Waldrep & Cross

[k] We can imagine the words with which the courtesan
         teases her death, herself.
[j]      We can imagine them as words.
[k] We can imagine words as accoutrements,
         as bow, as frill, as flower; as cockade, as fruit.
[j] We can imagine a dress made of cork, or have it imagined for us.

We can imagine a dress made of mirror.

[k] We can imagine a woman clothed in the sun.
In fact this has already been imagined for us.
[j] The outcome was not very encouraging.

[k] And the sun revolves at its given speed, and the moon resolves into a clouded puddle of rain in the Rue Croix-des-Petits Champs.

“She was everybody's contemporary.”

[j: loudly] brightly striped Catholic cleric jerking honestly!!
[k: loudly] puffed-out contemporary encircles cleric!! {newsboy hollers & motion}
[j: loudly] clamor maddened actress paddling electric muffler!!
{step back}

[j] II.

[k] The phenomenology of pavement.
[j] (see: OPERA.)

[j] III. {switch sides of grille}

[j] Twin discoveries: the display of goods
and the male clerk.
[k] The woman seduces the man at what rate of exchange. Consider: the roles reversed.

[j] one said, o walk upright for ease, silhouette.

[k] In the exchange of goods, the grille revolves
[j] from the two dimensions of height
[k] to the two dimensions of distance.
[j] Of difference.

[j] For the idea of gender to play supplicant                     {of course, this must be the point at
                                                                                     which the crinolined one assumes all fours}
     a display of goods is necessary.

[k] —one so close to flesh, grommet of accents.

[j] For the man to seduce the woman “is psychologically more astute,” {j sits side saddle}
that is, if one is a man.

[k] Still: the exchange. Still: the abduction.
[j] The fixed price. The known & nonnegotiable cost. {as j speaks, both rise}

[k]: loudly] o muted sewn men conceal secret fish fins!! {newsboys}
[j: loudly] enjoyed underneath crinoline over sliding Paris!!
[k:loudly] disturbing days later preclude enlightenment!!

[j] IV.

[j] The number of commercial districts
that were sited on the former ground of formal gardens.

[k] (to be a man is to want a number?)

[quiet unison]        o silhouette                                                                  {both step back}
               scorched apocalyptic velocities
                  of bleached human window
                            immemorial

[j] V.

[j] The advertisement, or
     the flattening of experience to two dimensions.
[k]   Sometimes the bracket.
[j]   Sometimes the grille.

[quiet unison] “so much latitude to disguise them”
“I AM NOTHING NEW”

A counterfeit of interest—

[k] “These images of a day or an hour,
[j]    bleached by the elements,
[k]   charcoaled by urchins,
[j]    scorched by the sun.”

Surface of image, surface of text.

[k] The verb again, to make,
compounded. To make above. “the soul becomes the image of the body.”
Both proceeding from concealment, from desire to withhold.)

[j] And so: the inscription—

[k] COME TO SUNNY PRESTATYN!

[j] —the revision, endless, the precipitation of the actual, procession
of thighs against chests, against actual air.

This is the way of images.

{the grille comes down, gently?}
{j & k face each other}

[j] When confronted with the vertical the mind becomes a flock of intricate birds.

[k] We have learned our lesson, we speak when we are spoken to.

{face forward}

                              Not seldom in the dream
                              The eternal is death,
                              The four-footed companion of the man.

VI.

[j] (In the asphalted indoor arenas where people learned to ride bicycles,
[k] some women begin to sing.)

n e x t

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