The Anthology Poem by Alice Notley

No tone of voice being sufficient to the occasion
Flash that's all, that we're here. Are you ever
sarcastic and unlikeable Mentally we are the
cast of one epic thought: You. How many
of you sweep through me, as I ride the métro
leading you, because I have to and not be poignant
oh who's written anything poignant since ...  

An old woman of indeterminate race, in white hat
and scarf, no teeth staring back at me.
He sounded brittle and superior last night, do the
dead do that; Grandma had a plethora of tones of voice
compared to anyone in this anthology. Our

anthology, he says, being mental is complex
as hell. How do you keep track of your poems? Any-
one remembers what they like, but you have constantly
to emit them ... Everyone's at me, Drown it
out, thinking of an icon emerald-throated.

I see the alley house at night dark I'm trying
to be pure again, but I want all the tones.
When you're dead you can have them ...  thick
marine dark from the fencelike oleanders and a moon
calling to white boards. Enter. Lie down in
your own bed, in the room where Momma found a scorpion.