by Alice Notley
Ooops! No, not that. I mean all
We really wanted to do was jazz yr mother
Fight off insects & sing a sad solitary tune
On the excellencies of Bristol Cream
Six dollars a bottle Praise The Lord
TED BERRIGAN & RON PADGETT
30
The fucking enemy shows up
interstices
bent
Grey Morning
Rain
Coming down
Outside her
Windows
I can be seen inside
the drops
of rain
falling
limping
This girl in mind.
Things to Do in Anne’s Room
Walk right in
sit right down
baby, let your hair hang down
It’s on my face that hair
& I’m amazed to be here
the sky outside is green the blue
shows thru the trees
I’m on my knees
unlace Li’l Abner
shoes
place them under the bed
light cigarette
study out the dusty bookshelves,
sweat
Now I’m going to do it
SELF RELIANCE
THE ARMED CRITIC
MOBY DICK
THE WORLD OF SEX
THE PLANET OF THE APES
Now I’m going to do it
deliberately
take off clothes
shirt goes on the chair
pants go on the shirt
socks next to shoes next to bed
the chair goes next to the bed
get into the bed
be alone
suffocate
don’t die
& it’s that easy.
The Great Genius
The Great Genius is
A man who can do the
Ordinary thing
When everybody
Else is going crazy.
Poem for Philip Whalen
(About Emily Dickinson)
What about Emily Dickinson?
DEAD FINGERS TALK
I’ve got a lot of things to do today.
For example write this poem.
She’s Terrific.
Now, this poem is to say that
period?
colon?
space??
Lord I wonder just exactly what can happen oh Hello, Pill . . .
It’s a terrific spelling problem there’s two kinds of L’s (on the typewriter)
and that is a good example of the way some people
think
(NOVEL)
This here now is what I’m trying to say. It’s a sonnet. A kind of formal BEAN
SPAS
M
She goes all over the place, eh?
ROOT RAINBOW HA-HA
She’s so fine:
You Didn’t Even Try
Heroin
FOR JIM CARROLL
(2) photographs of Anne
80 years old
lovely, as always
a child
under an old fashion
duress
A Bibliography of Works
by Jack Kerouac
A white suit
and a black dress
w/high-necked
mini-skirt
strolling
two by two
across a brown paper bag
above The Relation Ship
Warm white thighs & floating bend gia pronto
my heart is filled with light
al curry
this
Life
that is
one, tho
the Lamps
be many & proud & there’s a breeze sort of
lightly moving the top
of yr head
& I’m going
way over
the white
skyline
& I’ll do
what I want to
& you can’t keep me here
No-how.
& the streets are theirs now
& the tempo’s
& the space
Anti-War Poem
It’s New Year’s Eve, of 1968, & a time
for Resolution.
I don’t like Engelbert Humperdink.
I love the Incredible String Band.
The War goes on
& war is Shit.
I’ll sing you a December song.
It’s 5 below zero in Iowa City tonight.
This year I found a warm room
That I could go to
be alone in
& never have to fight.
I didn’t live in it.
I thought a lot about dying
But I said Fuck it.
Tough Brown Coat
TO JIM CARROLL
Tough brown coat
Tie with red roses
Green cord vest
Brown stripes
on soft white
shirt
white T-shirt
White man,
Tomorrow you die!
“You kidding me?”
Babe Rainbow
Light up
smoke
burn a few holes in the blanket
Burn a few holes in the Yellow blanket
burning
smoking
reading
It’s Important
It’s important not
to back out
of the mirror:
You will be great, but
You will be queer.
It’s a complication.
Dial-A-Poem
Inside
The homosexual sleeps
long past day break
We won’t see him
awake
this time around.
In My Room
Green (grass)
A white house brown
mailbox
(Friendly pictures)
TELEVISION snow
(that’s outside)
No-mind
No messages
(Inside)
Thanksgiving 1969
Ann Arbor Elegy
FOR FRANNY WINSTON D. SEPT 27TH, 1969
Last night’s congenial velvet sky
Conspired that Merrill, Jayne, Deke, you & I
Get it together at Mr. Flood’s Party, where we got high
On gin, shots of scotch, tequila salt & beer
Talk a little, laugh a lot, & turn a friendly eye
On anything that’s going down beneath Ann Arbor’s sky
Now the night’s been let to slip its way
Back toward a mild morning’s gray
A cool and gentle rain is falling, cleaning along my way
To where Rice Krispies, English muffins, & coffee, black
Will make last night today. We count on that, each new day
Being a new day, as we read what the Ann Arbor News has to say.
Song: Prose & Poetry
TO ALICE NOTLEY
My heart is confirmed in its pure Buddhahood
But a heavy list to starboard
makes me forget
From time to time.
Breath makes a half turn
Downward & divides:
it doesn’t add up
2 plus 2 equals 1: It’s fun, yes,
But it isn’t true, &
I can’t love you
this way.
2.
So, what’ll I do, when you
are far away
& I’m so blue?
I’ll wait.
& I’ll be true some day.
3.
That’s all well & good. But
What happens in the mean time?
Wake Up
Jim Dine’s toothbrush eases two pills
activity under the clear blue sky; girl
f
or someone else in white walk by
it means sober up, kick the brunette out of bed
going out to earn your pay; it means out;
bells, ring; squirrel, serve a nut; daylight
fade; fly resting on your shoulder blades
for hours; you’ve been sleeping, taking it easy
neon doesn’t like that; having come your way
giving you a free buzz, not to take your breath away
just tightening everything up a little; legs
pump; head, wobble; tongue, loll; fingers, jump;
drink; eat; flirt; sing; speak;
night time ruffles the down along your cheek
Erasable Picabia
The front is hiding the rear
The heart of a man
is not as great as an amphitheater
Spinoza is the one who threw a pass to Lou Spinoza
There is no death
there is only dissolution
love of hate
is totally great
me, I disguise myself as a man
in order to laugh
I have always loved
a serious jackoff scene
infantile paralysis is the beginning of wisdom
everything is poison
except our meat
Flowers and candy make my teeth ache
The most beautiful and most noble
of men are queers
get the pussy
mystical explanations are dopey
Aunt Winnie fingers the thunder to learn,
so that we have left everything aside
but not as a cloud mind steps beside
the slow reservoir
now it is all of this, the pink bulbs included,
which means we have “protected ourselves”
by forgetting all we were dealt
BY TED BERRIGAN & JIM CARROLL
In Bed
I love all the girls
I’ve been in bed with
I even love those
who preferred not to do anything
once there:
Tho it seems to me now
they were nuts!
(the latter)
in bed.
Easy Living
TO DAVID HENDERSON
I hope to go
everywhere
in good time:
Going’s a pleasure,
being someplace
& then
Many Happy Returns
But Africa,
I don’t know
all that heat
all the time
even when it’s raining
all the time . . .
I’ve always found heat
constant heat
difficult
to get inside of
& not to mention
impossible to avoid . . .
You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.
That’s true.
Go now / Pay later
Equally—You can do anything you want to.
Yes, I know that.
But Africa:
well, I do know one thing
for sure:
It would be tremendous
Africa
going there
to go there with
David Henderson!
(Just like Pittsburgh).
Like Poem
TO JOAN FAGIN
Joan,
I like you
plenty.
You’d do
to ride the river with.
I take these tiny pills
to our love.
Plenty.
Then I drink up the river.
Be seeing you.
Peace
What to do
when the days’ heavy heart
having risen, late
in the already darkening East
& prepared at any moment, to sink
into the West
surprises suddenly,
& settles, for a time,
at a lovely place
where mellow light spreads
evenly
from face to face?
The days’ usual aggressive
contrary beat
now softly dropped
into a regular pace
the head riding gently its personal place
where pistons feel like legs
on feelings met like lace.
Why,
take a walk, then,
across this town. It’s a pleasure
to meet one certain person you’ve been counting on
to take your measure
who will smile, & love you, sweetly, at your leisure.
And if
she turns your head around
like any other man,
go home
and make yourself a sandwich
of toasted bread, & ham
with butter
lots of it
& have a diet cola,
& sit down
& write this,
because you can.
Hall of Mirrors
TO KRISTIN LEMS
We miss something now
as we think about it
Let’s see: eat, sleep & dream, read
A good book, by Robert Stone
Be alone
Knew of it first
in New York City. Couldn’t find it
in Ann Arbor, though
I like it here
Had to go back to New York
Found it on the Upper West Side
there
I can’t live with you
But you live
here in my heart
You keep me alive and alert
aware of something missing
going on
I woke up today just in time
to introduce a poet
then to hear him read his rhymes
so unlike mine & not bad
as I’d thought another time
no breakfast, so no feeling fine.
Then I couldn’t find the party, afterwards
then I did
then I talked with you.
Now it’s back
& a good thing for us
It’s letting us be wise, that’s why
it’s being left up in the air
You can see it, there
as you look, in your eyes
Now it’s yours & now it’s yours & mine.
We’ll have another look, another time.
Ann Arbor Song
I won’t be at this boring poetry reading
again!
I’ll never have to hear
so many boring poems again!
& I’m sure I’ll never read them again:
In fact, I haven’t read them yet!
Anne won’t call me here again,
To tell me that Jack is dead.
I’m glad you did, Anne, though
It made me be rude to friends.
I won’t cry for Jack here again.
& Larry & Joan won’t visit me here
again.
Joan won’t cook us beautiful dinners,
orange & green & yellow & brown
here again.
& Thom Gunn & Carol & Don & I won’t get high
with Larry & Joan here again
Though we may do so somewhere else again.
Harris & John & Merrill won’t read
in my class, again.
Maybe there’ll never be such a class
again:
I think there probably will, though
& I know Allen will follow me round the world
with his terrible singing voice:
But it will never make us laugh here again.
You Can’t Go Home Again is a terrific book:
I doubt if I’ll ever read that again.
(I read it first in Tulsa, in 1958)
& I’ll never go there again.
Where does one go from here? Because
I’ll go somewhere again. I’ll come somewhere again, too,
& You’ll be there, & together we can have a good time.
Meanwhile, you’ll find me right here, when you
come through, again.
People Who Died
Pat Dugan . . . . . . . . my grandfather . . . . . . . . throat cancer . . . . . . . . 1947.
Ed Berrigan . . . . . . . . my dad . . . . . . . . heart attack . . . . . . . . 1958.
Dickie Budlong . . . . . . . . my best friend Brucie’s big brother, when we were
five to eight . . . . . . . . killed in Korea, 1953.
Red O’Sullivan . . . . . . . . hockey star & cross-country runner
who sat at my lunch table
in High School . . . . . . car crash . . . . . . 1954.
Jimmy “Wah” Tiernan . . . . . . . . my friend, in High School,
Football & Hockey All-State . . . . . . car crash . . . . 1959.
Cisco Houston . . . . . . . . died of cancer . . . . . . . . 1961.
Freddy Herko, dancer . . . . jumped out of a Greenwhich Village window in 1963.
Anne Kepler . . . . my girl . . . . killed by smoke-poisoning while playing
the flute at the Yonkers Children’s Hospital
during a fire set by a 16 year old arsonist . . . . 1965.
Frank . . . . . . Frank O’Hara . . . . . . hit by a car on Fire Island, 1966.
Woody Guthrie . . . . . . dead of Huntington’s Chorea in 1968.
Neal . . . . . . Neal Cassady . . . . . . died of exposure, sleeping all night
in the rain by the RR tracks of Mexico . . . . 1969.
Franny Winston . . . . . . . . just a girl . . . . totalled her car on the Detroit–Ann
Arbor Freeway, returning from the dentist . . . . Sept. 1969.
Jack . . . . . . Jack Kerouac . . . . . . died of drink & angry sicknesses . . . . in 1969.
My friends whose deaths have slowed my heart stay with me now.
Telegram
TO JACK KEROUAC
Bye-Bye Jack.
See you soon.
A New Old Song
FOR LARRY FOR CHRISTMAS
