The wind rests its cheek upon the ground and feels the cool damp
And lifts its head with twigs and small dead blades of grass
Pressed into it as you might at the beach rise up and brush away
The sand. When did my head become an ancient cow’s sacred head?
Now I’ve taken up the brush, in the manner of the painter. The wind
Rests its cheek upon the ground and feels the cool damp and lifts,
Spores start from your epidermis. Your pores produce them in
The thousands. I watch the tiny explosions. I see how the spores
Descend at the end of hairy filaments without becoming detached
From them, the stalks shoot, the spores develop and become
Rounded, the innumerable spheres clashing together create stridences
Clicking aeolian harp vibrations. That day the Wolf-Man rose up
From his couch particularly tired. He knew that Freud had a genius
For brushing up against the truth and passing it by, then filling the
Void with associations. He knew that Freud knew nothing about
Wolves, or anuses for that matter. He knew that Freud knew as much
As Deleuze and Guattari. As much as my mother my mother
A ponderous dancing angel who is seed bearing and satisfies me
With her 30 fingers and toes and big brown nipples! Her brain
Is a storm cloud over Washington D.C. I can no longer look into
The eyes of my remarkable students and tell them that all they have
To look forward to is the endless struggle to undo systems and structures
That cannot be undone. The spirit is lame and in the pale flash we
See it unevenly spread with water. Still the sky is yellow and completely
With us, as if at birth. There is no need to substitute any world for this
One. People burst open and are released and release themselves easily
Picked up in that wind at the lower and rounded end of the “heart”.
All at once the spirit indicated a desire to use the alphabet and say
Fuck it I see a way through the maroon glass. It is clear MY STATEMENT
That these forces, words are a “guide to better living.” The WORDS have
Political, ecological awareness, concern for others as well as myself,
Always suggesting a course that is to the most benefit of all concerned,
To increase physical, psychological and mental well being, and reduce
Suffering. These forces describe themselves as WISDO, not enough trials,
Room on my forehead for M! Dazzle of day, yellow birds at morning.
A hand unties the darkness. You took my temperature, which I had
Thought to save for a more difficult day. I love it when the morning sun
Lights up my room like a yellow jelly bean, an inner glow. It doesn’t
Matter who mutters, “Why ask questions?” or, “What are the questions
You wish to ask?” If you don’t find your answers here, you won’t find them.
[Note: Sources. Except as noted, Rothenberg/Joris. James Schuyler, “Hymn to Life” as seen 21 July 2007 on Poetry Daily (sometimes they do get it right); Takahashi Mutsuo, “Self-Portraits (Myself in the Disguise of An Ancient Queen)” and “Monkey Eaters” (both tr. Hiroaki Sato); Monique Wittig, “The Lesbian Body” (tr. David Le Vay); Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (tr. Brian Massumi); Rochelle Owens, “I Am the Babe of Joseph Stalin’s Daughter”; Mark C Taylor, introduction to The Moment of Complexity: Emerging Network Culture; J H Prynne, “Wound Response (Landing Area)”; Kenneth Irby, as quoted in Rothenberg/Joris commentary; David Shapiro, “Lateness”, in New and Selected Poems (1965-2006); Giles Goodland, “1900”, in A Spy in the House of Years; Jayne Cortez, “Night Trains”; Hannah Weiner, “the words in CAPITALS and underlines are words I see”, in Hannah Weiner’s Open House; Alejandra Pizarnik, “Paths of the Mirror” (tr. Jasone Weiss); Rosmarie Waldrop, “Feverish Propositions”; JBR]
