David Meltzer
ALIEN(S)
it was a mistake
spirit not stuff
was the directive
middle management archon
screwed it up botched creation
I am called thinking of the invisible
I am called unchangeable voice
aeons of aeons
I ams of I ams
meat’s the error
meet the terror
of failure of gravity
the weight of
stuckness
irritate the pearl of spirit’s abandonment
hear me softly
& learn from me harshly
this time’s the dream’s on me
take light but leave dark
to guide the maze twist
of unanswered questions
the journey down
bondage
exodus
ascent to the royal realm
it is not I
the sound
of my thinking
am called
invisible thought
as we move
together
& separate
down industrial streets
hidden in all
revealed in all
each reaching out
to an other
stranger in despair
foreigners
displaced people
DPs
unrecognized
tagged as alien
alone
all one
no other
of you
for you
•
beyond usual bounds
or boundaries
foreign
strange
we came to believe
by means of signs & wonders
& fabrications
& emanation of trace
Check out the tape & tell me what you think.
‘The alien is that which stems from elsewhere
& does not belong to here’
strange unfamiliar incomprehensible
lonely unprotected
‘in the name of the great first alien Life
from the worlds of light’
the stranger who does not know the ways of the foreign land wanders about lost
lonely, unprotected, uncomprehended
not known nor seen as knowable
the stranger’s lot
estranged from one’s own origin
place
real estate
‘alienness as superiority & suffering’
remoteness the fate of involvement
•
‘The alien is that which stems from elsewhere and does not belong here. To those who do belong here it is thus the strange, the unfamiliar and incomprehensible; but their world in its part is just as incomprehensible to the alien that comes to dwell here, and like a foreign land where it is far from home.’
•
liminal like the newborn teenager
unexpected
complex presence of you & those
who imagine themselves into a fictive life of us
•
played hooky from school
we woke up at 1:40 afternoon
sleeping through
the unlived life
•
the alien is that which stems from elsewhere
& doesn’t belong here
if it learns
it forgets
extrangerio
lost from core
origin’s tangles
•
the alien stems from elsewhere & does not belong here
to those who belong here it is strange & unfamiliar incomprehensible
but their world
just as alien
the stranger is lonely & suffers uprootedness
uncomprehended
unknowing
in a situation
full of danger
anguish
homesickness
the stranger’s lot
learn the ways too well
& forget one is a stranger
gets lost in a new way
succumb to the alien world’s allure
is to be further estranged
from origin
•
she takes shazanda
I do melatonin
to sleep & dream
lost on awakening
her dreams are of houses
mine of cities
‘I feel as if I were drugged’
•
collective we of multiples
came to this place
to melt into that pot
‘I cried & worried all night I lays & groans
I used to weigh 200
now I’m down to skin & bones’
•
the soul slumbers in matter
silent in Lucite
ambergris
stopped
would that
a great voice
come daily to
awaken me
break the spell
halt the shuffle trance
•
‘what liberates us is the knowledge of who we were, what we became; where we were, where into we’ve been thrown; where to we speed, wherefore we are redeemed; what birth is & rebirth’
•
grain’s dark
even staring into light
•
brought here
not wanting to be here
pushed onto lines
that rarely move or end
whatever I tell an official
is another language
misunderstood
beyond the paper & rubber stamps
nibbed ink scratch
on government parchment
blue lines
blotted in a hurry
blur surname
where were we
now that we’re here?
•
they come from the sky
cross oceans
wherever they land
they do not belong
•
inside or outside
prison contains
unwingable flight
the locked door
is freedom for those
w/out it
but those w/in it
cry diamonds into
burnt-out leather smuggler pouches
•
nature did not destine us
for a base ignoble existence
if someone could look at the world from on high
& behold the wealth of beauty in it
he would know
what we were born for
walls & veils diversions
labyrinths & mazes
the path as challenge unfolds in faith
‘the unconscious is a veritable infection
by the poison of darkness
‘they mixed my drink w/ cunning
& gave me a taste of meat
I forgot I was a king’s son
through the heaviness of their nourishment
I sink into a deep slumber’
•
it’s the slime
that keeps division divided
it’s a sci-fi cliché
it’s fucking X Files
lightless creep holes where
dim flashlights skid off
weird alien slick slather
snot rugs pulled out
prosthetic clots
slip over into new
bone smash
configure
go figure
the broken & perfect
alive or dead in sepia snaps retrieved out of
spored boxes of darkness
was in the was
& is in that same was-ness
where one is nowhere stuck in all of it
•
ground zero
where alphabet recircles itself
back to Aleph & its razors of imprint
whose wounds
slash veils while
spider like spit out
new webs to weave outcry
inactive & consumed
•
the condensed truth
Pet Milk infinitude
cow into cow into cow
into can into can into
iconic exaltation
sugar gear shift
lifts downfallen
into sweet sweat
relief belief
spasm’s ‘I AM’
& forget or remember
iambic pent-up
•
re-member torn away
wings & thing
that danced
on illumined stages
•
the stuff which unpuffs & blurts out intestines & the usual FX
the stuff which means nothing
but everything
the stuff which decays & is poetry
the goo the snot the rot
alive as we die
no myth but being
no being but myth
no no
die to be
to birth
to burst
forth
•
Aya’s sure she’s an ET
as well as a Pharonic Egyptian goddess & multigenerational physician
of all kinds of medicine
all I remember is drowning
& breaking through
•
‘otherness’
alias moniker
masked vapor
unknowable
‘belonging to
another person
another place’ something else
not knowable
a distraction from what is
a challenge
a threat
the obvious
•
life heat of all internal organs grinds down to soot
bone cold hexagram telegrams
dot dot common amnesia
aphasia dementia
can’t remember
can’t forget
what is it
who
me?
cape me
big brim hat me
mask me
ask me the meaning of life
& if I say strife
tire-shoe me
retire me
as long as you know
nothing rules
only unknowing
opens up the books
rescrambles the letters
chains them back to fetters
stutter to blank melody
dots chained to staffs
horizontal lines
ruled
•
each amazed wing feather
spread & fanned &
plucked for pens
whose bone nibs dip
deep into inkwells
•
Up against the wall
Caligari style
to slide away
duck spotlights
angry driven dogs
dissolve in dark cover
set apart from
what beholds
& holds all
together
in the vision
of blank
sight of
vapor inneffable
w/ affable spew
of metaphor’s faith
in lingo to link
all together in one
pure mirrored wall
•
The opinions of people concerning prophecy are like their opinions concerning the eternity of the world or its creation in time
yes yes
why wait when
time breaks down
fails to exist
in axes of remove
chop chop
your hand reaching out for
the promised land