repairing the lines from city to city?
Why don’t you find me riding a horse through Cuba,
a giant of a man with a red machete?
Why don’t you find me explaining machines
to underprivileged pupils, negroid Spaniards,
happy it is not a course in creative writing?
Come back here, little warm body,
it’s time for another day.
Destiny has fled and I settle for you
who found me staring at you in a store
one afternoon four years ago
and slept with me every night since.
How do you find my sailor eyes after all this time?
Am I what you expected?
Are we together too much?
Did Destiny shy at the double Turkish towel,
our knowledge of each other’s skin,
our love which is a proverb on the block,
our agreement that in matters spiritual
I should be the Man of Destiny
and you should be the Woman of the House?
QUEEN VICTORIA AND ME
Queen Victoria
my father and all his tobacco loved you
I love you too in all your forms
the slim unlovely virgin anyone would lay
the white figure floating among German beards
the mean governess of the huge pink maps
the solitary mourner of a prince
Queen Victoria
I am cold and rainy
I am dirty as a glass roof in a train station
I feel like an empty cast-iron exhibition
I want ornaments on everything
because my love she gone with other boys
Queen Victoria
do you have a punishment under the white lace
will you be short with her
and make her read little Bibles
will you spank her with a mechanical corset
I want her pure as power
I want her skin slightly musty with petticoats
will you wash the easy bidets out of her head
Queen Victoria
I’m not much nourished by modern love
Will you come into my life
with your sorrow and your black carriages
and your perfect memory
Queen Victoria
The 20th century belongs to you and me
Let us be two severe giants
(not less lonely for our partnership)
who discolour test tubes in the halls of science
who turn up unwelcome at every World’s Fair
heavy with proverb and correction
confusing the star-dazed tourists
with our incomparable sense of loss
THE PURE LIST AND
THE COMMENTARY
The Pure List
The alarm clock invented the day
Savana the evil scientist
I loved you in blouses
It’s the laundry ringing
Your bra was so flimsy
Albert Hotel sixth floor
A shoe box of drugs
I looked for you in the audience
Lie down forever in the Photomat
Your sister has blond hair
Does Perception work
Do you say zero or oh
Very few people have thighs
Etc.
The Commentary
1. The alarm clock invented the day. Luckily the glass was broken and I could twist the black moustaches. They turned into angry black whips tethered to a screw in the middle of a sundial, writhing to get free.
2. Savana the evil scientist, foe of Captain Marvel and the entire Marvel family, I summon you from your migrating Mosaic grave. Tireless worker! If I must lose, let me lose like thee!
3. I loved you in blouses. I rubbed sun-tan lotion on your back and other parts. I did this in all seasons. I loved you in old-fashioned garters. I wanted to make a brown photograph about you and pass it around cloakrooms. I would have snatched it away from someone and beat up his face.
4. It’s the laundry ringing, ringing, ringing. It’s a lovely sound for a Saturday morning, n’est-ce pas? The delivery boy has no place else to go. He is of a different race. Perhaps he’s looked through my shirts. I think these people know too much about us.
5. Your bra was so flimsy and light, just a tantalizing formality. I thought it would die in my pocket like a corsage.
6. Albert Hotel sixth floor seven thirty p.m. On the scratched table I set out in a row a copper bust of Stalin, a plaster of paris bust of Beethoven, a china jug shaped like Winston Churchill’s head, a reproduction of a fragment of the True Cross, a small idol, a photograph of a drawing of the Indian Chief Pontiac, hair, an applicator used for artificial insemination. I undressed and waited for power.
7. A shoe box of drugs. Isn’t this carrying deception too far? Where will you keep your shoes?
8. I looked for you in the audience when I delivered the Memorial Lecture. Ladies and Gents, the honour is the same but the pleasure is somewhat diminished. I had expected, I had hoped to find among your faces a face which once – No, I have said too much. Let me continue. The pith of plant stems, the marrow of bones, the cellular, central, inner part of animal hair, the medulla oblongata … I exposed these fine minds to bravery, Etc.
THE NEW STEP
A Ballet-Drama in One Act
CHARACTERS:
MARY and DIANE, two working girls who room together. MARY is very plain, plump, clumsy: ugly, if one is inclined to the word. She is the typical victim of beauty courses and glamour magazines. Her life is a search for, a belief in the technique, the elixir, the method, the secret, the hint that will transform and render her forever lovely. DIANE is a natural beauty, tall, fresh and graceful, one of the blessed. She moves to a kind of innocent sexual music, incapable of any gesture which could intrude on this high animal grace. To watch her pull on her nylons is all one needs of ballet or art.
HARRY is the man Diane loves. He has the proportions we associate with Greek statuary. Clean, tall, openly handsome, athletic. He glitters with health, decency, and mindlessness.
THE COLLECTOR is a woman over thirty, grotesquely obese, a great heap, deformed, barely mobile. She possesses a commanding will and combines the fascination of the tyrant and the freak. Her jolliness asks for no charity. All her movements represent the triumph of a rather sinister spiritual energy over an intolerable mass of flesh.
SCENE:
It is eight o’clock of a Saturday night. All the action takes place in the girls’ small apartment which need be furnished with no more than a dressing-mirror, wardrobe, record-player, easy chair, and a front door. We have the impression, as we do from the dwelling places of most bachelor girls, of an arrangement they want to keep comfortable but temporary.
DIANE is dressed in bra and panties, preparing herself for an evening with HARRY. MARY follows her about the room, lost in envy and awe, handing DIANE the necessary lipstick or brush, doing up a button or fastening a necklace. MARY is the dull but orthodox assistant to DIANE’S mysterious ritual of beauty.
MARY: What is it like?
DIANE: What like?
MARY: You know.
DIANE: No.
MARY: To be like you.
DIANE: Such as?
MARY: Beautiful.
(Pause. During these pauses DIANE continues her toilet as does MARY her attendance.)
DIANE: Everybody can be beautiful.
MARY: You can say that.
DIANE: Love makes people beautiful.
MARY: You can say that.
DIANE: A woman in love is beautiful.
(Pause.)
MARY: Look at me.
DIANE: I’ve got to hurry.
MARY: Harry always waits.
DIANE: He said he’s got something on his mind.
MARY: You’ve got the luck.
(Pause.)
MARY: Look at me a second.<
br />
DIANE: All right.
(MARY performs an aggressive curtsy.)
MARY: Give me some advice.
DIANE: Everybody has their points.
MARY: What are my points?
DIANE: What are your points?
MARY: Name my points.
(MARY stands there belligerently. She lifts up her skirt. She rolls up her sleeves. She tucks her sweater in tight.)
DIANE: I’ve got to hurry.
MARY: Name one point.
DIANE: You’ve got nice hands.
MARY (Surprised): Do I?
DIANE: Very nice hands.
MARY: Do I really?
DIANE: Hands are very important.
(MARY shows her hands to the mirror and gives them little exercises.)
DIANE: Men often look at hands.
MARY: They do?
DIANE: Often.
MARY: What do they think?
DIANE: Think?
MARY (Impatiently): When they look at hands.
DIANE: They think: There’s a nice pair of hands.
MARY: What else?
DIANE: They think: Those are nice hands to hold.
MARY: And?
DIANE: They think: Those are nice hands to – squeeze.
MARY: I’m listening.
DIANE: They think: Those are nice hands to – kiss.
MARY: Go on.
DIANE: They think – (racking her brain for compassion’s sake.)
MARY: Well?
DIANE: Those are nice hands to – love!
MARY: Love!
DIANE: Yes.
MARY: What do you mean “love”?
DIANE: I don’t have to explain.
MARY: Someone is going to love my hands?
DIANE: Yes.
MARY: What about my arms?
DIANE: What about them? (A little surly.)
MARY: Are they one of my points?
(Pause.)
DIANE: I suppose not one of your best.
MARY: What about my shoulders?
(Pause.)
DIANE: Your shoulders are all right.
MARY: You know they’re not. They’re not.
DIANE: Then what did you ask me for?
MARY: What about my bosom?
DIANE: I don’t know your bosom.
MARY: You do know my bosom.
DIANE: I don’t.
MARY: You do.
DIANE: I do not know your bosom.
MARY: You’ve seen me undressed.
DIANE: I never looked that hard.
MARY: You know my bosom all right. (But she’ll let it pass. She looks disgustedly at her hands.)
MARY: Hands!
DIANE: Don’t be so hard on yourself.
MARY: Sexiest knuckles on the block.
DIANE: Why hurt yourself?
MARY: My fingers are really stacked.
DIANE: Stop, sweetie.
MARY: They come when they shake hands with me.
DIANE: Now please!
MARY: You don’t know how it feels.
(Pause.)
MARY: Just tell me what it’s like.
DIANE: What like?
MARY: To be beautiful. You’ve never told me.
DIANE: There’s no such thing as beautiful.
MARY: Sure.
DIANE: It’s how you feel.
MARY: I’m going to believe that.
DIANE: It’s how you feel makes you beautiful.
MARY: Do you know how I feel?
DIANE: Don’t tell me.
MARY: Ugly.
DIANE: You don’t have to talk like that.
MARY: I feel ugly. What does that make me?
(DIANE declines to answer. She steps into her high heeled shoes, the elevation bringing out the harder lines of her legs, adding to her stature an appealing haughtiness and to her general beauty a touch of violence.)
MARY: According to what you said.
DIANE: I don’t know.
MARY: You said: It’s how you feel makes you beautiful.
DIANE: I know what I said.
MARY: I feel ugly. So what does that make me?
DIANE: I don’t know.
MARY: According to what you said.
DIANE: I don’t know.
MARY: Don’t be afraid to say it.
DIANE: Harry will be here.
MARY: Say it! (Launching herself into hysteria.)
DIANE: I’ve got to get ready.
MARY: You never say it. You’re afraid to say it. It won’t kill you. The word won’t kill you. You think it but you won’t say it. When you get up in the morning you tiptoe to the bathroom. I tiptoe to the bathroom but I sound like an army. What do you think I think when I hear myself? Don’t you think I know the difference? It’s no secret. It’s not as though there aren’t any mirrors. If you only said it I wouldn’t try. I don’t want to try. I don’t want to have to try. If you only once said I was – ugly!
(DIANE comforts her.)
DIANE: You’re not ugly, sweetie. Nobody’s ugly. Everybody can be beautiful. Your turn will come. Your man will come. He’ll take you in his arms. No no no, you’re not ugly. He’ll teach you that you are beautiful. Then you’ll know what it is. (Cradling her.)
MARY: Will he?
DIANE: Of course he will.
MARY: Until then?
DIANE: You’ve got to keep going, keep looking.
MARY: Keep up with my exercises.
DIANE: Yes.
MARY: Keep up with my ballet lessons.
DIANE: Exactly.
MARY: Try and lose weight.
DIANE: Follow the book.
MARY: Brush my hair the right way.
DIANE: That’s the spirit.
MARY: A hundred strokes.
DIANE: Good.
MARY: I’ve got to gain confidence.
DIANE: You will.
MARY: I can’t give up.
DIANE: It’s easier than you think.
MARY: Concentrate on my best points.
DIANE: Make the best of what you have.
MARY: Why not start now?
DIANE: Why not.
(MARY gathers herself together, checks her posture in the mirror, crosses to the record-player and switches it on. “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies.” She begins the ballet exercises she has learned, perhaps, at the YWCA, two evenings a week. Between the final touches of her toilet DIANE encourages her with nods of approval. The door bell rings. Enter HARRY in evening clothes, glittering although his expression is solemn, for he has come on an important mission.)
HARRY: Hi girls. Don’t mind me, Mary.
(MARY waves in the midst of a difficult contortion.)
DIANE: Darling!
(DIANE sweeps into his arms, takes the attitude of a dancing partner. HARRY, with a trace of reluctance, consents to lead her in a ballroom step across the floor.)
HARRY: I’ve got something on my mind.
(DIANE squeezes his arm, disengages herself, crosses to MARY and whispers.)
DIANE: He’s got something on his mind.
(DIANE and MARY embrace in the usual squeaky conspiratorial manner with which girls preface happy matrimonial news. While MARY smiles benignly exeunt HARRY and DIANE. MARY turns the machine louder, moves in front of the mirror, resumes the ballet exercises. She stops them from time to time to check various parts of her anatomy in the mirror at close range, as if the effects of the discipline might be already apparent.)
MARY: Goody.
(A long determined ring of the doorbell. MARY stops, eyes bright with expectation. Perhaps the miracle is about to unfold. She smoothes her dress and hair, switches off the machine, opens the door. The COLLECTOR enters with lumbering difficulty, looks around, takes control. The power she radiates is somehow guaranteed by her grotesque form. Her body is a huge damaged tank operating under the intimate command of a brilliant field warrior which is her mind: MARY waits, appalled and intimidated.)
COLLECTOR: I knew there was people in because
I heard music. (MARY cannot speak.) Some people don’t like to open the door. I’m in charge of the whole block.
MARY (recovering): Are you collecting for something?
COLLECTOR: The United Fund for the Obese, you know, UFO. That includes The Obese Catholic Drive, The Committee for Jewish Fat People, the Help the Blind Obese, and the Universal Aid to the Obese. If you make one donation you won’t be bothered again.
MARY: We’ve never been asked before.
COLLECTOR: I know. But I have your card now. The whole Fund has been reorganized.
MARY: It has?
COLLECTOR: Oh yes. Actually it was my idea to have the Obese themselves go out and canvass. They were against it at first but I convinced them. It’s the only fair way. Gives the public an opportunity to see exactly where their money goes. And I’ve managed to get the Spastic and Polio and Cancer people to see the light. It’s the only fair way. We’re all over the neighbourhood.
MARY: It’s very – courageous.
COLLECTOR: That’s what my husband says.
MARY: Your husband!
COLLECTOR: He’d prefer me to stay at home. Doesn’t believe in married girls working.
MARY: Have – have you been married long?
COLLECTOR: Just short of a year. (Coyly.) You might say we’re still honeymooners.
MARY: Oh.
COLLECTOR: Don’t be embarrassed. One of the aims of our organization is to help people like me lead normal lives. Now what could be more normal than marriage? Can you think of anything more normal? Of course you can’t. It makes you feel less isolated, part of the whole community. Our people are getting married all the time.
MARY: Of course, of course. (She is disintegrating.)
COLLECTOR: I didn’t think it would work out myself at first. But John is so loving. He’s taken such patience with me. When we’re together it’s as though there’s nothing wrong with me at all.
MARY: What does your husband do?
COLLECTOR: He’s a chef.
MARY: A chef.
COLLECTOR: Not in any famous restaurant. Just an ordinary chef. But it’s good enough for me. Sometimes, when he’s joking, he says I married him for his profession. (MARY tries to laugh.) Well I’ve been chatting too long about myself and I have the rest of this block to cover. How much do you think you’d like to give. I know you’re a working girl.
MARY: I don’t know, I really don’t know.
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