Collision Texts: A Chorus by Jack and Adelle Foley

COLLISION TEXTS: A CHORUS

FIRST VOICE:

WALKING WITH THE BEATNIKS ON THE BOARDWALK AT VENICE BEACH AT HALLOWEEN

the ghosts are all here—Philomene, John, Tony, Bill, Stuart, Jim—but they are all friendly, taking in the health-giving sea air

and the glorious Southern California sunshine

weirdos everywhere and of course medical marijuana (“come in and see if you qualify”)

and a store that said “Rafiki” (“friend”)

and ice cream and children dressed for Halloween

and many, many breasts partially or sometimes nearly wholly revealed (SoCal!)

I walked with the Beatniks, led by Frankie Rios, poet, ex-con, ex-drug addict,

and the flag he carried with an emblem that was simultaneously Wallace Berman’s Aleph and a soft pretzel

postcards available but could not tell the half

of the life that exploded in this mad, improbable, only in Southern California place—

and I so wanted to join them

in their “voluntary poverty” and their “Art is Love is God” and their joy and laughter

and their collective “drive towards non recognition”

and their suffering and sentimentality and their self-congratulations and the way they reminded me as we walked

of Charles Ives’ song, “General William Booth Enters The Kingdom of Heaven”

and the fact that most of them got lost went the wrong way on that confusing, marvelous heaven-haven

where we visited the poetry walls (conveniently located near the public rest rooms)

and might have sung if any of us could remember a tune

and the six that remained together (including a famous Art Historian)

had slurpies and pizza and ice cream and noted the Everything

that kindly came blazing down from the heavens and told us a Dirty Joke.

*

SECOND VOICE (SIMULTANEOUS):

6:33

begin the poem with the time

because one must

begin somewhere

I did not say whether a.m. or p.m.

Time

is not an “object”

but that which

out of which

I am made

I am time

I think you look for reasons

to be angry at me

because the real reason

you are angry at me

would not do you

credit

clock

time shakes us

makes us

talk about whether we are “on” time

whereas in fact

we are probably not “on” but “in” time

I think you want

to distance yourself from me

and the only way to

do it

is to tell yourself stories

stories that will give you reasons

for what remains

hidden

Anger

Heideggerean

time

is of a different aspect

from clock time

Time here

is not something that happens to you

but the you to which everything happens

Time

is the dynamic area

in which you function

in which you are always “ahead”

always “behind”

always “thrown”

always “projecting”

always in a state

of anything other than

stasis

Love you think

drives you

but Love

like everything else

is the discovery of Time—

time in a state

of special

intensity

You reach

for something to hold to

but there is nothing

except the false ideas

you and your lover

discuss daily

as if they were true

I think you reach

for something to hold to

and can find

nothing but the anger

you pretend

is real

Time is entropy

*

Another season—we’re giving thanks

For many a thing that fills our lives.

For now, the failure of the banks

Difficulties with husbands, wives,

Children who are “recalcitrant”—

Recede in the chill fall weather, fail.

Forgetting now the mendicant

(And people who should be in jail!)

We remember that “economy”

Means having to do with home and house.

Can we choose not to “suffer” but just to “be”?

Choose to love this child, this spouse,

Love even the country that gave us birth?—

Love and thank

                                    the vast, procrustean earth?

*

BOTH VOICES ALTERNATING & TOGETHER:

ARTAUD

He walks in the spectacle

He was so handsome, très beau, vous savez

that is everything around him

And then  ...et puis après...maigre...misère

Madly insisting on his

sanity and insanity

SCREAMING and insistent

that he is right

while knowing that he is in excess

and comic and wrong—

ironic, sincere,

and vastly accusatory

At once frail and full of authority

“Le mômo” qui joue le mômo pour ses amis artistiques de Paris

DON’T CURE ANYONE OF ANYTHING

CURING PEOPLE IS DEATH

DOCTORS ARE KILLERS

SCIENCE IS BLACK MAGIC

SCIENTISTS ARE BLACK MAGICIANS

WHOSE TOOLS ARE MADNESS AND ELECTRIC SHOCK

AND PAIN!

mo to ho he ah

mem zi ag oh toog

mômo mômo mômo

et moi...toothless...addicted...mem zi ag oh toog
zi   zi

NOTES

“Time is entropy”: Stephen Hawking.

*

Entropy: noun
entropies, plural

1. A thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system's thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work, often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system

2. Lack of order or predictability; gradual decline into disorder

            “A marketplace where entropy reigns supreme”

3. The degradation of the matter and energy in the universe to an ultimate state of inert uniformity

4. A process of degradation or running down or a trend to disorder

            CHAOS, DISORGANIZATION, RANDOMNESS

Etymology:

en-, to cause a person or thing to be in  + Greek tropē, change, literally, turn, from trepein to turn.

Tropē is the Greek equivalent of the Latin versus, a turning, origin of the term “verse.”

First Known Use: 1875.

*

Procrustean: adj.

Producing or designed to produce strict conformity by ruthless or arbitrary means.

Etymology: After Procrustes, a mythical Greek giant who stretched or shortened captives to make them fit his beds. From Latin Procrustes, from Greek Prokroustes, from prokrouein, to hammer out, to stretch out : pro-,  forth + krouein, to beat.

*

“ARTAUD”:

très beau, vous savez = very handsome, you know

et puis après...maigre...misère = and then afterwards...thin, gaunt...poverty

le mômo = a term Artaud chose from Marseilles slang to designate himself: the divine idiot, in some ways the child

“Le mômo” qui joue le mômo pour ses amis artistiques de Paris = “The mômo” who plays the mômo for his artistic Parisian friends

mo to, etc. = nonsense syllables of a sort Artaud used to punctuate his poetry

et moi = and I

Henri Pichette’s passionate poem/homage to Artaud (from the film, La Véritable Histoire d’ Artaud le Mômo, 1993):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASWM73FvhMM

You can hear Artaud himself here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiScQ2wG3WU&feature=related

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Jack Foley’s radio show, Cover to Cover, is heard on Berkeley, California radio station KPFA every Wednesday at 3; his column, “Foley’s Books,” appears in the online magazine Alsop Review. He has published 11 books of poetry, 5 books of criticism, andVisions and Affiliations, a chronoencyclopedia of California poetry. In 2010 Foley was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Berkeley Poetry Festival, and June 5, 2010 was proclaimed “Jack Foley Day” in Berkeley. A webfestschrift celebrating his life and work can be found in the current Tower Journal: www.towerjournal.com.
Website: www.jack-adellefoley.com/Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Foley_(poet)#Biography

Adelle Foley is a retirement administrator, an arts activist, and a writer of haiku. Her poems have appeared in various magazines and textbooks. Along the Bloodline is her first book-length collection.