Norman Fischer
The Feeling of This Particular Life
Write the feelings on the left side of the page
Write the events on the right side
You are angry you have been angry but didn’t know it
You are frustrated because you are not angry or because someone is angry at you you are afraid
It doesn’t make sense there’s no reason in it maybe it isn't happening you only think so
Write how you feel about this on the left side, on the right side write what you think is happening though you do not really know
Why you are angry about her being angry when she’s hanging the pictures on the wall so many
pictures one is weary of pictures
Hung variously on the wall so many pictures never enough wall
The wrong pictures hung wrongly
On the wrong wall the innocent wall
So many ways to hang them. And did you get enough sleep? You can never get enough sleep.
The more you understand pictures are not only pictures or are not pictures
The clearer the reasons for your anger, your body is angry, especially your body, closets, windows, doors, pictures tire you, your need for more sleep
Make you angry. You must explore this anger you must write it on the left side you must write the reasons for it on the right
She is telling you to write it this way
She is claiming she is not telling you this
She claims she’s an innocent victim
But you see it otherwise you are blinded by your limited view
Like a horse you are wearing blinders so you don’t spook seeing something startling in the periphery
Write in order to correct your perspective
Projected upon the white wall of the landing of the stairwell
Hang pictures there in whatever order you wish
Be sure to find harmony and relevance and firmness, straightness,
In the way you are thinking you are writing you are picturehanging
And seeing and living and feeling this particular life
The Invention of the Subject
The invention of the subject well it was never my intention
I’ll state clearly here that all I ever wanted to do
But then in the end of course you are compared to something or other
And if you’re not unkind or completely a boob
Will have to admit that you’re just not up to it
Nevertheless you do go on howsoever in character
The holidays came and went, family, food, the usual works
I’m still settling with that
Still sane
After all these years
Well it was a hoot. I’m bedazzled
By the sound of the human voice
Really to tell the truth in all the world
There’s nothing
Quite like it
A little turn of events
I’ll note my pipchick
Then the letters(I’m speaking here of
Characters)floated across
And off the scroll altogether
That burst into flames but
The letters floated off and
Out and then look — transposed
Into another curious dance
They appear here! And you think
You understand them!
What if I reached in my drawer
For my thought but it wasn’t there?
What if instead it all revolted
Into a skein of material invocation
And I spoke as air became notation
Then leapt my spine variously as beach
Is grains of sand as many
As there are worlds
Plus one. That would be do handy
For me. If you could can you make
Me on. I don’t mind paying
I’m not working very hard at this
But it’s not that I’m lazy no
I’m a very diligent person dot
My p’s and q’s always clean up
After others. The point isn’t how hard
A person works at something no it’s
Whether the person sets store by it
And then afterwards bends the lament
By which I mean — well if you didn’t
Already know what I meant there’s no
Point in saying anything, is there, and
Anyway you’d misunderstand
They used to say she speaks with forked tongue
Or words to the effect they said that at the time
And their point was probably that two things or more
Were indicated into her two-headed word
(That confused them they were bitter
So claimed it meant so much it meant nothing)
A snake she wore like an installation on her mouth
But after that there were cylindrical chips
And any number of misapprehensive clips and jerky movements
Until I thought it over long enough
To marry my thoughts to my elisions
How about
Any word
Could appear
In any slot
Then be assured
Of winning
I’m not so
Serious
As I once was
You appear
As dear to me
As ever
Seeing you across
A room
I’m so sure
I care
Because the words
I use say so
Not that you’d
Ever leave it up to me
No
Whatever I say
Makes sense to me
Whenever you listen
Be
As dramatic
As you want
I will only
Fail you
If you leave
The room
In a state
It is in
People organize
Themselves
Like this
This is how
We fade and melt
It’s the definition
Of closure
Ha ha here one
Is
All
Over
water of life
water of life
shellfish mound
grass that grates on the tongue
as pages collapse and fall
leaf by leaf into the storm
one last left clear line
as in hook and sinker
or hook and ladder
I’m primed for daytime
But loaded at night
Who for life won’t
Eat more food?
Poems must scratch themselves out
As tonic for the soul or Shelly says
Poets will be virtuous in the classical times
And unconscious
Legislators
of the age (God
help us)
Exactly only that
exactly only that
it felt so wrong
convenience because
her life cut
I’m so nice etc.
and his wife didn’t
this and sorry for Mrs. Tanaka
sensed some disjunction or
and bitterness together and operate
extends to my grandson
and she had a dream
in which I’m copying this
in Israel where blood runs through
the pipes where water should flow
then she went on about Mexican
extends to her appearing naked
she touched my genitals but oddly
it wasn’t sexual, genitals never are
in dreams wrong ever since
her life cut off from her sexuality
breakthrough in her behavior
‘her point of view’
the same or entirely same
very long monologue
Abridged
He heard the sermons of insentient beings
But not as he desired
For he heard but did not understand
How do we understand?
By mental effort insight and experience
We verify that something is true
To understand the world we leave it
To understand others we flee from them
To understand ourselves we kill ourselves
But insentient beings
Who receive wind and rain
Do not flee or dissemble
They do not understand they appear
People also appear
In this they too are insentient
When they look at a tree or the sea
The tree or sea speaks
When they look at a person it is the same
When people stop understanding themselves and the world
They become wise as oceans
Write the feelings on the left side of the page
Write the events on the right side
You are angry you have been angry but didn’t know it
You are frustrated because you are not angry or because someone is angry at you you are afraid
It doesn’t make sense there’s no reason in it maybe it isn't happening you only think so
Write how you feel about this on the left side, on the right side write what you think is happening though you do not really know
Why you are angry about her being angry when she’s hanging the pictures on the wall so many
pictures one is weary of pictures
Hung variously on the wall so many pictures never enough wall
The wrong pictures hung wrongly
On the wrong wall the innocent wall
So many ways to hang them. And did you get enough sleep? You can never get enough sleep.
The more you understand pictures are not only pictures or are not pictures
The clearer the reasons for your anger, your body is angry, especially your body, closets, windows, doors, pictures tire you, your need for more sleep
Make you angry. You must explore this anger you must write it on the left side you must write the reasons for it on the right
She is telling you to write it this way
She is claiming she is not telling you this
She claims she’s an innocent victim
But you see it otherwise you are blinded by your limited view
Like a horse you are wearing blinders so you don’t spook seeing something startling in the periphery
Write in order to correct your perspective
Projected upon the white wall of the landing of the stairwell
Hang pictures there in whatever order you wish
Be sure to find harmony and relevance and firmness, straightness,
In the way you are thinking you are writing you are picturehanging
And seeing and living and feeling this particular life
The Invention of the Subject
The invention of the subject well it was never my intention
I’ll state clearly here that all I ever wanted to do
But then in the end of course you are compared to something or other
And if you’re not unkind or completely a boob
Will have to admit that you’re just not up to it
Nevertheless you do go on howsoever in character
The holidays came and went, family, food, the usual works
I’m still settling with that
Still sane
After all these years
Well it was a hoot. I’m bedazzled
By the sound of the human voice
Really to tell the truth in all the world
There’s nothing
Quite like it
A little turn of events
I’ll note my pipchick
Then the letters(I’m speaking here of
Characters)floated across
And off the scroll altogether
That burst into flames but
The letters floated off and
Out and then look — transposed
Into another curious dance
They appear here! And you think
You understand them!
What if I reached in my drawer
For my thought but it wasn’t there?
What if instead it all revolted
Into a skein of material invocation
And I spoke as air became notation
Then leapt my spine variously as beach
Is grains of sand as many
As there are worlds
Plus one. That would be do handy
For me. If you could can you make
Me on. I don’t mind paying
I’m not working very hard at this
But it’s not that I’m lazy no
I’m a very diligent person dot
My p’s and q’s always clean up
After others. The point isn’t how hard
A person works at something no it’s
Whether the person sets store by it
And then afterwards bends the lament
By which I mean — well if you didn’t
Already know what I meant there’s no
Point in saying anything, is there, and
Anyway you’d misunderstand
They used to say she speaks with forked tongue
Or words to the effect they said that at the time
And their point was probably that two things or more
Were indicated into her two-headed word
(That confused them they were bitter
So claimed it meant so much it meant nothing)
A snake she wore like an installation on her mouth
But after that there were cylindrical chips
And any number of misapprehensive clips and jerky movements
Until I thought it over long enough
To marry my thoughts to my elisions
How about
Any word
Could appear
In any slot
Then be assured
Of winning
I’m not so
Serious
As I once was
You appear
As dear to me
As ever
Seeing you across
A room
I’m so sure
I care
Because the words
I use say so
Not that you’d
Ever leave it up to me
No
Whatever I say
Makes sense to me
Whenever you listen
Be
As dramatic
As you want
I will only
Fail you
If you leave
The room
In a state
It is in
People organize
Themselves
Like this
This is how
We fade and melt
It’s the definition
Of closure
Ha ha here one
Is
All
Over
water of life
water of life
shellfish mound
grass that grates on the tongue
as pages collapse and fall
leaf by leaf into the storm
one last left clear line
as in hook and sinker
or hook and ladder
I’m primed for daytime
But loaded at night
Who for life won’t
Eat more food?
Poems must scratch themselves out
As tonic for the soul or Shelly says
Poets will be virtuous in the classical times
And unconscious
Legislators
of the age (God
help us)
Exactly only that
exactly only that
it felt so wrong
convenience because
her life cut
I’m so nice etc.
and his wife didn’t
this and sorry for Mrs. Tanaka
sensed some disjunction or
and bitterness together and operate
extends to my grandson
and she had a dream
in which I’m copying this
in Israel where blood runs through
the pipes where water should flow
then she went on about Mexican
extends to her appearing naked
she touched my genitals but oddly
it wasn’t sexual, genitals never are
in dreams wrong ever since
her life cut off from her sexuality
breakthrough in her behavior
‘her point of view’
the same or entirely same
very long monologue
Abridged
He heard the sermons of insentient beings
But not as he desired
For he heard but did not understand
How do we understand?
By mental effort insight and experience
We verify that something is true
To understand the world we leave it
To understand others we flee from them
To understand ourselves we kill ourselves
But insentient beings
Who receive wind and rain
Do not flee or dissemble
They do not understand they appear
People also appear
In this they too are insentient
When they look at a tree or the sea
The tree or sea speaks
When they look at a person it is the same
When people stop understanding themselves and the world
They become wise as oceans
