by Alice Notley
ones the opera of all that, sapphire quia be cool . . .
words will continue to unscroll, changing repeating but thine.
MORE WALL
What happens where are you the ones. Who do you think is talking
Logically depressed or sane dressed dressed in anity cometh
And to think ones are sublimely well, untempted—cracky—safe.
Nothing’s safe even dead deader dear, dead as la France or spit parts
Art’s the all you had can ya make it if yer dead meat
What does one eat here no thing good? Temp temptation is dead safe
As an effectual cracker dooming ethereal meat sandwiches
To think they’re think think thinking well. Kids leave the bums and leave home
Wideset reject him. La France finally die dead, you want to
This message brought to you by you. One of you is a traitor
Dead and mentally treasonous. The old battles never end
Never end it bats one is bats. Bats around one, stupid flick-
Ing of thought motes eat a fat one. You have died never been rich.
This not a reincarnation. No such thing in this outback.
Oh one don’t care about what it’s saying, Wideset says. One agrees:
the others. Are the same one, says the One, So one is one’s traitor,
each ev’ry. This wall’s jist more of the ones. Let’s sit down p’tit ’stant.
Hokay. Has somethin changed? Mebbe the langue’s a little funnier . . .
Let’s push it. Sentence tonight? No night—mean, is there mean? Well sorta
Keep it on dance. Okay. Has one seemed to? Don’t know how to vote now,
if one’s little spy. Didya used to? Espionage mon amour.
One spied on; waltzing by—thou’rt other. Not the same thing, are you?
Feathered cheat, like lover. When everyone love object or hate—same.
We’re the faces of the prodigal star. Now don’t want to say the we.
Shut yr mouth—It’s one’s mind. The black wings beat gainst the angel’s bad back.
God, love that! Did one have Fate of Faction? Oui, and of own fièvre.
So, remembering something? Oh but slowly, for an eternity.
That one’s doing, right, ones? And futuring: Face to the deep grey sound.
Where’s the anthology? Gone for a while—used to pop up like one . . .
the poems of the dead ones. Oh why not? But ones still don’t know if dead . . .
Dead’s just a linguistic category. Anthology’s off to
the side taking care of itself: Art. Appendix to Universe.
The whole one? No Such thing. No Any thing. Don’t the ones remember?
Only remember lies. Or, mebbe, Art. Art’s what one’s recalling . . .
Is it still the begin? Beguine of glad. Rags installed in Chaos—
Forgot that’s our name. What else forgot? One forgot to boogie.
Ever? One wasn’t popular. Is something taking care of us, the ones?
Or is it just the ones taking care of. Animals know what
they’re doing. Would go by in their cars—fur self, lizard-skin auto?
Does one miss those? God yes. Or, they’re around, in all of the verbiage—
Does one know what it’s about, o silvered, traces of ones’ faces—
Forgot dappled what ones look like again. Back of a horseshoe crab.
One don’t know if one’s having emotions anymore, what were they—
time-based, aren’t they? Have to remember what One wants. Just some peace,
isn’t emotion. Let’s push this langue, push through the wall of fake thoughts—
There aren’t fake thoughts—Treason’s a fake. This one likes it, says Wideset.
But, irrelevant; can, rather, one use word treason . . . like reason
with t-man in front. Oh do crowd one, dyin to put a rood here.
One is of the land of spatium. Gris and sleepy—do ones sleep?
Guess not, for do birds, open eyën—mebbe we’re just birds, orphic
ones means, articuli of the blank. If, One speaks now, There’s something
and this supposed nothing—why do we think we’re dead? One forgets . . .
We just in Chaos, Wideset counters. The destroyed world reverted?
No, ones reverted. It’s same as dead. One says, The nothing. One’s of.
Like treason because, Wideset says. One could be alone in treason . . .
a cross solitudinous. Now one feels alone with one’s ones.
Let’s write a poem consciously, says Shaker, One wants to know how—
Don’t know how precisely, says Wideset. And one’s dead, says la France.
Easy, say the two kids, Just some words. Not that easy, says the One.
Not easy at all: Qui. Have to go through shaman Qui, look no hands . . .
Not necessarily. One says that. Each one will now say a line.
One: One shrugs at Death’s numinous treason
Shaker: Who the hell died, in these glassy woods
Wideset: One would betray Death the same way
France: Comme j’étais trahi par des hommes
France’s kid: One’s a spy because one’s different
Wideset’s kid: Yet the same substance like mistletoe
Qui: Poisonous, erotic. That was life. Now ones are a subversive . . .
What? A subversive moon? or a cloud hiding speculation
Erasing speculation, says One. Our ending’s blown to pieces.
One’s tired of sentences. One says, At least of their unwinding length:
too timelike. Prefer planes. Sense of overlapping realities . . .
Each speaks phrase quickly now: Left off loving/ Or shadow of the sun/
Former, cheated, came back/ What’s wrong with me?/ Shut down a tomorrow/
On est vraiment intacte/ And I were sighed/ Terrified, thou art anew.
Better, isn’t it, ones? But who can remember to talk like that,
abrupt, momentary. Comes from the stars. Like everything here.
One’s sorcerer, says Qui. Or one’s savior. Might be a salvation
talking thus. If one needs. One needs a gold heart, says Shaker, Has it—
heart of gold of a one, as if drunken, remember drunken? Drunk
on goodness or on now. I come to you, says la France,
from gold. Where I was once. Uninjured. Ones. Many of the brave ones stood.
In forest we hide them, from other killers who are coming there,
in beauty of a stand. Nous sommes évidemment les meilleurs.
It almost matters, says la France, But not as much as to speak.
L’expérience, a-t-il un bout? Story has no purpose now . . .
Needn’t have lived. Was it worth it? And one too killed at that time—
carrying grenades—to liberate your people, from their own
species, how special one’s folk are. Still sarcastic, says the One—
In death finally tone of voice. Nothing’s correct, but speaking’s
sweet: The shores linger of dead birds. Think how to be presently—
lovely zen horseshit. Remember how body’s right there?
Qu’est-ce que c’est un corps. It’s a mind. Aucune plaisir sans l’idée
même pour les animaux soi-mêmes. Know because one’s animal—
treasonously never tell one what they’re thinking. Scientists
project emptiness on them, les fous. They are animals, too—
Let les phrases pour in, no affect. Don’t talk like anything “good”—
To be dead grows on one, sweetly. Not knowing what time it is.
Was it worth it to have been born?: Wall’s unscrolling words again.
I the wall say I in the grey. Temperature’s rising, it could.
Pretending worth o animal. Better to be an I wall.
Can be a larger history. And I can be the owner.
Especially in this death. Words may be overtaking,
drowning worth whoa abnormal depression and harrowing loss.
I must have been a fool to think. Living a tease. Go god go
Everyone’s talking at once, like they do to be someone
drowning in the other I’s mud, no mud here but irony,
discipline of rags of worders: ones are the worders of space
I mean death, mean space. In a fit. Ones are projecting static,
brain juice, the new brain’s death intuit, ones are killing me, baby.
Living on the street the whole death. Universe the biggest street.
You didn’t want to make sense, but all ones do. Forget worth it.
XIV
ABSORBS THEM
who goes there
unsuccess,
sooth say all mouth
of earth and I lose it
sans meaning not thunder and
light or form do ones have to proclaim
form surely comes from someplace
am all of the as yet uninvented
when they were no more I formless changed to light
yes I’m not doing this isn’t
don’t speak for you aren’t there but
nonetheless you do, sibling
does one recognize one a
foundational happening
one shall begin a new myth?
thunder and lightning
after all but as in words
or a dream of the real
never experienced
what could one ever slow down enough and the water
flows together hero you are words fabric alone
I am you
IF, One says, All creation articulates blank. Les articulations
create the universe. Principle un. Hate principles, rules.
Is that deux? Trois is the postponement OF creation of langue
ever creating it. Quatre. Involves One. One is the one of one.
Cinquième: Je suis, dedans the one, lurking to pounce, and not
personal, or archaic; twist of light. Why? But why anything?
Do the ones know that yet? Six: Don’t want we, sometimes have it default.
Sept: Presently, one thinks. Light in the chest place, tinselly. Chaos.
Huit: One’s tongue of chaos. Neuf: Has no face. Has a new face? Maybe.
New brain? leaves of foliage, inventing one’s nature—clank of the old.
Dix: In beauty proceed. Beauty of words. For they are the being.
Onze: Les animaux speak. Where? in the light . . . Lightly come towards one.
Douze: Is anything lost? One suspects not. All the words do arrive.
Words love and harass one. Is the One words? Mais non. For words aren’t words.
Au soudain, il y a thunder, lightning. From where and how? says One.
It’s fake but effective, that is it’s real. But, tinselly lightning, oh
thou art glyph-like, almost penciled onto grey, as phosphor
crackling lines, consayte or conceit so spell’d, thund’rous counterpoysinge
booms change all of One’s thots . . . rearranging letters in mine yown hede . . .
Boum! Greeny flicker bolts. Is natura? Art thou a projection,
mental or mirakell—Art of the ones? Oh it’s jist mere boulshite:
Shaker. And one’s had it with qwainte effects. Interesting that one’s sub
konshus works its magick in thys flatt yearth, Wideset says. But one cahn’t
stay in tune. One cahn’t spell so extravagantly, e’en if the glyff
o’ersees: something’s steady in my letter head. But, yea, what is this noys?
Are you doing this, Qui? Don’t know, says Qui: One possesses this part—
the big boom that passes understanding. Poudre from chemistry
set, vinaigre cum soda in the toob. Trying to say what though?
Then. The lightning pours from One’s mouth. Thunder resounds from One’s tête.
One’s mouth writes on grey nowhere grey, sparks outlines words as One speaks.
I have made all you and have option of gath’ring you in
back to within my One’s being. Oh would be alone facing
nothing, being something facing what has been called emptiness—
I’d be only caller of it. Where is the new way to call?
Canst thou be more than some figments? For, I am not a figment.
France: You need us a little longer for to speak the new way . . .
then will be alone, not extinguished but sole, for all ones are.
We are your words as it were but more as the created are.
Our stories lack forcefulness, we disown them to be present . . .
not phenomena but . . . Oh I’m fading, after all I’m dead . . .
must reenter glyph wall . . . And one by one Shaker, Wideset, kids, Parts one,
and even Qui, fade too—leaving the One? sudden as any shock
become non-conscious, unpresent. Oh. Have to go it alone.
Yet, says One, One knows that they are within . . . Now an unbearable quiet,
for as long as One can tolerate . . . minutes . . . But am I the sole tongue?
What then is the purpose of speech? How will one speak and whyfore?
WHERE ARE YOU, WHERE ART THOU, ONES? But One knows thou art gone fore’er.
SPEAK, ONE. One has the habit, one must talk. Any way that occurs—
What difference does the usage make now that there’s none else here?
Oh but one must talk to oneself. That could be the new language—
exists not to communicate. Exists to incorporate—
all that one’ll do or will make. In the heaven of bleakness—
where the nutty stars aren’t like home. And the road’s walked in nowhere . . .
I say I say to the grey pate, sky that I am, art a you?
It spits more lightning through my mouth. I am the sky, to what end?
There’s no one else to tell me I’m losing my mind—it’s all there is.
Are there characteristics to limn, nuances to apprehend?
Must One talk without conversing? My fiery words fill the air—
Let me ask them this: Are you real? Anything now is the real.
I is Ark, elated or criminal: I, swallower of past.
Les hirondelles s’arrivent, words pasted on ses ailes des . . . flutterings,
wings of chance—is there Chance? Seances, mabe. Invoke the other ones . . .
every word does that O. For how long O? Talk to Oneself truly.
For I came to this strand that there’d be others—assumption easy—
one’s just used the past tense. Oh but I’m here. Maybe I’m deity . . .
Some things curvèd or straight. One could see them: now what can one see here?
Pull within, dissolve words: dissolution’s not a thing—there’s the word,
no the words the words O. English, stupid: translate me, I’m translated
to this strand, to this strand. The first words are “Ask the Oracle.”
Out of mouth of the mouth, débouchés from bouche, demouthed from grey nowhere,
City of Nothingness: drear hea
venly haunted umpteenth origin
come forth words: Am the One. Are interested? Words, can you work again?
Work to one daze, I a severed maid smiley morning arriveth.
Cloud, grey the surround, veil moves in close, of epiphane, or unknowt . . .
Where are the tactoi? One would touch something besides mist particules,
frelid—no not damp—Je think that words become bemistèd, too . . .
In debouching lang . . . Can’t remass it . . . Almost can’t talk, even that.
Erodantly thee. Propitiate gods of the self of the tongue,
O pythiatize. Talk to within. It’s sucking in syllab
thought on the velvet. Wholle culte, concordantly dissolving—
lyk babe who can’t un, wholes everwhe, where the promise, wasn’t one?
Wh w wher e word. Enihs le mot, unexpectly. Didn’t you
everyone be nice. Hate and hit, seeping the cloud in the shoes,
cahn’t. Don’t haf ta tease into a dance of thinking.
Clogs the epiphane—well why not clog. G ri s. One’s tahken—
Miss pronouncing th, announce a t. Babe at the door, there’d no door.
Hum Hum humage to only One heah. I’m hum hum where. Ah front door—
Hands on the ur-pages, can’t read almost can, mater stratus
tracks of the xylophone, malleted on skeleton,
goddessed apiece—don’t go oer there, autonomous One-oh.
Ego is treason pro traitorous swallower:
I is the traitor, omphalos of the spiritual.
Early exorcist, prostrate at the mystery gate . . .
outlined in zeelets grey, nests of stratus cloud . . .
exeunt the liar the psychotic tone clamor’d,
am not crazed or bad, entering cloud am the cloud.
Talking to . . . the cloud? Tiède for the glyph’s hero.
Read the cloud: Ravage today thy master’s logos.
Youthere goonicon in thronenoises eminent—
readincloud or playtoyswords fussyamassing.
And, automan, speak Boo, the liberation.
This covers One, doordear, new’st symbolic word—
just, a cloud in code like has impellèd me—gains us—
Tryin’ to avow that . . . the Onewon’tbe had noway.
What is this door? One’s acloud despotic oneself—
auto—door’sonme, Loxias, thehealeritsays
