"Betrayal" by Alice Notley

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend June 6, 2017   Betrayal   Alice Notley

I keep going back to that word the French like it trahison the French are partly me in micro-particular disposition I sing I'm most fascinated by metaphysical betrayal and its off-color quarter-tones I mean I mean it      that a bit of matter could humiliate   another like in a beginning when of angels… No I believe they play me like a winning king but in a future I know already while scourged I remember when X and Y made Ted miserable Until he died? before he died? but that's before the time of these poems of my emplacement in the zeros   Do you know that all history's happening at the same time and see the future if you scry, gross matter      It is 2007 someone dear having died I am on an air- plane to San Diego and suddenly see blue and orange geo- metrical formations around the periphery of my vision both eyes is this part of the poem I'm the singer of   tales of bliss and structure of the universe yet unperceived Is it built like what I'm talking is it in fact structured when I write Voices Ross, the dear dead speaks to me in the kitchen to say he's happy the dead are happy I later believe some are sad sometimes, cyc- lically until they work it out my poems help them   that my poems help everyone that I am re- structuring whatever this is that is everything so that nothing's lost but placed new-pieced into a collage of the transpired remade into a transcendental richesse opening of graves gold light burst out: Grave of Light gravid of light Grave Alice and laughing Allegra   ocean of chaos breaks collage of tones you know and who I was am and will be come back to me in an enormous betrayal by who once left heaven all those wanting to be matter my own body born no one can understand      born no one can com- prehend how many possibilities we once were be-   fore anyone deceived a rock by breaking it Ross tell me what      You got it he says and what you've kept to yourself is cool but the Fibonacci Series being no longer how shall we say these irrelevancies They slide into the collage I say      Yeah he says That on the other hand anything will do any glue   Because I was upset at your death mine eyes did break not into tears but figments colored particles castle bat- tlements they call them swim before me collapse I rise again for I am everything participatory in the earth world's illusions this is an homage to Ross all that exists communicates cry a little, cry   betrayal that there is dying though death the other breathes              Copyright © 2017 Alice Notley. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "I've been writing some poems on my life since around 2000, since it doesn't seem that very much has happened to me since then. That is, I'm trying to remember. This is one of those poems." —Alice Notley   Alice Notley is the author of Certain Magical Acts (Penguin Books, 2016). She lives and writes in Paris, France.   Photo credit: Terry Pollack Poetry by Notley   Certain Magical Acts (Penguin Books, 2016)  "Problem-Not-Solving" by Anne Waldman "The Blue Stairs" by Barbara Guest "Meditations in an Emergency" by Frank O'Hara Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. If you enjoy Poem-a-Day, please consider making a donation to help make it possible. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038