Silliman's Papers

Names Come November
            by Daniel Silliman
            Summer ‘03

Dragons, singing songs of smoke,
Once in time before this time.
Singing the smoke of dragons
With green scales and long legends
Of dragons. Once
There were dragons with names
            Names with dragons
In the time before time.
Once, before this time
A time when dragons had names
Names to display upon dragon caves.
A time for names of dragons,
Gone now.
Names of dragons.
Once, when there were names.

His name is John, he said
John
John
John
One word on the paper: John
Driven into the wilderness and gone
With that name
His head was put upon a platter
With that name…

My name is Ishmael,
            and it matters.
            And it matters.
            It is my name,
            and it matters
            because my name isn’t so much mine
            as it is me.
Its act of signification
Is my presence in the world,
My role in syntax.
Without signification I am without.
My name is Ishmael and it matters.

I fell in love with the woman
Who said my name
And it wasn’t narcisstic
Except in that easy way
Of smiling when you hear
Your name in a poem,
Of smiling
At your face in a mirror,
Of smiling at the one you love for sheer love
And putting her name
In a poem.
I fell in love with the woman
Saying my name.
I turned around but she never said it again
I think maybe she forgot
                        forgot the syllables
                        forgot how
                        forgot ___my name

And it was a drizzly November in my soul, or
It would have been, but
November couldn’t come
Come November
November couldn’t come
You can’t ask directions to a soul without a name.

Listening in that easy narcissism
Of listening for my own name
In a poem.
Listening for my name upon on the waves of sound
In a poem.
Listening for the sound that is me,
Sound forming identity
In a poem.
Reflecting my reflection
In a poem.

Hell is other people
Mispronouncing your name
—Sauter, Sart, Sartray—
Self slapped.
An ignorant fool gutting my identity
With his donated T
Barrels of T, extra letters and sounds
contorting me
And my name.
—Stillman, Sullivan, Solomon—

In the dream my family becomes a gang, all of us
Stomping and beating and kicking
The man who mispronounced our name.
Our name.

They say it’s an annoying habit—using names
            where less would carry the story,
            naming persons
            where characters would do
            using names—insisting names.

I’m always telling stories
            long stories
            using names
            names
            full names
            names
            first names and last names
            to ground the narrative
            to found the narrative
            using names
            names
            where others say this guy—a friend—the man—a kid I once knew—
            using names to humanize
            personalize
            names in the stories I tell
            with names.

                        Emily, Emily
“Either we’re the same person
Or our names don’t mean anything”
Our names don’t mean anything
And I have no name.

                      ‘‘No’’
Said the six-year-old of semiotics:
“It is just that ‘names’ play a more complicated role in grammar than you had
Supposed:
Names don’t work like that. Your name wasn’t that

And so linguistics took it all away
All away,
Took salvation,
Took it all away and then
Come November
Even took damnation,
All away
All away.

The whale was named Moby and the chicken was Bob.
The poem was named Jones.
And there wasn’t a reason really
No reason,
Only names.