My Vocabulary Did This to Me

by Jack Spicer

  “My stories do not depend on the Jews,” I said.

  “Yes?” S. said nastily. “I’ve had them retold to me, you know. Abie Adam, and Ikey Noah, and Isadore Lot of Hillel House. Why don’t you tell a story with an Aryan hero in it?”

  “Orpheus?”

  “Orpheus.”

  “I’d better take up the story here myself,” Thomas Wentworth Higginson said as he nervously rubbed one of the rings on his shining hands with his handkerchief. “I was one of those who met Orpheus. It is really a delightful story.

  “We were having a party. Everyone was there. Tata was sitting on the black chaise lounge holding court—”

  “Tata?” S. interrupted.

  “The queen. Persephone, my dear, Persephone. That’s what we always call her. She was wearing the most extravagant feather demichâle and Heurtebise was pouting a little and singing the naughtiest song about his childhood, when suddenly there was the maddest commotion at the door. Somebody was arguing with the butler.

  “Well, some of us just had to see who it was and what it wanted. Well, there in the doorway looking just about ready to cry was a rather dumpy little human carrying a stringed instrument.

  “In spite of the howling of the butler we invited him in, trying to make him feel as comfortable as was possible. He kept mumbling about looking for somebody but we couldn’t hear him well and we were standing politely away from him because his breath was bad.

  “We left him in the middle of the room and went back to the crowd that was listening to Heurtebise sing. He had just gotten to that incredibly naughty part of the song where he sings ‘Diddle my iddlejums.’ Only a few people turned around to look at Orpheus.”

  “Was Eurydice there?” Mac asked.

  “Oh, yes. She was in the corner of the room giggling with some of the rest of the girls. She was wearing a Russian bathing suit and looked terribly elegant.”

  “Could Orpheus see her?” I asked.

  Thomas Wentworth Higginson looked around at me. “I don’t really know,” he said. “He was gawking around at everything as if he had never been to a party before. Well, anyway I didn’t pay much attention to him for a while and the next time I noticed him he was on his knees in front of poor Miffy singing and making horrible noises on his guitar or whatever it was. Poor Miffy didn’t know what to make of it. She was wearing a very amusing drag outfit—a huge crown made of real pearls and imitation opals and rhinestones and the choicest black ermine robe and, of course, she didn’t know whether the little thing was camping or just utterly, awfully serious. Everything had stopped now and we all were staring at the effect. Tears were running out of his swollen eyes and he was singing, sobbing, and screaming at the same time:

  ‘Black queen, bitch of the heartless night

  Listen in anger while I sing my song.’

  “Suddenly we all started to giggle. The poor thing thought Miffy was Tata.”

  The Angel Higginson stopped and ordered himself another cognac and soda. His small eyes were gleaming.

  “What happened then?” Mac wanted to know.

  “Ask him,” the Angel Higginson said, putting his manicured hand lightly on my shoulder.

  “What happened?” Mac repeated.

  “Nothing happened,” I said. “That’s the end of the story. In later years Orpheus was killed by the god Dionysus, but that was for wholly different reasons.”

  I think that Mac was so frightened and unhappy that he went home to sleep with S. tonight. Neither of them understands elegance.

  “Then Orpheus,” Mac said, “was on a spaceship and Eurydice couldn’t see him anymore.”

  April 1, 1954:

  . . . when suddenly Kathy became something like a life-sized doll and said, “I am imperatrix mundi.” We all stared. She took a Tarot deck out from between her breasts and handed it to Mac. He picked a card and she took the deck from him immediately and picked a card for herself.

  “What on earth is happening?” S. asked. “What cards did you pick?” He reached for the deck himself, but it seemed to cut him—as if the cards were razor blades—and he dropped it and then sat there staring at his bloody hand and then at Mac and Kathy. “Now we have different names,” Kathy said.

  . . . Mr. and Mrs. Doom have been married to each other for almost three years. They are a very pleasant couple. The Angel Higginson cannot see them and says that they are demons.

  April 2, 1954:

  Mrs. Doom seems to follow us everywhere. Today she brought up the question of whether women can be unverts. S., whose hand is still inflamed, made the rather cheap witticism that the limit of a woman’s sexual imagination is to be unmarried. Mrs. Doom, after she had finished laughing at this, launched a long complicated anecdote about how the Dooms had first met S. on a cable car at two in the morning in a previous year and how funny he had been then. She seems sincerely to like him.

  The Angel Higginson did not show up at our table tonight, but I thought I saw him standing outside the bar talking to a policeman.

  April 3, 1954:

  “Why don’t you ever tell us stories like you used to,” Mrs. Doom asked.

  “But I never—”

  “Last year you told us stories,” Mrs. Doom said. “Nice stories, stories about all those lovely people with the funny names.”

  (Mr. Doom just handed me a poem under the table. I don’t believe that anyone noticed.)

  Mrs. Doom turned to S. “Don’t you remember all those lovely stories? You were there too.”

  “Women are the enemies of the sexual imagination,” S. said.

  “Yes, women are the energies of the sexual imagination,” Mrs. Doom said. She began humming to herself. (Mr. Doom just handed me another poem underneath the table.)

  “I’ll tell you a story about Lizzie Borden,” I said. “Lizzie Borden woke up one morning and discovered that she was the last empress on earth. It was a hot July day and she lived in a small town in southern Massachusetts. She had breakfast with her mother and father (bacon and eggs and cold mutton) and then took off all her clothes and proceeded to cut her mother and father to pieces with an ax she had been keeping under her bed.

  “The people of the town (who did not know that Lizzie Borden was the last empress on earth—as indeed she hadn’t been until that very morning) arrested her and brought her to trial. ‘Did you do it and why did you do it?’ the prosecutor asked her. ‘It was exactly like having a baby and besides there were no bloodstains on my clothes,’ she replied. She was triumphantly acquitted and the whole jury thanked her.

  “She moved to a small town in western Massachusetts and decided to do the same thing to poetry that she had done for living. She got herself a new father and began destroying all the objects that could be used in poetry. She started out with things that could be used around the house, like closets and kitchen knives, and went on to abstract words like fear and wisdom and, finally, to God himself. By this time, she had published three series of poems and had destroyed all the objects and emotions that it was possible to have in a small town in western Massachusetts and she began to be tired of her new name.

  “Reading William James convinced her that she should go to Paris and become a Lesbian. She got herself a new mother (who made hot fudge sundaes out of bay leaves and marijuana), and then she bought a lot of shapes and squares and shadows which were really cubed and made out of old newspapers.”

  “And I suppose she murdered the French language as well as English,” Mrs. Doom said. “You artists blame women for everything.”

  “No,” I said, “what she had discovered now is that if you cut words small enough they have to echo. She merely took the words she hadn’t killed and made them repeat themselves forever.”

  (Mr. Doom passed me a broad sheaf of poetry under the table. They are made out of all the words his wife left him.)

  April 4, 1954:

  “You people are dying of angelism,” Mrs. Doom said.

  We were all assembled there. S., Robert Berg the psychia
trist, Kathy and Mac (who had been called up from non-existence for this very purpose), the Angel Higginson (who has become a bat again and is hovering around the chandelier on the second story above the bar), and myself, bound and gagged and carried in by three strangers.

  “Angelism is like giantism or scurvy,” she said. “It is an organic disease usually caused by the presence of an unvert.”

  “That’s what I always said,” Robert Berg shouted. “I always said he was crazy.”

  (I must be crazy. I have become convinced that I am Mr. Doom. S. has also disappeared.)

  “Angelism is merely a symptom of wanting forbidden meanings,” Mac said in a little-boy voice. He has begun dancing a waltz with Kathy.

  “Angelism is merely a symptom of wanting there to be forbidden meanings,” Kathy says sweetly in the middle of a blue waltz.

  “Everything is as quiet as grasshoppers,” says Mr. Doom suddenly. I am Mr. Doom suddenly. I am bound and gagged.

  “There is a psychological reason for grasshoppers being silent,” says Robert Berg, the psychiatrist. “Grasshoppers do not know how to keep themselves from dying. They suffer from angelism.”

  The Angel Higginson swoops down from the ceiling suddenly and onto Robert Berg’s shoulder. “Haven’t you ever wanted to be an angel?” he asks.

  Berg looks over his shoulder without wonder. “Haven’t you ever wanted not to be an angel,” he asks. “Not to be different. To be able to sleep at the time everybody sleeps. To lose your shape gradually instead of your wings.”

  “A grasshopper is crawling on my grave,” Mr. Doom says.

  “Quiet!” says Mrs. Doom. “Quiet. Once men get old enough they learn how to keep quiet. All of you men are old enough.”

  The Angel Higginson, looking quite angry and absurd, flies into her face on his little wings. She smashes him onto the table with one slap and signals to the waiter to take the dead insect away.

  “We are here tonight,” she says, “to explain away contagious angelism. The prisoner (looking at me) will be questioned about his beliefs and judged according to his answers. Does anyone here take shorthand?”

  “I take shorthand,” Kathy says, grinning at Mac.

  “You will start recording with exact accuracy everything that is said. Otherwise the defendant will invent his own questions and answers afterwards.”

  “But who will be the jury?” Mr. Doom asks.

  “After the trial we will leave the defendant alone in a room with the transcript of the trial and a loaded revolver,” Mrs. Doom answers carefully. “What could be fairer than that?”

  A TRANSCRIPT OF THE TRIAL OF OLIVER CHARMING, HELD AT THE BLACK CAT, APRIL 5, 1954

  MRS. DOOM: Let the record show that the defense is allowed to appoint any attorneys he desires.

  MR. DOOM (I am still bound and gagged): I appoint Perry Mason, your honor.

  MRS. DOOM: Let the record show that Perry Mason has entered the courtroom.

  (Perry Mason enters the courtroom carrying a briefcase, attended by Della Street and Paul Drake.)

  PERRY MASON: May I have a conference with my client, your honor?

  MRS. DOOM: Your client is bound and gagged. You can only swear him in as a hostile witness

  (Paul Drake hands Perry Mason three large photographs.)

  PERRY MASON: We can prove, your honor—

  MRS. DOOM: Let the record show that the District Attorney, R. Hamilton Burger, has entered the courtroom.

  (R. Hamilton Burger enters the courtroom carrying a tape-recorder.)

  PERRY MASON: We can prove, your honor—

  MRS. DOOM: The defense attorney will be silent. He will meditate on how silent a man is who has just died of stomach cancer.

  PERRY MASON: Yes, your honor.

  MR. DOOM (starting to masturbate): This is not a fair trial.

  MRS. DOOM: There will be order in the court. We will hear the district attorney’s opening statement.

  R. HAMILTON BURGER: Your honor, the crime of angelism is itself so unintentional that it stamps the faces of those who are about to be convicted of it with an innocence that makes them certain of being convicted. The crime, however, must be defined before the face of the criminal can be destroyed.

  (Paul Drake rushes into the courtroom and hands some papers to Perry Mason. Mason reads them and addresses the court with excitement.)

  PERRY MASON: Your honor, I have evidence to prove that my client does not exist.

  MRS. DOOM: This evidence was already ruled inadmissible. Proceed with your statement, Mr. Burger.

  R. HAMILTON BURGER: Look at man basically, your honor. He is a child. He wants to grow up. As soon as he realizes he is too old to grow up, he dies. Somebody shoots him or stabs him or he dies of pneumonia or a heart attack or commits suicide. This is what we in law call the basic law. Angelism is like leprosy. It tries to thwart the basic nature of man. It cannot succeed. That is its basic treason. If it could succeed, if the leprous person by having his face eaten away could make his bones seem so beautiful that all men would kiss them, if leprosy exposed the heart and the heart only, man (and nature) would not consider leprosy a crime. If there were any secrets the broken skin could lay bare, if the broken skin could display anything else but broken skin. But, your honor, you know, I know, all men know, there is nothing broken flesh can expose but more broken flesh.

  PERRY MASON: Your honor, I object. My client is not accused of leprosy.

  R. HAMILTON BURGER: I accuse him of leprosy.

  MRS. DOOM: The attorneys will refrain from personality.

  R. HAMILTON BURGER: Yes, your honor. I will sum up briefly the charges I intend to prove against the accused, against that criminal who lies bound, gagged, and bewildered in the corner, against, and I am not afraid to name him in spite of the many names he is accused of using, against Oliver Charming.

  (R. Hamilton Burger sits down.)

  DELLA STREET (whispering to Perry Mason): Chief, he’s forgotten to state the charge.

  PERRY MASON (whispering back): It may be a trap, Della.

  MRS. DOOM: There will be order in the court. The prosecution will proceed with its witnesses.

  R. HAMILTON BURGER: The first witness that the state wishes to call is S.

  PAUL DRAKE (whispering to Perry Mason): You can tear him to shreds on cross-examination, Perry.

  PERRY MASON (whispering back): I’m not so sure, Paul. There’s something different about this case.

  MRS. DOOM: Let the witness be sworn.

  (S. is sworn.)

  R. HAMILTON BURGER: Are you acquainted with the defendant?

  II (1956–1965)

  SAN FRANCISCO (1956–1965)

  “POETRY AS MAGIC” WORKSHOP

  This questionnaire is in no sense designed to indicate whether you can write poetry. Since the workshop is limited to 15 people, I must have some guide as to which of you would most benefit from a workshop of this particular content. Some of the questions will seem bizarre or pointless, but it would be useful if you would answer all of them as precisely as possible.

  A list of those selected will be posted on Thursday, February 21, on the main bulletin board of the Library and at the Poetry Center, S. F. State College, Juniper 4-2300, Ext. 251.

  I. POLITICS

  1. What is your favorite political song?

  ___________________________________________________________

  2. If you had a chance to eliminate three political figures in the world, which would you choose?

  1.

  ___________________________________________________________

  2.

  ___________________________________________________________

  3.

  ___________________________________________________________

  3. What political group, slogan, or idea in the world today has the most to do with Magic?

  _______________________________________________________________

  ______________________________. With Poetry?__________________
___

  _______________________________________________________________

  4. Who were the Lovestoneites?

  II. RELIGION

  1. Which one of these figures had or represented religious views nearest to your own religious views? Which furthest? Jesus, Emperor Julian, Diogenes, Buddha, Confucius, Marcus Aurelius, Lao Tse, Socrates, Dionysus, Apollo, Hermes Trismegistus, Li Po, Heraclitus, Epicurus, Apollonius of Tyana, Simon Magus, Zoroaster, Mohammed, the White Goddess, Cicero.

  Nearest ___________________. Furthest____________________.

  2. Classify this set of figures in the same way. Calvin, Kierkegaard, Suzuki, Schweitzer, Marx, Russell, St.Thomas Aquinas, Luther, St. Augustine, Santayana, the Mad Bomber, Marquis de Sade, Yeats, Gandhi, William James, Hitler, C.S. Lewis, Proust.

  Nearest ___________________. Furthest____________________.

  3. What is your favorite book of the Bible? ______________________________.

  III. HISTORY

  1. Give the approximate date of the following people or events:

  Plato ______ Buddha ______ The Battle of Waterloo ______ Dante ______

  The invention of printing ____ Nero _______ Chaucer _______

  The unification of Italy _____ Joan of Arc _______

  2. Write a paragraph about how the fall of Rome affected modern poetry.

  IV. POETRY

  1. If you were editing a magazine and had an unlimited budget, which poets would you first ask for contributions?

  __________________________________________________________________

  __________________________________________________________________

  __________________________________________________________________

  V. PERSONAL

  1. Name: _____________________ Address: ___________________________

  Age: __________ Sex: __________ City: ___________ Phone: ____________

  Height: _______ Weight: _______ Married or unmarried: _______________

  2. What animal do you most resemble? _________________________________