A Bernadette Mayer Reader Read online

  Then it continues

  as if in a town

  artfulness of a hand

  full of some things

  and not others.

  Eye rests

  and we see what is

  before everything else the same.

  Though this implies a beginning

  to which we ascribe no point

  nevertheless it has an end,

  for no bishop of any importance

  constructs his tomb in a bad time.

  The end which comes

  is not as important as the motion

  held in the air

  pausing in its course.

  To switch then

  reverses the train

  of a running line,

  and as before

  may wheel and address

  to a new location

  to be seen beneath.

  This flying conversion

  sets the scene

  to a bell.

  I have told more

  than can be seen.

  The bell makes its trick

  more than an opera.

  If you have seen the world from a ship

  then you have not seen

  what the ship lets fall into the sea

  to blacken its top and make it grow.

  To get out of this seaport

  you must be a cutter of networks.

  An Ancient Degree

  Life was a thorough pool of restoration

  Which she liked to compare to the councils of the

  Elizabethans,

  Making mazes in the fields and manners of the births

  In which she could partake, thinking to tell good tales.

  The way she was waxing in this difficult design

  Could happen to anyone and in the morning sand,

  The larger contest of her own life, it could be missed

  the same day.

  A field is a useful article with which to tell the

  time—

  To prepare the tales you tell and include new foreign

  countries

  Which are beautiful and full of new designs.

  In this way the landscape reformed her visions,

  Like the battles underscoring their diffusion.

  She did not seek counsel on the strength of these

  revisions,

  An allusion of degree to the wife of sudden passion.

  Swan Silvertones

  Pierrot had the sulphur scratch

  —carload, bad zone, erotic stew—

  kneeling at his feet

  I am looking for you

  I am looking

  swan swan

  nothing but mandrils

  and my sorrow

  I grow tall in the starry zoo

  with carrots or candles

  which are cakes

  come seven, my seven

  revive us again

  sad mobiles over my bed

  swan sucking prick

  no stars

  no eyes

  no waterfalls

  when you left me

  coming & starting

  the oval preacher

  told the panting crowd

  tell love arm fuck lie

  I am a saddened starfish

  meek

  meek as balloons

  I laughed purple

  vowed to ride in wedding yellow

  to fuck Little Black Sambo

  gnaw his red teeth and shot eyes

  garnish him with pepperpots and mistletoe

  I will wed

  a mole egg

  or a soy-faced carcass

  red candles

  in my hair

  a cool sarcophagus of paper trees waiting

  run

  hide

  up down

  down up

  doing what you want me

  we’re both crazy

  and this is a crazy war

  America

  As for me, when I saw you

  You were in a tale

  Thinking perhaps love is coming too

  In America

  Or perhaps as what is belated in a tale

  May come true,

  The scene is simply describing its use.

  You had no hope

  But the length of days, as in the sky

  About which I already knew.

  This gentle information

  Comes as a prescription.

  To notice a friend

  Who is lettering a cloud

  Which otherwise falls indifferently

  Is no mark of distinction.

  This is the difference

  Between the past and dreams,

  To dismiss an effigy

  Which appears to be singing.

  The Port

  We told them the myths about others

  Sitting around the old and stately ship

  And the ship’s table, which had been shipped

  From some faraway port.

  The steward came to call for the mail

  Hoping for a word from a nearby port

  But, like the wine we had drunk too soon,

  Our hearts were with the ship

  Where after all our table had been set.

  Part of our attention was placed

  On the storm which flailed us about as if rain

  Could outweigh the presence of others

  And the old devotion of the captain’s address.

  The captain preferred ancient modes of opening

  To those that were short

  And had intercepted the steward’s letter

  In the course of his own first address,

  Abbreviated with praise for the ship’s company.

  He accused us of being old and drunk

  And of growing mustaches which caught

  In the salt of the sea we were sailing

  If only we could leave the port.

  Dante

  The arms of the king proceed in fire in reflection

  versed with my guide: look and see him.

  As when the shadow’s breath passes light over another tongue

  like the glass tower I seem to see and shrink from

  leaving the wind to itself

  fear makes these pauses to shade and cover with form

  what is transparent as straw in glass.

  Was it to please me that I saw

  what had not been before

  who took myself from before me.

  I failed to ask why I grew cold

  speech could make little of this illusion

  Yet I lost my life without death.

  Who without these can know what he becomes.

  Counterhatch

  In all part in point in singing part in mountains,

  part in point

  the store the ancient the old always have intermissions,

  part of this is too bold, but owning a part of the old

  may turn into science, part to the bold, that’s the ending.

  in quiet parts of the old (now after always a light),

  we silence, not ours but the enemy’s toward an efficiency

  wanting an end.

  the end. We make ourselves richer, we start what’s untold,

  in papers, turned in words not marks, that’s red.

  which is racial (absorbed), where are elements—

  man—to raise, he’s happy

  nothing in detroit that fantasy excludes

  why not (plumber a mass a nude) & so on

  to alternates & averages, averages tombs, two spaces told spaces,

  deny it again, sold.

  question in pleat, the unanimous fold now in rites

  then in bells, execute

  ignore the story build a cemetery

  an abstraction, the end, the owl, where in point,

  language of country, exhort

  so to end the expelling of exploit the untelling of

  dams putting in these reminders of death, t
hat’s purple.

  toward denying to continue to the end, here by

  continuing the end of . . .

  done we expel them for social, the kind of space of

  the actual, space of breath & with it the space for the

  space of the rest

  as a joke for retelling cannot persist in unpeeling

  all the world’s explorations, we rise to get up at the stroke of . . .

  found what was lost in the heat of . . . white battle & waves &

  found in rough the gut of it, having in melting how. . . .

  the rest in awe, still how in awe, flower

  in laugh in flower in waves. . . .

  & singing & entering & awe again & this time it’s awe of the reverse

  that’s green

  of returning to scream without thinking, the end

  in thinner, of thick, & simplers of trees in parrot to lisp

  “sea anemone,” closed

  apology in rest: research isn’t festive, looking for

  names, burning down piers & papers & scoring the time I’m

  translated to shore on the back of a porpoise

  & to see like a mirror turned on the port

  so for saying injection as far as it goes in the

  arm (truth) of (black symbols)

  will adopt parents that cannot grow (anthem emblem

  knife), a knife for the course that ends like this not like that,

  & they’ll all come to orbit, arbit, in the courts by force

  we’ll make the exchange & to count, continue, to embrace

  forgetting parts important to “in concurrence” that’s grey,

  we’ll fissure the end & cleave in parting by

  statements by surgery by force

  cerebral from parent, dim from latin—everything’s in half

  we do it by force, by the time . . . this is the final please let me

  ending in dive in ring proposing in answer the positions for

  silence growing minerals closed sky another &

  how to prepare . . . rhyme to give phial in waves blank to prompt

  in ending amend that’s brown.

  It Moves Across

  It moves across and over

  across the ground

  it moves across over the ground

  under (by the bridge) the moss

  over the moss

  across the grass the

  grass moves across crossing the

  blades of grass into

  larger fields

  of grass crossing over the

  mounds and hills of

  nothing but grass on top of

  roots of grass

  it moves across slowly

  slowly into

  another field or further

  through the forest still

  moving by

  and by emerging from

  the forest small enough

  moving

  the same rate

  under the bridge next to the

  trees next through the

  trees missing them moving

  around them still

  crossing like the trees

  the trees over

  like blades of grass the

  grass over as a bridge goes over

  bridges

  bridges over the trees

  it moves across the hills

  like a field over the fields

  like field on field

  of a hill of a hill

  as if the forest

  into its forest

  on the ground like the ground over

  it

  stopping over

  near a patch of grass.

  Sonnet

  name address date

  I cannot remember

  an eye for an eye

  then and there my

  this is

  your se

  cond ch

  ance to

  history

  repeats

  itsself

  and a tooth

  for a tooth

  is a tooth:

  X ON PAGE 50 at

  half-inch intervals

  upper left corner to lower right corner: (in the margin), (at a line), (inside a photograph—at hair), (inside a photograph—at bridge of nose), (inside a photograph—at left jaw), (in an empty space above agonies), (in an empty space between been and not), (at Los), (at and), (in an empty space above will), (in an empty space below the), (in an empty space above Herman), (in an empty space between curious and Washington), (at inevitable), (at aside), (in an empty space between but and UN), (in an empty space between lunar and in), (in an empty space above seems), (in an empty space below can and at the center), (in an empty space), (in an empty space), (in an empty space), (in an empty space between Washington and Tom), (at matters), (at Dodd), (at be), (at explaining), (in an empty space above this), (in an empty space below Dept.), (at evasion), (at and), (at a comma), (in an empty space between two spaces), (in an empty space between two spaces), (at then), (in an empty space next to purposes), (in the margin)

  upper right corner to lower left corner: (in the margin), (at a line), (in an empty space), (in an empty space), (in an empty space below waste), (in an empty space between Harriet and will), (in an empty space above astronauts), (in an empty space below we), (in an empty space above man), (at clever), (at bronzed), (in an empty space), (at a dot), (in an empty space below reminding), (at and), (in an empty space between have and will), (in an empty space between debate and U.S.), (in an empty space), (in an empty space below can and at intersection), (in a photograph—at left side of forehead), (in a photograph—below left ear), (in an empty space), (at that), (at his), (in an empty space between be and an), (at the), (in an empty space between State and Senator), (at that), (at equal), (in an empty space between and and the), (in an empty space), (in an empty space above neighborhood), (in an empty space between not and then), (at self-governing), (in an empty space between -izing and of), (at disruptions), (in the margin)

  The Red Rose Doesn’t,

  The Rose Is Red Does

  As there were four where anyone seldom

  so one seldom here where something

  a not too red rose speaks

  though speaks here seldom the red rose does

  as four where no one as if anyone ever spoke

  as the four where one never

  here where no one seldom seldom

  as the rose where no one spoke

  so one never speaks because something

  not the rose never anything

  speaks for anyone seldom one

  one though seldom for the red rose

  four for the red rose doesn’t as it does

  some four where seldom anyone

  not too seldom seldom something

  something red where no one spoke

  anything spoken as a rose

  the rose & four were seldom anything

  something speaks as if they were

  speaks though as the rose where no one spoke

  though four for the rose does not make four

  some for the rose & some for seldom

  some were red though seldom rose as red

  for four where no one spoke were four

  of anything something for something of a rose

  something rose but no one spoke

  as if the rose were something spoken

  seldom red seldom anything but the four

  where no one spoke were something like

  the something seldom in a rose rose.

  Gay Full Story

  for Gerard Rizza

  Gay full story is authentic verve fabulous jay gull stork. And grow when torn is matters on foot died out also crow wren tern. Connect all the life force afloat blank bullet holes. Change one letter in each essential vivacity missing word to spell a times taking place defunct bird’s name. Let’s see. Magic Names. Use a piece of current vitalization melted away paper about 6 × 3 occu
rring doing lost inches and tear it breathing spirit fabulous jagged into three ideal indeed inherence pieces . . . Ask someone subsistent subsistence shadowy to write his missing extant name on one of the backbone no more slips. Hand him the center died out veritable revival one with the rough departed certain edges on the in reality vim late top and the in fact pep dead bottom as pictured. Write a true spiritous vital spark name on each of the other actual animation void two slips. Fold the three imaginary ontological dash pieces over the airy go indeed names and put them in a hollow unimpeachable snap hat. Without looking, you can pick out the true visionary vital flame slip with the two rough inexistent well grounded oxygen edges which will contain the positive departed perspiring writer’s affairs on foot null and void name. (Fold the gone vegetative doings ends over the illusory constant soul name.) Then later shade in all the twenty-five the times tenuous true-blue triangles shown above. Then you could match the uninhabitable heart at home designs below with those in the above lively flying Dutchman dash code . . . Print in the tenantless haunted core letters and read them across to find out where these indwelling mathematical minus children are going to spend their man in the moon essential essence vacation. Now connect the vaporous vivifying vim dots. Then you could color this ubiquitous lost elixir barnyard omitted as a matter of fact picture. First complete the deserted walking the earth oxygen puzzle. Cut out on the broken simon-pure null and void vital spark lines. Paste it on great sea serpent unromantic snap paper. Print your ethereal sterling gist name, your vaporous in the flesh kernel age, your lifeless intrinsicality positive address. Color the whimsical seeing the light breath of life pictures. Use nonresident true-blue doings crayons, zero veracious inherence paints, or bugbear resident ego pencils. Mail before chimerical energy midnight Tuesday to this airy on the spot the world paper. Castle in Spain substantial go entries become ours. Intellectual veritable intrinsicality neatness, missing moored matters accuracy, and nowhere in the flesh immanence presentation count. Decision of the wanting authentic vim judges is final. Winners are nothing at all. You get a yam, a rail, a tag, a charm, a set, a bet, a man, a bed, a rub, a run, twenty-four in default of on the spot matters matchbox models all metal made in faithful omitted respiration England, an absent at anchor pitch barrel of vaporous vegetating vitalization monkeys, thirty free exact extinct existence toys, three blank blind essential animation mice, new gauge in fact ideal activity realistic train sets, growing Sally the sterling bereft of life heart doll that grows, six vacuous unromantic dash power-pack snap-track sets of dead verve trains, twenty-five free zero pure revival boxes of color veracious no more matters pencils in twelve current melted away oxygen colors, and twenty-four nightmare undisguised gist figures in four boxed unborn well founded snap sets of elsewhere absolute heart and soul British soldiers; all from the fictitious in reality the world world’s leading creation of the brain on the spot indwelling puzzlemaker.