Mother of flies your
beauty
to turn to. If only
the audience
could see how
you are peaceful and the
flies
languid, glossy
But the audience will still bring
its own feelings
to these
words
not seeing you
not seeing
what I
am present for.
Who has left me
here, I have.
Who are your
familiars
Come
into the
enlarging
page if you dare
Because he invented
your shape I do mean
structure
because he invented you badly
everything is still hidden.
I was to impale myself on a
quadrangular
steel rod, with a blunt end
with a blunt end
which would make puncture
more difficult
and I tried—it’s too hard. I can’t
Okay said the voice. I can’t
Okay
then I was weeping
But it’s blood! I’m
crying blood! I
screamed
That’s part of it
said the voice.
I think this is hard.
(That’s part of it)
How they prefer him must go.
I think this is difficult singing
Length and repetition
create power
If this voice can return like
a body
It resembles something that’s already been,
Changing.
Chestnuts broken
autumnal fungi
so you will remember. that
it’s fall
outside
falling. you’ll go down
this is no story for the puling
social classes
No not at all
it’s for us my familiars say
who let me weep blood on their ground.
LOGIC
It was a poem
men took because it said ovary
didn’t take my
political poems
they took the one that said ovary
Are you sure it was because it
said ovary?
Yes, for them that’s logical.
Destroy another
city
What
else
is war for? So
you’ll go down
each of you does. dies in
whirlwind
each of you who does, dies
paying
for the pain you experience
Just that
and nothing is established
Because I am a woman
Cutting as many cords
as tie you to me. this isn’t
anarchy
it isn’t anything you
could name
You’re still here
without ties?
because they were logical.
Dance little asshole dance
oh he gets elected, like a Calvinist
He says, I have these guts
Men, I have these guts.
Having dedicated whole
regions to the destruction
you inspire, the
logic will be to go on doing it
doing it. Having proceeded by
the logic
of your personal vaccuum
you will perceive your continued
lightlessness
as an excuse to go on. having
gone on
as you have. And so one continues.
Lead the boy out of
the building on fire
his head twisted
upwards
all fucked
What else is there to
know if
one has gotten
twisted up
all fucked
he is a screaming fire
In the explanations
of our lives’ experience
they’ve left out this wild moment
the long mirror on the right-hand wall of the
corridor suddenly shattered
I can’t see myself anymore.
I repeat that I am not frightened
and why not
I don’t know
what my reactions
are supposed to be.
“Please tell me something
with which I ‘m familiar.”
isn’t there another part of now
WITHIN THE NO-CHANGE COIN PURSE COIN PURSE
She has no defense for
what’s happening
Cannot defend
herself against them, even
when they want to
defend her.
In my own arms
I have no recourse.
Inside myself will I die
because you want to
save my country
who am I?
I will meet you in the autumn
of my
life—what will I wear?
A big black hat with roses or
some lace —
why?
God told you to.
God told me to tell you.
God always knows what
you should wear.
‘It is not that women must
obey me, I am enlightened.
It’s that I don’t really want to
think
about them or what they say,
and I don’t have to.’
I saw my sister in a store
carrying a small notebook
she had decided to write her own
praises
no one else would
we were selecting tiny
things, pretty vials
for our pleasure/necessity/
unknown. I even
stole some. There was a
justification
of this petty theft
I only need petty things, after
all.
I
shouldn’t need anything
as large as power.
Ready
her again
READY?
this space, in this space. one
destroys. with these petty
stolen vials, I will destroy
god
In this ritual,
respect for all religion
is banished.
GO.
(leaves.)
What does the Witch card look like?
She wears a blue down coat
because she is rather
deep.
So, I—I say—and in the
parking lot near the first
self or person, the self-named
father of Reason, a cop, drove
his motorcycle in threatening
circles around her.
She stood perfectly still
in her blue coat.
pieces of dusty logic. why
say
that I don’t have to remember
anymore what they are
what it is.
I don’t believe in the universe
any
more.
ANOTHER PART OF NOW
I find you where the
body is. You are the body.
This body is everything.
But isn’t me. Is it me?
I didn’t kill it but have
to dump it. I’m on the dumpingoff
train.
Which stops at “Judas” and
“Through”: same thing. I’ll
leave you off.
You could just be America.
Why would anybody keep
America?
&
nbsp; All the poor dumb fucks
have nothing else to keep. You
poor dumb fucks,
If my name is Judas
I’m not hanging myself from
a beautiful redbud tree.
Do you know what I’ve
been through? Was it ever
worse for you?
Or I could say, This corpse is
the one you killed. And you’d
gape at me.
If I say it to myself, what’s
that? that I killed it?
Maybe I killed the whole
thing. I had a gun once
I’ve had razors, poison, and
knives.
I was always afraid I would kill. Americans
can’t get by
without weapons.
And so, there’s a body. Did I
bend over you to
help you?
But what if I violated you—vulnerable
you—
because I could?
I have to go, someone
says. Have to go fight for
America.
But there’s nowhere else,
he says
There’s nowhere else but here
Go to another country,
still feels like our flesh. And
kill some one.
Okay I will. I can do that.
Now the body bag’s on
this train.
I’ve got to get rid of it
at Judas. Then
I’ll be Through.
Who’s ever through? Even
if you’re dead you’re not
through.
I know because the dead
talk to me. It’s
never over, they say.
I’m afraid you’re the body. But
I’m not really afraid. I don’t
Know what I’m supposed to be
afraid of now.
If you’re an
American—if you’re the
body—
I’m not saying you died of fear.
Scared they were going to
kill you.
Some of them were inside your
system. Viruses and serial
killers
Terrorists breaking through the
fragile borders of this chaos
held to-
Gether by fear of being. I’ve had
that too. But if I’ve lost you,
I’m lost. Losing it, finally old
enough. You don’t
have a word in your throat,
Says a haunter voice. Not a
pretty word. But I’m carrying
the body of my
Country. Or my own. My lovely
body. Or him, again?
What a strange word
That pronoun is. When I call
myself she I just laugh.
I want you to know
That I care about you; though
I’ve said I don’t care
about anything now.
I see the pasty face of a white
woman. But
I see everyone else
Somber inside me; I’m
not sure I see the rich.
Can I
Include them in the caring? I
want you to know where
my heart is.
But I don’t know, like I don’t know
if you’re dead.
The corpse doesn’t have to be
You. ‘I’ve made it,’ you say,
‘I’m not dead.’ Who has
the power here?
Not her, this blood blossom
woman. We’ve created a
dead girl?
There was a mistake I made
about who would take care
of her. It turned out not
To be you. You told me she was
already free, had the vote.
What a jerk
You were. She’s still defunct;
who has the power,
really?
I know I don’t, I’m
just talking. Voice in
Singer.
I have to sing my way
out of here. I’m crowded
with old corpse
Furniture. Inside me is my
country I take
everywhere. Though
You don’t know me, I talk to you.
I’m supposed to be like
all of you; but what am I
Like? That’s what I can’t
remember. These times are
for the select
Diagrams of status blown off a
dead tree. It’s not ‘our
group’; it’s all
The star group. Doesn’t
relate to you. Except
as you’re used
Can’t I find new words?
But I saved all these
words for
You. I can’t see what you ever
knew, all that dust in the
middle of our map. I
Killed it, you killed it, Mother of
Flies, a beauty. She looks
peaceful. It would be
Good to remember what
someone’s supposed
To do. Before all you
are the body. I haven’t been
able
To speak without a corpse nearby
for thirty years. What
does birth ask of us,
My people? That’s all we
want to know. So talk to
the question, can’t it
Answer you, tell you
before you are stolen
away?
The whole world
supposes you
powerful
But power hasn’t occurred
to you. Her mouth was
always crooked from
Uncertainty. She talked like
me but had a nicer
voice. I’m not here to
Make everyone else
happy or
uncomfortable. All
Our cabals dissolve in distraction,
then take up
again when you get lonely.
What’s a cabal? you say, I
never get all of what
you’re saying.
Do I have to get rid of Judas?
I’m afraid you won’t have
come this far with me,
Because you don’t read.
That’s fair enough; I’m
asking for special attention. But
This is the story of your dead
body, lying under
accusation of misuse of
Power. Power. Don’t you
want its secrets? You
sweetly say no. Don’t you
Know you were it? Someone
used all your
substance:
We’re what they had. The
gift to our leaders. We
wouldn’t
Know how to conquer anything.
Not even for
God. As for country,
That’s us. I am your Judas,
because I’m telling. What you
can’t stand: Truth.
It always hurts you and you
cry. You escape again and
they win of
Course, make your children
soldiers, reduce your income,
calling that freedom
‘I have so much freedom I
can give it away. It’s like
air here.’
Okay, that’s your poem. And you
don’t want the gold
ornamenting the skull,
under flies. Someone
already grabbed it
anyway;
She came to us stripped, this
body. Who could be your Foreign
Victim. But
You only care about your
o
wn,
it’s always how they
Mistreated one. . .
I can’t get rid of it
Can’t dump the body.
Decays in time. There’s
Never been any time here.
I got this old without
feeling it. And
See, I still talk like you. I
must be the Mother
of Flies,
Not Judas. Get back up and
walk right out of
here. They can
Use you some more, you
know
even if your substance is
Rotten. Live and be part of
their power. See if they
care.
VOICE IN SINGER
Writing her own praises,
she must be life. the wind
“Maybe
Identification of
Voice
in Singer
This willful
Identification
causes
agitation.”
Said the voice apart from me.
Nothing here—is it?—but
this voice.
Voice: Audience
Voice: And dialogue itself was
almost gone.
Now I’m in a blanket green whose
white designs mean. . . that I’m
wearing
a vocal
source. So each word see the
ones on shoulders, spirals,
are probably glyphs for
‘Emergence.’
The people walked up my throat and
emerged from my mouth. . .
it was the only thing I was
for.
Why?
Because for
because for
has no meaning. Unreluctantly
I have nothing
to vaunt at this time except
for my
blanket
which doesn’t exist
The syllables are so warm.
Songs and Stories of the Ghouls Page 8
