I don’t want to have a dialogue.
That’s why
though I’m calling this
Talk to Me
I really would prefer to
talk to myself.
What are you saying?
I can’t HEAR you.
BE QUIET!
I want to hear what you’re saying—
but I’m not listening!
A poet
Taking a long walk on the ice
Slipped
And fell down.
A critic came along
Seeing him lying there and said
Are you comfortable?
—I make a good living.
I told my wife
I was losing my grip.
She said,
What grip?
My wife she stood—
With a loaded gun—
Who said that?
I’ve always loved Sally Silvers’ work
especially her early work where
she does stuff with movement that’s extremely awkward
a kind of awk-
wardness that you don’t
associate with dancers.
I always wanted
to do something like that
with poetry
to make poetry almost
painfully
clumsy, clumpsy . . .
perhaps not reciting poems but
declammering poetry
á la Huntz Hall and the Bowery Boys—
How beauteous is—
The subway—
In which I—toil—
Schmutzing my way to the midnight’s—
Ball—
Right by where—
You are—
But the problem with that—what?—text
is that the kinds of things I most readily come up with
seem to
follow some kind of
pattern that’s
feeding on memory
and the beauty of the
alphabet
of writing it down
is the memory function
it remembers for me
In many ways the in-process writing through poetry is contained in
the performance of poetry, the different ways in which
a relatively fixed alphabetic work
is said differently, is performed
differently.
But the kind of patterns
that I can improvise
don’t allow for the kind of
immemorability
which I’ve always wanted for poetry—
to articulate things
that can’t be
remembered
which might mean
phrases
I can’t quite
make up
in real time.
It was Alfred Lord and Milman Parry
in their book The Singer of Songs
that talked about formulas
of memorized texts
that were especially popular in Greece before the time of the alphabet
and continue in cultures after that time
that didn’t use writing as a method of memory. Still I want to try
to do a
paperless poem
part of the paperless culture that we’re entering into
and see what I can come up with.
Transient
Failure
I’m not telling you
what you CAN’T do,
but what you CAN do.
The pricks are points
on a map.
The past
passes
if we
listen
not
to what it tells but to the tales we tell
about
it—
what time is it NOW what TIME is it now what time is it NOW what time IS it now WHAT time is it n-o-w what TIME is it now what time is it now what time is it now what TIME is it NOW what time IS it now WHAT TIME IS IT NOW what time is it NOW what time is it now what TIME is it now
the trees
turn
dark
but the leaves are
shot
with light.
Go back! Stay back! Way back!
In back! Kneel back!
Quickback!
Stayback!
Halt! Kick!
Is performance better than writing?
Writing better than Starbucks?
Starbucks better than bugles?
Humor better than seriousness?
Peace
better than tranquility?
Microphone
better than illusion?
Illusion
better than banisters?
Banisters better than walls, ceilings
better than lights, lights
better than trees, trees better than floors, floors
better than what’s under the floors?
The warlords
Drank
Blood
From cups
Made of Euro bones
And Euro dollars
And Euro horns
What time is it now? What time is it NOW? What TIME is it NOW? WHAT time IS IT now? WHAT TIME IS IT NOW? WHAT TIME IS IT NOW? WHAT TIME IS IT NOW? What time is it now? WHAT TIME IS IT NOW? WHAT TIME IS IT NOW? WHAT TIME IS IT NOW? WHAT TIME IS IT NOW? WHAT TIME IS IT NOW?
[talking watch:]
It’s nine eighteen p.m.
It’s nine eighteen p.m.
It’s nine eighteen p.m.
The light
spills
into pools
of darkness
I cannot
find it
—Now
those are
some of the elements
that might go
into a poem
but in a poem I’d
disperse and
reorganize them
in a way
that would not
have the same
kind of, kind
of rhythmic
structure
that I fall into
when improvising
What time is it now?
TALK to me!
I don’t wanna hear what you’re saying!
SHUT UP!
What do you think about?
I don’t wanna know.
Some of the images are occurring because
one of the people that I’m in dialogue with
is Dubravka Djurić
a Yugoslavian poet and translator
who lives in Belgrade.
And all through this time we’ve been sending
Internet messages back and forth.
But just before
the recent NATO bombing of Belgrade began
she asked me a question
about a line from Robert Duncan.
And the line was:
The African princes
drink
from cups of rhino bones and horns
. . . and she didn’t know what that meant.
And so she sent me an email.
And I thought it was very interesting
in the midst of all that was going on
that she was so concerned what this image
what this poem, of this
poet no longer alive, Robert Duncan,
could mean. And it reminded me of a trip
that James Sherry and I took
to Belgrade in 1991. We rented a car
in Vienna. And drove down to Belgrade.
And then that little tiny car
(James will remember this) . . .
I couldn’t get the reverse clutch to work.
And this was extremely irritating
to James, because it wouldn’t back up.
We were in a parking space and yet
we couldn’t get out of there. I just
couldn’t get that clutch to
work.
And one thing that Dubravka said to me
somewhere during the Serbo-Croatian war
was that the kind of concern for poetry
and the politics of poetic form that Bruce
was engaged in that I was engaged with
and many others—
took on an acute meaning to her
when that war took place and she never
understood so well why we saw poetics
as political, about what we can’t think
as much as what we can . . .
worrying about what images mean
how language works
how representation works . . .
it’s all very frivolous and fun
but it’s not
serious, it doesn’t matter but suddenly
it started to matter to her.
One of the reasons it mattered to her was—
What time is it?
DON’TALKTOMEICANTHEARYOU
One of the reasons . . .
DON’TALKTOME
I want to hear you
DON’T TALK TO ME I WANNA HEAR YOU!
One of the reasons was—
. . . you know whenever I want to hear other voices
I have a very
comforting thing. . . .
My watch comforts me.
Talking to other people is OK but
really I only want to hear the dialogue
that I create myself.
That’s the problem with poetry:
I want other voices
but I want them always to be
My own other voice
What time is it now?
[talking watch:]
Nine twenty-three p.m.
What time is it now?
It’s nine twenty-three p.m.
I find that very comforting
because it answers me. . . .
And I know what the answer’s going to be
yet it’s still another voice.
Dubravka’s mother is from Croatia and her father is from Serbia
so she’s a Yugoslavian.
And one of the things that you realize
is that this constant representation of land and a people
in terms of these ethnic maps that we draw . . .
The pricks are points on a map
the points are pricks on a map
There’s nothing to lose
but nothing itself
the thought of nothing.
Go BACK STAY back WAY back!
Ich bin ein Yugoslavian.
I am a Yugoslavian.
Because, as Dubravka says, the intersections of the different representations, the ability to live with ambiguity, the ability to live in dialogue with multiplicity instead of trying to have some moral order that says this is this sector, that is this sector, everything is separate, everything is divided . . .
And we’re writing together, we’re
getting back these messages that say
“transient failure.” Transient
failure. As the bombs are falling and then
she writes urgently, she says very urgently
Don’t post the message to the listserv
electronic group because I’m afraid
with this message. And what this message says is
before the fall of Communism, there were poets
who were Communist poets, who were all about the Communist
credo, who put forward socialist realist values. And then
in the time of Milosevic there were extreme Serbian nationalist poets . . .
and she didn’t want us to post this information . . .
and then . . .
James got a message that said . . .
“fatal error” . . . and I kept thinking what is that?
Fatal error. Transient error. Which one is the fatal error
and which is the transient error? And then I thought
Alfred Lord, Singer of Tales, I mean that’s a Serbian singer
and when you think about improvisation, and oral culture, one of the key
ways that we know about it is through the singers of Serbia
and who are they? And can we live with a dialogic reality
that doesn’t have a fixed order . . . that this is here, and this is there . . .
that there isn’t a right or wrong?
Ich bin ein Yugoslavian.
What time is it now?
What time is it NOW?
What time is it NOW?
And then we got a message
via B92, which is the alternative radio station
that was shut down on April second
by Milosevic and it said
Don’t send any more messages
these messages you’re sending are going through the server
and you’ve got to stop.
Transient error. Fatal error.
We didn’t know which.
Could it be a transient error?
Was it going to be fatal?
And I keep thinking of not being able to go into reverse because you can’t go into reverse, you can’t go back, and we kept going forward and I kept thinking maybe talking about this maybe thinking about the way we talk about things is political, is crucial and maybe dialogue is the problem.
Listen—
if we don’t have dialogue
if we don’t listen to what we can’t hear
what we can’t understand
then we’re not—
What time is it now?
[talking watch:]
It’s nine twenty-seven p.m.
It’s nine twenty-seven p.m.
And the curious thing
that Dubravka said
was that these Communist
social realist poets
and the ultra
right-wing poets
the ultra-nationalist poets of the present . . .
they were the same poets.
I’m not telling you
what you can’t do,
but what you can do.
The pricks are points of light
On a map.
The leaves are dark
Before the trees
Are shot with light
GO back STAY back WAY back!
In back! Lay back!
What time is it now? WHAT TIME
is it now? What time is it now? What
time is it . . . TALK to me! Talk to me!
I don’t want to hear it. Talk to me
I don’t want to hear it! Talk to me
I CAN’T HEAR WHAT YOU’RE
SAYING! Talk to me. Be QUIET!
Fatal error.
Transient error.
And B92’s motto,
which they have on their website,
is Don’t trust anybody. Including us.
TALK to me. I don’t want to hear it!
What do you think? I’M NOT LISTENING.
They were the same poets.
And you might answer B92’s motto:
Don’t trust yourself either.
The warlords
Are drinking blood
From cups of Euro bone and Euro horn.
The light
Spills
Into pools
Of darkness.
I cannot find it
By myself.
FROM STONE
I’ve been given a body. What should I do with it,
So singular, so my own?
For this joy, quiet, to live and breathe,
Who, tell me, am I to thank?
I am gardener, but flower too;
In the world’s dungeon I am not alone.
On the windowpanes of eternity,
My breath, my warmth has already settled.
On it a pattern is pressed,
Unrecognizable of late.
Even if moment’s gloom streams down—
The
pattern, so dear, won’t be crossed out!
1909
Osip Mandelstam
translated with Kevin Platt
SANE AS TUGGED VAT, YOUR LOVE
after Leevi Lehto, “Sanat Tulevat Yolla”
O when sanity tasted of muffled curtsy.
Talon—Jokasta’s vivisected valor.
Silly virtual item.
Sane as tugged vat, your love, kaput.
Tamed tapestry’s caressed master’s tasseled luaus.
O when sanity tasted of muffled curtsy.
Talon—Jokasta’s vivisected valor.
Silly virtual item.
Medusa pouts as vat’s veil’s oldest lament jokes.
Tamed tapestry’s caressed master’s tasseled luaus.
O when sanity tasted of muffled curtsy.
Talon—Jokasta’s vivisected valor.
President—he itsy, oily, tainted, laminated.
Medusa pouts as vat’s veil’s oldest lament jokes.
Tamed tapestry’s caressed master’s tasseled luaus.
O when sanity tasted of muffled curtsy.
Talon—Jokasta’s vivisected valor.
Silly virtual item, yah!
Sane as tugged vat, your love, kaput.
TWO STONES WITH ONE BIRD
Re-
demption
comes
&
redemption
goes
but
transience
is
here
for-
ever.
SAD BOY’S SAD BOY
after “Mad Girl’s Love Song” by Sylvia Plath
I ruin my hats and all the mat slides glad
I hop my girls and all is skip again
I jump I run you up inside my truck
The car goes looping out in dark and light
And yellow hat slides in
I run my mats and all the girl slides glad
I hoped you skipped me into luck
And jump me black, ruin me glad
I jump I run you up inside my truck
I jump my slopes and all the dopes slide glad
I glide my luck and all is slip again
I jump my hopes and all the rope glides sad
I skip you jump the way you said
But I run old and sigh your name
I ruin my mats and all the girl slides glad
At least when luck hops it skips back again
A rune my mats and all the girls slide glad
I jump I run you up inside my truck
DESIGN
for Jean-Michel Rabaté
I saw the sign
on its hooks
grappling with
the being of its
having become &
gone, in a flash
just like the gun
returned to its holster
or the prairie dog
howling with
homesickness
even at home.
The consciousness of
consciousness lapses
into intermittent
power outages &
salt water taffy.
History will end