- Alice Notley / Perhaps Not For You

There is

no

audience

because

there is

no audience.

So if you speak only to

imagined beings

what does "only" mean?

--------------------------

This building formerly a restaurant . . .

this small room has been scraped of its paint 

and denuded of most former furniture: but 

also it has grown in size—can a building be 

enticed to grow? Because it is now as big as an 

airplane hangar.

--------------------------

Your

          beautiful face 

unbloodied beneath

          flies

Mother of flies your

          beauty 

to turn to. If only 

the audience

could see how

you are peaceful and the

          flies 

languid, glossy

But the audience will still bring

          its own feelings 

to these 

words

not seeing you

               not seeing 

what I 

am present for.

--------------------------

Who has left me 

here, I have.

Who are your 

familiars

                   Come 

            into the 

enlarging 

page if you dare

--------------------------

     Because he invented 

your shape I do mean 

structure

because he invented you badly 

           everything is still hidden.

--------------------------

I was to impale myself on a

quadrangular

steel rod, with a blunt end

                     with a blunt end 

which would make puncture

      more difficult 

and I tried—it's too hard. I can't 

Okay said the voice. I can't 

Okay

then I was weeping

                              But it's blood! I'm 

crying blood! I 

screamed

That's part of it

said the voice.

---------------------------

I think this is hard.

(That's part of it)

How they prefer him must go.

I think this is difficult singing

Length and repetition 

         create power

If this voice can return like 

         a body

It resembles something that's already been, 

Changing.

------------------------------

Chestnuts broken

autumnal fungi

so you will remember, that

          it's fall 

outside

         falling. you'll go down

this is no story for the puling

          social classes 

No not at all 

it's for us my familiars say 

who let me weep blood on their ground.