‘You can never see where you’ve come from.’
Judas rubies burned in her
ear, for all she could hear
the voice produced on this site
no presentiments, if you are
there. can’t know the
next,
as you expect a sense of familiarity,
but these
are
unexpected
familiars.
There is a free woman there
with her arms up high
in a dance.
I saw her without having to.
I can’t find compulsion anywhere.
in this place, now
No monitors.
The man bent over flute an
old locust.
I know what I’m doing
the only I knowing
in this voice
Are you a figure
Do you have a you
Have
it isn’t a matter of possession
Without compulsion
the thoughts that come
would be useless to
resent
this present
at last
what
can last?
It
can.
BENEATH THE SLAB
Where the Slab was, walking
across the terrible water, I
concluded the crossing. I lifted the grey
Slab and walked through
the watery
mass, its dirt, and bugs, and also
red and blue morning glories.
Can you upgrade my ticket
she asked?
You might upgrade your ticket,
if you know some stories of
middle-management people
who safely land an airplane
when the pilot has been incapacitated.
I know one, she says,
involving a woman. Tells anecdote
remembered from Reader’s Digest.
Do I get the upgrade?
The man says, you may get an upgrade
after you tell the story again
when you present your ticket at the
counter. Can I still use my old ticket if
they won’t accept my anecdote? No, he says.
What is a witch? cut word
it is a myth but
may have to use. if
I’ve lost my original ticket.
this land
only accepts one myth of
origin
but what I call witch
will be different
Because I can call it.
So I’m just calling it with
some of my materials.
Just another dead guy
frying a hamburger.
“They’ll screw your ass
right into the ground,” he
said. He said it twice,
“They’ll screw your ass
right into the ground.”
Frontally, I might be
invisible.
I don’t have a valid but
know this is safe, because
it’s
a dark green
morning.
I thought the machines contained
holy men, flying off the ground
priests taking off but this
isn’t levitation, it’s machines.
One who survived a crash
They’re
pulling her out of the plane.
“He’s okay,” said the man next to me,
though the test pilot who survived
the crash
was a naked woman.
I still couldn’t see the point of
anything. surviving for love
of myself—
the pain can be overwhelming.
Do you want to look at it?
No, I want power
You don’t want me to express
myself.
Not here, No. That’s exactly
what I don’t want.
You muddled my ticket
why should I even
need a ticket?
GLORY
The name of Gloria is
morning glory
you could walk right into it
and
greet I forgot.
no
reason
You are my word
The name of power forgotten is
morning glory.
I was starved
and they had nothing
except for Gloria’s
name, their relation
this is pathetic bread
bought on Broadway
Walk out and get food,
mother said.
Sorrow comes as a consequence
treat it as a malleable
substance, blue or green
red red for glory. no blue
green. I am green
holding up blue or red
Because of the beautiful
medieval
conceit, the flower and the leaf.
White woman, leave me alone.
It’s flowing through me
for no reason
all this power—for no reason,
for reason
When you enter the food
chain as form,
what do you eat?
The body strewn globe bids
you welcome
But I’ve been here before.
Do you remember when you
first realized people
were willing to kill each
other for almost no reason?
seeped into the blood, or
water supply
something I said. or did.
What do you have to
say
You’re cruel
I’m not
I’m not the one like that.
But everyone
says that
You didn’t have to make
it into a club
you didn’t have to
what did you have to
do? I was starved and wanted
some bread
you had a club for killing people
I didn’t have it / Someone has it
Kill them you said
I didn’t say that
Someone said it. Who said it?
I know a guy who said it
you’re so naive
If you have to kill people because you’re
born
why not have a club for it
if you
there is no one here. There’s
no you here!
Your leg is shaking you’ve been to war
Is that a reason?
You called me White Shell Woman
so I would be here.
I won’t let you die I went
back for you, though
I’m just a word
There’s a night where you
don’t say words
Do you know that?
No I don’t know it
LA DISCONNECTING
It was a fat hairless man wearing
a t-shirt with an image of
Jean hyphen Something Something
the icon in charge of the process
called La Disconnecting.
What happens if
about sincerity, I
am sincere, no Sorry
I don’t want that.
That world is not here. even if it
kills me
Where the mirror broke
She went down there many
times,
She is asking a man to aid her
but they are not pronouns.
They both have grey hair. He puts
things in her hands sometimes. Stones.
Nothing you would value. What
these figments, of which I am one, value.
Having become almost old
I feel gratified to have
aged but don’t know why. The
guy pressed a two-dollar
bill to the lapdancer’s bad
knee, is the inversion
of this genre.
It was on my way down
here that the mirror
shattered.
Sometimes I see face in
fragment—a
past me?
Of the t-shirt image of
Jean hyphen Something Something:
Can I change it to me if
I don’t know what I look like I
don’t want him in charge of
La Disconnecting.
I’m not being methodical
having been
shattered. I can’t find
the
where you ask it
where you’re supposed to
believe it
I’m down here
the figment people
comfort me, over
and over. I seem to need so
much comfort
Because you just play
at it. (who) and the sound
of us nothing
As the morning darkens
gradually change it
in La Disconnecting
what are you making
the Sound.
It will tell you
how to be
it always does
A city destroyed but
populous
returns for my
political soul.
a light keeps that’s
mine hands lips and hair
I am the way forward
in La Disconnecting.
AFTER LIGEIA
Show myself dead. . . you’re squinting
Do I have to cover my head
like some
damned cultural scrap
Look at my bone, you’re
shaking. . . !
Break it up, the cops
You’ll never stop me now,
not this ghoul
isn’t. Ice flower trees out your
window, dark
I wasn’t broadcast all over the
place.
Who made me? if I was/am
always
the subjective factor
perceived but whose power was
mute
now
I’ve come to predict your
death: Oh
can’t you handle
a ghost? you
can handle
everything else, so you say.
Name me. just try to
everyone some damned scrap
on their
heads to show that they
cower
are pure. And those who
don’t
arrogant as proof. Let’s
get past that I’m
dead. I have the haunt’s
power
and you can’t subdue
me.
Come to you out of some tale
in one of your horror
periods, to
slowly twist your neck. You
can’t stop it:
those are the rules.
Soldiers came
to maim and foresake you sent
them—you
stayed at home, thinking. Oh wasn’t
that useful?
Didn’t want to kill, perhaps
But aren’t I dead? We
were equally anonymous: your
anonymity
has slain me: my plan is to
scare you to death now.
First, a short, true
history
which means unfair particulars
I don’t refer to what you do,
or even to what
my so-called people
think should be referred to.
My history
is subjective, get it?
There was a
child went forth (I can
translate you—
can you do me?)
Oh yes child, he and then
she:
they hesitate there
and leave her
precious musings to herself,
so considerately—
and the she’s can have their
own
power structure. Because
they like that!
God constructed
our differences
Or,
some other abstract convenience
did, maybe an
ethereal stove or
washing machine! Go
where you’re fated.
I didn’t just go where I was
supposed to
I had a second body, which
functioned all on its
own, thinking—as you would
call it—
its unsurfacing excursions
that body being who I am
now.
So one unblustering child
went forth
a little girl. And didn’t they
love her for
herself? So un?
But you’re
shitting scared
of her.
O, I see, the wraith of teeth,
skull, hair—
classic. Just so you’ll recognize
me.
Who was I beautiful, young?
Well I wasn’t
I was what I say. If you look
through your own
beautiful
glue-sockets, bulbous glops
of nerves—
who knows what you’ll see?
I looked from my
cynical covered head at masses
of clumpy uprights
by the flowing
liquid burning
orange-silver. Those were some
scraggy trees, and
two-legged you’s,
moral pea-brains. Yes I
remember my girlhood
It’s heat near the Euphrates, or
wherever
We live in an ancient city
We are practically ancient aren’t we
we wear
kohl and have customs: you
don’t have
customs, because you’re always
our judges
Jealous judges relinquish nothing
to their
petitioners. Sack that city
of forgeries!
You recognize my language?
it’s
poetry, my other body
You’re scared
of a song, you coward. . .
I’m telling you a story, from
between the same nude
teeth I always had.
You’re
so glad you can be here,
where
the war doesn’t go. No?
You’re
privately sad? Sad privates
smoke behind screens
somewhere else.
I entered a room in my
youth, where
obviously I
was blessed. And
there was a lot of warm
bread; and
so much affection. They
treat you gently
our ways are so
rich. Do they prepare me
for death after
a life-time
of being secondary? But
we’re treated
honorably; proud of our
lineage; probably generous
gash by your
standards. Do
I tell it how you’ve
heard it?
Isn’t this interesting? Our
gender skills
Do something skillful. I
didn’t want to
do anything,
except think. Familiar?
Do I meditate on power or
on hatred? I’m
still here, so you can feel the
force of
this. . . unnameable. I’m here
to help you
lose breath.
Everyone was choosing
Or
there were no choices; had
been made,
there were cheeses, traditional
passages, massages
the tedium so weighty. I found
my other body—composed of a
poem-like
substance,
how, what? You’d have to spend
a lifetime
doing it
out of need, not vanity. So
this other body
This other body went forth with
its nightmare
prayer: that it have all
the power it
needed, to be as important as
I felt. In my
singularity: sanguine sanity; for
the only sense
I could find was in myself. I
am the world
always inventing it.
And
I’m dead, what does that
tell you—that anyone may be
making it up
As I do stand here before you.
How can that be?
So can you handle what’s
really
unfamiliar—me? un to the
senses you exploit: yes
you were given all to
know. If you
have it, don’t you know it?
And if you
know it, how can you help that?
Sure, I was
had: women are. Price-seeking
persons keep us from
Songs and Stories of the Ghouls Page 9
