My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer

ADMONITIONS (1957)

ADMONITIONS (1957) Spicer: My Vocabulary Did This to Me page 155 This page intentionally left blank Spicer: My Vocabulary Did This to Me page 157 157 Dear Joe, Some time ago I would have thought that writing notes on particular poems would either be a confession that the poems were totally inadequate (a sort of patch put on a leaky tire) or an equally humiliating confession that the writer was more interested in the terrestrial mechanics of criticism than the celestial mechanics of poetry—in either case that the effort belonged to the garage or stable rather than to the Muse. Muses do exist, but now I know that they are not afraid to dirty their hands with explication—that they are patient with truth and commentary as long as it doesn’t get into the poem, that they whisper (if you let yourself really hear them), “Talk all you want, baby, but then let’s go to bed.” This sexual metaphor brings me to the first problem. In these poems the obscene (in word and concept) is not used, as is common, for the sake of intensity, but rather as a kind of rhythm as the tip-tap of the branches throughout the dream of Finnegans Wake or, to make the analogy even more mysterious to you, a cheering section at a particularly exciting football game. It is precisely because the obscenity is unnecessary that I use it, as I could have used any disturbance, as I could have used anything (remember the beat in jazz) which is regular and beside the point. The point. But what, you will be too polite to ask me, is the point? Are not these poems all things to all men, like Rorschach ink blots or whores? Are they anything better than a kind of mirror? In themselves, no. Each one of them is a mirror, dedicated to the person that I particularly want to look into it. But mirrors can be arranged. The frightening hall of mirrors in a fun house is universal beyond each particular reflection. This letter is to you because you are my publisher and because the poem I wrote for you gives the most distorted reflection in the whole promenade. Mirror makers know the secret—one does not make a mirror to resemble a person, one brings a person to the mirror. Love, Jack For Nemmie When they number their blocks they mean business. If you hear the Go sign Around 32nd Avenue Bear it Others have Better On the same street. If you hadn’t seen it On 16th Or 23rd street Shit. This thing is all traffic. And you say As you are going through a signal Look Those motorcycle policemen That police love Those avenues— And the strangers (Road agents) No one can stop their whispering. For Ebbe Oh there are waves where the heart beats fully Where the blood wanders Alive like some black sea fish Teach the young to be young The old To be old Spicer: My Vocabulary Did This to Me page 158 158 The heartless To swim in the sea they do not believe in. Oh, no Reconstituted universe Is as warm as the heart’s blood. For Russ Christ, You’d think it would all be Pretty simple This tree will never grow. This bush Has no branches. No I love you. Yet. I wonder how our mouths will look in twenty five years When we say yet. For Ed Bewildered Like the first seagull that ever ate a fish Everyone’s heart dives and Stops just before eating. Ah What comfort is there in the sight Or in the belly? No fish in this pond or ocean is supreme No fish tastes. In all this muck and water there is only The ocean’s comfort. Spicer: My Vocabulary Did This to Me page 159 159 For Harvey When you break a line nothing Becomes better. There is no new (unless you are humming Old Uncle Tom’s Cabin) there is no new Measure. You breathe the same and Rimbaud Would never even look at you. Break Your poem Like you would cut a grapefruit Make It go to sleep for you And each line (There is no Pacific Ocean) And make each line Cut itself. Like seaweed thrown Against the...