I am always hungry & wanting to have sex. This is a fact. If you get right down to it the new unprocessed peanut butter is no damn good & you should buy it in a jar as always in the largest supermarket you know. And I am an enemy of change, as you know. All the things I embrace as new are in fact old things, re-released: swimming, the sensation of being dirty in body and mind summer as a time to do nothing and make no money. Prayer as a last re- sort. Pleasure as a means, and then a means again with no ends in sight. I am absolutely in opposition to all kinds of goals. I have no desire to know where this, anything is getting me. When the water boils I get a cup of tea. Accidentally I read all the works of Proust. It was summer I was there so was he. I write because I would like to be used for years after my death. Not only my body will be compost but the thoughts I left during my life. During my life I was a woman with hazel eyes. Out the window is a crooked silo. Parts of your body I think of as stripes which I have learned to love along. We swim naked in ponds & I write be- hind your back. My thoughts about you are not exactly forbidden, but exalted because they are useless, not intended to get you because I have you & you love me. It’s more like a playground where I play with my reflection of you until you come back and into the real you I get to sink my teeth. With you I know how to relax. & so I work behind your back. Which is lovely. Nature is out of control you tell me & that’s what’s so good about it. I’m immoderately in love with you, knocked out by all your new white hair
why shouldn’t something I have always known be the very best there is. I love you from my childhood, starting back there when one day was just like the rest, random growth and breezes, constant love, a sand- wich in the middle of day, a tiny step in the vastly conventional path of the Sun. I squint. I wink. I take the ride.
using my computer w out the burden of her life last night I described it open a circle she kisses my knee its life that is my name they thought she had a lot I think it’s enough I mean it’s astonishing if I had (his) I could feel everything but as it is I know what it is I love your lips.
Fresca’s got a new look but I’m not drinking that. My coke struck the ice and the ice cube cracked. I’m sitting by the little Buddha who is sitting in my yard. I imagine you walking in gasping at the same couch the same bed it’s almost the same town but this is what I meant and there’s so much pleasure, difference in this, that. I meant to be here. One sleeps on what they mean and arises on the decided side and that’s the hope. An entire room is opened by particular feelings that say you’re on the edge of the space and then you wait to watch it grow. Grow like a love or a feeling of distrust or a body grateful for sun & breeze and the rising and falling of my dog’s chest no gut. The little Buddha’s smiling southeast I figured that out. Their genitals are unknown in fact their everything’s smiling walked on by ants planted in the dirt but not dead activated by my gaze. Their smiling makes me glad dog turns Buddha’s way I go forward with con fidence I may turn nothing up but this gentle scratching in my yard before making a call opening the self somehow so it’s possible to have a friend to call not only from need but interest in their life the body I’m pouring into joyous to be connected to someone while covered by ants surrounded by breeze actually touched by birds their sound then landing there is nothing romantic in their absence the bird is all touch no matter how distant their flight the sky is open my gaze is wide it matters how they dive and hover. The silly cluck the ninny constant the hoot makes the gray sky blue; trees brown; green slanting trees the woman dying in her face thought am I recording but it was the young man counting everything Korakrit whose art I liked so much performed bird in the dying woman’s sky so his quote was reverential that she could be copying anything by dying was more about him. A moustache on the sound that life’s made of. I think you don’t miss me enough or you regard me as seasons that simply come & it’s true I’m everything. I used to love so much to show you my poems. But everything’s not enough you have to go out & shake everything’s hand and the tremendous feeling of everything is not shook enough. I’m sick of being god for you. I’m not the Fresca or the Buddha or the bird. I’m the ice that cracks I’m really feeling it now. The amazing difference of contact everything’s gasp. It begins so slow. Hours of freezing waiting a life and the draining of it by waiting too long. Riding around in a car. I’m not any coke. I’m every coke. And a bird likes the sound of that: to be so close the earth parts for its own arrival. The time of day is enchanted by my jeans on the line. I’m enchanted by everything too. How could I be it and feel it. Drawing sun lines sticks. If I say too again and I’m creating a pattern someone who doesn’t love me will say you say too too much. I suppose going blind is momentarily seeing colors in everything and remembering them for the rest of your life. I’m afraid to tell you I’m going blind. What I’m saying is I’m retiring from god. I will feel my genius quietly the furrows of a dead tree accepting my love. You start like a car and pepper in a number of growls. That’s dog. You roll and you’re bird and Buddha’s difficult now. More of an aside. That something so different as the sun could turn I think and we’re turning on our dirty little urn there’s a movie about everything my getting this part of that endlessly obliged to be wise. Upstairs 16 little eggs turn in another galaxy someone else’s sandwich. Today I was so busy I didn’t even see lunch. I had it but I didn’t see it at all. The distant eggs are turning for someone else. I poured Fresca into my glass and then I poured my vodka and then I got drunk. Darker day now when my throat fills and Buddha’s awake. A bee wants to sting me and in that moment I would notice everything. Why do you think I’m sweet. Why must I die.
I’m using this it’s large it could leave it could change inside of changing is hanging everyone crossing the street was talking to some one; “alone” to be with people sending off their rays I’m sticking with you even less nuanced. Less smell maybe a blue pigeon unlocks the door to the slabs of wood on Delancey white planks & then really beautiful planks of artificial wood leaning against a tree why is this pithy to me. I’m re lieved to be living one day without camera or pen or watch I felt totally un watched alone w this non assignment this deliberation to be glad for New York that contains dogs & statements experimental art; art of yore and that blue pigeon that followed the wood but has a pigeon ever been blue before or the night in such stripes go out without your phone call no one Honey’s hunching on the rug the intactness of all experience deserves our wavering but eventual respect. Call me after everything I have some love. Rather than apologizing I’m doing well rather than letting you go I’m letting you leave blue pigeon I’ve got your back and the vista that surrounds you is magnificent I’m leaving it there!
You’re like a little fruit you’re like a moon I want to hold I said lemon slope about your hip because it’s one of my words about you I whispered in bed this smoothing the fruit & then alone with my book but writing in it the pages wagging against my knuckles in the light like a sail.
Now the pink is in the water its wavy edges celebrated by cars & guys with hands in pockets staring out. A woman chewing gum by the window of the train. Which heaves its accordion on & we move. They call it choo-choo because of the faint chooing sound as it starts. It's twee too & dit dit dit eel & screech. All this as the colors change. The buildings they bothered to paint white are pink like someone's awful socks were mistakenly washed. Who owns this insidious red. The trees are black cause that's where the green goes. The girl who chews has fanned her fingers out below the glass and I long to stare at them. To count them one by one as the wires slip by. It's the sultriness, the smokey approach of the loss of light that I love. The homosexual lilac comes & it's ours & everyone like us. The bright compartment of white lights & gleaming flip top & yawns rage on. Outside the Hudson River queerness tools on my brain like a hopeless little wallet of feeling. A clear swipe to night. Everyone in my compartment is tearing now. It's true, I heard two sheets at once get torn to pluck a brownie out. Its smell oozes, & the other one, god knows whose—to park her gum? Her hands are holding her head, my silent partner's & she's sleeping (deep in my gaze.) I look at her knees, the wrinkled foot just above the heel, a yellowish unmoody pink. The trees crowd the house & finally we go fast finally it's not so warm on the train & boats are sitting on purple sand the mountains are bland & blue a woman's sigh is falling off, from on high and into her body. My partner's knees sway. Someone says Proust. Or was it Bruce. The train is rough. Cutting through sweetness every night. I think "time." Then "cargo."
I was born in Boston in 1949. I never wanted this fact to be known, in fact I’ve spent the better half of my adult life trying to sweep my early years under the carpet and have a life that was clearly just mine and independent of the historic fate of my family. Can you imagine what it was like to be one of them, to be built like them, to talk like them to have the benefits of being born into such a wealthy and powerful American family. I went to the best schools, had all kinds of tutors and trainers, traveled widely, met the famous, the controversial, and the not-so-admirable and I knew from a very early age that if there were ever any possibility of escaping the collective fate of this famous Boston family I would take that route and I have. I hopped on an Amtrak to New York in the early ‘70s and I guess you could say my hidden years began. I thought Well I’ll be a poet. What could be more foolish and obscure. I became a lesbian. Every woman in my family looks like a dyke but it’s really stepping off the flag when you become one. While holding this ignominious pose I have seen and I have learned and I am beginning to think there is no escaping history. A woman I am currently having an affair with said you know you look like a Kennedy. I felt the blood rising in my cheeks. People have always laughed at my Boston accent confusing “large” for “lodge,” “party” for “potty.” But when this unsuspecting woman invoked for the first time my family name I knew the jig was up. Yes, I am, I am a Kennedy. My attempts to remain obscure have not served me well. Starting as a humble poet I quickly climbed to the top of my profession assuming a position of leadership and honor. It is right that a woman should call me out now. Yes, I am a Kennedy. And I await your orders. You are the New Americans. The homeless are wandering the streets of our nation’s greatest city. Homeless men with AIDS are among them. Is that right? That there are no homes for the homeless, that there is no free medical help for these men. And women. That they get the message —as they are dying— that this is not their home? And how are your teeth today? Can you afford to fix them? How high is your rent? If art is the highest and most honest form of communication of our times and the young artist is no longer able to move here to speak to her time…Yes, I could, but that was 15 years ago and remember—as I must I am a Kennedy. Shouldn’t we all be Kennedys? This nation’s greatest city is home of the business- man and home of the rich artist. People with beautiful teeth who are not on the streets. What shall we do about this dilemma? Listen, I have been educated. I have learned about Western Civilization. Do you know what the message of Western Civilization is? I am alone. Am I alone tonight? I don’t think so. Am I the only one with bleeding gums tonight. Am I the only homosexual in this room tonight. Am I the only one whose friends have died, are dying now. And my art can’t be supported until it is gigantic, bigger than everyone else’s, confirming the audience’s feeling that they are alone. That they alone are good, deserved to buy the tickets to see this Art. Are working, are healthy, should survive, and are normal. Are you normal tonight? Everyone here, are we all normal. It is not normal for me to be a Kennedy. But I am no longer ashamed, no longer alone. I am not alone tonight because we are all Kennedys. And I am your President.