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. O'Brien

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 languages—Poetry.

   2. African Americans—Poetry.

I. Title. II. Series.

PS3563.U3954 S64     2002
8II'.54—dc2I                    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!

André Breton

Acknowledgments

All She Wrote

The Anthropic Principle

Any Lit

Ask Aden

Between

Bilingual Instructions

Black Nikes

Blah-Blah

Bleeding Hearts

Bolsa Algodón

Coals to Newcastle, Panama Hats from Ecuador

Coo/Slur

Daisy Pearl

Denigration

Dim Lady

Dream Cycle

Ectopia

Elliptical

European Folk Tale Variant

Eurydice

Exploring the Dark Content

Fancy Cortex

Free Radicals

The Gene for Music

Hitched to a Star

Jinglejangle

Junk Mail

Kamasutra Sutra

Kirstenography

The Lunar Lutheran

Mantra for a Classless Society, or Mr. Roget's Neighborhood

Music for Homemade Instruments

Naked Statues

Natural Anguish

Once Ever After

O, 'Tis William

Outside Art

Present Tense

Quality of Life

Resistance Is Fertile

She Swam On from Sea to Shine

Sleeping with the Dictionary

Souvenir from Anywhere

Suzuki Method

Swift Tommy

Ted Joans at the Café Bizarre

Transients

Variation on a Theme Park

Way Opposite

We Are Not Responsible

Why You and I

Wino Rhino

Wipe That Simile Off Your Aphasia

Xenophobic Nightmare in a Foreign Language

X-ray Vision

Zen Acorn

Zombie Hat

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, I'm no good at this. I can't write back. I never read your letter. I can't say I got your note. I haven't had the strength to open the envelope. The mail stacks up by the door. Your hand's 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 I'm unable to reply to your unexpressed desires. I didn't get the book you sent. By the way, my computer was stolen. Now I'm unable to process words. I suffer from aphasia. I've just returned from Kenya and Korea. Didn't you get a card from me yet? What can I tell you? I forgot what I was going to say. I still can't find a pen that works and then I broke my pencil. You know how scarce paper is these days. I admit I haven't been recycling. I never have time to read the
Times.
I'm out of shopping bags to put the old news in. I didn't get to the market. I meant to clip the coupons. I haven't read the mail yet. I can't get out the door to work, so I called in sick. I went to bed with writer's cramp. If I couldn't get back to writing, I thought I'd 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. It's 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 President's hometown. The news anchor says the pilot is among the dead. I was hoping for news of the President's foreign affair with a diplomat's 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 it's just a freak accident locked up in a philosophical debate. It's like playing poker and all the cards are wild. Like the arcane analysis of a black box full of insinuations of error.

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

No ruede el recipiente con la tapa abierta

Do not tilt or roll container with lid open

Recortes de jardin solamente

Yard clippings only

We need quarters like King Tut needed a boat. A slave could row him to heaven from his crypt in Egypt full of loot. We've lived quietly among the stars, knowing money isn't what matters. We only bring enough to tip the shuttle driver when we hitch a ride aboard a trailblazer of light. This comet could scour the planet. Make it sparkle like a fresh toilet swirling with blue. Or only come close enough to brush a few lost souls. Time is rotting as our bodies wait for now I lay me down to earth. Noiseless patient spiders paid with dirt when what we want is stardust. If nature abhors an expensive appliance, why does the planet suck ozone? This is a big-ticket item, a thickety ride. Please page our home and visit our sigh on the wide world's ebb. Just point and cluck at our new persuasion shoes. We're opening the gate that opens our containers for recycling. Time to throw down and take off on our launch. This flight will nail our proof of pudding. The thrill of victory is, we're exiting earth. We 're leaving all this dirt.