Notes for Echo Lake 1
MICHAEL PALMER


“I am glad to see you Ion.”

He says this red as dust, eyes as literal self among selves and picks the coffee up.

Memory is kind, a kindness, a kind of unlistening, a grey wall even toward which you move.

It was the woman beside him who remarked that he never looked anyone in the eye. (This by water’s edge.)

This by water’s edge.

And all of the song ‘divided into silences’, or ‘quartered in three silences’.

Dear Charles, I began again and again to work, always with no confidence as Melville might explain. Might complain.

A message possible intercepted, possibly never written. A letter she had sent him.

But what had his phrase been exactly, “Welcome to the Valley of Tears,” or maybe “Valley of Sorrows.” At least one did feel welcome, wherever it was.

A kind of straight grey wall beside which they walk, she the older by a dozen years, he carefully unlistening.

Such as words are. A tape for example a friend had assembled containing readings by H.D., Stein, Williams, others. Then crossing the bridge to visit Zukofsky, snow lightly falling.

Breaking like glass Tom had said and the woman from the island. Regaining consciousness he saw first stars then a face leaning over him and heard the concerned voice, “Hey baby you almost got too high.”

Was was and is. In the story the subject disappears.

They had agreed that the sign was particular precisely because arbitrary and that it included the potential for (carried the sign of) its own dissolution, and that there was a micro-syntax below the order of the sentence and even of the word, and that in the story the subject disappears it never disappears. 1963: only one of the two had the gift of memory.

Equally one could think of a larger syntax, e.g. the word-as-book proposing always the book-as-word. And of course still larger.

Beginning and ending. As a work begins and ends itself or begins and rebegins or starts and stops. Ideas as elements of the working not as propositions of a work, even in a propositional art. (Someone said someone thought.)

That is, snow
a) is
b) is not
falling-check neither or both.

If one lives in it. ‘Local’ and ‘specific’ and so on finally seeming less interesting than the ‘particular’ wherever that may locate.

“What I really want to show here is that it is not at all clear a priori which are the simple colour concepts.”

Sign that empties itself at each instance of meaning, and how else to reinvent attention.

Sign that empties . . . That is he would ask her. He would be the asker and she unlistening, nameless mountains in the background partly hidden by cloud.

The dust of course might equally be grey, the wall red, our memories perfectly accurate. A forest empty of trees, city with no streets, a man having swallowed his tongue. As there is no ‘structure’ to the sentence and no boundary or edge to the field in question. As there is everywhere no language.

As I began again and again, and each beginning identical with the next, meaning each one accurate, each a projection, each a head bending over the motionless form.

And he sees himself now as the one motionless on the ground, now as the one bending over. Lying in an alley between a house and a fence (space barely wide enough for a body), opening his eyes he saw stars and heard white noise followed in time by a face and a single voice.

Now rain is falling against the south side of the house but not the north where she stands before a mirror.

“Don’t worry about it, he’s already dead.”

“Te dérange pas, il est déja mort.”

“È morto lei, non ti disturba.”

She stands before the mirror touches the floor. Language reaches for the talk as someone falls. A dead language opens and opens one door.

So here is color. Here is a color darkening or color here is a darkening. Here white remains . . .

And you indicate the iris of the portrait’s eye, a specific point on the iris, wanting that color as your own. There is a grey wall past which we walk arm in arm, fools if we do greater fools if we don’t.

And I paint the view from my left eye, from the balcony of the eye overlooking a body of water, and inland sea possibly, possibly a man-made lake.

And I do continue as the light changes and fades, eventually painting in pitch dark. That is, if you write it has it happened twice:

It rained again that night deep inside
where only recently had occurred the abandonment of signs

Conversation With A Stone

(Wislawa Szymborska)


I knock at the stone's front door.
"It's only me, let me come in.
I want to enter your insides,
have a look round,
breathe my fill of you."

"Go away," says the stone.
"I'm shut tight.
Even if you break me to pieces,
we'll all still be closed.
You can grind us to sand,
we still won't let you in."

I knock at the stone's front door.
"It's only me, let me come in.
I've come out of pure curiosity.
Only life can quench it.
I mean to stroll through your palace,
then go calling on a leaf, a drop of water.
I don't have much time.
My mortality should touch you."

"I'm made of stone," says the stone,
"and must therefore keep a straight face.
Go away.
I don't have the muscles to laugh."

I knock at the stone's front door.
"It's only me, let me come in.
I hear you have great empty halls inside you,
unseen, their beauty in vain,
soundless, not echoing anyone's steps.
Admit you don't know them well yourself."

"Great and empty, true enough," says the stone,
"but there isn't any room.
Beautiful, perhaps, but not to the taste
of your poor senses.
You may get to know me, but you'll never know me through.
My whole surface is turned toward you,
all my insides turned away."

I knock at the stone's front door.
"It's only me, let me come in.
I don't seek refuge for eternity.
I'm not unhappy.
I'm not homeless.
My world is worth returning to.
I'll enter and exit empty-handed.
And my proof I was there
will be only words,
which no one will believe."

"You shall not enter," says the stone.
"You lack the sense of taking part.
No other sense can make up for your missing sense of taking part.
Even sight heightened to become all-seeing
will do you no good without a sense of taking part.
You shall not enter, you have only a sense of what that sense should be,
only its seed, imagination."

I knock at the stone's front door.
"It's only me, let me come in.
I haven't got two thousand centuries,
so let me come under your roof."

"If you don't believe me," says the stone,
"just ask the leaf, it will tell you the same.
Ask a drop of water, it will say what the leaf has said.
And, finally, ask a hair from your own head.
I am bursting with laughter, yes, laughter, vast laughter,
although I don't know how to laugh."

I knock at the stone's front door.
"It's only me, let me come in."

"I don't have a door," says the stone.

After reading, a song

a light snow

a had been fallen

the brown most showed

knoll trunk knot treelings' U's

The Sound marsh water

ice clump

sparkling root etc

and so far out

(Louis Zukofsky)

(from JOGLARS, edited by Clark Coolidge and Michael Palmer, vol 1 no 1, 1964)

611

(Emily Dickinson)

I see thee better -- in the Dark --
I do not need a Light --
The Love of Thee -- a Prism be --
Excelling Violet --

I see thee better for the Years
That hunch themselves between --
The Miner's Lamp -- sufficient be --
To nullify the Mine --

And in the Grave -- I see Thee best --
Its little Panels be
Aglow -- All ruddy -- with the Light
I held so high, for Thee --

What need of Day --
To Those whose Dark -- hath so -- surpassing Sun --
It deem it be -- Continually --
At the Meridian?

"Dandelion"

(Louis Zukofsky)

No blanch witloof handbound dry

heart to racks a comb

lion's-teeth thistlehead golden-hair earth nail

flower-clock up-by-pace dandle lion won't

dwarf lamb closes night season

its long year dumble-dor bumbles

cure wine blowball black fall's-berry

madding sun mixen seeded rebus

from "The Tennis Court Oath"

(John Ashbery)


....
to one in yon house
The doctor and Philip had come over the road
Turning in toward the corner of the wall his hat on
reading it carelessly as if to tell you your fears were justified
the blood shifted you know those walls
wind off the earth had made him shrink
undeniably an oboe now the young
were there there was candy
to decide the sharp edge of the garment
like a particular cry not intervening called the dog “he’s coming! he’s coming” with an emotion felt it sink into peace
there was no turning back but the end was in sight
he chose this moment to ask her in detail about her family and the others
The person. pleaded—“have more of these
not stripes on the tunic—or the porch chairs
will teach you about men—what it means”
to be one in a million pink stripe
and now could go away the three approached the doghouse
the reef. Your daughter’s
dream of my son understand prejudice
darkness in the hole
the patient finished
They could all go home now the hole was dark
lilacs blowing across his face glad he brought you

Sinning Skel Misclape

(Lisa Jarnot)

O sinning skel misclape thy lock

from frenzied felbred feefs

and longitudes of long tongue fuels

unpebble-dashed deceased.

Unpebble-dashed, unpebble-dashed,

Unpebble-dashed unrose,

up from the theme that random flaps

in news flash rancid hose.

A morning dress of morning field

redrenched upon the sun,

that reads the wobble of the

air, the weary cautious rung.

The red-black innards laid up bare

for all to see and spy,

tradition for the form of those

belingered, cheerful, nigh.

from Chameleon Series

(Leslie Scalapino, 1985)

Boys and men

in the

area where there

are shops

-- their life

coming

apart before

then time when

I'd die

-- and when

they would

The life led when

one's death

occurs

that life's coming

apart as well

that life

causes the other

lives

to come apart

as currently

lived by me

the others in the

vicinity

and by the

chameleon

he'd be

simply the flower

of the social

world

when that

occurs

the

motionless way of

life of

the men

by the housing

project

the women

leading

a motionless

way

of life

which is led

later on

in

the social

world

because

of

being motionless

comes apart

then

from "Litany"

(John Ashbery)

If all the retinues of all
The archdukes stretched away into a powdery

Infinity, and you stood

On the top step but one, waiting to advance

Your argument into the aura, and time suddenly

At that moment seemed to sag, and the staircase

Became a giant hammock littered with dead leaves

And ants, and the horizon of the universe

Raised it up into something bald and filled

With unexpressed and inexpressible menace,

No word of which would ever

Attest to the configuration of desires

That had gone into its construction, dark now,

Absent-minded flowers, reticent birds, and much

Else that is scarcely present, needing

No avenue, no way to be born,

What would greet you? Which might be

What you want to tell me: open the door.

...

How all beings into all being pass,

How the great Beasts eat the human Grass,

and the Faces of Men in the Word's Glass

Are faces of Apes, Birds, Diamonds

Worlds and insubstantial Shapes

Conjured out of the Dust--

...

(Robert Duncan, from "The Ballad of the Enamored Mage")

Blocks to Be Arranged in a Pyramid

(in memoriam AIDS)

Ronald Johnson





Then with a sweep
blindly eradicate
perception itself
afire with egress


step in a blink
blank as paper
few fields beyond
pure fallen Snow


rolled door aside
And stood beside space
a place of sepulcher
in splice of time


& kneel on stone
Looped red ribbon
flesh with bone
untwisted fate


everything a gift
after Totentanz
set fire to expanse
sight interminable


pale stampede
into the darkness
caught at throat
Chase remorseless


polished by light
bigger than life
meet Shade head-on
six feet deep


no ghost of chance
children of dust
chasing the Cyclone
around lost world


Fueled belief
lift thru rafter
freed frontier
ineluctable dross


hello chaos echo Alp
toe line precipice
flames at heel
fled pandemonium


stand under tornado
lightning renewal
flame climb mountain
to the naked eye


dark abjure dark
Tiger by first light
bordered in jungle
and door ajar


nor fear itself
before behind beside
crawl in inner ear
invade the mind


snap edge of fire
ear forfeit Puzzle
eyes all ablaze
fingers like candles


as if Stars above
had opened fire
no more the night
beneath my feet


yield redbird perch
grayest tombstone
assembled Holy Ghost
chrysanthemumed


Step now above
the river of grass
to sea of graves
pave way for all rest


flesh snug in choir
valley of bones
Ezekiel swung chariot
song anew throat


on this head of pin
I saw you there
standing on the edge
with wings aloft


light push light above
beneath spread Tree
to spin a tale
down dared a root


Into the bark carved
schewing cant
doors open on order
chaos sempiternal


wings’ intersections
almost nothing
Sky to themselves
blanket the earth


So darksparkling souls
as flame licketh up
consuming flesh
speak in cataract


dangle Scaffold
dread hammered nail
and hang by a thread
my daily bread


shall we ascend
stairwell Infinite
I hear it echo still
end on end on end


last curtain call
halfway up slope
Mt. No Return
time at standstill


led to sandcastle
whatever grail
at end of tunnel
Niagara in a barrel


bathed in light
Shadow gather
lion in the path
behind beyond


remember the dead
beating floorboards
of the Above
forehead first


whittle an Indies
scalpel frontier
step right into it
whistle the wind


Limb by limb belief
come tumble down
some terrible algebra
ull unbeknown


left in the cup
great waves torn
Dawn tomorrow
won apocalypse


& sought Wonders
ladder from the sky
aloft red clay
in midnight sun


unfolded banner
Au bateau & tombeau
rim of the world
at depths to plumb


of what’ll become
Mirror Mirror
on wall please tell
yet pace the drum


praise Rimbaud old
Van Gogh beyond crows
Mozart past clef
huzzah ghost crowd


banquet cleared
begin the raptors
bring on clown
and Mr. Highwire


Winter come early
wolves’ chorus
outside the door
howl keyhole


lit confetti
track barren plain
City of Angels
waterfall all round


right on target
ever toward Noose
my very horses
reach the stretch


Not one sparrow
witness my end
hawk winding down
name on the wind


beckon beacon
near rock bottom
Illimitable night
close at hand


voice from a cloud
clasped of asphodel
rise yet Lazarus
clear encrusted earth


whomever come
into the clearing
Null over void
grist starry mill


yr own backyard
cauldron of energies
of Sanctuary no end
hourglass almost empty


bombshell unleash
illuminate Himalaya
playing with fire
no lamp under bushel


say what you will
the Windmill is near
to edge of world
curtain drawn back


Enfold me wherever
night brought pinpoint
cyclone candlelight
arrays the stars


summon fled field
monster after monster
a Voyage fantastic
the very dirt alert


Imperil Utopia
where upon pure leap
power to umpteenth
no won Erewhon


bodies engraved
sweep up the stars
of all but Talisman
great bonfire


watch out the light
Sentinel utmost dark
once and for all
under roll diurnal


route to summit
drowned in labyrinth
eagle aperch pyre
& levitate Leviathan


stirring at core
galaxy revolved
and winding cloths
of design diverse


to All it comes
squall lack of breath
limbs lax no exit
home at last


collect each orb
on Skeleton Coast
goldust horizon
an infinity of sand


come whole circle
in zero gravity
spun remote points
exactly the One


miles from nowhere
Soul’s commotion
battering on wall
blind catafalque


old adversaries
wrestled to earth
in love with Death
abed lit candles


take me to the
lightning struck
in intimate thunder
sun Unthinkable


balance overtaken
slant snug of breath
up comes the floor
doors open to all


do what you must
bright Speckle Fly
caught amber cusp
come cataclysm


nor moment lost
red as an apple
an arrow acrown
buried in Arden


as Anthem forge
psalm of the soul
hammer of heart
mid burning bush


Into ranged breach
the snowy harbinger
footprints upslope
hard to breathe


mountains’ blue divide
nugget cloud prised
casket of song
cast off the Tomb

An onyx box by Antony.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-Xdm5yS6PY

from Fifteen False Propositions About God

Jack Spicer

1958

I

The self is no longer real

It is not like loneliness

This big huge loneness. Sacrificing

All of the person with it.

Bigger people

I'm sure have mastered it.

"Beauty is so rare a thing," Pound sings

"So few drink at my fountain."

II

Look I am King Of The Forest

Says The King Of The Forest

As he growls magnificently

Look, I am in pain. My right leg

Does not fit my left leg.

I am King Of The Forest

Says The King Of The Forest.

And the other beasts hear him and would rather

They were King Of The Forest

But that their right leg

Would fit their left leg.

"Beauty is so rare a thing," Pound sang.

"So few drink at my fountain."

III

Beauty is so rare a th---

Sing a new song

Real

Music

A busted flush. A pain in the eyebrows. A

Visiting card.

There are rocks on the mountains that will lie there for fifty

years and I only lived with you three months

Why

Does

Your absence seem so real or your presences

So uninviting?

IV

Real bad poems

Dear Sir: I should like to---

Hate and love are clarifications enough of themselves, do not

belong in poetry, embarrass the reader and the poet, lack

Dignity.

Or the dignity of a paper airplane

That you throw at someone's face

And it swoops across the whole occasion quickly

Hitting every angle.

Hate and love are clar---

Dear Sir: I should like to make sure that everything that I said

about you in my poetry was true, that you really existed,

That everything that I said was true

That you were not an occasion

In a real bad scene

That what the poems said had meaning

Apart from what the poems said.

Dear Sir:

My mouth has meanings

It had not wanted to argue.

V

When the house falls you wonder

If there will ever be poetry

And you shiver in the timbers wondering

If there will ever be poetry

When the house falls you shiver

In the vacant lumber of your poetry.

Beauty is so rare a thing, Pound sang.

So few drink at my fountain.

VI

Drop

The word drops

As if it were not spoken

I can't remember tomorrow

What I said tonight

(To describe the real world.

Even in a poem

One forgets the real world.)

Fuzzy heads of fuzzy people

Like the trees Williams saw. Drop

The words drop

Like leaves from a fuzzy tree

I can't remember tomorrow

I (alone in the real world with their fuzzy heads nodding at me)

Can't

Remember.

VII

Trees in their youth look younger

Than almost anything

I mean

In the spring

When they put forth green leaves and try

To look like real trees

Honest to God my heart aches

When I see them trying.

Comes August and the sunshine and the fog and only the wood

grows

They stand there with big rough leaves amazed

That it is no longer summer.

The cold fog seeps in and by November

They don't look the same (the leaves I mean) the leaves fall

Such a hard reason to seek. Such heart's

Timber.

VIII

Shredded wheat, paper maché

Nobody believes in you

Least of all us trees.

Who find ourselves at the final edge

Of a cliff or at least an ocean

Eating salt air and fog and rock

Just standing

There

Bother your fuzzy heads about God. Gee

God is not even near your roots or our roots

He is the nearest

Tree.

IX

After you have told your lover goodbye

And chewed the cud of your experience with him

Your bitter experience:

What else?

Perhaps trees. Slippery elm. Birch

That knows no thankless nights. Oaktrees and palm

Ready to start a revolution.

No you should stay there with your roots in the ground

Ready to drink whatever water

The rain is willing to send you. The rain

The cow

And my true body a

Revolution.

X

"Trees. Those fuzzy things?" Williams' grandfather or was it

his grandmother asked on the way to the hospital. A journey

We will all take.

I do not remember the poem well but I know that beauty

Will always become fuzzy

And love fuzzy

And the fact of death itself fuzzy

Like a big tree.

Let me chop down then one by one

Whatever is in the way of my eyesight

People, trees, even my own eyestalks.

Let me chop apart

With my bare hands

This blurred forest.