“Be brave to things. . .”

Be brave to things as long as
As long as
As long as the plot thickens
As long as you hold a tiny universe in your
hand-made of stringy oil, cats’ hair,
tobacco, remnants
Of what was once wide.
As it was once as long as, the plot thickens.
Be brave to thinkers in the night, rusted
boxes, anything
That has dimension.
As if it were a foot wide
Tall, square, as long as boxes
Were.

“Goodnight. I want to kill myself. . .”

Goodnight. I want to kill myself.
Goodnight. I want to kill myself.
Goodnight. I wrote a beautiful poem
But goodnight
Barton Barber jumped out of a 20 story window
While his father was buying cigars.
But goodnight.
Donald Bliss drank a bottle of brandy
And then a little bottle of cyanide
Outside the Greek Theater
But goodnight
I have seen enough of you, good night
I have seen that anyone can write a poem.
Hart Crane died so that faggots could write poetry.
And faggots have written poetry
Olson says that he wrote nominative poetry.
Forget it, I said, goodnight.
This is the last trick. I have discovered
How easy it is to write poetry.
How little it counts. How few sighs
At the best are at the end of a poem.
But goodnight, I have learned
How little poetry has to do with anything.
Goodnight. They knocked on my door tonite
And gave me cigarettes
Poetry is gone. Anybody
Can have his door knocked on and be given cigarettes
Anyone can be given a poem

Let me tell you about Barton Barber
Took a Pepsi Cola bottle up his ass
(I was in the next room)
Wrote a poem I tried to quote tonite
(But you two are fucking in the next room)
Goodnight,
I don’t want to be big uncle.
Let me tell you about Barton Barber
I don’t remember Barton Barber
I don’t remember his poem.
Goodnight.
I am not big uncle
Goodnite
Anybody can write a poem.
You can do anything with a poem
With a poem.
Fuck it, anybody
Even Donald Bliss and Barton Barber
Can write a poem.

Goodnight. I want to kill myself.
Goodnight. I want to kill myself.
Goodnight. Tell the Christchild
He has lost his big uncle.

STINSON

At the edge of the known world, we stand amazed
One step and the water would make us wet
The sky fall on us in packets, the moon,
If there was a moon, make tracks for us
In the little ocean that we walked in.

In 1965, when the poet Jack Spicer died at the age of forty, he left behind a trunkful of papers and manuscripts and a few copies of the seven small books he had seen to press. A West Coast poet, his influence spanned the national literary scene of the 1950s and 1960s. During his short but prolific life, Spicer troubled the concepts of translation, voice, and the act of poetic composition itself. This fall Wesleyan University Press is publishing Be Brave to Things: The Uncollected Poetry and Plays of Jack Spicer.