Alice Notley - Play — for 26 voices

(in which the author as a community of voices of the dead discusses Everything)

By ALICE NOTLEY.

B.	Each miraculous word recalls . . . attests . . . causes coherence But sometimes it’s not there . . . is it there?
A.	What do you remember of your lives anyone of you or anything A shape of it? For I’m not at all like you . . .
B.	That’s not what I remember though sometimes pierced Guilt, shock, not a shape But I sometimes remember what never happened in the Of- Ficial World almost someone’s else’s memory It might be Almost in another language.
C.	I can’t find where I put it I mean I don’t I don’t remember where What was a gun or was it a needle What is a needle these words are I’m going to pieces because you What does all that mean I don’t Understand what’s understand?
A.	Any word can be a miracle It has to be to work.
C.	I . . . what do I . . . know
B.	I’m happy to be here It is a place that loves us Or are you, A, the love? Do these words mean Anything here?
D.	We left you but we’re together now, aren’t we?
B.	You never have to know who I am! It’s broken and if I say a broken thing laughing But each one Broke piece knows know who I am — I don’t I don’t want to If there be a who I am.
A.	Because you did something?
E.	We all did something and sometimes we remember it And sometimes we remember the other thing we did that We only remember in dreams I never hated any- One but I don’t want him — someone — to be here I think He wants to kill me . . . that’s what the language might say.
A.	The Old Language?
D.	It’s like splinters in my heart it looks like splinters I see the words as I say them and they’re splinters.
E.	Crows came to tear at me maybe they looked like My black hair I ran and opened the gate they seemed to know they Shouldn’t fly over it there was a platform and I stood on it In the middle of the empty field I didn’t know What to call to I didn’t believe in the gods I Just stood there staring at the crows now walking past The fence I have come to this refuge that is two-feet wide A small platform in the middle of emptiness . . . All my words come from what I’m standing on I remember a dream.
F.	But this is home and we talk to keep it going going on One thing is fishhooks that words are but also see Splinters when I talk Or I say something and see nothing I see an empty plank that I know holds words I don’t have to see them.
B.	I think I may have been two or more people at once. Or are they people or are these words the words for it . . . Over, they brought me over Hover over it I am a- bove it Don’t care what I do we do if I can just Get away Lie to you that it’s fine and escape Remember?
A.	You didn’t care if you did anything you were supposed to.
B.	No I didn’t and as I stand here (are we standing) don’t Communal I don’t sometimes I was transfixed the boy in the wheelchair do we have these words be- cause I don’t remember there was shade and I gave him his sandwich that was different from going to a meeting a- bout running an organization Are these words here?
D.	And when I was . . . crazy — is that a word here? I was underneath — a word? the bed — a word I thought I was under it when I was on it what is under Here there’s no . . . relation I thought so because it was darker I always thought I was under the bed.
A.	Do you remember being in the coffin?
D.	Then you are above it
A.	Do people bring you ever? Now?
B. & D.	No one no one brings us don’t have to be Have to be brought like a child Don’t have to contribute Don’t have to Doing what you say and nobody says What to do. That’s how it’s good.
E.	This word that I won’t — I’m holding it — won’t remember Because it isn’t in the orchestra word might be “Guilt” or it might be “Tribute” I have to stand where the Words come from Others say they come from above.
A.	Or inside?
E.	We’re empty aren’t we They’re what we have On the other “hand” (put hand in quotes) we have kept Talking but what are they now where do they Come from? How did they . . . did we . . . bring them?
C.	I’m always trying to be clear because I still don’t understand what happened They taught me how to kill and I did Is “kill” a word here?
A.	Everyone’s already dead.
F.	It was always important for her — a friend To stay in one room drinking but You don’t drink here.
G.	I feel so free I don’t remember or do I know that What I did might have done I remember suddenly it Was over and I was afraid for an instant then I didn’t know Of what But each word I say implies that I remember it And really we are in each other’s minds.
B.	I’m not sure who I am which of several I don’t have to be someone but should I remember Who I was I seem to remember I think dreams Who I might have been in dreams so I wasn’t always One or married to one or lived in one place or was of one class One social class.
C.	I don’t get it I dreamed about what I’d done awake The same awful thing.
B.	I know where the plastique in the plane is I want the plane to blow up even if I’m on it I’m not going to tell anyone where the plastique is.
C.	What’s plastique?
B.	The plane blew up the words blew up I don’t have what Are they feelings? I can be that one too.
C.	Did you have a job?
B.	What was that oh money Suddenly dead and there’s no money.
C.	Are you still married?
B.	What was that?
A.	You remember enough to use words or are you Are you using words or are we doing that?
B.	We’re not doing that We’re talking without voices
A.	What exactly are you doing, in your estimation?
B.	Com- mun- i- cat- ing!
C.	It’s about a belt buckle shine it clank it I don’t really have it turquoise and silver a way to Think even think to you.
F.	Are we even different from each other If we’ve forgotten our tragedies or even small things?
C.	I didn’t forget all of it.
B.	Why can’t I forget things I didn’t do?
F.	But who or what is defining us? There was supposed to be a god and he had the Definitions.
C.	I don’t remember what a definition is I’ve been dead longer I don’t really remember what Longer is just that you say it.
E.	But we’re troubled.
D.	I really was two people, B!
B.	Everyone is more than one that’s what we’re all Saying.
C.	Am I?
G.	And now what are we now? Should we remember I feel that we’re supposed to remember enough to . . . to . . .cohere I mean without a body And we remember how to say Something to say Something to say soul
F.	There was supposed to be a god.
A.	I think that’s me but I’m trying to think of another Word for it.
E.	It’s just a job She’s always held it down She’s showing us the face we can see But she’s The whole thing we’re in But we’re each equal to This experience.
D.	I think I think I’m in joy But I never was be- Fore do I want it And the birds do they have to think Do we each have to be . . .
E.	Defined?
A.	I don’t know I’m only everywhere
B.	I remember again being someone I never was was I I can’t select the one I want to say I was As I knew The location of the plastique on the airplane I dreamed I flew on I don’t know why I wanted it to blow up I saw a man Of authority and didn’t tell him I hadn’t placed it But seemed to be the only one who knew This made sense Because your real identity is so deep anyone can seem To be you And now that I’m dead confronted with who I Am only who is it I am it and can’t escape the stranger.
A.	If everything you might have done falls away like rags Everything said to be wrong or exceptional . . .
B.	If the airplane was symbolic I still had the i- Dentity of a mass murderer.
C.	I was a murderer!
D.	But that was war that wasn’t you!
C.	It’s all I remember.
E.	Not all.
D.	We should remember anything we please The memories don’t have to be ours after all ac- Cording to the prevalent reasoning here.
E.	“Prevalent” a good word but shouldn’t we be True to ourselves I can’t say anything that isn’t True to me.
D.	How do you know?
F.	Nothing none of this matters don’t you get it? There’s no matter and nothing matters except may- Be there’s spiritual matter we sort of see each other And where we are nowhere darkness with light or a field When E said crows I saw crows and felt I was on an Airplane when B spoke But if I had been an ancient human What would I see?
G.	When I used to think I was under the bed when I These words what is bed now I used to think I was under it I was lying flat on the bed I thought I was under Now there’s no “on” or “under” but I would lie there And see that someone meant me harm I was wrong I’m not sure about the words “harm” and “wrong” — And I saw four powers or forces one time under the bed Four round yellow lights that came to me with faces Barely drawn on them and spoke: I will help you get what you want one said if you’ll get angry I don’t think she’s playing you fair another said The third said you are really . . . what did the third and fourth say? They may have started to teach me The Old Language Because I was going to die young. You actually have to find it The Old Language Every word has to ring true . . .
E.	When the words come from what I’m standing on Come from the ground.
A.	In English?
E.	In Communication. I stood watching the crows that wanted to attack me because . . . It’s getting harder to remember what I did To say it Feels silly To say that vicious birds were after me is Better There are no dreams here in death so what was once Dreamed is now a valid memory holding together Holds the universe in place since something is remembered Otherwise . . .
F.	I remember that she no one here had to stay in one room drinking I don’t remember who she was anymore but I remember something She wanted the feeling of being drunk that was all she wanted Never seemed like anything to me just a feeling it would Get harder and harder to talk to her then she would pass out There’s no way to judge these things except whether or not You wanted to be there The wind would break things It wasn’t yourself There’s no wind here.
G.	I may have been an emperor I may have thought I was divine I may have been unable to leave that Thought until now we are all divine we have no power Do we?
C.	We do have power because we never disappear I Have thought I wanted to but couldn’t is that power? You can’t destroy yourself There is only The power of being stretched everywhere it has No rules no dimensions the universe can be contained In a drinking cup or a small room the universe of souls Some used to say it could be held in your brain but brain- Less one is it And I’m still pricked by the memories of a per- Son little sparks though I wonder if I have the right To remember that I killed people or . . . anything What is the point it holds us together I want to re- Member how to be a rock that would be better But I may be starting to remember . . . before I was born When we left you A and the sun so tiny or so equal Became all-important to one planet in a drinking glass of infinity.
D.	Is this then The Old Language? you might ask.
C.	For I can speak in ways equal to my needs Exactly the mortaring of the Vietnamese school house and I re- Member what those words mean right now but often I remember playing that’s all playing.
A.	I who am everything’s container or Great Soul I who was left Before everyone’s birth will never belong to myself Can only love you . . .
C.	You can’t belong to yourself you’re the only one Who can’t . . .
A.	I’m everything I can’t explain anything
F.	Nothing has to be explained if you’re dead Are we relating to each other? Or are we related Does it matter I should ask But there’s no act- Ion nothing to do here I haven’t been dead that long It isn’t like the woman who only wanted to drink in a room Though I see that some are brooding . . . It isn’t like anything Else though it feels familiar It isn’t that jarring That your circumstances or what you thought was your Life don’t have that much to do with it.
B.	My life had nothing to do with who I am here The things I remember whose were they?
G.	I was bowed down to Do I remember that?
F.	Wasn’t that useless?
G.	It has become almost my only memory that can’t be true I am singular I am emperor.
F.	A noun?
G.	The one true noun and I could have people destroyed Killed by soldiers like C the sun lit my way in the drinking glass.
F.	Then you are . . . ancient.
G.	There’s no time here.
F.	I still remember time.
H.	I am entering I am still in pain but where is it? It’s the only ghost pain I feel as if I know some or all of you I can’t find my hat.
I.	I’m I’m in pieces I mean I’m blown up but I’m one thing I saw my body explode I hovered above it one thing. I don’t know when it’s still true.
J.	And I was shot and I was shot on a street!
K.	I’m entering too to listen but I’ll speak soon I’ve been here be- Fore I mean awhile as I slip into this form of language.
H.	“This form of language”?
I.	How did I get all my pieces back? if I’m one thing speaking . . .
J.	You aren’t you’re dead this is to be dead you’re all right . . . I need to need to speak because nothing bad happened As far as I remember except “loss” but that word doesn’t Go here everyone’s here again everything’s here . . . without Necessarily remembering who someone was to you or is It that it changes to some . . . “stasis” is the word . . . from Before you were born Am I too starting to remember from Before? And if we are something to each other from before But it’s in The Old Language which I recently discovered And since have lost certain memories and refound others . . .
B.	Are they your memories?
F.	Oh I don’t know That I knew the woman who drank Alone in a room is a new memory She did it to remember In fact something about her mother The leaves were gold Outside her window the autumn leaves that’s just language?
A.	Which language?
G.	I used to speak another language or more than one The people I knew had different minds I think “minds” From yours in the sense that the language they spoke in . . . Their minds pulled them no they were their minds their minds Used them But yours do too They were we were . . . more Cruel maybe Our words trapped others more . . . often And to speak well was the greatest art Now we’re all Dead all of that people and this is no tragedy happening to all Our culture’s like a song leaving the area of one’s Ear and I built roads and viaducts there are none here.
A.	I remember that I am a vast cosmic texture or design Like an all-encompassing but gentle storm or weather A purple fingerprint but irregular because irregularity’s the norm.
E.	And I watched the words that arose from beneath my feet In the field in the dark entrap me they named what I had done Though I forgot it again In the heart of human actuality There is a play between words and action they cannot be separate The Old Language But The Old Language is for us here us where there is no action.
I.	Do I care about anything human anything I did as one Will I be asked to care does anyone ask one to care?
B.	You may ask yourself but I will never ask you.
I.	I saw myself blown to pieces I can never care what that bo- Dy thought or do I care for someone my mother bent over my cof- Fin and I am in it in pieces but I’m above it one thing ludi- Crous where did that word come from “ludicrous”? I learned it in school the meaning of “school” do I care About “school”? What was I doing in a “war” w a r Does any thing — thing — make sense what are those “make sense”.
F.	It’s not so bad here.
J.	It was about . . . culture they said . . . race.
F.	It all dissolves here.
J.	But should it? And it was what I “cared” “about”!
A.	I care for you.
J.	And that’s different.
A.	I am care So you don’t have to care about caring.
J.	What do we do?
F.	Excuse me but I have wanted so to speak the intensity the juiciness Of the physical in earthly existence the colors tastes the senses not As deceivers but factual by being there as they were — Are embedded in The Old Language here in mind they are For we existed before and Life came from us not from nowhere — do you follow? I say that nothing is original with itself.
A.	But I am.
L.	Are you?
A.	. . . I am the universe of soul I keep ever with Me that I am that I was once and always . . . Why should any- Thing have a cause or source? Things emanate from each Other perhaps the way you are mirrors but I’m on- Ly light striking you all I ever And have self none . . .
H.	I get it there’s no action but that isn’t boring You can only be bored in time.
C.	There is something here that passes there is a kind Of change But what you find was always there . . . I am finding what I wish to find in myself A goodness despite what I did but I have to hate A word like goodness as a word before I can find it I know I never was as I was defined But I was And outside of time . . . But I knew I’d Wind up here anyway and what I did would too . . .
L.	But your victims were in their senses!
C.	We did become caught in a dream and cause it to . . . Because “I” “didn’t” “do” “it” I was dreaming I did I dreamed I was a sniper in a war . . . All of human History dreamed, just dreamed, as B dreamed she Collaborated with terrorists to blow up a plane!
M.	Excuse me . . . I’m sorry . . . I may have been one Of your victims . . .
N.	Excuse me I am a “mountain”.
M.	But I must discuss with C the concept of forgiveness!
C.	I don’t know if forgiveness has a thing to do with . . . I would have to forgive myself and I don’t want to . . .
M.	And if I forgave you I who resisted and fought your Vicious childish army?
E.	How can you remember to be angry?
M.	It is the surface of anger a recall of its vocabulary
N.	I am the soul of a mountain we have no wars Most Of the universe knows erosion, collision, stasis And such condition and process but not — war — I am listening But your memories are almost of strangers though we be one Thing the soul of previously gravitationally electro- Magnetically unified matter We are the souls of matter That is our definition . . .
C.	Are you suggesting not you N but you M That you might forgive me for killing you if I killed You which neither of us will ever know?
M.	For it seems to me that dead we are the same.
N.	And could have been a mountain as well as anything.
C.	And I would have shot you for that was my task All I remember is that I kept track of civilians though I Was told not to report them but I thought there should be Some sort of account accounting But I’ll never know . . .
M.	And I was a civilian.
N.	To most of the universe’s souls who also “speak The Old Lang- Uage” your conversation is gibberish.
C.	You don’t have to forgive me I hear that it is right for me to for- Get To forget and to remember Are they properties a soul can con- Trol?
A.	There are no controls.
O.	Excuse me for interrupting . . . But we don’t know do we know what we are as souls?
E.	I think we know everything about ourselves.
C.	All remembering and forgetting being alive in death . . . I can forget but then I might remember Everything is still here but not materially or really The mind keeps it the mind is all there is no place else for Anything to go No place for memory to disappear to.
M.	Therefore you must let me forgive you . . .
C.	I get it a ceremonial transaction.
M.	A healing for both of us how shall we since We are bodiless though have these somehow “images” I will simply say it If you were the one who killed Me I forgive you and I forgive you anyway for hav- Ing been the invading enemy.
C.	Thank you for forgiving me If I killed you I’m Sorry And I have cried out much though not nearly enough Though to whom or what I’m not sure And I gave as Much of my guilt as I found to A who accepts all troubles As packages into her central self but will there always be More?
O.	More thought for the soul seems to be mind but the soul’s Composed as you say of both remembering and forgetting.
A.	I am your heart I am your heart! No one should suf- Fer All your actions were illusions We are only real now!
K.	Before I was born I was here safe but with capacity For I would be genius and stupid but it wasn’t like I took my pick And there was a language before I was born My birth was an effective departure . . . a leaving of grace I left it I left here to become more . . . what would you say?
L.	Concentrated Or what was it we wanted why did we Suddenly want something Is it just a story that gets . . .
K.	Accepted? You keep telling yourself how it happened but Really did any one lousy thing hap-pen? We left that’s all There was a leaving of the safe blissful country That’s how you’d tell it but first we had to learn how to tell That was time. To tell a story.
D.	We should tell anything we want to We should make Anything we want be true We should say we remember what- Ever Or else I’m stuck with a memory of and what was that? “Mental Illness” that I wasn’t formed like you I’m Searching for these searing words again Do I “have to”? Which words mean a thing? and the white dove the white Dove flies deliberately into pointed wires and bleeds But not recalling exactly or how I left heaven the one of Before I was born a baby or what they call a Lunatic.
A.	We were all there and then you left perfect and then you broke it. I never said anyone should leave me and live in a universe . . . you left me!
K.	It’s . . . and I’m speaking it do you hear it (mimes Speaking) You know what I say you just know what I Say It holds the silence together (long moment of miming) It isn’t gestural I’ve always known what you were say- Ing whoever you are And oh the elephant souls impatient With my tiny former language would say EXPAND In their mind of it All this soul all this soul like the one word BOO!
L.	D, everything everything they said about you . . .
D.	I wasn’t real anymore But I was Here it’s far away But I still locate a memory professing to be true and hurtful But what hurts if I have no I have no parts or part.
B.	They would say some would say I am avoiding who I am or was Perhaps I had no one to be or wanted Nothing definite within in the way that you say who you are I had no purpose . . . Good.
P.	I . . . have no way to tell you what I am.
Q.	Nor I.
R.	Nor I.
P.	I am something of no mind or body as even a cloud but I speak The Old Language I might be a bit of material Intensity.
Q.	I am very complex.
R.	I took up a lot of “space” alive and am an aggregate of soul Is that possible? In unity without disorder but al- So without regularity I . . . we . . . billions . . .
S.	I am a soul and that is the only thing that I am.
J.	“Justice” I must think “Justice” Cannot give in to The Old Language which is pulling at me that I’d forget about What is right what I think is . . . I can’t remember what it is or rather It has no force All force or power lies in existing and I am though not a . . . What was “body”?
Q.	I think I was what you’d have called a body nebular . . . Floating thinking in my way Larger . . . now we’re all the same “Size” the word “size” . . .
I.	I had a happy childhood then I was blown up I Had a childhood with others full of light . . . full of bright Light then blown up It’s as if someone put my pieces back to- Gether was it you A?
A.	I concentrated very hard on you I knew you had To be put back together As with much else I don’t know How it was done And you were dead for awhile Then suddenly reappeared pale but whole . . . a whole soul Is that real or true?
I.	It’s real and true.
J.	Justice . . . will someone in my life exact justice for my shooting death on a street I was supposed to say . . . that . . . what do I really want to say? There is another way of speaking tugging at me That the beauty I am reading off a . . . slab of stone-like Surface Tells me that wasn’t my life or even my pain It was the active choice of an expiring collective a whim of Everyone’s . . . least rigorous that is . . . tackiest thought Your true life or self is here in death it says the former collective is gone.
P.	It was that none like you were ever where I was or In my mind till now I find no descriptive means for my- Self in you I am consulting the tables of The Old Language There is nothing but connection Yes that was What I was an entity composed of connections That could also be connection outward . . . to you . . .
S.	Is that what I am too? I’ve lost memory of all I Was before . . .
P.	I was . . . probably material
H.	Would anyone like to — I’ve forgotten — oh art let’s talk about Art do we do that here?
K.	(Mimes talking awhile, then) Did you hear me talking about art?
H.	I like the part about non-tangible representation and the Colors of cognition which seem to include both the bright and the subtle.
S.	I have incorporated them into my incorporeal capacity But I always knew the colors The language that portrays You so that you are finally doesn’t extend to me.
E.	You do nothing here so everything you do here is good.
A.	You left me and so but what follows isn’t sequential until . . . The creation of matter.
P.	You never had a name for me some bit of floating connectivity or matter.
Q.	You called me “nebula”.
R.	You called me “quasar”.
O.	I messed up I’m sure I messed up Then I think I was the only One that was right What were we thinking of what was I thinking Politics poetry dance the most avant-garde was what . . . I like it here because I don’t have to worry about what I’m Like But traces of what I did bother me Though like you others I can’t always remember what I did That I thought that I was In some sense the only the only one? one what? The only one conscious or liberatingly not conscious? Am I conscious now are we conscious or only as conscious as Birds once seemed do birds have an unconscious un- Conscious was what? Is my mind pleasingly formless?
T.	I’m entering now have I been here before? It was the repetition that I hated taking the train Walking to the same This is like repetition as one thing I don’t know who I was it must not have been important Or maybe I’ll know soon I’ll say I don’t yet know who I was.
B.	Do you remember being several others or anyone at all?
T.	I have no idea.
F.	It’s possible that dying shocked you that you’re like an amnesiac.
T.	I don’t mind this condition at all.
S.	But you’re not like me a pure soul an essential being.
T.	No or not yet I’m clear that I’ve forgotten but not how to talk But where do the words come from they feel like they’re supposed to have a source
O.	As in your personality?
T.	That word — personality — seems meaningless.
E.	I feel as if I’m standing on the platform again near the Crows But they’ve lost interest in me they’re turning away from The fence flying up head back to their trees The words Are still coming from below my feet They enter what would Be my body almost as if I could dance them They Were never learned They are anything anything at all.
A.	What do you “mean” You all left me and made meaning . . . You invented the damned universe!
E.	You can save it because you’ve never really wanted to.
A.	Why should it be saved? in fact it’s dissolving but Needs to be loved because . . . that’s all I can do I’m doing it loving it into self-recognition as love, as it Falls apart But nobody knows I’m that one who Loves because I don’t fit their image of . . . of . . . They’ve, you’ve, trained yourselves to be “cut and dried” Now here you are becoming your souls wondering why you Bothered with all that Survival shelter performance Weren’t you all splendid!
E:	I don’t know if I’m standing here because I’m guilty or Because someone wants to kill me though they can’t But in life . . . Doesn’t someone always want you dead? I’m Paralyzed by having been thought ill of once by a pack of Pseudo politicians who place a black wreath on my door They run in packs they think they’re calling you Out like the crows the crows a human vicious- Ness that maintains that the group knows and the group But why does it hate want to hate why should it?
A:	Why should you all have left me But I’m now caught in reason- Ing because you invented reason It is often reasonable To kill It isn’t if you don’t practice reason But reasonably . . You’d realize you don’t really die, if you’d only remember.
C:	The truth of existence isn’t reasonable who we are I’m thinking of my bolo tie turquoise silver it Was my bolo tie not belt buckle because unreasonably I forgot.
B.	The boy in the wheelchair was paralyzed His mother made Him a marshmallow-spread and peanut-butter sandwich This is one true thing I guess I was a volunteer Everyone volunteers to be finally or not Was I suicidal Wasn’t that said to be a condition Maybe I was that Would that have made any difference? I’d still be here like this.
G.	Everyone thought I was a god I don’t believe any emperor Was suicidal.
N.	The mountain too would die like everything else in This universe worn down in dissolution become dust Then naught With a guide But I was your companion If you saw me often And I spoke to you in The Old Language. Though you didn’t know.
S.	I sort of knew who I was but it’s become texture I don’t seem to need it anymore not full-blown I’m cov- Ered in shimmering bits it’s part of my non-specificity Some specific “things” that probably “happened” after I was born Right before I died. I guess I was a baby.
F.	The woman who liked to drink alone in a room once said That when she was young she was attractive and that was part of Being drunk people got drunk with her a lot Later She just got drunk I never liked to drink much I would just listen.
U.	Nothing much happens Or you would try to make it happen your- Self and it wouldn’t Then one day a big thing would come about Dreadful I could never make anything happen I wanted To lead you to glory But I couldn’t define glory now I’m dead I was told there was glory or was it change Or was it vindication Or were all of those nothing? Obviously they were nothing.
V.	Oooooh! There is no victory! What word is right? I’m covered with Blood having died for . . . I’ve forgotten! Died for died for All . . . the people I just killed are here . . . but the heaven for me . . . what is this?
A.	It’s for everyone anyone You must have believed what you were told.
V.	This must be a bad dream I’ll wake up and kill you too But the people . . . I recognize you I just plowed into you in a truck
W.	Am I hurt I mean not hurt now am I dead? I got run over . . .
R.	This is all so different for us we are an aggregate a Quasar system I tended to speak for them but now they’re Scattering I hear their signals radio signals in The Old Language.
L.	I remember before I was born but I didn’t want to before I valued so my friends on earth and wanted only to be reunited With my crazy mother. But I remember we were all intimate R were you like that?
R.	It doesn’t correspond Can’t find and they were blips We reached each other across entity The stars keep in touch Grotesque? and then one left dying the rest soul or souls Of the dead I was the huge one eye Found out ev- Ery thing without passion It may be a meaningless universe.
A.	If only people didn’t make others be a certain way by Using words! They force each other to believe what they say.
B.	In The Old Language which is largely telepathic we speak Composed of every that comes to be as we go And you see the florette or tree I present to you remembered in your Mental eye then maybe a whistle or note the word oh I Don’t know, a layer of ice Ice was good An example Hoo hoo Ice cap It came down To be the ocean rising Everyone’s jackals (yelps) everyone Tries to l e a v e ! the flooding or desiccated locale.
M.	In my I guess it was country everyone teared up at songs I can show you that in mind with sad girl in jungle . . . image The song is “Loss of Splendors” goes by fast we think fast And it was lost but somewhere it is as words or mind.
B.	The mind plays all of a Bartok quartet to you In one sec Because you know it.
H.	Interesting I hear it.
J.	Justice the language says being unnecessary remember she is wearing cloth on Eyes that we don’t have cloth or eyes but remembering fast fast fast fast.
A.	Does it have to be fast?
J.	The words slower and superimposed on each other or scar We don’t have that scar It was sometimes beautiful as symbolic As a word.
U.	I tried to get a scar.
V.	I ran over those people in a truck doesn’t anyone care?
A.	Cars were your worst invention You kill your planet with them . . .
U.	I guess I’m a cynic couldn’t lead couldn’t follow why Bother Now am I only a language or was I that always?
T.	It sounds like we left here so we could be more involved . . . in . . . in . . .
I.	Okay I’ll just forget and remember forget dying remem- Ber pre-birth I’ve always known all of you then and Are you my pieces my real pieces then?
A.	I keep picking them up Too many pieces everyone’s But there is an onslaught of dead children here.
W.	So . . . always the same of more . . . Mommy . . .
A.	You are part of us now It will be fine.
W.	It hurt!
A.	I know Your mom will be along soon.
F.	Child, this is your home.
W.	But it hurt!
D.	I remember you, little girl But you weren’t in time.
L.	It’s all tiny human activity we were like ants Though ants were like ants and you can talk to them here.
K.	I wanted to be safe here dead and I always was That’s what you know someone in you knew it
L.	One of us One of us would go first dying or returning to “Be- Fore Birth” like a scout always is doing it always is Talking talking I know it hurt honey.
P.	It is pleasure to connect or communicate Why There Has to be individuality first for that clear- Ly to please for something to please rationali- Ty comes into existence after please BUT I I have absorbed all your castaway con- Nections thoughtfulness I was tissue-like what you may have been Formed of But there has never been any- thing we nee- Ded Or did we form ourselves after pre-birth in order to — To need?
Q.	I suspect I had beauty How I have a soul: everything Does How can that be: we are all of the pre-birth entity For there to be this they said there had to be a Bit of something from somewhere else
A.	It was and is all of beauty . . . I am doing this for you there’s no way I can do any- Thing for myself Though I’m self-sufficient.
T.	I can’t remember connecting to others Maybe I tried not to Maybe they were too selfish Everything feels contradictory It seems to me I may have been a priest but what was that?
G.	They read the entrails of birds They killed animals in sacrifice.
X.	I was a dove all I know all I know oh oh oh Am I and am I learn am I am learning The Old Language? So more beauty boundless The shoreline of the river quickly.
Y.	Hello. I think you thought I was tiny a “virus” Maybe I was in group soul or maybe all of you were Someone said “grotesque” it isn’t in The Old Language . . . and We thought of each other as splendid conquerors . . . brilliant mirrors I Suppose I do I remember before I . . . before there were viruses I remember you, A the memory of a soul of pre-birth laced With a possible knowledge derived from a short life You have to be able to remember how to take over repro- Duce oh there’s only memory as has been said where Does it all go? And soul begins to remember how to be “here”.
S.	To return to it is the only “nature” Return to soul
V.	What am I supposed to think of myself?
S.	In The Old Language you will know.
V.	I killed 84 people almost gleefully what’s gleefully?
Y.	I killed in an infinitude of . . . reproduction I have always been a- Live in my race establishing myself through malady — Can I even be dead? Must I find souls of the others of my kind To be near? Or am I too finally soulful?
E.	The Old Language: it glitters like fibers if you have eyes You see the words that you say or think as “matter” Spiritual matter They are all there is all I am.
F.	A man once came into the store . . . and that’s all There were windows all across the front Always sun When you go to heaven you hold pools of light in mind!
Z.	So finality comes and isn’t final There was nothing to know I was a queer who knew everything But there was nothing to know.
G.	I tried to extend and consolidate the . . . the empire . . . Murdered Well why not? That I was murdered or that I murdered . .
A.	Evil seems to be nothing It’s just absorbed I absorb it loving am I helpless not if I’m everything So it’s come down to this I Am it all I’ve always been the only one willing to hold down the job Is that it The absorber of good and evil if those exist All the lives Come to me Perhaps someone or something else is being it too . . .
Z.	It’s you it doesn’t matter if it’s you.
A.	No it doesn’t But it had to be . . . now I remember I as if “I” were that word I am being there being left.
G.	There have been a succession of old languages but only one The Old Language You we embodied it and when we left you Broke off into what we called words differences we were Those And mine was a civilization of orators But poets Made structures like people dense and layered and mysterious.
H.	Everyone was always making art Our minds here Make it though Can anyone make anything I Suppose not everyone wants to make a thing But we’re Making art speaking.
G.	I tried to construct a world I perceived ev- Erything as materials for buildings better than We than nature.
N.	I suppose you think that I a mountain am “nature”.
Z.	In The Old Language I am real You are the real One, A but I am real get it? I don’t want to be you Or any particularity Sex the nothing that is, Earth sex has vanished into a still constant moment nothing here Has to build like the sex act does.
Q.	It’s that I am that’s The Old Language Purple or Purpuration see it a cloud lit from within then almost vanish But never I’m still talking in your mind you are the monarch in Your mind I’m seeing my self in the mirror of your mind.
O.	I was swaying I was swayed I left you A, your transcendental Hostel Became obviously hostile Camp obviator see Collage word coilage or call to split We tear away tore off From A Then there were pieces and wouldn’t necessarily Fit again I see a fit I had once but I’m whistling I cried and Borrowed emotions from wherever they come from Maybe there aren’t any really that’s right Convey these Thoughts now partly sung and stamped on non-existent paper.
Q.	I get it how fast faster than anything that came after it Is thought and your thought to me. So fast it’s static.
R.	Bodies were locations even clumps of them now souls are no Time and space though so they’re no-cations So then you talk to a Formerly small body.
X.	Ooo-oo oo oo I still speak too in my medieval lament Though am never sorry Died and eaten it was always beauty.
K.	The Old Language is our veritable stuff most essen- Tial essence ah ha the only thing we are being a poetry You cannot exist dead or alive without being poetry Measured speech they used to say but measure Blends and stacks up and intertwines more and more to form Do you get it all that is so you’re doing it right now.
X.	Wings I remember I was wings and I was tried But they were scalloped Anyone here can “know” them.
Y.	We killed so many larger than us larger than us.
Z.	I’m just not going to remember I don’t know my lovers It was all one night one layer of melting snow renewed one breath.
T.	I was out of breath I was very ill they closed my cof- Fin had I died I can’t remember the “established” sequence Of events So they were kind enough to carry me I was already here what would I do with my vocation dead? What would I do with my love? but I am that here I am myself here.
A.	I exist unwoven but adhering and the slabs of words and fates Appear dissolve alternatively Going to be waves or particles Thought or matter it says people and thing The dove will be- Lieve its trajectory The quasar will take eons to fall apart sig- Nalling And in my language the letters per- vade my spirit flesh-like.
N.	Before I was formed I loved you A wasn’t that enough No at the time not for any of us or it and we were one language Worse we glowed of it When I was wounded and stricken during The universe’s conception becoming a mountain when I was Hurt I became able to endure and to inspire in the new Way of speaking Did I have to do that and I’m back and Have nothing What is it for? There is no “for”.
R.	And you are bigger than I am A not as a human but as The whole of “before one was born” containing all its inscriptions Appearing transforming dissolving But we did stick together The memory thing Run it fast past you That it doesn’t “boil down” The difference between us is now of no consequence there are no Causes or consequences here Sings it I’m singing it.
G.	That is the only the only power: that we are .
W.	Mommy I don’t know what the word Mommy means I am . . . do I become anything?
A.	You always were it even before you were born.
W.	What?
A.	You.
W.	Oh.
E.	The Old Language the language finally brings me peace Transparent fibers of words that change And I don’t have to stand here But I like to feel them come into and maintain me in infinity.
D.	Let me help you to in our minds step down.
S.	I don’t have to remember anything specific It might pierce me I experience piercingness but do I “Experience”? I was the love there was enough of me to last Everyone had it or was it memory? even the evil ones had it . . .
A.	I take them all in I just take them in I have enough for everyone.

♦

Alice Notley has published over forty books of poetry, most recently For the Ride (Penguin Books) and Eurynome’s Sandals (PURH). She has received many awards including the Academy of American Poets’ Lenore Marshall Prize, the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Award, the Griffin International Prize, two NEA Grants, the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Poetry, and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, a lifetime achievement award. She lives and writes in Paris.

NOTE: From Peter Riley: ‘Alice can be seen reading ‘Play’ in Salford on 20th November 2019, here. This may be useful because it is long (actually almost an hour) and the video could keep you on track through the unrelenting precarious continuity here and there, though I wouldn’t want to attempt hearing it as it fully is without the script.

Play — for 26 voices.

(in which the author as a community of voices of the dead discusses Everything)

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