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

A RED WHEELBARROW (1962)

Spicer: My Vocabulary Did This to Me page 323 A RED WHEELBARROW (1962) This page intentionally left blank A Red Wheelbarrow Rest and look at this goddamned wheelbarrow. Whatever It is. Dogs and crocodiles, sunlamps. Not For their significance. For their significance. For being human The signs escape you. You, who aren’t very bright Are a signal for them. Not, I mean, the dogs and crocodiles, sunlamps. Not Their significance. Love Tender as an eagle it swoops down Washing all our faces with its rough tongue. Chained to a rock and in that rock, naked, All of the faces. Love II You have clipped his wings. The marble Exposes his wings clipped. “Dead on arrival”: You say before he arrives anywhere. The marble, where his wings and our wings in similar fashion blossom. EndLess . Spicer: My Vocabulary Did This to Me page 325 325 Spicer: My Vocabulary Did This to Me page 326 326 Love III Who pays attention to the music the stone makes Each of them hearing its voice. Each of them yells and it is an echo bouncing the stone hard. Imprisoned in the stone the last of the stone, the last of the stone singing, its hard voice. Love IV There are no holds on the stone. It looks Like a used-up piece of chewing gum removed from all use because they left it. Naturally It cannot afford to exist. Without it I cannot afford to exist. Within The black rock. Love V Never looking him in the eye once. All mythology Is contained in this passage. Never to look him in the eye once. His exclusive right to be Seen. That is the God in the stone Who barely comes up to expectation. Love VI Hoot! The piercing screams of ghosts vanish on the horizon I had come to the wrong place Tall as a monster the shadow of the rock overwhelmed us Nothing that the stone hears. Love VII Nothing in the rock hears nothing The stone, empty as a teacup, tries for comfort, The sky is filled with stars: The wax figures of Ganymede, Prometheus, Eros Hanging. Love 8 Love ate the red wheelbarrow. • • • Spicer: My Vocabulary Did This to Me page 327 327 ...