Anne Waldman
Pieces of an Hour
preparation: on 6 different days write within the increments of one hour
dear John Cage:
=what?=
=Time me=
TIME E E E E E E E E E E E E E E E
=individual who is=
=effective=
=drama drama=
=but, with a turn of gentry pretension=
=who is=
=pattern in a great part persist=
=ist los?=
=sacred gesture, utilize it=
=what—in counting?=
=4 minutes 33 seconds=
=patrician etiquette=
=of their family=
=daily like is built=
=pieces of an hour=
=1 the cause=
=2 the ceremony=
=minute flicker three=
=you see the inside of her plan=
=on every hour a minute is recorded to match=
=her time=
=prepare the piano=
=it is never wasted=
=meet the man in boulder it is a time=
=Cage’s laugh would wake the dead=
=complex can be cursory=
=intricate palm leaf offering=
=but empirically, it is signal=
=restless, & where=
=dupe of leader=
=ritually a muted one=
=turn to dust=
=pieces of an hour=
=in which a small bolt was living=
=suspended web of significances=
=demand explication=
=undomesticated thought=
=it in motion=
=Tuesday=
=curious=
=coherent cluster=
=endurance=
...................................................................................
=incomplete unfinished animals=
=who complete ourselves through culture=
=through highly particular forms of it=
=Javanese, Hopi, Italian, upper class, lower, middle=
=you are on the fringes too=
=Our plasticity has been remarked upon=
=but even more how dependent on=
=a certain sort of learning=
=weather, stripping, rubbing=
=attainment of this concept I tell you it is true=
=specific systems of symbolic meaning=
=beaver build a dam=
=bird you build your nest today=
=baboon organize into social groups, go do this now=
=mice mate on the basis of forms that rest on instructions=
=coded in their genes=
=they can’t wait to do this=
=& evoked by patterns of external stimuli=
=physical keys inserted into organic locks=
=but women locate food, build dams=
=shelter, organize social groups or find sexual consorts=
=under the guide of instructions=
=encoded in flow charts and blueprints=
=moral systems, aesthetic judgments=
=ground plan of activity=
=second segment of preparations=
=fine eye for detail=
=Wednesday=
=quest: metaphysical entity=
=cultural artifact=
=me au dessus piano=
=chips, stones, plants=
=I want to tell you a story=
=Henry David Thoreau was one of them=
=and walked=
=wakaru: (to understand) means to be divided=
=widdershins: take the left-hand path=
=baboon you sleep now=
=I am subject that I am object=
=and took to the hills=
=I was a hidden treasure=
=& I loved to be known=
=so I created the world=
=I was a word then I hid my treasure=
=mind is outer space piano: continuous memory=
=penumbral light=
=tiled tight=
=was words then=
=mottled=
=his thought pluck’d a string=
=strain=
=Cage=
=inverts the piano=
=1 minute away awaits a wit=
=without shuffling the debris of monolith intelligence=
=Thursday: mix, a rehearsal=
.................................................................................................