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

BILLY THE KID (1958)

BILLY THE KID (1958) Spicer: My Vocabulary Did This to Me page 183 This page intentionally left blank I. The radio that told me about the death of Billy The Kid (And the day, a hot summer day, with birds in the sky) Let us fake out a frontier—a poem somebody could hide in with a sheriff’s posse after him—a thousand miles of it if it is necessary for him to go a thousand miles—a poem with no hard corners, no houses to get lost in, no underwebbing of customary magic, no New York Jew salesmen of amethyst pajamas, only a place where Billy The Kid can hide when he shoots people. Torture gardens and scenic railways. The radio That told me about the death of Billy The Kid The day a hot summer day. The roads dusty in the summer. The roads going somewhere. You can almost see where they are going beyond the dark purple of the horizon. Not even the birds know where they are going. The poem. In all that distance who could recognize his face. II. A sprinkling of gold leaf looking like hell flowers A flat piece of wrapping paper, already wrinkled, but wrinkled again by hand, smoothed into shape by an electric iron A painting Which told me about the death of Billy The Kid. Collage a binding together Of the real Which flat colors Tell us what heroes really come by. No, it is not a collage. Hell flowers Spicer: My Vocabulary Did This to Me page 185 185 Fall from the hands of heroes fall from all of our hands flat As if we were not ever able quite to include them. His gun does not shoot real bullets his death Being done is unimportant. Being done In those flat colors Not a collage A binding together, a Memory. III. There was nothing at the edge of the river But dry grass and cotton candy. “Alias,” I said to him. “Alias, Somebody there makes us want to drink the river Somebody wants to thirst us.” “Kid,” he said. “No river Wants to trap men. There ain’t no malice in it. Try To understand.” We stood there by that little river and Alias took off his shirt and I took off my shirt I was never real. Alias was never real. Or that big cotton tree or the ground. Or the little river. Spicer: My Vocabulary Did This to Me page 186 186 IV. What I mean is I Will tell you about the pain It was a long pain About as wide as a curtain But long As the great outdoors. Stigmata Three bullet holes in the groin One in the head dancing Right below the left eyebrow What I mean is I Will tell you about his Pain. V. Billy The Kid in a field of poplars with just one touch of moonlight His shadow is carefully distinguished from all of their shadows Delicate as perception is No one will get his gun or obliterate Their shadows Spicer: My Vocabulary Did This to Me page 187 187 VI. The gun A false clue Nothing can kill Anybody. Not a poem or a fat penis. Bang, Bang, bang. A false Clue. Nor immortality either (though why immortality should occur to me with somebody who was as mortal as Billy The Kid or his gun which is now rusted in some rubbish heap or shined up properly in some New York museum) A False clue Nothing Can kill anybody. Your gun, Billy, And your fresh Face. VII. Grasshoppers swarm through the desert. Within the desert There are only grasshoppers. Lady Of Guadalupe Make my sight clear Make my breath pure Make my strong arm stronger and my fingers tight. Lady of Guadalupe, lover Of many make Me avenge Them. Spicer: My Vocabulary Did This to Me page 188 188 VIII. Back where poetry is Our Lady Watches each motion when the players take the cards From the deck. The Ten of Diamonds. The Jack of Spades. The Queen Of Clubs. The King of Hearts. The Ace God gave us when he put us alive writing poetry for unsuspecting people or shooting them with guns. Our Lady Stands as a kind of...