For the Ride Page 5

  One whispers, Now il faut. How does one know? That word. Who knows a thing?

  Useless words, but let’s consider the words. Let ones. For One’s embarked

  into seas of verbiage to be repatterned, reconnected, Dear.

  Who is Dear? Formerly you? of the breeze. What difference of things?

  There’s a little alleyway back of night. Or does it push right through?

  Strewn with, or maybe not. Nothing correct. One’s doodling, not to start.

  Start. City of the words! But ones’re still on ark—It doesn’t matter—

  Also still en été in pond. Also coma’d, dead, whatever.

  Why start? Why ever start? On the ark’s deck, or in the alleyway.

  Beneath the chaotic stars or as star, to be One with it,

  the Making. Dismantling and making. Ones have ever done so,

  not always as humans, have had no nomenclature, betimes,

  nor earthliness per se. Finity’s a recent concept, human—

  who cares about it now? One finds another position or scheme.

  Word Tree

  at

  no

  love exile

  from the former

  paves. . . . . “forehead alley”

  where carnage mental rubied the tongue

  l’arbre du corps, hurt by grouped thoughts

  that corruption. One only lived you’d say

  there by assenting punish

  but this is the future, dead.

  none ever lived here

  none built this place

  perfect for “thing” purpose

  these words hang from one emptily

  polemic of A

  salt that’s fertile An

  underrose arguer

  come live

  here

  activate

  the

  fabric

  VI

  DISEMBARKMENT

  AT LOST CITY

  One’s found the lost city no one was ever in

  made of words One’s selecting, city extends from the Ark, as it goes

  along road of the dead, ragged

  unforeseen being one is

  always past or is, angelic idyllic

  find it in some words, there is nothing else left

  everything ended, one watches fall

  human systems, not more humans but words

  escaping with One into Chaos, mixage

  And One gets mixed right into the caldron

  or is it more like a chameleon

  rumpled and least

  nothing is most, here come words

  those One loved or used with a wrist no wrist here, how come words are?

  because One is How Because mind’s what there is over all in out

  prove it. what one knows, all science, is from In

  from knowing with a mind, who else’s

  One’s the ancient of Detail

  it all One is under and up

  Ark beneath the hemlock sky glides full and cogent

  (in a sense—the sense of this) O City

  abandoned where no One has been

  to take the call and Foundation. One

  covered in combs, comb out the words now

  Come into this doubtful Grace.

  Then, where are the ones of the ark? Ark is landing in faux port;

  faux’s the ark, faux’s any thing but One—how come One’s not so faux?

  One’s the light within, all one knows. Only dependable chose,

  that there’s this steadyflamelike self; entering the faux city,

  with One’s amoeboid entourage, projections babbling, afraid . . .

  don’t know how to act, no standards since everything collapsèd . . .

  Do the ones have words for new act? nième fois cosmical start?

  Pouring out of One, way they do—march down l’Allée des Morts now,

  are the ones really deceased? asks Wideset eyes. In sense, Qui

  replies, previous world is gone. What is this ghost burg?—Shaker.

  It’s the city after it’s dead futurely, ready for ones—

  Whah? Gives one creeps, say soul suckers. Everyone’s already dead,

  One says, all ones are au courant. Why only one tense needed.—

  Why be born then?—Nobody knows.—Maybe One can find out this time.

  Really don’t get it!—Shaker. It’s some city, in future from now,

  dead.—Why?—Because, it, is, futurely. Ones’ll be dead so it’s dead.

  One, says one, is covered with sudden words. One’s composed of the new

  or at least layered with. One can’t read them. Can see some but they crawl.

  One is now different. What language is One in? One speaks English—

  or is it a new form, another langue, English ever shifting—

  one’s hands, knees, or are they those, are they blurred words, unstable lovelies?

  Need to read each other? Parts one calls up, from beside One’s own ears.

  One can probably help. Tree still at work. One consists of word tree,

  in a sense—each one is that poem, shifting, breeze-mutated,

  blown into new shapes by one soul current among the ones. Not to

  be confusèd with consciousness, one’s own. One’s own soul, that is.

  Parts one works for the One. Still. Suggesting replacements and fixtures

  messaged telepathically from grapevine—hah!—tree. This city’s covered one

  more quickly than one can keep up with. Bypassed. Have to learn what’s up.

  It’s happening faster than the old system. The words are swarming now.

  Covered by the body of words—a body of gliding new words: Who?

  One is the same One . . . No, one isn’t. Don’t know what One’s gonna say.

  Je suis coupable. Erregina. One refuses all the pasts . . .

  One is guilty of razing nature. Which—nature—isn’t gendered . . .

  only one’s eyes were—Have no real eyes. Seen has its own declension,

  chart: you seen—object. Seer—nomen. Delimnèd . . .

  delineated, it doesn’t know that it’s defined being seen—

  how fair can that be? One sees you-seen. One sees one-seen? Abolished:

  the wires—one’s not wired, hard or hardly. See one, all one sees are words.

  Palabras of fate, if one’s fated—nam fatalis: no country

  in new ordinem: France is dead now. How one loved thee! Love remains?

  Energetically, molecular? No, parts of scattered verbiage.

  One’s caused to stand here, by what if One’s consciousness is free, thirsty,

  is One? One-seen, e.g. Wideset—with thine own consciousness, too, libre.

  One uses I when suddenly one’s I, the inmost soul of one.

  I, Wideset? . . . not that. The blue sea’s green somewhere in past and I clean.

  Ent’ring the city imagined by ones to come now? the next ville?

  That’s too fixed for one; so the words keep shifting that would define one—

  they can’t! But ones agree to choose the words to bring into new world:

  do they instantly take over this one? I, soul of me, Wideset . . .

  to you the layer superficial, of my sensed response to world,

  my reasoning, my naming of fact as if it were—implore that

  you remain in flux, for forever, that none define one!:

  In winter time more bruised dogs down who and him again: duck nostalgia.

  Talk like that’s better. Drawer upon rubber
, tell would she couldn’t.

  Would one couldn’t? Oh, couldn’t meanwhile atmosphere ends, unique.

  Is unique a thing? Verb quits as known. Need it not to define

  the past, because no one is in it. It’s conjectural like now

  as ones proceed in present no need to catch it so bad.

  Don’t get what’s happening, Shaker whispers to his hand, with word HAND on it,

  also THE ROSE HOSED ABIDING I WILL OW. Think one’s the tree!

  Qui says, Yes but one’s more than lucky—incontrovertibly one.

  Are ones choosing these words after all, or are they choosing the ones?

  One feels as if one’s being chosen. Tickets, please. Mine’re fingers:

  If I have fingers, do I have to say I, mine? These hand . . .

  “The rose hosed abiding I will ow” is the poem of my hand:

  MY hand, not another’s. One begins to understand the problem . . .

  Shaker finishes. One’s dumbstruck. One could be anything at all.

  Maybe ones don’t understand this city, says the One, not yet.

  It’s gone, already . . . but ones are it . . . Are it becomingly, now?

  Soul suckers: how can ones take it over if the terms keep changing?

  Exactly, says One. Anyone’s a new poem today. All’s well.

  Time as the Stretching Out of a Lantern Cutout

  minepeace

  denied

  . by you .

  map made by who declare

  end of world . . . . . . . . that’s poem

  bottoms out . . . . . . . . there

  : ya fated oo la . . . . says who

  now turns out one dreams it . nothing ever here

  . why not any map of any place

  walk to here—what’s walk

  . . don’t get it

  . get our own

  no “us”

  then what ones here

  said to me

  some many

  people

  essence

  (don’t let any one take over. Even if it’s a “part” of one? That’s right)

  Deal no ego. System unstable.

  (From the Anthology)

  THIS WHEN PRESSED EMITS SOUND

  does one know Chance

  it’s each

  perhaps. Necessitas?

  as

  . . dragon

  . imagined

  . like these words?

  stay bodiless

  don’t call

  One thing

  . sick for a beauty one remembers

  seacoast real

  ever the Ark

  remains with ones, transparent foundation

  . . tree . glyph

  does n’t . matter

  memory’s fluid

  paint . . ed . bird . dawn . same

  born uncreature palladian

  . . . from foreheads

  Eyelids closed, see inside .

  (From the Anthology)

  VII

  BECOMING POEMS

  Does One act or is One handled by past ones unthinkingly then—

  What’s placing words on One? Can’t One read them? What poem is One now?

  Eyes but whose float rounded in a brown space: teeth in the space and nose

  because One knows of the nose—hair-feathers green—oh why not look like that?

  A second face in one’s heart place. How does One see this self come towards

  with hands of painted nails, maroon, holding—why hold something like that?—cloths

  covered with gibberish, how does One know? Because this proposèd

  personage One could seem, floating parts like the almost familiar

  loosely strung, comes from within One as does everything concentrated

  in massed piece: can One reject it? It’ll be sad, mad; how tedious, this!

  Tell One who thou art, one!—One ist thou, One—So what, One’s an any . . .

  Welcome me!—Why bother? One wants to be word, not a puppet creatured

  with strung pieces anciens . . . Dissolve to True, One wants to light up,

  new, but necessarily, what One is. Then falls apart, those parts,

  and more words illisible swarm on space where One supposes One is—

  territory of moi’s stretching outwards from what painted, candled

  reflection—oh not that—origination, in itself the source?

  Dost thou get it, reflet, undermined? Grâce aux renseignements, I,

  One, keep babbling to ones, waiting till One can read what’s going on . . .

  My entourage be near, shadowed and tense. Stay loyal to those,

  from the times together, but One’s ruthless—quality essential.

  I’ll read these words or else. Art inventing them; are ones making them?

  Wideset asks?—How could One? They’re from pooled minds, as is figure collapsed

  of Oneself that endures . . . from the future? Qui, canst thou speak for One,

  who the fuck ever thou art of Oneself? No, you have to do it.

  Read the damned words on the body of bliss. You have to read all those.

  Stop asking questions and peruse the verbiage though it’s not too new.

  Why can’t One face this sweet language of stars, points of light indépendants?

  One—on trouve sa place? no not that. One’s the origin of now.

  Thou dost not know the beginning, e’en of the words thou art,

  Ark, or poem, One, first maker. What exactly does one mean?

  To be in active dominion, to be in charge of the hosts

  on One’s skin—no skin—to be first, each moment to be the one,

  each of the ark’s words: escaped, ear, despair phoned of blue wrists

  for a compulsion of dawn, medicine, frown, or rapax.

  Look it up. Qualities cease within one but not their letters.

  One’s a shifter’s recognition, is that it? asks the Shaker.

  BEHOLD SOME BODIES SHIFTING

  .

  this think

  dawn without sun

  . grey One’s eyes of

  . the shifters. One of

  . never of . see One’s form

  . One’s moving word thighs

  . feet tis . . .

  . the cut-out pacers

  not cauterized

  my worth lone oriel

  . inspired

  aye One is epic

  . sane One moves word limbs

  across grey city now

  discontinued

  giving slowly back line of eros

  bitter . trick . okay

  . . from within One

  . don’t One want

  . that . mad

  . others chose too

  . have to let ones

  as One walks now

  to long street

  oh so twi

  lit god One

  leg of

  astra; narrator,

  groupwisely, the

  ones

  chose some

  Words on One

  One’s not different from source of the words cast upon one like light.

  Change the sub: isn’t there some sort of light here anyway? asks One—

  But so grey! Wideset says. Can’t tell if it’s light, or some other vibrant;

  changing one’s appearances, seen and maybe the heard—

  Or is that what one does, sees and listens, speaks, within this dreamy world?

  One find
s frescoes about, as in the glyph, Look! they’re creaturely—there—

  terrifyingly deserted like ones. Are ones deserted? asks kid,

  dead France’s—In a sense. Are ones deserted of oneselves? asks kid.

  Ones make ones, then leave ones. All in the past. Ones deserted of selves . . .

  Shaker says, Don’t get it. One, even you, a deserted artwork,

  deserted building or walls of a once-made, Wideset says to one.

  But, it’s more like the ones are the very selves. Maybe the selves are left,

  left like frescoes then found. As if in time? What is the time of this?

  What source word light or thought? Soul suckers tense. Ones must be ones’ own gods

  forgotten as the gods. Thus deserted. Beauty of the face like on the walls:

  every thing’s a muted, worn color coming to life again. Look!

  The colors suddenly burn into non-eyes of the ones who are words . . .

  for only word-covered ones see the future and the past of ones.

  Are ones better for this, this arrival? Tired of asking questions,

  mutters the Parts one: point of being in coma if one’s uncertain.

  Let ones choose certain. Soul suckers tense still: Ones can’t judge anything.

  Nothing is familiar. Did ones bring “judge”? asks Wideset. Probably . . .

  Still haven’t invented a new language. Maybe ones are speaking

  it, One says, not knowing. Qui adds, In the mouth: If one’s here it’s new.

  Ones stare at each other, masses of words, in the old future dream.

  The ghosts are all in the words (one is there) or as on the plaster wall.

  exuded in the

  from in the

  Memories of thee, materialism, when the ones loving

  dost I

  thou mem, one

  mem mems how many things for sale

  items, remember things? The soul suckers recall careers, sal’ries—

  prizes like cold grass grow on hackneyed thoughts, chef d’oeuvres aren’t

  here: the commando’s One: One tolerates this triste confusion

  her comptable one one tall

  bleeds bleeds from wha no

  down rightness , why one height

  where it lies visible to one’s grey eyes. Or brown, as birds. Extinct

  on all walls sing the sky. When is that, of life soul-suck, where’s on top?