Alice Notley
[I stand here in whose eyes]
[I stand here in whose eyes]
I stand here in whose eyes
the name of light is audience
burning into my forehead
waitresses' voices along the spine
if what was once light
isn't
my audience
what are you doing to me?
who was I broken for
was it worth it to be?
If l'm a shade
acting
what once will occur
it must be for the song I wore
hear what they all said to you
a gesture or tone: someone lies
in the intentional tongue
betraying you again and again
the one
or the many
whose thoughts I stand here before
Because there's no light, what an
outrage
was made of the science
of definitions
like what happened to me
performing here in a mad scene
not
and never mad
I hadn't seen clearly until I enacted her