True Blue & Love Always
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THIS IS A DIAGRAM OF MY FIRST HUSBAND
HE is SHOWN HERE IN HIS TRANSmogrifacTION INTO FOOD FOR THOUGHT
YOU CAN SEE THE THOUGHTS EATING HIM on the left
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THIS IS A DIAGRAM OF MY SECOND HUSBAND
YOU CAN SEE He GIVes BIRTH TO MORE HUSBANDS. THEN HE KILLS THEM
ALL AND CUTS BEAUTIFUL MARBLES OUT OF THEIR HEADS, I DON'T KNOW
HOW HE DOES IT. I KEEP THE MARBLES IN A SAFE.
Because he does this I am talismanically bound to him. He does it silently, when I accuse him, he pretends he does not know what I am talking about. Then it's time for bed.
Generally it’s always time for bed with my second husband. He magnetically inclines to the centre of the bed, where the sheet is always wrinkled as if you are filming Australia from the air. That kind of single crease on a long simple expanse: the idea of red but not the colour in fact. Husbands going to be put down on it and gentled.
There can never be too many husbands. I would like to fill the whole Grand Canyon with them and their wonderful marbles that already know me.
when I die, they will be planets for lonely astronomers, worlds with names you can only pronounce
through a dainty Egyptian horn
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THESE ARE MY BEST FRIENDS. IT LOOKS LIKE THERE ARE TWO because they are reversible.
They hail from the densely forested lowlands of suburban breakfasts.
LIKE PANGOLINS in your car, like pangolins in your car. FOR THIS REASON and BECAUSE OF THEIR SCALY EXTERIOR, friend SCIENce ONCE CONFUSED THEM WITH the car PANGOLIN.
they have spotted you now and look rooted to the spot. It is as if they are balanced on a ball of what happened last time you saw them
glow inhabits the lawn for many yards around. when they move, ripples out in front PLUS there is a sound
fffffffff fffffffff like you did say when you’re a little child
to tickle inside your head
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these are more people I will tell you a story:
I was born in Massachusetts. I did not have any real parents, I was fobbed off with store-bought supermarket brand parents who did not have names but were called generically MOM and DAD. They were black and white originally but I coloured them in.
When I was three or so they held me responsible. Oh I will never forget that day! The formula and mashed bananas and teddy bears, which I had thought just fell from the sky, it turned out, costed money. Well, that was one awful surprise and more awfuller was knowing I would have to pay them back. My parents lay about on the floor weeping saying "I can't take it anymore, someone else is going to have to take responsibility," and from time to time they squinted at me to see, was I taking the hint.
Later that year we set up a regular drip, which was a tube leading from the back of my head, where the skull joins the nape. Through the day, I would feel them sucking and settle back into my chair, relieved to know I was SOME USE.
Massachusetts had trees everywhere. They looked brown to me when I was small so brown was my favourite colour. I seem to remember everyone asking you constantly what your favourite colour was so I'd say brown brown brown that was trees and brown horses. I thought people were profane and bald compared to animals skin like puce vinyl and they smelled like the inside of some car, I hated them. I wanted to be a wolf. OR ANYTHING just not people.
That was about the time my drip started coming free of itself. I would pretend I didn't notice and run pouncing through the day spike yellow and remarkable with energy. Then the others adored me. Finally I fed the tube, plugs and hatchings and all, to Suzy Q, the Briggs's next-door's Springer Spaniel.
Dogs were beautiful and pranced and treetops pranced. I walked for hours in the woods, where sky and dark wood were smashed together like glass. If you walked forever over the hills something wonderful would happen. There were paths in there, if you followed them enough you could go HOME real HOME not this HOME real HOME
I started to run away from home. It took over my whole mind and thinking like a horror movie fly collector who can think of flies only his whole walls are one psychedelic eyesore of flies and when he undresses flies fall out of his clothes on a bed of flies and his girlfriend says "You love those flies more than you love me," and she catches the lonesome train and Grandpa tells him straight: "Joe, you're turning into a fly!" I never got away.
I grew up disappointingly into the Forked Thing with Arms. The "Neapolitan" design in the starfish range. The starfish with one really short hairy leg on top, and its mouth and eyes are on that leg, both on the same side.
Having grown up, I began to receive my own mail and the spelling of my name gained legal significance. It was awful, it was atrocious, it was awful and it was atrocious.
I stopped trying to be with people. Then I lived in a damp room. Sometimes I would go out and walk the street, pretending. I liked to look at things people did from a safe distance from A CAFE TABLE, like, and I knew many things about people I could NOT HAVE FOUND OUT BY THESE MEANS. I wrote fat encyclopaedias of accurate observations. NO ONE knows how.
I married someone else who hated everyone. We sat at A CAFE TABLE and looked out. We were like travellers marooned on some island with waiters rowing in and out with fresh coffee and inexpensive cakes. And the damned buzzards overhead, I will never forget it. DAMNED BUZZARDS!
At last the buzzards gott him. He had to goe to they head hospittal. He had all big holes in his up there where the things come in and went out, a-feeding. Jesus Christ, I say, and Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ but HE will not come down for my first husband in his swoopy robes, zooming, cause my first husband WOULD NOT COME DOWN FOR HIM if he was BLEEDING TO DEATH on a CROSS.
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Amos was the name of my first husband. Amos Weisz pronounced VICE.
The first time we went out together, we were in Oxford Street, and out of nowhere Amos began to run. He ran and ran away from me, not graceful but like an intellectual Jewish boy, stooping. Also I believe he had black slick-soled shoes on, that kind of run. That you only do to catch a bus. He ran. I
ran after him. I thought, this is his misogynistic point, he's running away from THE WOMAN who entraps THE MAN and he is NOT FREE so he runs, and he makes his strange misogynistic point that he HATES ME. I ran after him. We both ran for a long time. Finally I caught up and we continued walking on the pavement. He said to me, "I'm really looking forward to FUCKING YOU tonight." From that day to this we have not mentioned his running.
Actually we got married just for the citizenship so I could stay in England we were married for the rest of our lives. Living in Berlin, the city of ghosts and giants you see when you shut your eyes. When he was going mad, schizo hearing voices Amos wrote to me we must separate and he regretted it, how sad it was, although we hadn’t seen each other in five years.
Sadism beauty and the strange and savage and enormous air of Middle Europe. Outside a window whose curtain we do not dare to ever draw
and the wind cries Jews Jews Jews
under the too deep blue
when we lived in Wedding pronounced Vedding.
and we are connected by a curly wire STILL though I no longer have the right socket I swallow my end to try he is jerry-rigging his end with tea-kettle leads and hairclips
So we do communicate by phone and sometimes meet for dinner.
He has two daughters by his new wife
the four of them are penniless. sometimes they go to Ireland. In this place they sleep in a trailer and From this place they bring green photos
of sad times and often a lone ducking smallish grey sheep far behind
on the short bright grass
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from a doorway prance 25 tall black poodles in 5 rows of 5
if swans or gorillas are used, they will be in 6 rows of 4, with plumes in the case of swans, in the case of gorillas no ornament or ruffs. a combination of the three beasts has been used to great effect in the descent of Jeremy Pinetooth, as documented in the fine photographic account of his damnation
the poodles move in lockstep they wear pale (silver or platinum) bracelets on all four ankles on each bracelet is a tiny sleigh type bell the door, before it opens, is a wooden barn type door, freshly painted red. in some cases it may not be open but cloven in twain by teams of liveried dwarves
the poodles are descending a staircase going ka ching ka ching
the dogs move:
both left feet down one step, then the right feet down to the same step, but lagging behind,
so the effect is of a limp
with the first, dipping motion of the left foot, the dogs bow their heads – always in unison
at every fifth step they stop, raise their muzzles to the sky – which has been emptied of blue and is transparent forever never giving way to darkness or stars or any whiteness but nothing, nothing
(this is absolutely key)
having raised their muzzles, they pause as if awaiting hte sweep of a conductor’s baton. then howl, but briefly, a quarter note’s howl, and lower their snouts and move again, always on the left foot
in the case of swans or gorillas, the pause is on the sixth step and the sounds are altered
caw whoop
in the case of swans or gorillas, there will be 60,000 steps
in the case of poodles there are 100,000 steps
the steps are of white quartz
behind the dogs come 20 white maids on hands and knees, with their hair tied up in blue kerchiefs, wearing clean white aprons over utterly besmirched muddy flesh, the flesh must be utterly besmirched to the point that it gives the effect of brown clothes
at every tenth step the four leftward dogs turn and swiftly nip the shoulders of the dogs to the right the far right dog nips at the air the motion must be so rapid that the casual observer sees a mere head-wag, only realising later, when the flesh is torn and the bone appears pale and the blood runs along the white steps in four streams, each cleaned by a series of maids, that violence has been done
the entire performance carries on for five hours in the case of poodles, less in the case of gorillas, more if using swans
thus is our descent into prickly voracious hellfire danced & danced & danced & danced & danced
& danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced &
danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & d
anced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & da
nced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & dan
ced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danc
ed & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & dance
d & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced
& danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced &
danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced &
danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & d
anced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & da
nced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & dan
ced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danc
ed & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & dance
d & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced
& danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced &
danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced &
danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & d
anced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & da
nced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & dan
ed & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & dance
d & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced
& danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced &
danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced &
danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & d
anced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & da
nced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & dan
ed & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & dance
d & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced & danced
at last, after many years, the poodles emerge new white and scattering, woofing shaking their damp clean wool like joyful lather
but the maids remain below
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This is my second husband.
And these are all my best friends.
I drive to the meadow wildflowers come running
to the road to greet me
and my second husband and my best friends.