Conquered?

Reprise. No Prize

I’m in a store that’s everywhere

food on the shelves, bread; but

who does this part of experience

            serve?

That you allow me to eat

That you think you allow me to think:

have implanted thoughts in my head:

that if you don’t extinguish me you will

substitute for my savings –

            my own love –

your images. Technologies with youth blonde

cruel. I have to learn you, waiting to see

within me whatever you’ve placed:

lies made material visions not mine.

As you have declared my emotion: that which

your poems incarnate—my supposed emptiness

of intellect to be possessed by your commodious

greed: is there enough territory within me, for you?

            never

                        enough room for a torturer.


Alice Notley: Songs and Stories of the Ghouls, p. 25