Mullen - Sleeping with the dictionary

Sleeping
with the
Dictionary

For, by Carol Snow

Enola Gay, by Mark Levine

Selected Poems, by Fanny Howe

Sleeping with the Dictionary, by Harryette Mullen

Commons, by Myung Mi Kim

The Guns and Flags Project, by Geoffrey G. OBrien

Harryette Mullen

University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England

2002 by the Regents of the
University of California

Library of Congress Cataloging-in
Publication Data

Mullen, Harryette Romell.

Sleeping with the dictionary /
Harryette Mullen.

p. cm.(New California
poetry; 4)

ISBN 0-520-23142-2 (cloth: alk.
paper).ISBN 0-520-23143-0 (pbk.:
alk. paper)

1. Language and languagesPoetry.

2. African AmericansPoetry.

I. Title. II. Series.

PS3563.U3954 S64 2002
8II.54dc2I 2001048050

Manufactured in the United States of America

11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper).

Dark words
more radiant
than onyx!

Andr Breton

I gratefully acknowledge the editors of the following publications and web projects, where these poems have previously appeared: African American Review, A Gathering of the Tribes, American Poet, Aufgabe, Best American Poetry, Black Renaissance, Bombay Gin, Booglite, Callaloo, Cave Canem Anthology, Colored Greens, Columbia Poetry Review, Combo, Crow, Dia Center for the Arts Poetry Broadside, Empty Set, Facture, Fence, Framework, Gare du Nord, Giant Steps, Hambone, In Celebration of the Muse, Konch, La Jornada Semanal, La Vitrina, Lipstick Eleven, Long News in the Short Century, Mirage, Otra Cancion: Seis Poetas Norteamericanos, Parnassus, Poetry in Motion, Role Call, Santa Monica Review, Southfields, The World, Tripwire, Womenhouse, and Xcp: Cross Cultural Poetics.

My thanks to Enrique Chagoya for permission to use his work Line Essence Color on the cover. Thanks also to Judy Natal for the author photograph.

Sleeping
with the
Dictionary

Forgive me, Im no good at this. I cant write back. I never read your letter. I cant say I got your note. I havent had the strength to open the envelope. The mail stacks up by the door. Your hands illegible. Your postcards were defaced. Wash your wet hair? Any document you meant to send has yet to reach me. The untied parcel service never delivered. I regret to say Im unable to reply to your unexpressed desires. I didnt get the book you sent. By the way, my computer was stolen. Now Im unable to process words. I suffer from aphasia. Ive just returned from Kenya and Korea. Didnt you get a card from me yet? What can I tell you? I forgot what I was going to say. I still cant find a pen that works and then I broke my pencil. You know how scarce paper is these days. I admit I havent been recycling. I never have time to read the Times. Im out of shopping bags to put the old news in. I didnt get to the market. I meant to clip the coupons. I havent read the mail yet. I cant get out the door to work, so I called in sick. I went to bed with writers cramp. If I couldnt get back to writing, I thought Id catch up on my reading. Then Oprah came on with a fabulous author plugging her best-selling book.

The pope of cosmology addresses a convention. When he talks the whole atmosphere changes. He speaks through a computer. When he asks can you hear me, the whole audience says yes. Its a science locked up in a philosophical debate. There are a few different theories. There could be many different realities. You might say ours exists because we do. You could take a few pounds of matter, heat it to an ungodly temperature, or the universe was a freak accident. There may be a limit to our arrogance, but one day the laws of physics will read like a detailed instruction manual. A plane that took off from its hub in my hometown just crashed in the Presidents hometown. The news anchor says the pilot is among the dead. I was hoping for news of the Presidents foreign affair with a diplomats wife. I felt a mystical connection to the number of confirmed dead whose names were not released. Like the time I was three handshakes from the President. Like when I thought I heard that humanitarians dropped a smart blond on the Chinese embassy. Like when the cable was severed and chairs fell from the sky because the pilot flew with rusty maps. What sane pilot would land in that severe rain with hard hail and gale-force wind. With no signal of distress. With no foghorns to warn the civilians, the pilot lost our moral compass in the bloody quagmire of collateral damage. One theory says its just a freak accident locked up in a philosophical debate. Its like playing poker and all the cards are wild. Like the arcane analysis of a black box full of insinuations of error.

You are a ukulele beyond my microphone
You are a Yukon beyond my Micronesia
You are a union beyond my meiosis
You are a unicycle beyond my migration
You are a universe beyond my mitochondria
You are a Eucharist beyond my Miles Davis
You are a euphony beyond my myocardiogram
You are a unicorn beyond my Minotaur
You are a eureka beyond my maitai
You are a Yuletide beyond my minesweeper
You are a euphemism beyond my myna bird
You are a unit beyond my mileage
You are a Yugoslavia beyond my minds eye
You are a yoo-hoo beyond my minor key
You are a Euripides beyond my mime troupe
You are a Utah beyond my microcosm
You are a Uranus beyond my Miami
You are a youth beyond my mylar
You are a euphoria beyond my myalgia
You are a Ukrainian beyond my Maimonides
You are a Euclid beyond my miter box
You are a Univac beyond my minus sign
You are a Eurydice beyond my maestro
You are a eugenics beyond my Mayan
You are a U-boat beyond my mind control
You are a euthanasia beyond my miasma
You are a urethra beyond my Mysore
You are a Euterpe beyond my Mighty Sparrow
You are a ubiquity beyond my minority
You are a eunuch beyond my migraine
You are a Eurodollar beyond my miserliness
You are a urinal beyond my Midol
You are a uselessness beyond my myopia

Are aardvarks anxious?
Do dragons dream?
Ever see an eager elephant?
Newts are never nervous, are they?

My ass acts bad
Devil your ears Charybdis
Good engagements deep blue sea
Heaven my eyes your elbow
Last night jobs hard place
Now his legs hell
Rock the lines me
Scylla her breasts shinola
Shit the sheets then
Yesterday my thighs this morning
You your toes today

Californians say No

to bilingual instruction in schools

Californians say No

to bilingual instructions on ballots

Californians say Yes

to bilingual instructions on curbside waste receptacles:

Coloque el recipiente con las flechas hacia la calle

Place container with arrow facing street