EXCERPTS FROM WORKS
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Demonica
(published in Cellar Door; to be re-published in Big Bridge)
Monica’s my name. Don’t think of that Monica, though. My game plan has nothing to do with sucking up to “great men” to imbibe their power. I live in the underground; reside in the virtual dreams of great man aspirants, suck the embryonic power out of them.
There’s one now, my
Number 666 saunters into my plushly appointed office, back straight, arm extended, prepared to shake virtual hands. What, are you kidding? You don’t shake hands with haute hookers. Hah! There’s a tidbit of martini blubber round his middle, but I can tell he’s been frequenting the tanning salons and I’m past such trifles as blubber. Double chins make me swoon. This number’s sort of cute, predictably so, but bearable, without pig features; looks as if he’s prodding 40, wears wedding band. A slight hint of reflective melancholia in his emotional aroma . . . ah, it’s nearly intoxicating, along with the plump lower lip, implying sensuality.
“Take off your shirt and let me see what you have,” I say, “Ducky duck, you’re a fine example of the species, you obviously work out 7 days a week and I love those assertive nipples – just the right shade too. So what’s wrong with Mitzy? Ah, but you’re not here to discuss her now, are you, darlin, so remove your pants.”
Great man aspirants are always obedient. It never fails. At least the first few times, they do whatever I tell them to do. After four or five sessions with smartass me, they want Shirley or Lulu, aficionados of Harlequin romance novels. The men panic after my recitals of deviant literature. Sooner or later, I’ll quote Barthelme, Parker, Gaitskill, Borges, Ballard or Boroughs. Depends on my mood. Never Rand, Mailer, Fitzgerald or Hemingway, that’s for sure.
The man looks puzzled, then vaguely frightened. I want to swallow him.
“So spread your legs, my darling dove,” I coo. “Lie down on the virtual red rug there, costly Turkish, imported, tasteful, elegant. I never let janitors lie down on it, not to worry.”
He lies down, spreads his legs, a comforting sign of early surrender. I gaze at the painstakingly molded thighs and the pulsing worm between them, as the hungry little creature gains in stature. I can see the great man in the making and I know he wants me to take the worm in my hot red mouth. I don’t.
I stand above him, my legs straddling his body. He begs me: “Let me see them.”
“What?” I ask, innocently, “What is it you’d like to see, my dovey dove?”
“I want to touch them. They are so big, like mountains I want to climb with my tongue and fingers; like modest Everests they are. I am but a poor climber, disarmed,” he tells me. Sure.
“You are but a cliché of a man,” I respond, with feigned fatigue, as I stroke my precious cavern through the mesh steel miniskirt I wear to work. Fucking irritating uniform they make me wear. And these idiot phony nails, violet this week.
“Plead with me and recite a poem. Perhaps then . . .” I add.
He recites that Wordsworth poem about daffodils.
“You’re going to have to do better than that.”
So he tries T.S. Elliot; switches to Ezra Pound when I yawn somewhat vociferously. Then attempts the obvious: Shakespeare, some sickening sonnet or other.
I yawn again, without restraint. “I don’t want to see your godlike face, with the chin dent, or hear you quote poetry I’ve heard before, so many times. You have no imagination, I say, only that expressive writhing creature you want me to consume. Lie on your stomach, so I can play with it, perhaps . . . as I wish.”
He reverses himself. I gaze at the brown mounds of his buttocks, as he waits. He waits to be touched some way or other, even if it pains him, he must be touched.
He turns his head to look at me when he hears the sound of the chains.
“Don’t look at me, not now. Maybe later, if you’re good.” You should know what happened to Orpheus. You did go to Yale now, did you not?
I check the rule book. I always forget the routine, though I actually know it by heart; I do not own it, simply play it. I’m supposed to undress loudly, with obscene moans, but slowly, and I’m supposed to slap him when he gives in to the impulse to see what I’m doing. I’m advised to anoint my skin with aromatic oils, telling him precisely what I’m doing. Then, when he can no longer bear the suspense, I’m to tell him he qualifies for a second mortgage at extremely low rates. After that, I’m to tickle his cock with a feather pen . . .
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Interview with Self
I: When did you consider interviewing Self?
Me: It was at no point whatsoever at which I realized there was nothing else to do and that was that. Well, maybe it was that or that was that or this. I couldn't be sure until I'd gone through the process. When I was four or five at the beach near my house, peering into the beach bags of bathers, finding banana skins and eggshells. I seem to remember an ovular moment.
I: What did you feel was critical to express? You must have a reason.
Me: The first thing to think of after that was this. So with that in mind, I would naturally have to be the centerpiece of the allegory. Then I thought I could possibly relate the tiresome ontological metaphors, the isms and ologies and ohms and ohmygods, you know Being and Non-Being and it’s all the same and everything but not but no thing and illusions and all that and this in an innovative way, meaning by means of an interview with me, my Self, and that by so doing, I would be original.
Then of course there are so many possible audiences, a veritable cornucopia of ears. If you are performing in front of a Rumanian audience, you don't want to play Indian pop tunes, do you? Well, that's the point precisely now, isn't it?
I: Stop stating the obvious. You are fragile in the head. You know there will always be a Rumanian audience that loves Indian pop tunes. Try to answer the question. Why select your Self as audience, assuming its relevancy for argument’s sake?
Me: That may be so, frequent fragility, I admit, and it could be vitamin deficiency during pregnancy, too many martinis, I’ll say Mother’s fault to be kind to you. But it was hard to find anyone else available off the bat and with time, people disappear, or in time they become lost. Oh oh there was this one and that one, and theoretically, I weep. Either way, scheduling is always a problem; then there’s the mortgage, much to lose, little to gain, though in truth of course property is a laden donkey, but on the other hand, there’s crème brulee. So to cut corners became critical and then of course money and also fame, objects of desire. The audience always takes bets: this one will be a winner, 10 to one; that one will place second, and so on. With the right agent, consider Self as
syndicated in scarlet or lavender, black, teal, indigo, non-fat or 100% fat with anti-toxins. Sold! Voila! It’s a matter of flexibility. Mother told me I could become. But with money and fame would I strut about the globe blowing kisses from yachts and exhibiting my latest endangered species fur? I would be stealing the allegory of myself. Horrors!
I: But you admit that audience may be irrelevant and you’re not famous. You haven’t been published in The New Yorker or appeared on Oprah and you don’t dress in black feathers and prance about the city making a name for yourself as The Doomsday Lady, though I know for a fact you’ve considered it. Face it: you are starving for an audience that could be irrelevant, and you are driveling. You are always going off on tangents, you know very well. It’s all I can do to make you focus.
Me: Oh now you’re talking ideology and semantics. Your insistent literalism and exactitude is exasperating. You take all of this and that much too seriously and think the only people worthy of being interviewed can be found on amazon.com with five star reviews or viewed on talk or news shows. That tells me a lot about you. Frankly, your imagination has close walls.
I: No need to lose your temper. Of course, there’s your childhood and why you might want to lose it, as well as your train of thought. Not to mention your plane of thought, predictable fear of flying. You cringe like a cur. You chase your tail.
Me: I am most adamantly not a dog. Simply let’s say childhood was okay as childhoods go, probably better than yours but maybe not. I’ve heard of worse. Nobody locked me in a cellar, shoveled dirt into my mouth or poked objects into my delicate overtures. Nobody told me I couldn’t eat ham if I didn’t first eat my peas. So I am very lucky to have gotten away with a tolerable childhood. Not the best but not the worst, no not by a long shot, even better than worst though lesser than best, if you get my drift, you understand, the occasional nagging and smothering, to be expected, and my head hurt when she brushed my hair.
Asleep during childhood, we can scarcely remember details, but emotional tones, themes, as in subtle transformations of the child in her own eyes, in kindergarten, first grade, summer camp, and so on, by means of humiliating experiences. Example one: two older boys tugging at her underpants, tearing them off. Example two: she forgets purposefully. So there are memories, tales and rumors, but you can never believe any of them completely. Take what you want and discard the rest I say. End of temporary reverie and on to the next.
I: Back to the issue of audience. Focus for once.
Me: Oh dear.
I: It seems as though you are perfectly content to be your own irrelevant audience, expressing critical whatnots come what may, vast truths you haven’t defined. Is that not true or not?
Me: Well, it’s a mark of maturity to realize that one’s most attentive audience is Self. But also one’s least attentive. And then one must ask what is Self, most often referred to as one’s self or my self, and that is where the amniotic fluid gets murky. We ourselves have wondered that so many times. But contentment?
Okay, I understand a diversion, though we are so tempted to try, say this or say Eastern methodology or phenomenology, to empty Self of self or resist self without resisting Self or become either a cathedral or gargoyle. So the question is: will you dance with me? But can one tell the dancer from the dance or know that one is not say, a butterfly? Unless one falls into a bucket full of collective shit, no question mark. So the bottom line is let us return to Exhibit “A.,” the dear forgotten womb, nostalgia of beginnings, terrifying tabula rasa.
I: Oh twiddle twaddle, this and that, isn’t it true that you have nothing new to say, though you desperately want to say whatever you consider important, in a new way, you imagine that you imagine?.
Me: Now it’s your time to listen, so listen. I have this to say. Picture a donkey with a cargo of bananas and hens. She is stumbling on stones through the night, smells a bewildering frenzy of unidentified flowers, somewhere under the shared sky of dim, far flung stars. She hears the voices of creatures she can neither smell nor see and trembles, feeling vulnerable to their genetic destinies. Inevitably, the donkey, exhausted, sits down by the roadside if she is allowed. Her nose longs for only one scent, her eyes for only one vision, and her ears for only one sound.
I: Which are?
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She Was a Bellydancer, He a Canadian Mountie
Blanche and Maurice met at an ornithological discussion website. At once, they seized upon their mutual fascination with an exotic bird simply called the Purplex, at first, simply.
According to The Journal of International Psycho-Ornithology, three members of The Oz Polar Bear Club Southern Tasmanian Chapter discovered the Orno Purplex genus Coconutz in 1964, during the heyday of the Vietnam War, when quite a few Down Under were frolicking wisely far from the fray.
A Purplex Simplex was floating belly up atop the
The Bears did nothing but giggle and point. “Perhaps it’s some kind of mutant casualty,” Winnie said to William and William said to Fred, “you reckon?” They were extremely frigid purple and swam with alacrity to shore and lager without even attempting to trap the Purplex Simplex. Out of the question. The members were mortally afraid their favorite extremities would freeze and detach themselves from their corpsetic habitats, courage be fucked, like icicles gasping for breath on a fir tree.
Eventually, a duet of traveling scientists from
Not long ago (perhaps), Glenda Bernstein, a social worker in New York City, found a Purplex singing a Wagnerian overture on a Hudson pier in winter. Glenda the roller blader managed to trap the creature (“rescue” it, as she rationalized) by singing back to it with her perfect pitch; and it came to pass that a gaggle of scientists decided to classify the bird as a Purplex Complex, as it could sing more than one tune. But not only: it could sing more than one tune at a time, which made neighboring birds very anxious and potentially dangerous. So the authorities felt compelled to contain the Purplex Complex, much to its chagrin and Glenda’s. A caged Purplex Complex does NOT sing.
But what of the man and woman? Enough about the bird!
So when the man and woman, Maurice and Blanche, swimming in cyberitic waves, met by chance or mysterious purpose (who can tell?) there sprang an instant Purplex connection she recognized immediately, while he enjoyed the mutual appreciation he considered pleasant when he chanced to think of it of her, after escalating email intersections. And they were both rhapsodic about Brahms’s Violin Concerto; indeed, it became “their song,” in time.
Blanche dreamed of Maurice when she could help it, but she could not control his movements; he was always walking away from her. As a result, she became unrecognizable to herself in mirrors, felt unworthy of what she did not know, but eschewed Botox because well, that was not her thing.
Maurice never dreamed of Blanche or if he did, did not recognize her. His dreams were full of flying objects and battles. He had been a reluctant parachute trooper during the Vietnam War, a rising Hollywood screenwriter, even an idealistic FBI agent for a brief time. He had been a lawyer of some repute, waging battles against corporate giants poisoning rivers and skies. Thus, his dreams were like action films, exceedingly crowded. They were also opaque, refusing light. Blanche wondered if she would always be an extra Maurice would never really see.
Maurice was currently a Canadian Mountie. Said he loved mountains and horses and air and occasionally rescuing people, that was that, but in truth he was somewhat vague about life oh what is life and terribly cynical seeming. Yet it was clear he had attempted Love in its various tuneful permutations and had in fact perhaps succeeded on occasion. He said once that he couldn’t decide if he had actually lived through all the sublime and ridiculous events he imagined he’d survived, including near extinction by falling shrapnel in a swamp and condemnation by a gang of
Meanwhile, Blanche was frantically belly dancing, a temporary occupational measure to ward off aging and cynicism after an exhausting career as an ACLU lawyer and eventually perpetually perplexed Solitary Criminal Defense Attorney. Battling uphill, Blanche too had attempted Love, finding it a funhouse room of delightful and opaque reflections. She had smelled death inside the box that contained her father’s ashes. And she was intimate with betrayal. Mother was in the land of dementia, needed to know she was alive and why. Her brother had disappeared into a dangerous cult in
It was on a day when she felt as loose as a mongoose floating in the ocean, beyond the reach of mongoose-horn fishers that Blanche asked Maurice, not innocently really but nearly so, from some part of her poetically soft self she asked him, wanting him to be for her her final complete metaphor. She asked him to come in she did. He would take a train from the wilds of mid
Would they actually meet? That night, the woman retires her body, heavy with wine. Hours away, the Hudson River Purplex is morose by the window in her cell. She can see nothing but the contours of objects, very large they are, far from the sea she can smell so faintly. She cannot see it is too far away. Her bird bones grow moist with memory.
They met, yes. One day a Saturday at the train station; the train was late she did not recognize him She thought perhaps he was a thin man with a receding hairline, a man who left a parcel on the station platform and walked away; she thought perhaps a bomb, was going to run, said to herself, let’s not be ridiculous. She thought first I must taste this man I do not know why but I must, it’s in the cards, no not, let’s not be silly. And he was suddenly approaching, the man with the parcel now, so very frightening there until until… she found she knew the shape of his eyebrows, like accent marks, foreign but friendly they were, circumflexive.
But did they meet? He asked her, “Blanche, finally?” She grew confused, trying to recall her name. It wasn’t Blanche, was it? The name sounded so out of sorts, as did he – a nexus of mismanaged energy. She bolted, jolted out of kilter, perplexed ran into his arms, she could tell his arms, the spade shaped mole on his wrist she kissed or wanted to really too red with amazement it was he -- Maurice with his green-grey eyes, circumflexive eyebrows, mouth quivering like the heart of the Purplex Complex, one would imagine. He placed his palm on her breast it was summer she felt his hand burn. The package contained a very large chocolate covered singing bird music box with a bottle of French champagne attached to its neck . . .
You’ve never suspected that I have unusually acute hearing, but I can hear your every breath and snort; I always have, even without equipment. I can pinpoint your precise, shifting location, currently 189 degrees south, 263 degrees due west of my tidy box in the ostentatious ‘burbs, the box with the Corinthian columns, surrounded by lilac trees and an electric fence. I’ve been recording your recordings of me for many years, my soldiers.
I’ve felt the planet yawn every time you’ve changed perspectives, theories, names, candidates, nationalities, allegiances, lovers. When you’re not talking amongst yourselves, I can hear the polyester squeaking as you cross your legs. I hear you folding your arms, gazing avariciously into the wide screens, playing solitaire and cursing in chat rooms. I hear you making jokes about blondes, innuendos about women with purdahs, quashing revolutions for your kings, my soldiers . . .
This is my position, moving you about, my soldiers, moving you as you move me. We are at one another’s disposal, at the whim of Uncle and all those who control him, and you are at the disposal of your gods. But it is I who write the speeches, call the destroyer planes, commandeer the fleets; and it is I who takes the final orders: poof, you’re gone. I control the rumors and send bonbons to your wives, write the obituaries, and provide the bagpipes at your funerals. I can hear you always, and I can feel you moving, even in my sleep. I sleep on stone pillows; I cannot afford to sleep. Infrequently, I imagine making love but never with abandon, never the way of women who live on islands and shop at Bonwits, never the way of women who are not obliged to imagine.
One of you has felt me watching. After all these years, I can feel you approaching, my soldier. I can feel you and I cannot scheme. You are the one who stays away from churches. You are the one who does not laugh at women, the one who has no need to watch or listen. Do not approach, fair one. You are so close I can feel your hairs growing. Your hands are feverish, palms slightly moist, empty, open to touch, my soldier. One day, I catch you kneeling by your dying mother, asking: please, please, I want my self back, take me . . . back . . . .
Fish Triptych
1. Bluefish
shun flipped out tides, festive winds dancing sambas, the sun’s breath on the curling lips of waves, never look in mirrors, don’t flirt, would be wallflowers as if there were walls in water you can barely see the gray-blue hue waning beneath those insulting fresh shades of cerulean, turquoise and teal, can barely catch the heavy empty fish dragging its catatonic shadow like a carcass along the underbelly of the sea. Maybe it’s a spring Friday when you reach for red pills and Tequila....
2. Tilefish
come in so many varieties. Would you care to order the catalogue, discounted if you own a villa? You do, now don’t you? I can tell by the way you arch your gossamer eyebrows and your winter lipstick is so perfect, no smudges, clear color, clear as a newborn jellyfish, no cracks. Chanel’s Levres Scintillantes, my absolute favorite; don’t ask me how I know.
Psychic moi has the odd feeling your villa contains five kitchens, nine bathrooms, four playrooms (with annexed drinking dens), three grand dining rooms, and a saltwater swimming pool. You’ll need at least 90,000 square yards, with co-ordinating fabrics, paintings, and pianos. Here’s the catalogue, the venerable tome of tilefish. It’s comprised of 35 chapters, fully illustrated and accompanied by music of your choice. Simply press the fisheye buttons on the bottom of the pages to listen.
This one, you see, tilefish 457, is called the Mediterranean opera star. Particularly suitable for playrooms, it comes with your choice of Puccini or Verdi arias. Every time you step on the tilefish, the room will flood with opulent waves of music. For an additional fee, the room will also flood with a lushly luminous light, color your choice. I personally prefer the teal with gold tails and fins. I have this number in my own favorite playroom.
For bathrooms, I usually recommend the UU tilefish 334, but it only comes in black and white, as here; you see the white fish with the black fins and red eyes. I do so love the red eyes, don’t you? I have this number in my master bathroom; it’s absolutely stunning with the matching red shower curtain and black and white towels. It only comes with one song, however. I’m sure you can guess what that is, my dear. Of course, you have so many
bathrooms. There are those who would say you're obscene. But one can’t have too many, I always say. Feel free to wander about the bathroom sections at your leisure.
Now I absolutely must show you our tilefish special of the month. This is the immensely popular French tilefish 666, tasteful in any room, but best in the dining room or drinking den. See, you can tell it’s French by its puckered lips; you can almost hear it saying “oui, oui, ma cherie!” This number comes in a variety of colors, but always with a red mouth. Step on 666 and you’ll hear songs by Piaff or Brell. And naturally it comes with a set of Baron de Bovine crystal wine glasses and a La Grande Bouche decanter. Soft, succulent lighting in a choice of hues comes at no extra cost, this month only.
For swimming pools, I recommend number 345, the undulating Galapagos. These rainbow-colored tilefish glow seductively in the dark; they look fabulous in moonlight with Pinot Noir. The favored musical accompaniments of most customers are Frank Sinatra or Guy Lombardo, maybe some big band or tango, but we realize the teenage set prefers hip-hop and Jaylo. We therefore provide a remote control mechanism for parents, with volume regulation.
I’ll leave you to wander through the seas of tilefish at your leisure, all comfy on our water-sofa, on sale through Friday....
3. Monkfish
We secrete ourselves in caves, rarely emerge. We live inside our hearts, worship the light that enters our abode, light that dances on the ceilings of the seas. We sleep so much, hope so much, need nothing but the dance of light and shade, we so white.
It is enough to dine on the slim, swaying leaves that burst from the bed of the earth like hair. It is enough to know no thing, to breathe mystery. We hope.
Through filters of light pass the shapes of the octopus, shark, dolphin, blowfish and barracuda. The wonders of water leave us as is. We are born silent, come from a place you cannot remember you imagine. Unlike the bluefish, we have no smell; but we have Thelonius.
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War
One night when she was tipsy from moonshine she mistook him for her bed
A most succulent derriere, said he. She answered, Dear pillow.
At first, they spun like ballet dancers on a mirror and he would catch her whenever she lost her balance. The season was delirious and he didn’t mind her mother. In a caprice of nostalgia, Mother drugged them with goose and apple mushroom dumplings till they bloomed like plush new sofas.
They knew how to be alone while together and together while alone, she and he. For each, there was no other. He knew when to speak words she craved: crème bruleebutternut squash. She knew where to find his vision when his eyes were cloudy with sour milk. He named her Precarious; she named him Invincible. They knew their places on the map of their needs; they planted an embryo, mistaking need for desire. and
All was well and good until Dark Red ran against Light Blue, knocking Blue over like a bowling pin. For months she wept for dying children and slaughtered animals, wrung her hands till they were dry, refused his insistent body in the dark. Armageddon approaches like a herd of angry monoliths, she would whisper, Prepare! But don’t let them know that we know they’re almost here! There are ears in the chandeliers!
He would call her Timid Blueberry, Hormonal Hothead; she would call him Pugnacious Marmalade, Bitter Prozac.
The urge inside her stopped growing and one day he didn’t come home. He is working for Red, she said to Mother. They were on the roof, folding clothes, their voices competing with the battle cries of planes. The stones are coming. Can’t you hear them, Mother? There, there, cooed Mother, it is only the planes. ........
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