For the Ride Read online

  ALSO BY ALICE NOTLEY

  165 Meeting House Lane 1971

  Phoebe Light 1973

  Incidentals in the Day World 1973

  For Frank O’Hara’s Birthday 1976

  Alice Ordered Me to Be Made 1976

  A Diamond Necklace 1977

  Songs for the Unborn Second Baby 1979

  Dr. Williams’ Heiresses 1980

  When I Was Alive 1980

  How Spring Comes 1981

  Waltzing Matilda 1981, reissued 2003

  Tell Me Again 1982

  Sorrento 1984

  Margaret & Dusty 1985

  Parts of a Wedding 1986

  At Night the States 1988

  From a Work in Progress 1988

  Homer’s Art 1990

  The Scarlet Cabinet (with Douglas Oliver) 1992

  To Say You 1993

  Selected Poems of Alice Notley 1993

  Close to me & Closer . . . (The Language of Heaven) and Désamère 1995

  The Descent of Alette 1996

  etruscan reader vii (with Wendy Mulford and Brian Coffey) 1997

  Mysteries of Small Houses 1998

  Byzantine Parables 1998

  Disobedience 2001

  Iphigenia 2002

  From the Beginning 2004

  Coming After: Essays on Poetry 2005

  City Of 2005

  Alma, or The Dead Women 2006

  Grave of Light: New and Selected Poems 1970–2005 2006

  In the Pines 2007

  Above the Leaders 2008

  Reason and Other Women 2010

  Culture of One 2011

  Songs and Stories of the Ghouls 2011

  Secret I D 2013

  Negativity’s Kiss 2014

  Manhattan Luck 2014

  Benediction 2015

  Certain Magical Acts 2016

  Eurynome’s Sandals 2019

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © 2020 by Alice Notley

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Notley, Alice, 1945– author.

  Title: For the ride / Alice Notley.

  Description: [New York] : Penguin Books, [2020] | Series: Penguin poets

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019033280 (print) | LCCN 2019033281 (ebook) | ISBN 9780143134572 (paperback) | ISBN 9780525506386 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Dystopias—Poetry. | Science fiction poetry, American.

  Classification: LCC PS3564.O79 F67 2020 (print) | LCC PS3564.O79 (ebook) | DDC 811/.54—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019033280

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019033281

  pid_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0

  Acknowledgments

  Three sections of For the Ride have previously been published in Golden Handcuffs Review (thank you, Lou Rowan) and one section in Poetry Salzburg Review (thank you, too).

  To Anyone

  Contents

  Also by Alice Notley

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  Preface

  I. The Glyph of Chaos with Willows

  II. Save the Words

  III. Radio Free Ark

  IV. The Langue Continued

  V. Return to Chaos

  VI. Disembarkment at Lost City

  VII. Becoming Poems

  VIII. Future Ancient Frescoes

  IX. Temporary Furniture

  X. The Stupid Battle

  XI. City of Nothing

  XII. The New Brain

  XIII. Wall of Words

  XIV. Absorbs Them

  XV. I Have Been Let Out of Prison

  XVI. Stark Star

  XVII. The Memory of Nerves

  XVIII. Back on Ark

  About the Author

  Preface

  There is a room of walls which come alive with images and words . . . like a mind? in a beginning that’s first an ending—get it? You’ll have to decipher what’s going on, as it happens. Just like I did. I started out in the l’Orangerie in Paris with Monet’s Water Lilies, and their pond, but then I, or someone, became One, on a journey to another dimension to save Words from their demise, if there were really an Apocalypse—I mean if there were and so all of language were lost. “Save the Words” is the title of chapter II. This poem goes pretty far, and terrifies me, but it should be read for pleasure. A story, with characters, and illustrations, and qualities of humor and tenderness. Note further that on the ark that takes off from the pond, the Survivors have with them an Anthology of poetry which is quoted from: only poems can deal in the inexplicable—what really goes on. And each of the poem’s characters finally becomes poems—nothing else left to one. I mean I don’t know exactly what happened; I might even have to tell this story again sometime. There are glyphs or paint or matter or spirit everywhere, it keeps changing before your eyes or whatever one has.

  I

  THE GLYPH OF CHAOS WITH WILLOWS

  Back up and reenter glyph again, one. Wasn’t one always there?

  Yes but not consciously. First capitalize the name, One. Okay,

  What about beauty? Oh the glyph’s beautiful, mysterious,

  possibly damning in the sense one can’t go back on it, One.

  One sees chaos, glyph’s own background, rippled cloudy but grainy—

  gradations of blue from navy to pale, shimmery, irregular . . .

  One, oh One, hear tenses fall. Clanks about One of Unseen.

  One doesn’t know what’s happening here! One shouts at no one. Birds fly,

  aren’t appearing, shadows flutter in, out of the grain, not in time—

  Oh but One’s not in time, what’s One in? Chaos, beautiful chaos—

  But, too, One’s in glyph and it’s hard; learning a new way to go,

  that is, talk? proceeding on through . . . oh this might be round, rounded.

  There are transversals, blurry poles—no they are lines One can’t think

  talk correctamente ly. Mental. One can’t leave here forever?

  Lines hold it up, why? Collapse isn’t logical either, One.

  Who’s speaking to One? says the One. The foundational voice, One’s.

  They are lines of words in some langue . . . Why can’t One read what’s within?

  Oh but One can. That’s why One’s changing, having entered this star

  neither civil nor unwelcoming in its peaceful disorder;

  never proclaiming one color. One wanders letting blues fall

  embuing One, embluing one, c’est jolie in here, pas laid—

  doesn’t make one afraid of it, identityless mixages

  of the more colors now, cerise, rose, and peach, then matte dark.

  Oh what do the lines say to One? or to any one of the ones

  sealed as ones are; senses are seals, unifying, at one’s wish,

  the one into one like those; could see
a lot more being here?

  The voice says, When one enters here, the seals come off gradually.

  For this is one’s parent chaos, timeless, shimmering, the old.

  One seems not supposed to think, in what langue? One’s head’s opaque, alive—

  opaque’s alive, is One? How does One know that One’s alive, conscious?

  Stupid words, from any old language. Tints swirl in the word head;

  One was born to be another’s creature, what is One doing here

  in the first thought surrounded by word parts without a form, only

  ripples of pigment ghosts? One likes the sudden shadow of greened black

  containing a non-rose, red fist, mouth swell. One’s former other one,

  mate or is it silky seal, gets up naked, from a bed to show—

  in One’s imaging head—sheet of words with some replaced, edited,

  meaning ignorance censoring ignorance. Seals can’t know much . . .

  now One knows less, that’s good. Lost in glints, on the walls of the glyph—

  walls? Ain’t walls or a thing. Should stay or go? Can’t go to the bathroom here,

  senses have been cleaned out. Don’t have organs, aren’t in this new percept.

  Cascade of white pink strokes. Trying to read. It’s just color, o dope.

  One had to go to a bed by oneself. One became one’s own seal

  past tense, isn’t it gone? Falls again, clunk. What tense is One in now?

  One has the name of only personal pronoun here, in the tense too that’s one,

  letting it all fall to pieces of aught. One’s so sick of the seals,

  their feelings and their deaths. Now One has died, more or less, and that’s cool?—

  tree hair blaze of a naught—is it something? Now let go of One’s words—

  copper ripples in dark. Muffle, rien? Psst, croo-oo, ping, ba bah.

  Then One’s sounds in torrent. As the binging proliferates One freaks . . .

  Jump up and down, timing. No one’s around; there’s no time if unwatched.

  Fa-ti-gué. Think in thoughts. Oh more like clots. Lovey dovey of isles,

  One wants to do it oneself—one makes the glyph, doesn’t one? It’s tonal

  not allegorical. Coping agent, laminate One’s rout, bout . . .

  the coping agent’s dissolved. What if it’s hell? Just read it, stupid.

  Ahem. Invite extinct obscura in. Quelle porte of this here glyph?

  One used to say I and you, they and self. There was a shard-woman . . .

  Go to pieces, one fool. One are the lost. Right in the breezy loss.

  One likes it hereabouts, no arguments, puny thoughts like blippings;

  chirp dream of lookalikes, chimes without verb. One drops a laugh, it’s weird.

  Open mouth: squawk and then Li-sez. One wants to read some word strings.

  But one don’t speaking right. Didn’t or can’t plafond of les nuages.

  There was man in the store: what is a man? Goes to pieces. The door—

  no one could find the door. Unless one’s damaged or almost dead . . .

  Leave that for just a while. It is essential to gibber, wisely—

  this is One’s coma, like. Man sold rational parts like marks on page.

  Marks on page signify animal sounds. These marks came before sounds . . .

  Prove it, One. Only One’s here: One makes the truth. One says what was the first:

  Nothing no verb tenses, get it? A one in a coma finds out . . . matter is marks

  reading strings of willowlike entwinings on the blue coma walls,

  where the parts’ve fallen off of speech and time. Stand by the emeralds.

  One finds one, other one. That’s one of the strands. One is a native one.

  Tell one. The twigs writhing, les branches of parts. Gaskets and piston rings;

  one is not, ones are not, separated. But only One is here.

  One is composed of words like one makes in beginning, chaotically.

  One makes them? One is making them, conscious. One knows it here, not chains,

  posh garlands. Why? Why’s not valid here. Making oneself now, oh One.

  One is made, already! Precisely, but is making one also—

  prior, not even born. One’s reading, therefore, what’s written by who:

  had painted a lovely clasp singing in the head. The voice knows all.

  One wonders if one wants structure? Later, comes after the—get rid

  of history. It keeps the ones from coming to the quickly door.

  Quickly all’s changèd. One is another. It only took light years.

  Read lines, thick intertwined. Tree trunks, what’s that? Holding up sky. No sky.

  One now know but nothing. Starting place already contains something.

  Language of amoeba: In divisio, one thinks in all parts,

  that is speaks, since the parts of one self understand each other.

  One’s body doth know one. Holding up sky? Looking for some food.

  There’s no food, at begins. No food in coma! Is this a coma?

  Who knows? Who knows a thing? Not a damn thing. Yer accent’s screwy.

  Shimmery rose on cerulean ripples: but it’s nothing. Figment.

  Create scene. One shaking one, tells that one, You’re too shut off!—Where

  does this come from?—Shaken one’s small, eyes wideset; has son.

  Shaken one defends self wordfully, words the only weapon,

  wideset eyes too, and frailness of the canny. What is this “shut off”?

  Shaking here in the glyph. Any scene can seize one, slippage of

  the stippled frescoes, pert creation. Choose what one wish, One.

  First One is the shaker; then the shaken: all wits and projection.

  But One wants to be One! Withhold oneself, Join not the combustion,

  the communitarian fever to be ruled, set, open. One

  wants to be shut off; One’s eyes aren’t wideset; One is not even formed,

  no eyes—not One. Nothing real to see yet. A one wants to shake one,

  as if somewhere in glyph thou art gone wrong, repellent but to whom.

  One isn’t necessarily any of those ones, any ones at all.

  Amoeba hesitates to speak. You have to split to speak. One speaks,

  One’s ever spoken, even in glyph. Name of language is glyphese . . .

  Thus someone’s shaken One, or One shakes One; or One watches—which is

  to speak. To write? One’s body’s written in the glyph. For who to read?

  For who to? Lovely tongue saying nothing. No brain in amoebese—

  oh what’s a brain, One? Only the glyph is. Speaking glyphese, glibly.

  One’s been robbed of personhood; sorry, that’s what it’s like when one dies.

  New scene wall-wise, from where? The present when. Who to who? Hands them.

  Here are the parts, in black and white. They are the same as new words.

  Neutral, forward, reverse. Great shift. One speaks in the neutral tense?

  Clock on the wall: is unnumbered: one doesn’t tell time here.

  Frozen wall, arched openings to back of the store, of the wall—

  it’s not a wall, it’s an image. One unwraps rounded part, obscure . . .

  one standing behind counter, hands it to parts receiver . . .

  this is what one has instead of manhood or other hood now—

  does one really mind? not in comatose mental state, baby.

  Lots of wrenches there on that wall. Screwdrivers, drills, hammers—

  US Mer. Sea’s full of the wall. Take these parts and
speak newly.

  Colored pond, lilies reappear. It’s just a mind on One’s head’s

  walls. But whose? Whose mind is this? One’s? Who is One, One is asking

  in the neutral tense; reverse won’t go. Forward, forward won’t either. No

  future? One wants to make sense of fate. Fateless let go; wall shifting . . .

  Wideset eyes defending oneself being shaken by that one still:

  One isn’t shut off from one! Loves the one but can’t tutoyer one now.

  One doesn’t know how to speak, in the changing glyph birth into light.

  One has a child, is oneself. Don’t you one me, love. I’ve seen you naked . . .

  One doesn’t want to be yours, wideset eyes says to one in a blank room.

  It’s so blank here could scream. Don’t want to be blank with the one here,

  blank as love in the world renders ones with breasts so frail and so empty.

  But I’m frail with my need, the one without breasts says hurting one . . .

  Get out of that world. One must enter the glyph of the real . . .

  Don’t you leave me! the one shouts. The one can’t if the one keeps hold like that.

  The One, the original, watching this scene on the wall can’t abide

  it, Let One help. No, One can’t. Ones in the wall are in the wall.

  One without breasts is too strong. But why do the ones act so apart?

  As if one’s strength makes the real. Or one’s wideset eyes. That’s so stupid.

  One watches pronounless til scene expires: it will come round again.

  Doesn’t everything, One? What if one said I for a brief moment?

  I am yours, how horrible. One is one’s—ambiguous. One can’t

  go back, what will one do? Without the comfort of the old pronouns . . .

  Watch the walls. What tense is one in here? Who adjusted the tenses

  in the world, all those years? Oh but One did, wading the tide of it—

  it what? What it all is, it is all one, timeless and without sex.

  I hate this! but the One doesn’t hate it. One is interested . . .

  Warm air and the black trees. Language eclipsed when One’s head goes outside—

  Oh but One’s head is the glyph of the glyph. “Of” doesn’t mean “of” now—