Michael McCLURE
Peyote (Lophophora williamsii) grows in South-Eastern America and in northern regions of Mexico. In Mexico, peyote has been used for divination in shamanic rituals and in the treatment of ailments for at least 10,000 years. This unpublished poem from a 1958 notebook finds McClure more than merely notating the effects of this substance but riding its curls and ether-lidded promontories toward a new shore of understanding. —Larry Sawyer
A VISION CONCERNING PEYOTE
I am walking—concrete, green grass—I am walking and I perceive
in the air what is about me. What gnostic shapes and spirits,
snake people, animal heads, are in the air about me. The,
what, (!) transparent and vapory forms drift in the wind (air)
beyond and about me. And what a black and lumbering form
I mean shape I am as I walk in all this. And that I am also as I am.
And that all is sometimes beauty and makes no sense
and does not need to. And that my mistakes are beauty.
And that also there is hideousness. The bare universe—disappeared
for an instant. This is a vision. I am not high. Or
not since Sunday. As these things spin and whir about me.
Or drift as I pass among them. This huge grey head—
that passes in front of my eyes. That clear mist
Of spirit there in the air over the grass. The flying
things. The libido. Call it that!! Call it anything.
The radiance of air. And I am an Atheist. Materialist!
My pride of joy. And this is not refutation but what
I know is there. Not at all moments. And is real.
That strange shape. That is only in the clear mind.
(Or say body, ) no words to describe it. No image
for it but its existence. And who am I to see these things?
That I am so messed up. But it happens.
Is more than an instant. A minute. More. The time it takes
to walk a half a block. What doubts.
And not here. For this is as much. Who could say
As much as that lying world of forms
we train to see? And that grey head is so huge in size
of a melon and there are a group of spirits there,
but not a gathering. The ones made of vapors. If that
is it. The weak powers (?) that drift from causes
and are not causes themselves. This is it!!!
THE REAL THING THAT POETS SEE. THAT GNOSTICS AND ALCHEMISTS—
Have seen or spoken of or dreamed of. ( This is after )
( Why don't I see it? ) ( I think it is genetic and
physiological, I have no strong will
to see it. )
THIS IS MY HONOR. THERE IS NO GRATITUDE
for it.
It is real!! And I am off track and talk.
THE SPIRIT HEADS FORM SHAPES AND BEINGS IF YOU CALL THEM THAT
over green grass and concrete. Unaffected. Moving,
never stationary. As real as flies in a room when you are high
on peyote. I mean that flies
are beasts like swallows or like men.
And I carry by black and lumbering shape and my unsure shape
and my hero's self in all this. That I
am all those things and you are all those.
And there is no way but to believe. That grey head.
That moving (shall I say snail-like) thing. To
never know its meaning but that it is there. And those
colors and shapes we see are not the real ones. The pure
shapes are blue and gleam or violet-pink, and they shift
and waver and are unchangeable and real. That we
have so few senses. And so many
there to use.
( IN A ROOM THE FLIES BUZZ DART ARE BLACK AND REAL BEASTS )
And who knows that. Or cares?
And that this in clear air is that same seeing.
Or that our hands are blue pink and red and pale hairs
stand from them.
MY BLACK EYES AND BRAIN ARE REAL AS BLOOD
But I repeat. Moving things. And I begin.
THAT GREY HEAD THAT WHIZZED BY ME. PAST MY SHOULDER.
What was its expression? Serenity and hatred? I did not see.
What colors and transparencies of spirit. What silent things
since I did not hear.
What snakes and leaves of air. What broad and flat and sailing.
Whose things and shapes. Not Ownership—but what—
and where are they going. Do they have a goal. I know
they do not. But move about me.
That I am here and see them. And some see me. Say that snail-like
Thing of no color and no density. And some are matter and some
Are not as they are of
Themselves.
Knowing and not knowing goals. Or say ends. If there were time.
LIKE DIATOMS RAMSHEADS AND GHOSTS OF BLUES SLATES AND GREENS
and no colors. Dispersed
and flowing and concentrated. Indifferent and intent.
Spinning and flying. I walk among them.
GREEN GRASS SMOG BLUE SKY CONCRETE BUILDINGS TRESSES AND
TREES
Yes! Tresses. Coifs. Too among the crass and brutal shapes,
the delicacy of this material. The real.
The not burning and cool the moment. And I look up at the campanile.
The concrete spire. The pyramidal
roof of it. And feel the rising and the shaping
of myself and smile. The feeling of the hair upon my head.
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