(C)Copyright 2001
by Anne Dick

 

 

 

Philip K. Dick

and Other Poems

 

Anne Dick

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When �Words Make Poems�

(A Preliminary Note on Anne Dick�s Philip K. Dick and Other Poems)

 

 

Human is as human does:

Equestrian, avid reader (at times she has read five novels a day), sculptor, jewelry and graphics designer, business woman, mother and grandmother (and a friend whose generosity is unlimited), writer Anne Dick has lived since 1955 on Mesa Road in Point Reyes Station, a small town in northwest Marin County, on the coast of Northern California, in the same house which she shared

Is the omphalos, the center of the world 

(...) 

I thought it was right here�,

with Philip K. Dick

whom I loved most of all

for five years while he finished writing the novel Time out of Joint, and wrote Confessions of a Crap Artist, The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike, The Man In the High Castle, We Can Build You, Martian Time-Slip, Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb, The Game-Players of Titan, The Simulacra, Now Wait For Last Year, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and wrote part of Clans of the Alphane Moon, The Crack in Space, The Zap Gun and The Penultimate Truth.

Though we lived in different universes

 

We met for a moment

Phil and Anne met in October 1958 and were married in Mexico the 1st of April,1959*

in friendship

 

and love:

the majority of these poems written by Anne after Phil�s death, after time and space and other crazinesses tore him from her side, restore for us now the old cracked mirror of her bedroom in front of which, like Orpheus, she asked:

I wondered 

how can I get to the other side.

 

Search for Philip K. Dick** and

tomorrow back to the quest

Philip K. Dick and Other Poems

are the words

I descended with you down towards death

(...)

I found you again

while losing you again


of her memory: the answers of her vigil , of her dreams, of her visions, of the poems that guide those of us who have been abandoned by the divinity on this side of the mirror

God�s thought words sprang into being as whole universes

to be again with Phil.

 

 

�Miguel Díaz Fernández,

Segovia, Spain,

July 2001

 

(Translated from the Spanish by Anne Dick)

 

 

[*: The following year Laura Archer Dick was born, Phil�s first child and Anne�s fourth (Hatte, Jayne and Tandy were daughters from her marriage to poet Richard Rubenstein who had died on 1958�s Yom Kippur day from an allergy to strong tranquilizers.)

 

]**: Search for Philip K. Dick, 1928-1982: A Memoir and Biography of the Science Fiction Writer (1995, The Edwin Mellen Press: Lewiston, Queenston, Lampeter)]  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Philip K. Dick and Other Poems

 

 

index

 

Elements

My Very Own Personal Dark Wood

The Power Is Out

Anniversary

Astrophysics

A Face from Another Space

Eyes

Masked

The Director

Pale

Love the Universe

H Dumpty

Solutions

Fragments

Egotism

Philip K. Dick

The Road

Dark Waiting...Dark Journey

(When?...Where?)

Where Is Everybody?

Words

Wild Thoughts

Seven

Human

Exiled

Connection

He Left

The Answer

Years of Tears

The Funeral Train

Ghosts

Philip

Photo of My Late Ex

Requiem for a Dead and/or Divorced Husband

Lost Island

Twice

Melancholy Fire

The Best of Philip K. Dick

Love

PKD

My Last Poem

One Night

The Mirror

Kaleidoscope

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elements

 

 

 

 

 

Sun

I love you sun, warming me

Baking away inner mists

For a while I forget

 

 

Wind

Blow harder wind

I am ready to spread my arms

and sail with you

 

Winter

A gale blows through the trees all night

It sounds like a train rushing by

In my bed I can feel the wind blowing through me

 

Rain

Great rains come in winter

The air is not air but water

falling for days weeks

Sometimes months

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Very Own Personal Dark Wood

 

 

 

 

 

a will-of-the wisp

momentarily illuminates

my dark wood

 

why am I here?

is this the path to Paradise?

 

No guide meets me

I remain alone

in this lifeless forest

among the obscure tree trunks

 

shall I press on further into the wood

should I go back

I can�t decide

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Power Is Out

 

 

 

 

 

I�m sitting here drinking Korbel�s and eating an apple

by the light of two candles

 

The power is out

 

The wind is blowing hard, harder than it has for many years

and earlier it was hailing and raining great sheets of water

 

But now the moon has appeared

 

I remember when we sat around the fire together and my house had a hearth

we watched the rain then too and later the full moon shone though the windows

 

Tonight I don�t weep for that phantom husband or my brother Robert and perhaps Richard too...and Arthur (King Arthur?)

my father who loved me and went on a journey long ago...a quest perhaps

for the holy grail

 

Death is not overcoming me in fact vice versa

 

All those years I could not weep

all those girls to raise to be archaeologists

linguists, designers, accountants, mothers, friends...

 

I beg only a few tears for dreams undone

for blazing hearths, true knights, just kings...

 

king to knight�s pawn...was it all just a game?

 

Moon shining on me says, �Yes, dream and weep a little...�

tomorrow back to the quest, the fray, another day, another year

another life with tap roots deep in the past

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anniversary

 

 

 

 

 

On April 1, 1983 my anniversary fell on Good Friday,

But I have had enough of a Good Friday life

I will no longer descend into the grave

to be with him I loved so long ago

But why does my heart still twist?

Why is the sunlight gray?

 

The altar is stripped

Bone crunching gavel clacks

The darkness is so familiar

(I dream of hills, flowers, bird calls)

 

Vaporized rock becomes motes

In the light which streams, warms, dazzles,

and etches sun on convoluted gray

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Astrophysics

 

 

 

 

 

I

When I was growing up

What we now call �our galaxy�

�the local system�

was THE UNIVERSE

with a little fuzzy star

in the constellation

Andromeda

possibly outside it

(you could just barely see it with the naked eye

below the third star of the handle

of the big dipper)

That was all there was

 

until Hubble came along

 

 

 

II

Then we learned that the universe

was an immense collection

of billions of galaxies

of many sizes and shapes

some colliding with each other

all fleeing from us

 

and we personally

were not even dust motes

in fact

our whole solar system was hardly even

a dust mote

in this immensity

 

 

 

III

Lately they�ve taken pictures

of the edge of the universe

and disproved the theory

that at the end of time

The Universe

will collapse into itself

thereby

ruining my earlier poem

about

love

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Face from Another Space

 

 

 

 

 

I was lying on my side

in my bed

not yet asleep

 

a narrow strip of space

and a face

appeared

ten inches above me

 

he was pressed to the ground there

looking at me

 

I could see a desert

behind

a hood on his robe

like those of the desert fathers

he had admired

 

that face

I knew so well

smiled at me

tenderly

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eyes

 

 

 

 

 

Glinting

green eyes

leading far

into the years

perhaps

forever

wherever

forever

happens to be

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Masked

 

 

 

 

 

He came to me only in the night

but once when it was almost dawn

I saw his face

 

It was a mask

he had been compelled to wear

as a child

it had fused to the skin of his cheeks,

his forehead, his brow

his jaw


he had tried all his life to remove it

 

after that dawn

he never returned

 


index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Director

 

 

 

 

 

He turned on the myth machine

and the opera machine

He directed the passion play

but he didn�t stay until the end

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pale

 

 

 

 

 

My pale little anglo soul

could not be embraced

it slipped out of his arms

like fog

 

like Homer�s wraiths

 

 

index


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love the Universe

 

 

 

 

 

I and universe are one

 

She dreamed of making love to the universe

he came to her as a beautiful man

with long golden quasar hair

his irises were exploding stars

his pupils black holes

his saliva galactic foam

billion of galaxies whirled around him, through him

when he embraced her his fingers sank deep between her ribs

sank into her body cavity

into her lungs

into her heart

his head sank into her head

his torso sank into her torso

he became her

she became him

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

H Dumpty

 

 

 

 

 

Though we lived in different universes

We met for a moment in friendship and love

 

But it was like loving Peter Pan

or the Gingerbread boy

or maybe Humpty Dumpty

Did I push him off that wall?

Could I have kept him from falling?

 

The pieces would not fit together

I tried very hard

 


index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Solutions

 

 

 

 

 

I�ll read another book by Jung

to find the answer

 

In my dream I opened the refrigerator

to cook dinner for Herr Jung

but all the meat was rotten


 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Egotism

 

 

 

 

 

Is the omphalos, the center of the world

really on Mount Parnassus

I thought it was right here


 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fragments

 

 

 

 

 

We were only fragments

of the archetype husband-and-wife

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Philip K Dick

 

 

 

 

 

On the Quay I told you to go away

But instead we got married on April fool�s day

 

Someone turned off the gas jet

I stepped out of the ring of flames

Fully clothed but not yet in my right mind

 

Let the storybook romance begin:

 

We played endless games of baseball and monopoly,

Bought a dog and found a cat

Grew roses and planted a Japanese pine

That had been trained to grow sideways

Two feet above the ground.

We swam in Tomales Bay until cold November came

I sunbathed naked until the day the postman rang twice.

I was sure of your love

 

Years later I was near Jericho

where Bishop Pike dried up in the Judean desert

the temperature was a hundred and twenty

I was afraid to leave the shadow of the restaurant

where we had eaten falafel

and cross the street to get back to the car

a little red ford escort I had rented

to drive in Israel

with my daughter and her lover

 

Bishop Pike changed the rules of the game

�Forget about that death-do-us-part bit

 

 

II

Headlines in the Point Reyes Light read

�Perfect husband remarries�

 

He no longer mops the floors

and seasons the wild mushrooms

In the black iron frying pan

With ginger and soy and garlic and red wine

 

He no longer

Ties the children�s shoes

and drives them to modern dance class

 

We broke the lamp

We broke the ebony okapi

It even dented the concrete floor

 

We threw all the dishes.

and scared the children

we had to take them to Disneyland

to make it up to them

 

The sun shone above the clouds during that winter

when the rains never stopped

When spring came

I dug up your roses, �Peace� and �Charlotte Armstrong�,

and gave them to my neighbor

 

I gave away all your books

I burnt your letters

The garden turned to weeds

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Road

 

 

 

 

 

On the way to Petaluma there was

a rock shrine with a poppy offering

I thought God had left a bouquet for me

in that field beside the road

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dark Waiting...Dark Journey

(When?...Where?)

 

 

 

 

 

Surrounded by Revelation�s creatures I broke the seal...

(His best friend dreaming while he waited)

 

shifting images sharpened

only Greeks on Patmos to tell the tale in their peculiar idiom

 

The prophesy arose from the mountain

�I am a long and lonely journey

What is true? What do you want to do?�

 

In the night of wrong a bright flash

shows the disciples on their way

their number augmented by a mighty one

who gave his dark and shattered all

 

Shadowy visions of the one-who-came back

bewilder and excite the lonely child

 

was the journey to light and life?

not the tomb?

not grey depression?

 

Only the slain lamb

no hedgerows around his windswept field

can open the scroll

 

Blackface lamb pulls me back through the years

friend of my heart were you

 

really there?

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where Is Everybody?

 

 

 

 

 

�Come out, come out, wherever your are...

�Olly olly oxen free...�

 

The babes have flown, grown

but though they speak in tongues, Aramaic, Hebrew, Italian and Spanish

they do not speak the language we knew

back in 1962

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Words

 

 

 

 

 

Words spoken years ago sometimes echo in my brain

Sometimes they take on a different meaning

 

Words make poems, novels, conversations.

Words make conversation

 

God�s thought words sprang into being as whole universes

 

Words let people tell each other of love

 

Words keep people apart

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wild Thoughts

 

 

 

 

 

Wrap it all up with words and throw it in the void

Meet me at the divorce court at 3:30 April 23rd

Buy that rifle on the wall of the Palace Meat Market

Who is the target, you or me

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seven

 

 

 

 

 

He sat on the white naugahyde couch

after seven years of wandering

and cried as the children skipped and played outside.

 

My would be lovers had all disappeared into smoky bars

sitting at round rickety tables

endlessly sipping glasses of Chardonnay

His was an act too hard to follow.

 

I had to leave

I had to run along the beach.

 

The wind threw the stinging sand in my face

white foam shuddered at the ocean's edge.

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Human

 

 

 

 

 

Human is as human does

Most of us don�t make it,

Stay primates

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exiled

 

 

 

 

 

Exiled by my sex

by cities crushing weight

(all those souls!)

dead asphalt, killing concrete,

exiled by my mind

exiled from the company of like

expatriates

themselves

in lands

shown on no maps

 

exiled by my words

exiled by my song

 

where are you my love

 

exiled


 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Connection

 

 

 

 

 

That connection

at the bottom of the soul

at a depth seldom reached

 

that longing

that need

that total giving

of the ocean-bottom soul

the �not I�?

 

unknown, mysterious

 

forms a bond

unbreakable

 

to tear free from that bond

means leaving

part of your soul behind

and

a heart writhing in pain

 

the torn �I� becomes

fractured

diminished

its life and power slowly slipping away

 

beware: danger

don�t dive that deep

unless you plan to stay

 

the rewards are great

 

life!


beware of a mermaid

or merman

who will drag you under

and leave you

torn

bleeding

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He Left

 

 

 

 

 

Love = anxiety

anxiety = rejection

 

rejection = departure

 

going leaving withdrawal exodus

leave leaving

going running

going away

running away

gone

absent

far off

elsewhere

for reasons

wrong false mistaken erroneous

inaccurate incorrect untrue

you

exited quit departed died

expired perished succumbed

fell toppled caved in plunged

tumbled down dropped slid

declined descended to death

 

rejection

no

nay

 

extinction


 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Answer

 

 

 

 

 

Dirty dishwater, children screaming

tired feet, haze in brain

never stopped me dreaming

 

Where is the answer?

The family? The church? time?

All of the above?

None of the above?

 

God told me

But I didn�t want to hear

I struggled to live on

In the same old self


 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Years of Tears

 

 

 

 

 

I

Take the Fruitvale exit

 

I passed magnificent stinking mudflat museums

they changed their exhibits each week

When I went to visit the enchanted knight in the Dolorous Castle

 

Oakland to you

 

He grew old my knight so bold

and over his heart a shadow fell

 

 

II

although the cherry plums are covered with small white blossoms

and tiny rain drops fall from a light grey sky

years of tears remain unshed

The answer wasn�t in Jung

or books about philosophy

psychology, Buddhism, or the I Ching

 

There was no answer

 

I struggled to live on

but I had died

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Funeral Train

 

 

 

 

 

Did you every read Marion Zimmer Bradley?

There were huge mountain ranges on her cold dark planet

bigger than the Himalayas

 

I dreamt about a cable train running above a mountain valley

on Darkover

another cable train suspended below it

 

The lower one was a funeral train

for Philip K Dick

 

swinging over a valley

between great snow covered mountains

 

No people were there

To watch the train go by

 

I rode in that lower train

with the coffin

for a while

 

Then I went up to the upper train

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ghosts

 

 

 

 

 

Do not exist

But when they do

it is because

feelings are so strong

that an image

is produced in the brain

and projected into our earthly space

looking just as real

as that tree or your dog

(also just images

in the brain)

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Philip

 

 

 

 

 

Philip

whom I loved most of all

even more than my father, Agamemnon

even more than my brother, Robert

(at least I thought I did

I�m very confused)

ran off

and then he died too

(One isn�t supposed

to love a husband

who has deserted you cruelly)

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo of My Late Ex

 

 

 

 

 

Nice photo of him, my late ex

at a later geologic time

after the only time that was a time

the time that was ended by the meteor�s strike

 

 

   

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Requiem for a Dead and/or Divorced Husband

 

 

 

 

 

At the farmhouse café we both wore white jerseys with blood red numbers

we watched a pigeon with an iridescent neck walk on the grass below our window

 

sitting in creaking chairs

we ate well-done roast beef

 

words, insights, nuances engraved themselves on our conversation

 

�The approaching games will be held at scorching midday�

(I will drink many styrofoam cups of spring water at the half)

I will try to kick the ball past the terrorist and his black grenade

 

�Not much fun,� I said

I forgot how lucky I was to make the team

 

Did I tell you of my appreciation?

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lost Island

 

 

 

 

 

All my life was compressed into one year

boiled down

to an essence

 

all this infinitely long day

I have been floating in an endless ocean of time

waiting only for those moments

when at nightfall

we will make an island

 

that dissolves again at dawn

 

in the night our flesh melds, arm to arm

leg to leg

sex to sex

mouth to mouth

endless intimacy

 

will you be there to night

after this forever day?

 

*

 

leave an image of yourself

for me to love

in the night

 

I strain my imagination to envision  you

but in my mind

I can only see you entwined with that girl

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Twice

 

 

 

 

 

I

The days you took to die

Heavy and grey

Lasted forever

 

I descended with you down towards death

heartbeat slower

breath hard to draw

 

No new or happy thoughts could exist

on that journey

 

But you had died so long ago!

 

I had to start mourning all over again

My grief now illegitimate

 

Did I weep

for you or for me

Or for something necessary for life

Gone from this lonely earth

 

 

II

Time and space and other crazinesses

Remarriage, girlfriends, poverty, middleage

you name it

Success/Failure

New friends/Old friends

Good health/Poor health

None of the above...

All of the above

 

made any difference

 

I found you again

while losing you again


 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Melancholy Fire

 

 

 

 

 

Eating a piece of chocolate

I lit the sullen stove

 

hoping the passionate kindling

could warm me

 

the flame hurled bits of sly inspiration

 

radiated enthusiasm

 

then exploded

 

flinging extinguishing pitch

 

on

my dream

 

the melancholy moon

brilliantly musing

lit

the living room

and

I started fantasizing

creating

a true vision

beyond the illusion

 

longing for the ideal

in the midst of the real

 

but I caught a bad cold

instead

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Best of Philip K. Dick

 

 

 

 

 

Remembering frees,

when I tried to forget

my heart was oppressed

 

the first time around

I was engulfed in a whirlwind

of confused and violent emotions

 

I remembered

our life together:

music, poetry

games with the children

picnics, friends, books

endless amazing conversations.

He was the first person I ever listened to.

Before I met him

I was too busy talking to listen

 

*

 

later I had a vision of an unraveling heart

all that was left, in the end, was a lover�s knot

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love

 

 

 

 

 

Love can�t be washed away with dishwater.

Love can�t be mopped up.

It can�t be vomited out, either.

 

Screams of rage, in the end, can�t drown out the murmurs of love.

 

Fatigue, craziness, death, poverty

Time and Space

will all pass away

but not love.

 

Prestige, money, sex distract only momentarily.

 

Ill health and old age don�t affect love in the least.

In the end the whole world and all the people in it

(except the ones that love)

will pass away.

 

The universe will collapse on itself in a deafening black roar

that no person will hear

 

But one tiny gleam of love will sneak through into the new universe that will arise,

A gleam that will grow brighter and brighter until it outshines the new stars

and all their empty planets.

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PKD

 

 

 

 

 

Light, light, light

No darkness

He only turned there to make the light brighter

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Last Poem

 

 

 

 

 

I know now that you/he will/have/had to leave me

(Alone) (I was alone)

alone, always alone

he/she/it

you/me/I

amo amas amat

 

Tears slip from my eyes � I will lose you

 

You loved me / I loved you

 

My tears comfort me in some strange manner

The pit of grey depression is no longer at my feet

 

I weep for him/them who left/died long ago

 

For this sad beautiful world

 

I no longer weep for myself

This is what you taught me

 

I will not sink again

 

You will go on without me

Your life with unfold beautifully

I smile as I weep

 

I taste my tears and

Patience begins

Time contracts

No longer do I wait

forever

is

past

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One Night

 

 

 

 

 

While falling asleep

I experienced a gap in Being

it wasn�t just me that no longer existed

 

fearful, trembling, I wondered

how can I get to the other side

 

that non-moment passed

and

I am

Again

 


index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mirror

 

 

 

 

 

I hadn�t seen him for a long time

and only glimpsed his reflection

in the mirror

as I walked into the room

 

The light was poor...I�d forgotten my glasses

The silver was coming off the back

of the dark, cracked mirror

Still

I was glad

to see him again

 

when I got closer

there was nothing there

but an old cracked mirror

 

 

index

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kaleidoscope

 

 

 

 

 

Joyless events revolved until

The glass in my life�s kaleidoscope broke,

All the little jagged bits turned into tears

And fell on the sidewalk.

 

The wind rose.

Under grey clouds the landscape devolved

To a time before life existed

Only grey rocks and dark plains

I force one foot to step forward

...then the other

 

 

index

 

 

 

     Web page by Miguel D�az Fern�ndez