dummy

The door is a gate. The dead

gate leads open to a meadow

which presides over a fence. The

fence is full of ivy, and blown

brown. [Brown mirror, green orb,

blue atom.] Beyond that

there is a house, and upstairs,

a small girl’s room. She is

alone: Her fuzzy pink shirt. Her

tie-dyed night-shirt. Which is

to be soft. Which is touched.

In the microphone, she says

pushed on a swing by a man.

Or organized by a train.

Cottonwood, this late September,

what is it that you want to see?

Man’s dressing room. Squalid.

No stars around. No room.

Dim though an excess of flash.

He is a pioneer, this one.

You can hear him moan Lolita

and when one comes he

gathers her youth from a cup.

She is soft and then ridiculous.

She is a little drunk.

She shivers, shifting from side

to side on her silken feet. She

is smitten like a witch.

But then she looks like

Dorothy Gale. Where are her

red shoes? Oh Judy Judy Judy

now it’s too late to fight.

In my Father’s house are many mansions….

O the church-thriller… holy relic,

holy naves. The platen a smorgasboard

of depraved priests and winding sheets,

swollen swollen chests. The lair is

underground and you don a hat–you are

sympatico, Frere Jacques, the stupid

semi-devout eyeglass and candle-maker,

one step from the altar. With no gold

to be found. But a respectable dagger

1/4 turn sunk in your great-coat. What

trick is this? Abandon Hope? Put down

you weapon and run–run away? So soon?

Macabre as well, so you expect a body.

She screams; the flames engulf her

womb. Up there, there was like a kind of a

vulture, over the narthex. A curious

one-way bird. It was suggestive of trust.

Then a screech; she wondered if she might

not make it. So she did the unthinkable:

she lugged the icon inside. All her weight

on it. Now, her handbag has turned thick

as a slab, as a percussive drum. There is a

sickening sense. Something truly awful

grips the apse of her fathers.

I’ll channel your sincerity through

a series of paper cut-outs, doll-hearts

that I’ve invented from squirrels, mice,

baby owls. When you ask me why I’ll say

the better to eat you with, my dear…

just like the song. But I won’t (won’t)

play the wolf. Put turpentine into the

paint to stir… Hello, you know how it

works by now; the fabliau’s made you

thin thin thin. What’s that? No one’s been

pulled up by their bootstraps? Well,

you shouldn’t mix the colors so much.

I got it. There’s a heretic at the door

with an axe. Don’t answer.

Your own a length of cut-out felt

having been pulled open or picked at

till the ends frayed. A jacket or sweater

red as the map. Now chases lightning

between storms strung here or there or

the next party you leave (it). Doesn’t

trust the locals; they give bad directions.

But what about the fairies, will it trust

them? The roots of this plant are now ten

miles long. And this toadstool, will it

squat here? Hello this is Mexico. Hello

this is Berlin /you’re breaking up/ Hello

this is Germany. Do you have a longer

string? A little more please. I’m sure.