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

SONG FOR THE GREAT MOTHER

The Past gnaws through the earth below the bed. But here the naked Present lies as warmly As if it rested in the lap of God. ÉTERNUEMENT There is a beautiful world in a little girl’s body. When I poke my fingers into her I can see it. Or when the absurdity of the postman Or the snow that won’t stay still on the ground Or the queers with painted noses that walk together in the Bois Or the birds When I poke my fingers into them I can see it When I poke my fingers into them I can see it. SONG FOR THE GREAT MOTHER One minute after midnight, Mrs. Doom From the middle distance of another room Begins to take the furniture apart And close the drawers, and slam the windows shut. She puts away each angry, loving sight We left behind us or had heard or touched. She rolls the carpet up on which we danced Sweeps up the dust, then sighs and snaps the light. And if we sleep, she whispers round our beds And buzzes at the corners of our eyes Snipping each dream with hungry murmuring. Oh, who would take this darkness for his bride? Nothing is changed by her. All things remain Spicer: My Vocabulary Did This to Me page 57 57 As beautiful and angry as they were. She merely wipes their shadows from our hearts, Shakes out her broom, and shuts the final door. “The city of Boston . . .” The city of Boston is filled with frogheaded flies and British policemen. The other day I saw the corpse of Emily Dickinson floating up the Charles River. Sweet God, it is lonely to be dead. Sweet God, is there any god to worship? God stands in Boston like a public statue. Sweet God, is there any God to swear love by? Or love—it is lonely, is lonely, is lonely to be lonely in Boston. Now Emily Dickinson is floating down the Charles River like an Indian princess. Now naked savages are climbing out of all the graveyards. Now the Holy Ghost drips birdshit on the nose of God. Now the whole thing stops. Sweet God, poetry hates Boston. FIVE WORDS FOR JOE DUNN ON HIS TWENTY-SECOND BIRTHDAY I shall give you five words for your birthday. The first word is anthropos Who celebrates birthdays. He is withered and tough and blind, babbler Of old wars and dead beauty. He is there for the calmness of your heart as the days race And the wars are lost and the roses wither. No enemy can strike you that he has not defeated. No beauty can die in your heart that he will not remember. Spicer: My Vocabulary Did This to Me page 58 58 ...