by CAConrad

“The tomato

Missed.

Being intended

to hit god

it hit his mother

I speak for

her.”

–from Sorry, Tree (Wave Books, 2007)

My friends and I waited in the theater to see Eileen Myles appear in the Harry Dodge film. “THERE SHE IS!” It was great! It was weird too seeing her walking but not in person, not at one of her famous poetry readings, meaning any of her poetry readings because she never gives less than a 100 percent. But there she was walking up flights of steps. Dirty, sweaty, carrying containers of water. She had crossed over into film, and we could see her walking in another city, in the past. Of course film is in the past the moment it’s made, like everything else. This is a conversation which often becomes an argument with my New Age friends who lecture on the virtues of living in the Now. “The” “Now”.

She was walking up the many steps, and was tired, finally at the top. She was carrying all this water. More than a hundred trillion cells make this poet, 75 percent of which are water, and she carries more water in containers up flights of steps. What’s she up to? Ernst Chladni’s research proves that sound has form. He got to this by covering a metal plate with sand, then ran a violin bow on the edge of the plate, and all of the sand vibrated into a perfect geometric shape which looked much like the body of a violin. Poets are bows, the plate, the sand, poet, the poet Myles, and water TAKES that sound and carries form. Water displaces in song. She had all this extra water for her new songs which when sung would turn the leaning towers inside the readers into upright violins.

I find it hard to believe that my essay will be read by someone who has NEVER heard of Eileen Myles. But just in case, she’s queer. In all the ways the word works, queer. Anton Webern once said, “To live is to defend a form.” Being a queer myself I know how growing up THIS DIFFERENT from the respectable and acceptable world can allow one the ability to see and hear outside the norm. One doesn’t HAVE TO BE a homosexual, there are plenty of other kinds of queers around, people not easily inside the norm. Being and staying creative is much easier though, when you already don’t fit the job, the automatic job some don’t mind for belonging in the accepted ways. One of the things that changed my life reading the poetry of Myles as a young queer was her access to herself, her amazing lens that came in on the world however she wanted the poem to be. And her confidence too, yeah, that changed me, permanently changed me. Nothing helps the day run smoother than having confidence. If you’re not queer, don’t ever think it’s easy. I mean if you don’t kill yourself after a number of years you kind of HAVE TO build confidence. It’s a beautiful world when the bullies have no entrance.

Frank Furness is my favorite architect in Philadelphia is what I used to say. Frank Furness is one of the best architects in Philadelphia is how I later started saying, when saying with confidence. Confidence can be an excruciating lesson, provided you’ve been permitted to learn. There are so many vicious assholes to overcome. Frank Furness is a willing and willful Earthling, and there’s evidence in his First Unitarian Church at 22nd and Chestnut Streets. I never stop smiling at what he did. If you take people there for the first time they often remark, “I love the angel wings.” And you would think there would be angel wings because it’s a church. But no, they’re actually stone-carved tree branches and fronds, their delicate leaves poised for flight. Furness sees this Earth, this place, as holy. Heaven? What’s heaven? A living, gorgeous, spiritual Earth, and translucent are our greatest faults which always hearken back in some way to forgetting how marvelous Earth is.

“I admit I love tulips

because they

die so beautifully.

I see salvation in

their hanging heads.

A beautiful exit. How do

they get to

feel so free?”

—from NOT ME (Semiotext(e) Press, 1991)

Myles puts this in the middle of our reading, reading from the world as we see it, and it is then changed. This is a holy moment, today, on Earth, she has been telling us this. When you read her poems, the natural world is a constant thread, casting a spell for recalling and reaffirming life. If you haven’t noticed how many trees come up in her poems read them again –– there they are, her arms too, she’s trees through her arms, and trees come back around just enough you note her forest of them. “The trees are / my friends. / Hello tree. / Can I come / out to a / tree. I know / you’d hardly / know it / to look at / me, but / would you / believe I’m / a Lesbian.” (from NOT ME). In her recognition of the quiet giants who hold the paper in their guts she provides as many visits with trees as there are with her lovers. She is a willing and willful Earthling. “Once traveling / across America / I watched / my plane’s / shadow / fall over / trees. I / felt evil. / Who wants / to watch / themselves / travel, / darkening / the land.” (from NOT ME)

Rescued drowning victims often claim that after the struggle they go under the water and fall asleep. We go to sleep when suffocating. It’s just too much. It’s hard to breathe writing this, do you feel your breath reading it? Too much. Eileen Myles woke me when I went to sleep while suffocating. This is not a metaphor, there are many ways to drown without water. The best poets have the best wake-up poems: WAKE UP! WAKE UP! It was her book SAPPHO’S BOAT (Little Caesar, 1982). I woke from a terrible night on the floor next to friends after mixing too many intoxicants. Everyone else was still asleep, and we were in someone’s sister’s apartment and the sister was away. Poetry had already saved me before, but this time in my life, this time was particularly dark, you know, you’ve already been there yourself. But then I woke and my beautiful friends were still asleep on chairs, curled in corners, and this book poked from a pile of magazines. From the first poem WAKE UP! WAKE UP! the Eileen Myles alarm clock:

Big library where read Sappho.

Holes and all. Feel the wind

Shifting through. Aeolics.

Shiver when Sappho speaks of her

Heart Beat. It

Pounding down through the ages.

Old adrenaline, gives me a rush.

And morning sex was nice. In

morning light. Day blast-off.

Rusharound. Through the lightness.

That book that morning pulled me into my shoes, young and nauseous, not wanting to die. A couple of years later NOT ME came out and it took me a little while to realize that it was by the same author as the book from the party. WHO WAS THIS writing these poems? The state of queer, Queer, to be Queer came through the filter of her lines, her incredible insistence I AM HERE I AM GOING TO FUCKING PIN YOU TO A PASSING CLOUD IF YOU TRY TO REMOVE ME. To keep from suffocating, it really is too much to not go to sleep otherwise. Her queer ear, and woman’s perspective changes the reader who cares to hear, “I abhorred Dr. Williams’ / self-proclaimed com- / passion for the / woman giving birth. / O sensitive man / getting lyrical about / her labor pains.” (from NOT ME)

I LOVE that line! How many years did the world wait for Eileen Myles to write it for the quietly angry? WHO KNOWS! Centuries of men setting fire to women. “I visited Carryl / at all sorts of / loony bins & hideaways / The Church of the / American Witch / she says.” (from NOT ME) You’re allowed to be irritated. It’s GREAT to find that out! It’s fine if you want the world a certain way and it’s not and you feel like saying something about it. Robert Duncan said “Responsibility is to keep the ability to respond.” YES! And Eileen Myles said “I pick up a book and / another book and memory / and separation seem to / be all anyone writes / about.” (from NOT ME)

In Jane Brox’s book Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light, there were always plenty of reasons to fear the dark, no matter what continent you were on: hyenas, tigers, wolves, other people. For centuries they used animal and vegetable fat for torches, but Brox never mentions the use of poems. Then there were candles and lanterns, still no mention of the poets. And yes it’s a terrific waste of energy having ALL the lights on in an empty building at night, but I understand it. And all the lights on an acre-wide empty parking lot ON all night, but I understand it as much as I understand Myles writing:

Everybody

has one missing piece

and all the beauty’s

about it

–from on my way, (Faux Press, 2001)

We’re looking for that piece. What’s artificial about light anyway? How can it ever be artificial? Poets and the little creatures glowing in deep sea. All we’re wanting to do is see one another. Poets. Even poets who – at one time – railed against the personal “I” write their memoir, to see, just as their poems were to see. Nothing artificial going on. It’s okay to think you were the first, you were the best, the light, the great source, it’s okay. There’s enough love for it. There are plenty of poems in this lantern to get us to the next morning.

A few days ago I went with my friend Frank Sherlock to see the documentaryCOUNTDOWN TO ZERO. It’s about impending nuclear war, which is a very bright light, unless of course we manage sanity soon! I had a nightmare last night where all the oxygen burned away like they said it will. And I fell on the floor of my apartment in agony, hoping to die quickly. It was beautiful to wake and take a deep breath, HAAAAAH, for now. And I wondered about all I’ve done this week, not wanting to squander time. Well, I’m rereading ALL of Eileen Myles’ poetry, falling in love all over again! I don’t even know how to thank her, but I’m grateful for not suffocating so often. For instance this morning I was getting back into SKIES(Black Sparrow, 2001), and her infectious insistence of loving this world took hold:

Karma

Since the light is so perfect now

please take this picture

of hoover chewing the torn soccer ball

or the sound of chief anthony’s

dog

how about you with your legs

crossed taking a picture

or you, not even

on the porch but packing

in this perfect

light