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
zi zi
NOTES
“Time is entropy”: Stephen Hawking.
*
Entropy: noun
entropies, plural
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
_________________________________
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/
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.
_________________________________
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/
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.
