Bernadette Mayer Poems

why am i doing this? Failure
to keep my work in order so as
to be able to find things
to paint the house
to earn enough money to live on
to reorganize the house so as
to be able to paint the house &
to be able to find things and
earn enough money so as
to be able to put books together
to publish works and books
to have time
to answer mail & phone calls
to wash the windows
to make the kitchen better to work in
to have the money to buy a simple radio
to listen to while working in the kitchen
to know enough to do grownups work in the world
to transcend my attitude
to an enforced poverty
to be able to expect my checks
to arrive on time in the mail
to not always expect that they will not
to forget my mother's attitudes on humility or
to continue
to assume them without suffering
to forget how my mother taunted my father
about money, my sister about i cant say it
failure to forget mother and father enough
to be older, to forget them
to forget my obsessive uncle
to remember them some other way
to remember their bigotry accurately
to cease to dream about lions which always is
to dream about them, I put my hand in the lion's mouth
to assuage its anger, this is not a failure
to notice that's how they were; failure
to repot the plants
to be neat
to create & maintain clear surfaces
to let a couch or a chair be a place for sitting down
and not a table
to let a table be a place for eating & not a desk
to listen to more popular music
to learn the lyrics
to not need money so as
to be able to write all the time
to not have to pay rent, con ed or telephone bills
to forget parents' and uncle's early deaths so as
to be free of expecting care; failure
to love objects
to find them valuable in any way; failure
to preserve objects
to buy them and
to now let them fall by the wayside; failure
to think of poems as objects
to think of the body as an object; failure
to believe; failure
to know nothing; failure
to know everything; failure
to remember how to spell failure; failure
to believe the dictionary & that there is anything
to teach; failure
to teach properly; failure
to believe in teaching
to just think that everybody knows everything
which is not my failure; I know everyone does; failure
to see not everyone believes this knowing and
to think we cannot last till the success of knowing
to wash all the dishes only takes ten minutes
to write a thousand poems in an hour
to do an epic, open the unwashed window
to let in you know who and
to spirit thoughts and poems away from concerns
to just let us know, we will
to paint your ceilings & walls for free
...

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
...

I write this love as all transition
As if I'm in instinctual flight,
a small lady bug
...

You jerk you didn't call me up
I haven't seen you in so long
You probably have a fucking tan
& besides that instead of making love tonight
You're drinking your parents to the airport
I'm through with you bourgeois boys
All you ever do is go back to ancestral comforts
Only money can get—even Catullus was rich but

Nowadays you guys settle for a couch
By a soporific color cable t.v. set
Instead of any arc of love, no wonder
The G.I. Joe team blows it every other time

Wake up! It's the middle of the night
You can either make love or die at the hands of the Cobra Commander
...

My heart is a fancy place
Where giant reddish-purple cauliflowers
& white ones in French & English are outside
Waiting to welcome you to a boat
Over the low black river for a big dinner
There's alot of choice among the foods
Even a tortured lamb served in pieces
En croute on a plate so hot as a rack
Of clouds blown over the cold filthy river
We are entitled to see anytime while we
Use the tablecovers to love each other
Publicly dishing out imitative luxuries
To show off poetry's extreme generosity
Then home in the heart of a big limousine
...

The nights let us have leaves

we have them the leaves have let us

& then they let us

smaller

have day
a day
...

Maybe when time was and made me the time
many times could we and in time when the time came
noticed that and gave you the time of and left him the
left it open for any time and got back on time and how
the time he and served out the time and never noticed
covered up that time and said we'd see some time and kept
what time and asked for the time of and covered
we knew just what kind of time could be had
...

D R I V E R S white of white line 10 to 6
shut off line this coach is TOLL MACHINE
motors white restroom equipped
while loading line for your convenience
buses white cigarette smoking
S A V E T I R E S line permitted
Keep wheels on white unless prohibited
Straight line un line by law
til passing over white we're getting
treadle before line there you're out of
cutting left white drinking intoxicants
P A S S E N G E R S line on coach prohibited
are met in the white on the
main waiting room line way
U P S T A I R S white express lane
SHELTER SHELTER SH line No Standing
Back in U.S.S.R. white W. 41 St.
chipped Martha, My line One Way
Dear chipped, as if white Tow
eaten line It is now 5:25 Away
Departures … for … white Zone
W O R K line Your Operator
A R E A white Safe Reliable
A H E A D line Courteous CHECK OUT
Free Baggage white PAY here
checking line LEFT THAN
No Tipping Required white and buses only
D.O.T. regulations line THIS LANE
require passengers white Season's
to stand back line Greetings
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House of Chrome line u u Mr. Milk
tinted green white v v Keeps your car
50¢ makeup line w w on the go Atlantic
cars only sleep white x x Cable TV
HOBOKEN green line y y 12 channels
THIS LANE sleep white z z Special Offer
$6.25 green line Xmas Xmas placemats
When you're out of Holiday House white Count your LEE
Schlitz line two lights are Change AS YOU
the same two lights white Keep Right TRAVEL
beer a a line Pass Left Only ASK US
To a smoker b b white Here she said
it's a c c line her is a tube from one
Ken d d white less cigar You to the
PARK AVE. e e line know how she other
UNION CITY f f white explained that but one
a whole g g line one to me Its a is more
new kind h h white cigar she said than the other
of bag i i line that hasn't got STOP LINE
GIVE THE j j white anything left STOP LINE
WASHED VODKA k k line to it de cinquante
DONT 8:45 l l white LETOM cinq
WALK Rose Garden m m line I cant swipe the
I like your skirt n n white great American
so do I o o line hunchback horses Get back
your sash is p p white where you were before
beautiful q q line The Rest
RIDGE DODGE r r white Get Back
Fiesta Banquet s s line LENOX—-
Room t t white toll booth no. 1
...

From the point of view of four-dimensional space-time geometry the topography and the history of the universe fuse into one harmonious picture, and all we have to consider is a tangled bunch of world-lines representing the motion of individual atoms, animals, or stars.
1. This space is a pace away from you. 2. This space is a mile away from you. 3. This space is a footstep away from you. 4a. This space is an acre away from you. 5b. This space is a township away from you. 6.1. This space is a bushel away from you. 7.2. This space is a tablespoon away from you. 8x3. This space is a minute away from you. 9x4. This space is a week away from you. 10x5. This space is the roaring twenties away from you.
...

Going go spinning around the earth
on your back spinning around earth on back
back to Minnesota, Iowa, Boston, California
& New York Open your eyes Close them Open Close Open
Where to now What's your name Where are you
spinning off to Once there was a girl I went to her house
for tea He closed the eyes He opened them
the lids that is She was a
Some kind of girl & was put in her place
See what was that you're spinnin on A journey too On
Off and on the center of the radio I see No two
are two Except when they are speaking No, two are two
No two & two No two and no Two and two
no And two & two And no Two too And two,
no, you two and, no, two.
...