Friday, August 2, 2019

Sink the Whale and Sleep All Day in the Real World, Up and Functioning More Fully Imagined and Dreamed, in Society's Than in Your Own, Imagination?




    

"HAVE MADE EARTH A MIRROR OF HEAVEN"

Alice Notley

my name is Alice Elizabeth, so am I
Allie Sheedy of the movie Short Circuits thus angry
or Elizabeth McGovern self-controlled?
This question is posited
on a television screen where I can't quite identify
the actress shown—which is she?
  
I am Allie and I will continue to rant.
__  __________________
  
My voice rises in real life often—
because I am 'passionate' ... that's
a convenient word.
___________________
  
I'm still in the forest, darkening
wishing I were 'nicer.'
  
Hardwood says, You should stand up soon
I'll help you
I say, I have cramps
I say, I'm using my period, to get pissed off and to Know.
____________________
  
I dreamed, last night, about an immense Dead Seal
below the surface of the water in a harbor
  
pull the curtain down.
For months you would not break the spell
for eternities you have not done so, citing economic
exigencies; the whole thing is a mess.
I might rather be dead
than doing what it takes to keep the seal under water
whale-sized
  
E is for seal. For spell. For suppression.
____________________
  
To take part in you is to die
is why one dies
Have I said this before? 
____________________
  
I am Alp the Dizzy.
____________________
  
The dead seal isn't a person, it's poetry the seal
the hallmark
of selfhood, dead grotesquely large and richly hardening.
  
"Hardwood it was someone like you
you drowned the seal"
  
"No I'm making both you and it 'hard.' "
____________________
  
And I'm still in the forest.
____________________
  
And I'm still in the forest
  
Money's more the real live poetry
abstract symbolic imaginary
trade your life for it and trade it for your life
so you'll have something 'to do'
  
Sink the whale
and sleep all day in the real world, up and functioning
more fully imagined and dreamed, in society's
than in your own, imagination?
  
I'm standing
I'm standing up Hard
I keep being Hardwood myself, dark and hard.
____________________
  
Initiating a new 'broken symmetry' (spinning to the
Left, like a newborn neutrino)
so that we can have a new consciousness ...
am I doing that? Yes I think so.
____________________
  
The forest contains a French restaurant
every meter or so ...
difficult to fast in this dream vision.
We're a very unpopular group today
We've shot off another great bomb
and we've shot down a terrorist,
an Arab, young, before
we even found out what he "knew."
____________________
  
Tell me something beautiful, bitter
because we are somehow bitter, forever,
a taste included in origin, in love, in you.
So I don't have to be cloyed.
  
... soul's waters are reticent
sly swamps.
                       It had nothing in it,
that swamp; because I didn't know how to look for
the parts of its obvious whole—death is
minute, flavorful parts—which are said to spin
as I'm said to walk, moving while else
mostly unconscious of that.
____________________
  
In the new consciousness

2 comments:

  1. there i was in w___ville speaking to one of my canadian cousins, approximately my age, generationally speaking, and i trotted out the four existential questions facing the self-reflective human - where do we come from, why are we here, where are we going, what's for lunch?

    this was in the context of a discussion of religious orientations - i declared myself to be a practicing catholic - there should probably be air quotes around the adjective being used as a noun there - and she proclaimed herself an atheist

    nevertheless, she revealed she is the person who writes the thank you letters to people who donate money to the local food bank, which is run by the w___ville area inter-church council and operates out of the w___ville baptist church

    in the spirit of the hardcore atheism she adheres to, she proclaimed "nowhere" to the question about "where are we going"

    i tried to argue that the answer depends on the definition of "we"

    the lone ranger and tonto joke could have gone here, but i had already used a lot of my usual jokes this trip and wanted to save a few for next year, in case that comes to pass

    her sister's partner - a charming fellow - a retired dentist from northern new brunswick who said his name was "ghee" - also said he was an atheist now - although decades ago he was an altar boy - he mentioned harari's

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_Deus:_A_Brief_History_of_Tomorrow

    i intend to send to these people a dvd copy of "monty python's the meaning of life" - possibly they will enjoy it

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  2. BARDO

    It's been easy until now
    But you'll likely question how
    You have traveled far, it's true
    But there's much more left to do
    For it's time to pay the toll
    And we never know the sum of what we owe
    You can't go back from where you came
    You must move on and face the flame
    Of the last bardo

    You can pray unto your god
    But your prayers will bring you naught
    For in here you bear the scar
    Of exactly what you are
    It matters not what you believe
    And it matters even less what you think you know
    So put on your little show
    But no further will you go
    Til you pass the last bardo

    You will surrender all you hide
    And be cleansed and purified
    And of your burden you'll be free
    If it takes eternity in the last bardo


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcxaaSmxPQQ

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