by Alice Notley
it’s one selling parts again: Next to the Neutral Forward Reverse sign,
unreadable A Merchant Plea other side. One with special insight
knows of the teletype machine in the black. Always something in the back.
Glyph Central here, this space. Help One to stay right in Neutral, Present.
Light to right where there’s none. One will now buy—it’s a special adverb—
One loves one pastly, get it? In the glyph tenses dissolve rightly.
Haply One is pastly meeting the one that affects One the most.
That is One’s air conditioning, One trows? One is supposed to love.
Hand One also the part callèd amour. No. The cliché closes.
Love is pastly is it? Or is it that love’s not a part of speech?
Conditions aren’t clear. Pastly or now? Never is One love-clear.
In dark swirl, fake motion—all motion fake?—couples of ones take sex
automatiquement, or is it with knowledge, prescience, adverbs?
Futurely One is born. That isn’t it. One does it presently,
lilies pink of the void caress one’s ocularity, pleasant—
pleasance and de la joie. Presently then. One’s appropriate then.
One can never be so again in trees? Willows of backwards words
tuggingly, green-blue—black. Who is the heart? Qui is the shaman now,
Qui appears in futures invested lost and now. Qui is the shaman’s part.
Who can one be comingly, who else but? Shaman of linguistic
sounds in time to keep time away from here. Never pictured, it’s One.
Who is the shaman? Qui. It’s One’s other pronoun, the conjectural.
When—conjectural—One goes into depths of a wall, in One’s mind’s
eye, then where does one go? And who’s there? Qui is the One who is there.
Qui the shaman is talking now: One is not materially
bound, if One thinks right, right into wall, where the language comes from—
Some of the words are bright yellow, bursting back, fixed against One.
Qui is living in the darkness, off to the side of the light.
Doesn’t light differ from what’s seen? If One’s looking correctly
light peels away from the reflections. But the yellow is yellow,
to the eyes of One, who here has none, in the glyph of colors—
One doesn’t mean colors at all, though One wants them meaninglessly
out of pastly habit to fix themselves as named as they seem.
One, says Qui, must make new language here. Why? Because someone in the dark
part’s saying One must for the world’s beginning again, destroyed.
Ones here—these words—are already doing it. These words alive.
II
SAVE THE WORDS
A Lyric of One
Oh object, come to one’s heart existing
again. One wants to like a thing or one
as in the past: oh one doesn’t like, now.
One is differently gathered about one’s
core—a tiny one, in the mind’s eye of one.
The ones call out of small frogs’ throats
to each other in the black brown pond,
the copper swirled pond where the light’s
within . . . within one? within the wall
of sight? Within the connection between ones?
Here’s what happens urgent in an Asian hotel, see glyph wall—
Asian one breasted must die for others. Doesn’t make sense already—
Have to tell it, the one’s named France. Stab her for the good of others,
immigrants like One. France is One? Doesn’t know. Stabbed. Carried out
blanketed, and retarded boy—who must be France’s son—cries.
One now crying for, pastly ways one’s language makes ones die—“for
good of other ones”—stabbed for language. Wouldn’t one say? One wants
hidden in black wall to be Qui. Shamanistically, dead.
One is the dead one, immigrant. One is the dead one named France.
One’s not even French, One’s like dead! Foreign One’s France, that’s the dead.
One forgot to say One is once an immigrant, pastly, or is One?
Sorry, One’s dead . . . That’s the language in the wall of fake brain.
There’s no real brain. There’s no science. One is the dead so alive.
Shamanistically, the dead Qui, dark in the wall of all,
speaks from pond mouth black, thickening voice of the glyph, asserts:
One’s amoeboid now in the dank, splits into more, per line—
Why? Per line so One’s more complex, several stories go on,
as the willows writhe or the yellow scribbles aimlessly paint . . .
Try to decipher more than one. Some pains for France’s murder
seize One’s pastly heart—isn’t it there? Heart or France, or the One?
Doze between amber wake-up calls, parts store’s calling, more business.
Need ones to buy more coma gears: Neutral one, two, or three, more—
slow or faster neutrals present. One wants to get to where One is,
don’t the lilies spinning cry for theft? Any words to get there.
One’s up as all night—there’s no night—One mixes with other ones—
dream or story, pains in the ass. Oh an academy,
subterfuged matter, loves the One. It’s a lurching of one
bodily towards. What’s that anatomy, shamanistically
mouth’s obliterating monad goes into third or fourth gear of
neutral, blocks lurchers out of way: One’s here to stay in coma.
Can’t organize into classes; kingdoms, phyla, or dinner . . .
One reels bodily at One to suck talent out of One’s mouth,
mouth kisses, yellow of deceit. But Glyphese is One’s lover!
Qui in the mouth, Qui is One’s mouth, before the one can suck soul
shouts, Go back into the pond scum! Too formed for chaos! Backs off
but stays near other greedy one, with breasts, that wants One’s soul too.
Parts store calls up, One needs more parts. One knows but’s at static war,
that’s the problem with neutral gear. One can’t get away from ones
except via Qui, slipping soul into some pocketed words:
Qui takes One back to where One is. Can’t explain anything. Is.
Want to explain. Amoeboid, has to split off to know thing.
One asks what’s just happening. One demands presently visual clarity.
Why. One, because the One, was being taken advantage of—
The One was? But when amoeba splits, One is still the others, remember?
Yes, the others are poets, primal category, some ones like oneself,
trying to read primal glyph. But One’s rather in the primal glyph.
Yes, dear, the two want power in the glyph. Already? Not ready. Recap:
One without breasts and one with. With desires Without who’s empowered
in some other wall cliché or pond configuration, chaos’s toy.
Without wants One because One’s the best poet of the three of them,
more soul to suck? Is original amoeba; opened glyph door.
Without gropes towards One spurning With. Without feels entitled to One.
No one’s entitled to One. Awakens sweating. To cool off in the pond . . .
One wants to stop all that from happening. Already happening,
Qui. One means that One’s Qui, now in wall vert, suddenly green an
d deep,
drown, un peu, in the cool. Sheltered from breath, One dies
further; floats in parts of. Let some one down. Does One let some one down?
Would thing happen, arrive without the words? “Wideset eyes won’t love one
enough”—ee-nough, love. Strip the sound off, floats away green and stark—
What’s left then? the ones stop moving at all. Language not abstract, dear—
Shaman Qui screams a word: Blah! And Qui laughs. Words fluid of motion—
Wideset eyes now running from the Shaker. Shaker tries to catch up,
Run, One, run. Qui says, This is one definition of the verb “nude”—
one has nothing on but motion away. Wideset shouts One is not
gonna put up with one’s anger wind! Cough of raining lover . . .
Qui says so. Meaning Qui is speaking Wideset’s verbiage.
Wideset just an image: without one to see one one is dead?
Safe in oligarchy of the prior. Qui says one can escape.
Who says it? Or one can’t? These beauty lines, willowed, will hurt the mind
running into the mouth of the next wall. Qui shouts, Next image please.
Can’t tell the difference between words and anything that one sees . . .
Let ones see. Have to run! Shamanic mouth screams, Ones need more in . . .
Inflection. Describe the shaman’s gender. Qui has none not at all.
Qui shouts, Auto parts store, sell me some cams, sparklets in one’s headlets:
One’s headlet needs a new term of address . . . Just have one in stock.
One runs from one, that is, Wideset’s trying to be one’s own oneness.
Shaman Qui is the voice: Who else could be? Run, Wideset, run and go,
Get an unlisted phone, fun on the steep. Earrings go bleep, of care,
down in underworld, nearly or was it underglyph, newed, wild
One has no home, is glad. Just the glyph One’s hiding in, like for now.
Wideset hides in a green swirl on the pond. Not breathing. That one’s safe.
Some one in this consciousness is in Underglyph; not Wideset but One . . .
under the pond that’s not wet, one can’t drown there, one finds fishy words . . .
under one, under one sings a black floating one, like a black cheese skin o lank,
another similar floating skin hanky cries, Not to talk about it!
About what? the One says floating likewise all splayed, safe in silly posture,
safe in something. Words crowd round, big old rags, skin rags ones are cut out
different shades of beige, black, brown, or just muddy. In the Underword, chill.
Ones need a you, shy you, do the ones here mingle? What about the “we” shit?
Forget it, relax, ones are cut off from the bod, pieces of what’s called whole—
One’s just the skin of a word. Where’re the innards? Pretending to be smart,
up in the no-air air. Does one want verb tenses? Shredded, one was a tense,
says a tense all flopped out. One was another part, says one—who can remember?
Are ones known as anything but words here in wet? Does one have a story?
Ones never wanted to be anything but wet. One remembers, the wet.
Someone tried to kill one? floppy killing floppy neath the dark pond.
Ones here don’t know which one does anything, thus or as to a why,
one now becomes what one can become: hanky becomes body shape like a trick—
Oh now one’s a word, real category, bless one’s hat or teeth!
Collapses. What’s the point? One wants nothing. The One feels quite relaxed.
This skin’s so undermined. One’s just a hack, standing up pretending
to be meaningful. Nothing can happen. Who wants a structure—God?
I am God, says some skin. Word collapses. The word God collapses.
Who cares. Ones going further, says the One. Diving down, in element.
Is One looking for one? One’s looking for language, don’t know why.
Why don’t know? One told to invent new language. By? A figment.
Bon. Ones are some figments. Invent this one! says a shapeless cloudy
stain in the non-water. Please invent one. What could this one be then?
One wants to be the word Love. Already have it. One wants to mean, New Love.
Take under advisement. Substantives aren’t substantial here at all.
Just some part of one helping one get by, molecules, follicles.
Ones here are so flaccid, don’t fall in love. Love’s about falling in.
Does one want to fall in, in the new langue? No says the One, one wants
to be languid, not breathe even. One wants more, says the word-to-be.
For fuck’s sake why, says One. One has had it. Potential words murmur,
What is it? One wants reality. And what’s that? One already is, says One,
that seems enough to One. Ones want to be words, singing heads of light.
It’s just so intensely back to what was. Past tense. Haven’t had it!
One’s always here. But a one’s renewable as almost from scratch . . .
One remembers too much: love has killed One. What tense is that? Past love,
that’s a tense. When one enters into a rock one can’t regulate,
it’s too hard. Death exists to make it harder. They’re just words, though, here.
The words-to-be crowd round. Not separate! That’s the first thing to know.
Lyric from Nowhere
The death word or message swims in one’s wild cells,
those that refuse to be docile, grave, giving in
to the system. Oh death wanted one to depart
for the night its other hand, conglomerate
of words cohering. Love loves or hates that.
One had always wanted to be in love how stupid.
Managing no more the stores of orderly auto parts,
words, what was one saying? A shambles of
different sized stones, melting in one’s head.
More stuff’s arranged in front, appears to One, under the non-water:
One’s an ideogram for Life a one says. Isn’t one special! says the One.
Everyone’s an ideogram, it says. Pearhead, arms, and torse—
an old ankh. Oh, says One, this is so dumb. One’s going to zap One,
says the ankh sign, changing One’s thoughts into some Egyptian ones.
Behold, One’s eyes. Eyes are now two buzzards. See with vulture-shaped eyes.
One’s composed of bird shapes in the sight place, looking at stylized pics,
underwater reflets. Hieroglyphs for the procession of things.
Well why not? What has One ever seen with one’s handmedown op
optical process? But. Don’t want that one to present One with real . . .
It’s so cool, pleads the ankh. Flowering plant, feathers, half-disc, girl:
Chanteuse! Please says the One, don’t want it—fussy. Says the ankh pleading,
Parade of lovely signs. Owls, barley, asps. The world seen in first words—
Dissolve this. Servant of a sovereign. One is going beyond:
One’s more ancient than any of this. Older than signs, than tense for old.
Older than the new love? That’s when old stops, back when the first
ones stuck together, or before One could talk? One could always talk,
even if not doing it as yet. Tenses. Hate them, rules of syntax—
Can’t figure out how to say anything but talking in one’s head,
Vultures fly, land and stick to the desert. Stars look like the word stars,
really do, ones really do, and sparkle is better as its word.
Thus be story of world, what else can one live out on page or real?
Returning to chaos, the first sender. Reemphasize and change.
Meander, as One does, meandering Egypt is all profiles,
clearcut thus. One is frontal, dissolving, falling into firstness,
swimming, swarming with words no one understands, partial p’s and q’s,
Masters of universe? One is that simply by being here now.
One is floundering, in Underglyph. One doesn’t know, can’t think straight
as of old when la langue was pure, when one said was, not like now—
it’s all now with pronouns in space, lost and no quotidian.
Pretty chaotic. Just about ready to hear prophetic—
yet not future tensed—wordlets: Behold. Now is the time to save us!
It’s that some voice, of words, says it! Words themselves want to be saved.
World is coming to an end means, Word is coming to an end.
In the global warming destruction of one’s species as is known,
loss of language as one is the whole show. Build an ark of words.
One’s supposed to be inventing new language, definitely
tearing down the old of gender, tensal submission, whatall,
pomposities to enslave one . . . Tear it down as ones save ones—
Ark of salvation and destruction of the old at same time.
Wake up! Tear it down! and save one. One is the species, words are.
III
RADIO FREE ARK
Who’s speaking now? Qui is. Go back up to glyph walls to get started.
One’s happy here, with limpnesses in Underglyph. One must save the words-O.
From other side of the words, on the side of the glimmer Qui doth command.
Save tissued words to be, and the words One chooses. How will One be able?
Still too flaccid from the Underglyph, One sputters. This of Chaos holds One,
anarchy of relaxation and doodling, in sounds of fibrous word shapes.
Here’s when it starts. Says Qui. Says Qui, Origin’s bottomless. Get up, One!
