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

IMAGINARY ELEGIES

IMAGINARY ELEGIES V. Another wrong turning Another five years. I can’t see The birds, the island, anything But vacant shifts and twists of the tunnel That means Another five years I can’t see. Or were they all right turnings The shifts of one sense of a word to another The birds flying there inside the eaves with their wings dangling Not bats, birds. And offering up your life to summon anything is a pretty silly thing. I can’t see Where their messages get me. Another five years Their wings Glittering in its black ab/sense. For the birds. Whose live-r is torn out. Whose live-r is torn out. Pro-me-thee-us. The old turning. Where their messages get me. The shifts Of their beaks. Their hungry beaks. But the birds are real not only in feeding. I think Their wings. Glittering in the black ab/sense. Pro-me-thee-us. Our mouths water Like an ocean. And so I say to you, Jim, do not become too curious about your poetry Let it speed into the tunnel by itself Spicer: My Vocabulary Did This to Me page 230 230 Do not follow it, do not try to ride it Let it go into the tunnel and out the other side and back to you while you do important things like loving and learning patience Five years. The train with its utterly alien cargo moving on the black track. Prometheus was a guy who had his liver eaten out by birds. A bum who rode a black train. Who was curious. Play it cool with Williams or paranoid with Pound but never ride it past the tunnel or look for a conductor to ask questions Hide, and do not ask the questions, At the black throat of the tunnel. Pro-me-thee-us Pro-me-thee-us Five years The song singing from its black throat. VI. Dignity Dig–nity The extra syllables are unimportant. Have no dignity, no meaning on this world. Nity. Hear those syllables and dig is an obvious pun for digging graves or whatever that gravedigger is doing at the moment. Spicer: My Vocabulary Did This to Me page 231 231 The extra syllables are unimportant. I should have loved him yesterday The boy whistles Dignity Or like that little window in Alice which she can’t go through because she’s 27 feet tall because she ate a bottle called Drink Me Po–etery. Po–eatery. The eaxtra slyllables is unimportant. because the poem said Drink Me. I’ll find a substitute For all your longIng . And that little door with all those wheels in it Beleave in it Like God. Spicer: My Vocabulary Did This to Me page 232 232 ...