C. ’81
by Alice Notley
People with more money than us
don’t seem to
trust us (not strictly true)
We have hardly any, ever
Maybe they shouldn’t trust us
we’re always looking to borrow
five ten or twenty dollars
we only want to have
just enough money, today
they think it all “goes for pills”
how much do they think pills cost
we have no
expensive habits I mean as in
other people’s worlds
clothes, travel, decor, enter-
tainment we do buy books we don’t have a
phone for seven years, no checking account
Of course I’m not being objective it was my life
As a matter of fact I feel positively defiant about it
I liked our economics they were transparent
I understood money thoroughly
I had guilt from borrowing
but never the guilt of having something
the only thing that suffered was Ted’s
health it suffered considerably
I can’t get at the poem of this
I think of ’81, ’82 as rather ugly years
casting cold shadows black
against the sky of a sun disappearing
but back to economics
nobody trusts the poor
the poor are more interesting than others
almost uniformly
they’re crazed resentful struggling paranoid excessive
anxious about their faded rickety possessions
and their stoops
their patches of sunlight or shade on stoops
their children going wrong
and all the disorder of the garbage cans
everyone else boringly has
clean cold spaces new things
private schools self-filled conversations
rooms full of shadow where rage should be
and the voices
of people subject to the fits of demonic radios in their heads
well I’ve had my radio implant at times
and known people with louder ones
everything the voices scream about
relates to money one
way or another
I’m being self-righteous so
I can own my own past again
and so my present, no bondage or confinement
of shame of not making money
it’s a talent people are born with–poetry isn’t it’s
life’s condition poetry’s so common hardly anyone
can find it
money’s common but much more cornerable
poetry’s air and money’s ore–a certain mineral
that slides across distances into hands it fits
born with a hand shaped like money they say, that
cute clean white hand
I can’t get to the poem of this
though I choke with it again being there
in another decade being here’s not much different
the rage of unremunerated work —
can’t you hear the voice in my head
can’t you hear this fucking voice in my head
of course I’m not right I’m never right
I’m fucking lazy unskilled and you deserve your money
from MYSTERIES OF SMALL HOUSES by Alice Notley
hear the poet read it and
learn about the financial lives of certain poets
in this profile of Bernadette Mayer here:
https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/the-organist/give-everybody-everything-the-financial-life-of-bernadette-mayer