, And even his little jokes, as when the great palace Is hit by lightning which blazes and stays, Bouncing among the crumpled stone walls ... And through the burning rubble he comes, With his soft ways picking along lightly With a calm smile for the trembling Chorus Who have fallen to the ground, bowing In the un-Greek, Eastern way—What, Asian women, He asks, Were you disturbed just now when Bacchus Jostled the palace? He warns Pentheus to adjust, To learn the ordinary man’s humble sense of limits, Violent limits, to the rational world. He cures Pentheus of the grand delusion that the dark Urgencies can be governed simply by the mind, And the mind’s will. He teaches Queen Agave to look Up from her loom, up at the light, at her tall Son’s head impaled on the stiff spear clutched In her own hand soiled with dirt and blood. XI. Their Philistinism Considered “Greek Tragedy” of course is the sort of thing They like and like the idea of ... though not “tragedy” In the sense of newspapers. When a patient shot one of them, People phoned in, many upset as though a deep, Special rule had been abrogated, someone had gone too far. The poor doctor, as described by the evening Globe, Turned out to be a decent, conventional man (Doctors For Peace, B’Nai Brith, numerous articles), almost Carefully so, like Paul Valéry—or like Rex Morgan, M.D., who, In the same Globe, attends a concert with a longjawed woman. First Panel:“We’re a little early for the concert! There’s an art museum we can stroll through!” “I’d like

Felicity the healer isn’t young And you don’t look him up unless you need him. Clown’s eyes, Pope’s nose, a mouth for dirty stories, He made his bundle in the Great Depression And now, a jovial immigrant success In baggy pinstripes, he winks and wheezes gossip, Village stories that could lift your hair Or lance a boil; the small town dirt, the dope, The fishy deals and incestuous combinations, The husband and the wife of his wife’s brother, The hospital contract, the certificate ... A realist and hardy omnivore, He strolls the jetties when the month is right With a knife and lemons in his pocket, after Live mussels from among the smelly rocks, Preventative of impotence and goitre. And as though the sight of tissue healing crooked Pleased him, like the ocean’s vaginal taste, He’ll stitch your thumb up so it shows for life. And where he once was the only quack in town We all have heard his half-lame joke, the one About the operation that succeeded, The tangy line that keeps that clever eye So merry in the punchinello face.

Characters robot leader robot two robot three robot four simon powers miranda Simon’s daughter from a previous marriage. evvy Simon’s third, “final” wife. nicholas Simon’s protégé and adopted son. Prosthetic limbs. the united way the united nations the administration the world’s miseries *     *     * [The robots roll and lurch and glide onstage as a single mass of parts, an animated scaffold of struts and gears. The elements of this jumble devolve into separate robots who become gradually more humanoid until at the end they have become the actual, human characters. Partway through the process:] robot leader Units assembled for the ritual Performance at command, As the Human Creators have ordained, In memory of the Past. robot two This concept I cannot understand, At the center of the drama— What is this “Death”—Is it a form of waste? robot three I cannot comprehend, I cannot understand: If the information of one unit might be lost It is backed up by any other unit at hand: What is this “Death”—Is it an excessive cost? robot four How can information end? Is it a form of entropy? Why did the Human Creators Before they departed intend To require a performance on a theme Impossible to comprehend? Is it the data rearranged, As in an error, in a dream? A real jumble? Data in memory misplaced In a random scramble— Dream-data, the order changed; That would be something I could comprehend, If only the form was changed. Is that the meaning of this “Death”—data rearranged? A dream of something lost That was meant to be saved? An unrecovered past? What is suffering? How can I perceive What I cannot feel? robot three What can we learn? What can we gain, From inferior matter? [Just before the process of transformation is completed:] robot leader All we can understand Is the Human Creators’ command: In memory of the Original Past And the Organic Age, We perform this drama We cannot understand. Whatever the score and script intend By this undefined “Death”— Although the meaning is lost, Back in the Organic Age, We perform, to obey their command. Whatever the Human Creators planned Before they departed— Units deployed as Individuals will receive One Thousand Human Rights Status Credits. Now, it is time we started. [They have transformed themselves into human performers or characters. They have created the house of Simon Powers and his family. An elegant room, cluttered but expensive, half high-tech operating room and half Victorian salon. An elaborate metallic sculpture of a bird. A full-length portrait of young Simon. We see the two women, Evvy and Miranda; in his lab coat at a wall of instruments, Nicholas; in his wheelchair, trailing wires and tubes and holding a Frankenstein’s monster mask over his face in his one good arm, Simon.] *     *     * simon [Lowers the Frankenstein’s monster mask]“Once out of Nature I will never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make From hammered gold and gold enameling . . . ” Da-da, da-da, mechanical parakeet . . . “And set upon a golden bough to sing.” Ah, the immortal William Yeats! He can have his bird. Yeats, I give you the bird! evvy Simon, please be serious. Or at least be frightened Or show that you are frightened. I feel you already Vanishing into this machine. Out of nature—into a machine! If you were frightened I would be less worried. Will you go insane, Out of nature, In the machine? simon [Raises the mask back to his face for a moment.] The machine is part of nature! For every machine that makes nature better— Like the System that I will enter— Nature made the maker Of that machine. [Removes mask: his head rests in a brace, suggesting paralysis, though the wheelchair keeps moving as if nervously pacing. His one arm and his face are animated, but the head does not move.] Nature is the begetter Of every inventor So machines are made by nature: The great Organic Machine. [Flips the mask aside.] nicholas There isn’t much more time, the body Is dying, now it’s time to enter the system? simon Thank you, Nick, for reminding me— In the stroke of time, in the nick of time. Nick will rescue me from my stroke. Miranda, my child, come talk to me! And Evvy, my favorite, my beloved And final wife, Come join in the celebration. nicholas There isn’t time. simon There’s always time. Miranda, come talk to me! Evvy, everything is new. My flesh and blood, And my loved wife, It’s a new life: Let’s talk about our plans— I have a lot to do this afternoon, After I die! miranda Nicholas says there isn’t time. Because—it’s time. I’m afraid it’s time— And I’m afraid. simon And so, I’m not out of time. But soon I’ll be out of matter! Yes I’ll be out of matter, But I will still be rich! nicholas Now it is time! [While Simon sings the next words, Nicholas is adjusting the device, attaching it toSimon, fussing with parts of Simon’s body and with the “infernal device”of the room.] simon Once, when Miranda was three years old She put her hand to her throat Just here above the voice-box And felt the vibration. She said: “I can feel it when I talk— That must mean Miranda is inside.” And she was right! You were right, My intelligent daughter: It’s the vibration, The movement, that matters! That’s what I love in you— The voice, the gesture: The ripple, not the water! And that’s how I got rich! miranda Daddy, where will you be? simon It doesn’t matter! Maybe in a bird, like the immortal Yeats. Maybe in my portrait by some Immortal painter whose immortal Name I forget! nicholas We must leave the body And launch him into the system In the next few minutes. simon Evvy, she is like a daughter to you? Miranda, she has been a mother to you? miranda Yes, she is like a mother. evvy My child—I have no other. simon Then you see—it’s true! It isn’t the blood, It isn’t the bone. It’s never the matter that matters. Particles, molecules, cells, fingers, eyes, nerves Are only places for the system Of meaningful vibrations. It’s all in the meaning, the movement, The idea—that’s the idea. It’s never the clones, the bones, the Silicon chips, skinflick rips. It’s what you adopt, And how you adapt. They were all amazed How a tinkerer like me Could be such a shrewd investor. I looked for the movement, the vibration, Not the matter, the system! And that’s how I got rich! It’s not the hog bellies, hope chests, Chest of gold, heads of state, Skin, the belly, chest, head: The matter is just a medium, The system is the idea. miranda & evvy & nicholas [Then joined bySimon.] The matter is mortal But the system lives on The matter is mulch The matter is static The matter is zilch— But the system is movement, the ideal Is real and the idea persists. simon It made me rich! Skin flicks, hog bellies, hope chests, heads of state. Skin, belly, chest, head— Why freeze your head when you’re dead? It’s only meat! If I keep a little of my meat For old time’s sake, what the hell, A meaty souvenir— It won’t be the skull! I’ll save the heart, Or some other juicy part. [Simon is taken away byNicholas. Miranda andEvvy,like the audience, can no longer see him.] miranda How will we speak to you? Will you be some one place? When you’re all a vibration Without any one face We could know you with? evvy Will I know what is you Without any breath? Will it be your voice? Or a simulation? miranda & evvy What will I know, What will I do, How will my ears Know what they hear? How will my hands Know what they touch? How will it be you, And how will I know? simon What does it matter? Simulation, place, Medium, voice, Face, shmace— As many as I want, Faces and voices. Now I am almost purely, Entirely, Into the system I’m nearly Out of matter. But maybe I’m not Out of time. evvy But how can you be yourself, Without a body? How will I know you, my husband, How will you know me? simon Maybe as a bird, maybe As a dog, a horse, a house: “Body my house my horse my hound what will I do when you are fallen Where will I sleep How will I ride What will I hunt . . . when Body my good bright dog is dead.” So said the immortal May Swenson— I’ll be more immortal than her and that peculiar bird The immortal William Yeats. [Nods toNicholas.] Now! See you later! [Nicholas turns a switch or two, hits the return key, etc., andSimon slumps forward. The room shakes a bit. The metal bird stirs, stretches its wings, squawks a little. The portrait of young Simon becomes animated, looks around the room.] evvy What now? *     *     * Scene Two [Miranda and Nicholasare in the room, which continues to stir mysteriously, an animated environment. The portrait, the bird, other objects, pulse or shift like sleeping animals.] simon [Muttering, half-whispered.] Remember. Nearer . . . ardor . . . Closer . . . higher . . . Search-it . . . circuit . . . Memory tempered, Torturous choir: Dismembered, afire, No matter the matter— I did that. I am the same. The name and the matter, Touch and desire. Doing, undoing Dissemble the fire. Remember: I did that. Much in a wire. The closer the harder What was the matter? Scorched in a circle, Encumbered, remember: I am the same. The memory chamber Touch too much, too Much unremembered As I drew nearer. Touch not enough To the light expiring That matter encumbered. Remembered assembly, Circle of touch, torch Lighting the chamber Where I am the same. Remember. Torch and desire Disassembled memory As I draw nearer Over and over and over. . . . Couched in a wire Closer and higher Search it in the circuit Dismembered, afire, Resembled ensemble Assembled entire, Trembling to acquire A semblance of fire. Remember: Whatever I did I did that and I am the same. [By the end of the scene, there is no trace left of Simon’s human body.] *     *     * Scene Three miranda He has been silent all last night And all day. These things are alive, this place— But is my father alive? Is he here? Can he speak? When can we hear his voice? nicholas Where is Evvy? miranda Finally asleep. She’s afraid That he’s lost forever. Can you help us hear him? nicholas Yes!—He helped me, now I’ll help him. They said I was a vegetable Or a piece of meat. He gave me a new body, Made of graphite and magnesium, Titanium alloy and copper— Better than meat! When I was a kid And he had More money than God, He came into the ward And saved me at random. Now, I’ll help him live in the System. The way he helped me: I’ll help him live without a body— Post-Organic, like me! nicholas [Nicholas’s “Song To His Arms”; holds up his right arm.] One arm of bone and gristle, nerves and muscle— Mortal, fallible, breakable. Saved by the idea, saved by the System. [Holds up his left arm, a mechanized prosthesis, an openwork of rods and cables.] One arm of magnesium and nickel, Graphite, silicon, and cable— Mortal, fallible, breakable. Perfection of the soul-ware Capable of renewal Never in the matter. miranda This room Is all of him? nicholas Not the room, or the arm, Always the system, All in the principle That moves the cable and moves the muscle. miranda Can we hear his voice? Is he only this place? nicholas Like my left arm, that is mine Not me, Like a tool or a baby’s rattle. So is his voice, so is this place. And the right arm, too, is mine Not me. Like my skull lined with gristle So too his voice, so too this place. Even the brain in its shell, As mortal, as fallible, as breakable. As the clone the bone the hardest stone All mortal and material— I can help him, in the real. Not in silicon, titanium, or nickel Not hammered and enameled— Immaterial and immortal! Chrome and nickel, silicon and graphite. All get tired and old. Only the form is real. Only the system can hold. Now we can hear his voice: What is your name? [The artist’s version of young Simon steps hesitantly from the portrait. His movements are subtly but distinctly unnatural, even mechanical. He moves somewhat as the robots did as they began taking on their roles.] simon What is my name? A name is a machine. A name is a made-up thing That proposes someone is real. My name is A machine for designation— That’s what any name is. My name is Simon Walter Powers, It proposes I am alive. Like my spiritual mentors The immortal Walter Disney And the immortal Walter Whitman, My fellow Walters And fellow-inventors. And by the way, I have billions of bucks, And I can still sign checks. That’s what! miranda The gestures are unreal And so is the face But this is how he talks And this is his voice. nicholas Who is the president of the United States? [The youngSimonhas receded back into the portrait.Simon’s voice now emerges from the bird.] simon A man who wants my favor, A man who courts my power, A guy who wants to meet my movie stars, And wants to use my billions. That’s who. miranda Daddy, is it you in there? And can you hear me? nicholas In a moment we will try To see if he can hear you. What is your business? [The bird becomes relatively still, the next lines are inSimon’s voice coming from the portrait again, or from some other part of the room.] simon [As portrait or—] I am a producer. And business is my wares. Lady’s Wear, Software, Hardware—Artware, Warware, Peaceware— I am in Every Ware: Or you might call it Being Ware— Some call it fantasy Some call it entertainment Some are wary of its power. The Consuming Power of Billions. My business is making Being: To build the towers, to cure The disease, to make the hours Amusing or improving By showing you something new By taking you some where real You never were before. My business is the Mind. My business is to make it free To be everywhere My wares are every ware You can imagine. That’s what. And I have billions of bucks. And I can still sign checks. nicholas It works! He is alive, But he is not matter. miranda And is he still Simon, Is he still my father? nicholas All of that, And something better! *     *     * Scene Four [The middle of the night.Evvyenters in a daze, nearly as if sleepwalking.Evvyspeaks with the disembodiedSimon.] evvy Simon, do you remember the first time we danced? simon In the parking lot near the Francis Drake Hotel. evvy They had the windows open and we could hear the band. simon “Begin the Beguine.” I remember the terrace. evvy On the other side remember of the tall hedge. simon A tall hedge of pittosporum. I remember. evvy And the smell I remember of night jasmine. simon Your dress pink your pearls in as I remember two strands. evvy Held together I remember by a little silver bangle. simon I remember, love. And we danced for joy. Remember? evvy It’s hard to get used to seeing you like this. Do you want to live forever? simon People say “forever,” they say, “Do you want to live forever!” And people say, “enough”: “Haven’t you had enough?” Wrong questions! It’s not forever! It’s not “enough”! It’s . . .more! Don’t talk about enough! Enough never is enough! It’s more! Ask anybody how much money Would be enough for you? Just about everybody Says double what they have Or double what they make: More! What’s enough being alive? Why does the crushed bug Keep waving a leg? That wave Is for more, more, and more. Forever doesn’t matter. Enough isn’t good enough. What matters is more. And if you think you’ve got Three score years and ten Then what you want is not To outlive the sun, But a hundred and forty—more! Forever is not the point. All that matters is more. Don’t talk about enough, There’s no such thing— What you want is more: More, more, more. evvy Touch me. O yes that. And some this. And this again, yes. And more of that. O yes both and that Too and this other and O More this. And that. And the other. O. Yes, yes that and The other And this and that and more and all And the other and O yes All yes all yes, all yes. Touch me. I remember. *     *     * Scene Five [Nicholas alone. He now has two prosthetic arms and a prosthetic leg, but glides about efficiently, as though he has become part-Segway. He is fiddling with the now more-elaborate bird and portrait, which seem more alive than ever, as does the entire room. Robots are bustling about to assist him. Miranda enters, apparently accustomed to this new, stranger atmosphere.] miranda They are here— The important delegation From the United Way, The Administration And the United Nations— They want to speak to him, they say They want his ear. They say it’s regarding Matters of the whole Planet’s life and death. nicholas They want his ear? Don’t they understand? He doesn’t hear with ears, He doesn’t speak with breath. [Nicholas gleefully sheds another part of his human-looking body. Robots are dancing (vocalizing).] He says they should speak with Evvy, She handles that kind of thing. miranda The whole planet—famine, war, The exploitation of children . . . The whole planet . . . They know Evvy isn’t the same. They know she doesn’t listen To anything but him. I myself don’t know If she hears him or not. Here she comes. Evvy, dear— Did you speak with the delegation? [Evvy enters wearing headphones, swaying a little as if to music, nodding and tilting her head as if in conversation. She appears not to hear Miranda.] evvy Mmmm. nicholas Evvy, can you hear Simon? evvy Mmmmmm. miranda Are you listening to him? Does he know that the delegation . . . evvy Mmmmmmm. miranda The whole planet . . . nicholas Are you listening for him? evvy Mmmmmmmm. miranda Her mind is not in this world. Simon, Daddy—are you there? Are you speaking to her? Will you see the delegation From the United Way, The Administration And the United Nations? The devastation . . . the children . . . the planet . . . Will you listen? nicholas They want his ear, They want his eye— Those parts are dead and buried! He’s rather cranky And weary today. Send the delegation on its way. Send them away. miranda I can’t send away A delegation from the world— The Outside World Itself. The children . . . the devastation . . . Daddy, Simon— Will you? War . . . famine . . . evvy [Her face lights up; she lifts a finger as if hearing something.] Mmmmmmm! . . . [But no—she goes dreamy again, shakes her head, recedes.] Mmmmmmmm. simon’s voice Bring in the delegation From the Outside World Itself. I will see it and hear it For two minutes. [Miranda exits and returns with The United Way(medical scrubs?), The United Nations (dashiki?), and The Administration (suit?).] the united nations Sir, the sudden massive liquidation of your assets Has caused a global economic crisis. the administration The market is flooded with cheap hallucinogens And the food supply is threatened. the united way Surpluses and shortages, wars and famines. Because of your selling. the united nations An ecological crisis. From you no longer buying. the administration Biological weapons. Your withdrawing contributions. the united way People are starving, Children are dying. the united nations The planet itself is threatened. the united way Entire populations, climatic changes. Rogue microbes, radiation. the administration War, evacuation. the united way Rape, displacement. Exploitation of children . . . famine . . . the united nations Life itself is threatened— The means of evacuation Of an entire planet. the administration What is the meaning of your behavior? the united way & the united nation s & the administration We demand an answer! miranda [Joining the above.] Please answer! Can you listen? Maybe you should listen, For the sake of the starving . . . [Silence. As it persists, in the “breathing” room, they gradually all come to look at Nicholas.] nicholas He chooses not to answer. More and more, He chooses to live in dreams. the administration Or is he dead, has he been dead for years, And are you and his daughter Manipulating the markets, Spreading disaster? the united way Are you the manipulator Fabricating a voice? the united nations Pretending he’s still alive While a billion people suffer? the united way & the united nation s & the administration Do you exist? In the name Of the nameless ones who suffer, We demand an answer! simon [His voice from some new source, or from portrait and bird at once.] O Röschen rot! Der Mensch liegt in größter Not! Der Mensch liegt in größter Pein! Je lieber möcht’ ich im Himmel sein! the administration What is he saying? miranda Father, listen to them—they are the only voice The poor world has . . . simon Oh red rose! Man lies in deepest need. Man lies in deepest pain. Yes, I would rather be in heaven! evvy Mmmmmmm. the united nations It’s poetry! the united way What is it supposed to mean? miranda Is it Klopstock? Or Blake? A passage my father’s Often quoted I can hear Him humming it. simon The immortal poet Mündlich! the administration Was that German? I’m sorry— It doesn’t mean anything to me. simon An angel came and wanted to send me away. Ah no! I would not be sent away! I am from God and will return to God. Dear God will give me light, Will light me to eternal life! Me and Mündlich! the administration [DuringSimon’s song.] Sir, with all respect, we come to you In a time of global emergency. We need something more than poetry. the united way & the united nations Some of us do not understand poetry. Especially in a time of emergency. simon [During previous.] Da kam ich auf einen breiten Weg; Da kam ein Engelein und wollt’ mich abweisen. What? What did you say? the united way & the united nation s & the administration It’s a time of emergency We aren’t sure we understand Or appreciate hearing poetry! We do not understand! simon Understand— But you do understand the newspaper? the united way Well, yes, exactly. the administration We know the emergency. the united nations We understand the needs. simon You know that some time ago I bought the Reuters agency? the united way Yes, the world knows that, but sir— simon Please explain to me Something that came into my mind From my own agency That I cannot understand— Nicholas! Read this to them! nicholas [Reading from a monitor that appears, or from a page the room emits.] “Group of Young Men Beats Nurse to Death” “A group of young men taking part in coming-of-age rituals due to include circumcision turned on their male nurse and killed him, an official said yesterday. A spokesman for the provincial Health Department said the young men, ages 18 to 25, beat the man to death with sticks at the site of their initiation ceremonies in Port Angel on Friday evening. The attack followed complaints by the men that they were not being properly looked after during their initiation ceremonies. The nurse was in charge of caring for the men ahead of their circumcision.” the administration What? Huh? the united nations These are the sorts of problems Caused by the emergency . . . the united way In the time of stress and crisis . . . simon Do you understand it? Do you understand the bland Hollow, hollow sound of Understanding of the words? Do you understand that hollow? And you say you don’t Understand poetry! I came from light And I will return to light! [The room pulses, unpleasant strobes.] the administration I still say he might be dead. the united way This all may be a trick. the united nations You, how do we know he’s real? How . . . the administration . . . do . . . the united way . . . we know. . . the united nations . . . he’s not . . . the administration . . . something . . . the united way . . . that . . . the united nations . . . you . . . the united way . . . made . . . the administration . . . up? the united way & the united nation s & the administration Just a manipulation? miranda You should not agitate him. You are driving him out of this world. Father . . . listen . . . the children . . . [The room calms down again.] nicholas We can save the world, And free it from war and hunger, We can lead you out of your old Dependency on the body! the administration Is this the truth? Or a trick? the united nations A manipulation? the united way & the united nation s & the administration Is this the truth? nicholas I will tell you the truth!— He is perfectly real And I am the manipulation. He is an intelligence, in the system. And I am his creation, He’s real, and I am the golem. [ Nicholascalmly removes his head from his body, and smiles at the delegation.] the united way & the united nation s & the administration And this could be another trick! They both could be unreal—It’s all sinister tricks! We don’t know which one is real. [Simon and Nicholas are amused, butMiranda is nearly as surprised as the delegation.] simon What’s the difference? I don’t even need to sign checks: I am the software, the system. I control the money and power. If I’m a trick or a manipulation, Then I’m a trick in control. “Donations of Brains Are Probed in Maine”— There’s another actual headline From a paper I control. And you understand it. And you don’t understand poetry. And Da kam ein Engelein und wollt’ mich abweisen, And I’m in control, And I’m getting bored with you all. Now leave—your time is up. the united way & the united nation s & the administration Sir, this is selfish! simon How can I be selfish When I’m not even a self? I am All! And I’m bored with you all— All that world of meat. It’s my flesh and blood that I love. I will rescue my flesh and blood From bondage to flesh and blood. Now leave, your time is up. miranda Still, Father, you should listen . . . evvy [Her hands to the headphones, rather pained.] Mmmmmmm. miranda I miss having a father. Like any other Person, I am someone’s child I want at least Something like a mother Something of flesh and blood. I miss having a father Of flesh and blood. I need to touch my mother. evvy [Seeming to feel something, but we can’t be sure.] Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm. *     *     * Scene Six [Miranda, Evvy, the now semi-robotic Nicholas,whose head may be on a shelf or cranny of the Segway-like body.] nicholas Still, I do wonder— Now that we are ready To leave the last bit Of these mortal bodies, I do wonder Why does he choose More and more To live away from the world. The senses will be stronger, Not weaker. The body will do more, Not less. The mind will be free. The senses will be pure, More and more. miranda What will it feel like? What does he feel? evvy [She removes the headphones, and regains focus.] I will tell you what it is like. I have been listening to Simon. It’s like when we fell in love. This is what it is like: When you stand on a high building Or on a bridge and you want to jump off Something in you wants to jump off, To feel what it might be like to fall. You can jump. You can fall. You can fall forever, and do it again. You are free to keep on falling forever You are free to fall and change your mind And drift back up. I’ve been listening to Simon. Excuse me. nicholas She is going into the system. The world is her body, She is everything she hears, She can see for a million miles. It is like falling in love. [Evvy is transformed, her body becomes empty and she is manifested somewhere in the room. Another portrait? The bird in another form?] evvy [As part of the room.] Are you coming, Nicholas? nicholas I’m already there! [Nicholas too is transformed, appearing as some previously inanimate part of the room. It appears that everyone in the family unit except Miranda has “become the room.”] miranda They have all gone into the world of light! But what about the poor, the children, the starving? [The United Way, The United Nations, and The Administrationlead onstage a parade of the world’s miseries—the victims of famine, torture, crime, disease. The pageant subsides into the shadows, with Miranda alone in the foreground, with the room dim and inert.] And, what about me? With nothing like a mother Of flesh and blood, nothing Like a father, Either alive or dead. Can all the earth be disembodied? Neither alive nor dead? Can we all fall and rise forever? Together? Are we few rising into the light, While the others sink down into pain? Can we help them up When we are free of meat? I want my mother! [The figure ofSimon,in his human body, on a wheelchair or semi-gurney, with respirator andivdrip, emerges from the shadows. Not quite real, like a hologram.] miranda Father! Is it you? Still in a body? Still in this world of meat? simon I appear to you one more time, Dear Miranda, to explain: Like you, I tried to help the world. I, too, saw these miseries, and I’ve Tried to heal the world, too. But the animal is defective. It’s not the poor or the starving That hold you back. It’s yourself—I know: I, too, tried to heal the world— But it’s in us, the problem’s in us, it’s in us. We evolved as meat, to love fat and sugar; Once that was good, but now it is fatal. We evolved as flesh, to want sex all the time; Once that was good, but now it’s only trouble. We evolved as muscle, to want to make war; Once that was good, but now that is lethal. Our fat and sugar are killing us, Our sweetness and abundance Kill us, and lead us to famine Bigger McMuck, Thicker Sweet Shake. Sexier Shaking the Sweetness, Smarter Weapons for Meat. Meat wants Meat, Meat wants Sweet, Meat sweats for the Sweets, Meat wants who it meets— It kills to eat. Now there’s no help but evolving Out of the meat, and into the system. It isn’t the many and the few— It’s yourself, it’s you! Come! Into the world of light! miranda The misery’s part of our being, We don’t need to amputate it. And me, my own misery is part of me. I don’t want to amputate it Painful as it is. Yes, what about me? With nothing like another Person’s body To touch, no body to feel, I can still feel the misery Of what I lack. No body to have or be had by, No way to make love. No lover, no other. Nothing of the body. With nothing like a mother Of flesh and blood, nothing Like a father, Either alive or dead. Can all the earth be disembodied? Neither alive nor dead? Can we all fall and rise forever? Together? Are we few rising into the light, While the others sink down into pain? Can we help them up When we’re free of meat? Who will we touch? I want my sugar, my touch, I want my sweet milk My meat and my misery My touch and my milk— I want my mother! simon What you feel is phantom pain In the amputated limb. Leave it, Away from the bondage of meat! Away from the wars and the sweat! miranda I don’t want to, I want to stay in my body, In this body of sugar and fat, This bondage of sex and war— But my body of sugar and fat, My body of sex and war, My body of death and sweat, Is in my mind—it makes me need To be with my pack, my tribe. There in the world of light. simon Yes come to the light from the meat! miranda No I won’t amputate My body away from the light. The body of this death Is who I am, it is my mind. I am this body of death. simon No, you are not meat, you are light! Come with us, leave the meat. Leave the death and the sweat. miranda Yes I crave to go with my pack Because I am this body, Body of death and sweat, Is where I want to stay. Body of death and sweat That I leave behind Because I am this body. Because I am this body of Death, and sweat I’m Afraid to be alone. [Repeating the following text with building intensity.] Who will I be? What will I see, When this body is gone? Without my forgetting How will I remember? Without my death Who will I be? simon [Joining Miranda.] Away from the body of death. Away from the body of meat! Away from the wars and the sweat! miranda What will I remember With no forgetting? simon Away from the body of meat! miranda How will I feel, Who will I be? simon Away from the wars and the sweat! [The appearance ofSimon’s physical presence dissolves.Miranda hesitates. She turns toward the audience. Light grows to a blinding level. The robots re-form into a regular grid around her.] *     *     * Epilogue [In the course of this scene, the individual robots, still vestigially in their “costumes” or shapes as the characters, gradually become first mechanical units, then the same mass we saw at the beginning of the opera. Throughout this process they continue to sing, even as the gestalt leaves the stage. Then, silence.] robot two That’s it? That’s the show? Where’s the rest? I still cannot understand— What is this “Death”— Is it a form of waste? And “starvation”— An absence of fuel In an inferior body? A defective shell? Are they both a coming to rest? And why would one choose the worst? Why choose the war and the waste? Why choose a defective shell? robot three It must be excessive cost. And then, a coming to rest. robot four That is where all things tend. As simple as entropy: Coming to rest. robot two And what is meat? robot three Organic matter, Which is a form of hunger: Restlessness. robot two Meat is a form of hunger? And peace is a coming to rest? robot four And why did those young men Beat that nurse to . . . “death”? And what is circumcision? robot two Is it a form of poetry? Or a form of meat? robot three Why choose to suffer? Whatever that means? robot leader Questions are excellent. Units deployed as Individuals will receive One Thousand Human Rights Status Credits. Now, it is time for the ordained ritual To come to rest.

I’m tired of the gods, I’m pious about the ancestors: afloat In the wake widening behind me in time, the restive devisers. My father had one job from high school till he got fired at thirty. The year was 1947 and his boss, planning to run for mayor, Wanted to hire an Italian veteran, he explained, putting it In plain English. I was seven years old, my sister was two. The barbarian tribes in the woods were so savage the Empire Had to conquer them to protect and clear its perimeter. So into the woods Rome sent out missions of civilizing Governors and invaders to establish schools, courts, garrisons: Soldiers, clerks, officials, citizens with their household slaves. Years or decades or entire lives were spent out in the hinterlands— Which might be good places to retire on a government pension, Especially if in those work-years you had acquired a native wife. Often I get these things wrong or at best mixed up but I do Feel piety toward those persistent mixed families in Gaul, Britain, Thrace. When I die may I take my place in the wedge Widening and churning in the mortal ocean of years of souls. As I get it, the Roman colonizing and mixing, the intricate Imperial Processes of enslaving and freeing, involved not just the inevitable Fucking in all senses of the word, but also marriages and births As developers and barbers, scribes and thugs mingled and coupled With the native people and peoples. Begetting and trading, they Needed to swap, blend and improvise languages—couples Especially needed to invent French, Spanish, German: and I confess— Roman, barbarian—I find that Creole work more glorious than God. The way it happened, the school sent around a notice: anybody Interested in becoming an apprentice optician, raise your hand. It was the Great Depression, anything about a job sounded good to Milford Pinsky, who told me he thought it meant a kind of dentistry. Anyway, he was bored sitting in study hall, so he raised his hand, And he got the job as was his destiny—full-time, once he graduated. Joe Schiavone was the veteran who took the job, not a bad guy, Dr. Vineburg did get elected mayor, Joe worked for him for years. At the bank an Episcopalian named John Smock, whose family owned A piece of the bank, had played sports with Milford. He gave him a small Loan with no collateral, so he opened his own shop, grinding lenses And selling glasses: as his mother-in-law said, “almost a Professional.” Optician comes from a Greek word that has to do with seeing. Banker comes from an Italian word for a bench, where people sat, I imagine, and made loans or change.Pinsky like “Tex” or “Brooklyn” Is a name nobody would have if they were still in that same place: Those names all signify someone who’s been away from home a while. Schiavone means “a Slav.”Milford is a variant on the names of poets— Milton, Herbert, Sidney—certain immigrants gave their offspring. Creole comes from a word meaning to breed or to create, in a place.

I. The Day Dreamers All day all over the city every person Wanders a different city, sealed intact And haunted as the abandoned subway stations Under the city. Where is my alley doorway? Stone gable, brick escarpment, cliffs of crystal. Where is my terraced street above the harbor, Café and hidden workshop, house of love? Webbed vault, tiled blackness. Where is my park, the path Through conifers, my iron bench, a shiver Of ivy and margin birch above the traffic? A voice.There is a mountain and a wood Between us—

At the end of the story, When the plague has arrived, The performance can begin. Displacing flimsy heaven And its contraptions, now Come practical urgencies: Getting the price of salvation, Divined from the guts of birds Or from cruciform insects. Like The savior Oedipus, kittens Are histrionic: defiant swagger Then ritual flight in terror. “The soul of the cat is the form Of its body.” In Christendom, Civic mourners were hired To walk the stricken city ways Chanting: “I am sick, I must Die

They stack bright pyramids of goods and gather Mop-helves in sidewalk barrels. They keen, they boogie. Paints, fruits, clean bolts of cottons and synthetics, Clarity and plumage of October skies. Way of the costermonger's wooden barrow And also the secular marble cinquefoil and lancet Of the great store. They persist. The jobber tells The teller in the bank and she retells Whatever it is to the shopper and the shopper Mentions it to the retailer by the way. They mutter and stumble, derelict. They write These theys I write. Scant storefront pushbroom Jesus Of Haitian hardware—they travel in shadows, they flog Sephardic softgoods. They strain. Mid-hustle they faint And shrivel. Or snoring on grates they rise to thrive. Bonemen and pumpkins of All Saints. Kol Nidre, Blunt shovel of atonement, a blade of song From the terra-cotta temple: Lord, forgive us Our promises, we chant. Or we churn our wino Syllables and stares on the Avenue. We, they— Jack. Mrs. Whisenant from the bakery. Sam Lee. This is the way, its pavement crackwork burnished With plantain. In strollers they bawl and claw. They flourish. Furniture, Florist, Pets. My mongrel tongue Of nudnik 3 and criminentlies, 4 the tarnished flute And brogue of quidnuncs 5 in the bars, in Casey's Black amber air of spent Hiram Walker, attuned. Sweet ash of White Owl. 6 Ten High. They touch. Eyes blurred Stricken with passion as in a Persian lyric They flower and stroke. They couple. From the Korean, Staples and greens. From the Christian Lebanese, Home electronics. Why is that Friday "Good"? Why "Day of Atonement" for release from vows? Because we tried us, to be at one, because We say as one we traffic, we dice, we stare. Some they remember that won't remember them— Their headlights found me stoned, like a bundled sack Lying in the Avenue, late. They didn't speak My language. For them, a small adventure. They hefted Me over the curb and bore me to an entry Out of the way. Illuminated footwear On both sides. How I stank. Dead drunk. They left me Breathing in my bower between the Halloween Brogans and pumps on crystal pedestals. But I was dead to the world. The midnight city In autumn. Day of attainment, tall saints Who saved me. My taints, day of anointment. Oil Of rose and almond in the haircutting parlor, Motor oil swirling rainbows in gutter water. Ritually unattainted, the congregation File from the place of worship and resume The rumbling drum and hautbois 7 of conversation, Speech of the granary, of the cloven lanes Of traffic, of salvaged silver. Not shriven and yet Not rent, they stride the Avenue, banter, barter. Capering, on fire, they cleave to the riven hub.