by Alice Notley
& reading a lovely old man’s book:
BY THE WATERS OF MANHATTAN
change
flashback
play cribbage on the Williamsburg Bridge
watching the boats sail by
the sun, like a monument,
move slowly up the sky
above the bloody rush:
break yr legs & break yr heart
kiss the girls & make them cry
loving the gods & seeing them die
celebrate your own
& everyone else’s birth:
Make friends forever
& go away
10 Things I Do Every Day
wake up
smoke pot
see the cat
love my wife
think of Frank
eat lunch
make noises
sing songs
go out
dig the streets
go home for dinner
read the Post
make pee-pee
two kids
grin
read books
see my friends
get pissed-off
have a Pepsi
disappear
Resolution
The ground is white with snow.
It’s morning, of New Year’s Eve, 1968, & clean
City air is alive with snow, its quiet
Driving. I am 33. Good Wishes, brothers, everywhere
& Don’t You Tread On Me.
In the Early Morning Rain
TO MY FAMILY & FRIENDS
Hello
“Hello”
originally
meant
“Be whole”
or
“Be healthy”
Today
it
simply
means
“Hello”
80th Congress
TO RON PADGETT
It’s 2 a.m. at Anne & Lewis’s which is where it’s at
On St. Mark’s Place hash and Angel Hairs on our minds
Love is in our heart’s (what else?) dope & Peter Schjeldahl
Who is new and valid in a blinding snowstorm
Inside joy fills our drugless shooting gallery
With repartee; where there’s smoke there’s marriage &, folks
That’s also where it’s at in poetry in 1967
Newly rich but still a hopeless invalid (in 1967)
Yes, it’s 1967, & we’ve been killing time with life
But at Lewis & Anne’s we live it “up”
Anne makes lovely snow-sodas while Lewis’s watchamacallit warms up this
New Year’s straight blue haze. We think about that
And money. With something inside us we float up
To & onto you, it, you were truly there & now you’re here.
TED BERRIGAN & DICK GALLUP
Fragment
FOR JIM BRODEY
Left behind in New York City, & oof!
That’s the right one: sitting now, & I’m not thinking
Nor swishing; I’m just sitting. Getting over them two
Hamburgers. & that I think
Gets it all down. Here, anyway, I am
On this electric chair each breath nearer the last
Oceans of ripples solid under me: how come?
One pair of time-capsules trigger sweat
As one listens & one listening type types
LOOKS LIKE WE GONNA GET A LITTLE SNOW, HUH?
I don’t know but you can bet something’s going
to happen.
The Circle
Up is waiting
Between is barely there
Down is alive
Now is spinning
It’s a quick spin
Nevertheless
5 New Sonnets: A Poem
1
FOR BARRY & JACKY HALL
His piercing pince-nez. Some dim frieze
dear Berrigan. He died
I, an island, sail, and my shores toss
to breathe an old woman slop oatmeal,
My babies parade waving their innocent flags
The taste of such delicate thoughts
Opulent, sinister, and cold!
Sing in idiom of disgrace
Dreams, aspirations of presence! Innocence gleaned,
annealed! The world in its mysteries are explained,
On the grass. To think of you alone
Your champion. Days are nursed on science fiction
For the fey Saint’s parade Today
Rivers of annoyance undermine the arrangements.
2
Hands point to a dim frieze, in the dark night.
Back to books. I read
on a fragrant evening, fraught with sadness
bristling hate.
And high upon the Brooklyn Bridge alone,
Huddled on the structured steps
The bulbs burn, phosphorescent, white,
Shall it be male or female in the tub?
Pale like an ancient scarf, she is unadorned,
and the struggles of babies congeal. A hard core is formed.
Suffering the poem of these states!
& you tremble at the books upon the earth
& he walks. Three ciphers and a faint fakir
No. One Two Three Four Today
3
It’s 8:30 p.m. in New York and I’ve been running
Wind giving presence to fragments.
at every hand, my critic
Flinging currents into pouring streams
The bulbs burn phosphorescent, white
Fathers and teachers, and daemons down under the sea,
The singer sleeps in Cos. Strange juxtaposed
“I wanted to be a cowboy.” Doughboy will do
As my strength and I walk out and look for you
Winds flip down the dark path of breath
Released by night (which is not to imply clarity
She is warm. Into the vast closed air of the slow
The wind’s wish is the tree’s demand
On the 15th day of November in the year of the motorcar.
4
Is there room in the room that you room in?
How much longer shall I be able to inhabit the Divine
deep in whose reeds great elephants decay;
loveliness that longs for butterfly! There is no pad
He buckles on his gun, the one
He wanted to know the names
And the green rug nestled against the furnace
Your hair moves slightly,
He is incomplete, bringing you Ginger Ale
The cooling wind keeps blowing, and
He finds he cannot fake
Wed to wakefulness, night which is not death
Fuscous with murderous dampness
But helpless, as blue roses are helpless.
& 5
Into the closed air of the slow
And then one morning to waken perfect-faced
The blue day! In the air winds dance
Sleep half sleep half silence and with reason
banging around in a cigarette she isn’t “in love”
in my paintings for they are present
The withered leaves fly higher than dolls can see
A watchdog barks in the night
Francis Marion nudges himself gently into the big blue sky
What thwarts this fear I love
No lady dream around in any bad exposure
absence of passion, principles, love. She murmurs
Is not genuine it shines forth from the faces
littered with soup, cigarette butts, the heavy
Poem
FOR BILL BERKSON
Seven thousand feet over
The American Midwest
In the black and droning night
Sitting awake and alone
I worry the stewardess . . .
Would you like some coffee, sir?<
br />
How about a magazine?
No thanks. I smile and refuse.
My father died today. I
Fifteen hundred miles away
Left at once for home, having
received the news from mother
In tears on the telephone.
He never rode in a plane.
Gus
. . . Not far from here he was inside his head there were some sands. Of these 50 gave way to a room, latter resembling manure.
To the right, in a kit, a sort of woman-spanned pond absorbed water cake would form at the bottom keep that in.
The hut rust bin thanks piece of colour.
A little pool gravel made him first step aside. Gus walked up under the arc-light as far as the first person, perceived God. She was God, having lance, he took her by the behind and kissed her butt. Gus want fuck, to get the information.
He spun off her dress. It was there, and
very beautiful, his pecker.
Gus live entirely by hemselve and for hemselve.
He spen days taking off bottles, furnishing room, best system ea heat. For Christ sake! Tryd smoke ham wash.
There was a large cop faggot pursued the secret butterfly near fourteen glass jars tomato and green peas coated the stoppers with quicklime cheese wrapped round with linen strip, then lunged into boiling water: it steamed. He por in difference of temperature, he explode. Only, he were saved.
Then he poured some old sardine, laid veal cutlet inside, and sank the copper. He ball him. He cold. He out again.
He continue the experiment. Shut up. The tin egg chicory lobster fish congratulate hemselve.
Ike Heraclitus, or, “Gus,” still elusive, flit on ahead.
Despair defeat labor. The woman fell ill. She laid the copper. It glistens as if about to erupt. At that moment the secret fell in the eye, grace over the golden woman’s form.
Then Gus made lunch.
Presence
and I am lost in the ringing elevator
he waggles the fat whiteness of milk
sweeping me to the top
one is reminded of constellations
there there were pine needles
dreams of symbolism
the part that goes over the fence last
star light the cord “reaches”
it was turkey
sheepish lights you turned me on
reflecting dilemmas majorities
Bildungsroman of the bathrobe ride
and the briny sound of the alarm
a funny feeling prompted me out of bed
Love
the top had been “sliced”
ribbons your presence on the white and green sheet
I asked for a Hook-and-Ladder
takes The End.
in the ideal society pants
Now we can make some explosions
shine like money
Francis is not diminutive thanks
others are less legs
thighs wings breast
Caress the window grease, John
as you are not yet 12
19? 40? who pulls me down?
that night we slept reverently (you lust
I must lust in-
vigorating the sixteen genre
dragon bottle-opener
spiral cuff-link aerial
facade of the wonderful orient word
“doilies”
Overhead the moon is out
blacking my shoes, face
we were all livid, numinous
Things whip toward the center
licking the palate of his headache
this indicates your future
meditates on his wish which is
hooked onto the top and draped archly
Childhood fuses a mystery play
Take off your beautiful blouse, you foolish girl!
which ribbons the marvelous laurel the loop-
Are you list- with this ring I
eye thee
(that was later, out west, after more baseball
some turkey
a wristwatch, dictionary, sniper suit, rifle
to “meditate”
(is there room in the tune to atune in?)
They were incensed at his arrival
Now we are glad it was stinky
some paint them black in the face to be quaint or something
one symbol fact seems valid
I don’t know
all hate it to be right
on the cards
which are sometimes funky (aesthetic) having
snow of feet and that a domination.
Then we had presence.
Ikonostasis
FOR BERNADETTE MAYER
Kings . . . panties
I imagine these here
the difference between past and dreaming
An uncomfortable Dodge
The word dissolves
iron things
Horses for example
then there is the other which may be called
the familiar floating oasis
larger than whiter
brazen, resourceful
. . . sinning palms balance it
perhaps these are wax detectors
and create situations
a magic shell for silliness
before the law tables
of this here
Heart
That has been tinted white
by way of exercise
the Political
glazes
These eyes
breaks
into the grocery store where
is sick cannot work
twisted stick
industrial berry shoes are established
above all . . . be double
or collapse
the wall covered with glass character weather
M’sieur Negro-at-3 A.M.
Charioteer
His burning problem
it doesn’t stop the music
the magic
under tasteless stockings
and under the sting which leaves no ash
the grey snow of someone’s epoch annoys
and redeems
through certain fraudulent practices which,
like sulphur, blacken
making an undenied hash of all that
and that will now not melt in the first sunbeam
being its own muse
The Upper Arm
FOR ANDY WARHOL
Upon this field the physical energies of
Clouds. He will no longer desire the
Demanding force, an incredible
Fortune has fallen across their paths. I wait
a Payer is paying for the art it releases
Prisoners from the hands
In an automobile accident on the
Face
And achieved enemy face
Paleface changed captive
Photographs later
Were tipped “What does this mean, my son?”
Became categorical as in “yes” held on
The arms and
Powder on a little table
And down in a green forest ravine near to “her”
Security of the relationship is made utterly
With high stakes and shot at those targets out of
Boughs that spell
“MY PAINTINGS”
Corridors of Blood
1. Madrid
a faint smile appears
shaking your beliefs
of which you have done no more
than sketch in the main outline
You are not a glutton for experience
There is a sudden buzz of activity
In the clear blue sky
2. Detective
an enormous room with a balcony
less virulence
our labors were directed toward
isolating and creating
such a pattern
“y
ou must allow your feelings to
float free, by
themselves, like dead leaves.”
“I’ve got it.”
we were furious
3. Queen Matilda’s Famous Tapestry
You got him out of your system
he was lying out of compassion
“Don’t you see what it means?”
human society upside down
The second name
First we must retrieve our honor
4. Henry VIII
women came down to breakfast
We saw that beautiful creature,
Kay Francis, in
“Cynara”
the shabby taxis and peeling posters
teashops
and ugly window-dressing
a technical brilliance
I never saw the like of anywhere else
5. Poe
“Merde” said Marco
in the apricot-coloured bar
Olga was in another bar
I am sure you understand
The captain lost his temper
A car drew up at the corner
6. Cattle of the Sun
a profusion of melons, oranges and
fish
all through that night
a lobster had been following him
I had an uncomfortable night
the only place I know
where horror borders on poetry
7. The Death of Other
should have “roots”
mass of ash-blonde hair
and black, clinging dresses
(the emotions: outline of
a theory)
into her mouth
blistered strips of bladder
wrack
8. Czechoslovakia
A red-tiled floor
thereafter we walked
sweeping, landscapes of white
limestone rock and
red rock
the most curious concoction
doubly oppressive
the sluggish heat:
I remember running
9. Hunger
Irony and parody held pride of place
in her silk evening dress
Olga had several minor parts
little of Knut Hamsun
