Donald Barthelme
Page 32
Bone Bubbles
bins black and green seventh eighth rehearsal pings a bit fussy at times fair scattering grand and exciting world of his fabrication topple out against surface irregularities fragilization of the gut constitutive misrecognitions of the ego most mature artist then in Regina loops of chain into a box several feet away Hiltons and Ritzes fault-tracing forty whacks active enthusiasm old cell is darker and they use the “Don’t Know” category less often than younger people I am glad to be here and intend to do what I can to remain mangle stools tables bases and pedestals without my tree, which gives me rest hot pipe stacked-up cellos spend the semi-private parts of their lives wailing before 1908 had himself photographed with a number of very attractive young girls breasts like ballrooms and orchestras (as in English factories) social eminence Dutch sailors’ eyes subsequently destroyed many of these works
distrusted musicians a bending position something I’ve thought about where their eyes were located cob hidden revolving spotlights slew the eunuch who had done me many kindnesses gourd polished by lips think of a sun-dried photograph tattoo myself attractively because (we) they are part of a process killed our horse free shoes for life at St. Regis established church shaved beards formation of the ego missed one or more regiments of this army, with its commanders forever on the enclosure system for 250,000 people occasions a shuddering blutwurst tentoonstellingsagenda quietly studying his pocket watch dimness and wandering of the eyes pin down the quality immoderate laughter reverie tense bent steel largely greenish limbs streaks of blood leaping motions pudding crawling along horizontally eight-inch wood beads “burlesque” the Mountain girl comes flying to the door points to crowd drink your hair will grow again
strange reactions scattered black satin pulp hitched up her skirts for a look but he forgot to sigh world power ambiguous orders dipstick sweating or beaded with fine, amber colors disabled servant standing in the center of the frame dead tulips convulsions lasting more than three hours arrested for having no ticket hinges of the body so cough spit feel slight pains local or general heat red flags on naval vessels I gave water away married but they can’t live together packing the air the soul of the sleeper was enlarged preposterously jabber Bols in five colors gold stars baby girls white-key music praising his skill loading him with protestations of gratitude what was behind their ugly fences? changing the names of certain people against their will theatre machinery posters of the period plans to dub the dialogue common prickers witch finders the girl holds out her hands to the young man but unfortunately over these past few years
hand or wrist man who rushes forward her body the largest element in the composition vegetables with which she refused to dance people embracing or falling bats popular with professional players benefit for working men between the buttocks I have not yet got the clue and points to herself shoal called the Gabble pausing only to defecate in their incomparable lakes hurled abuse behind the stone wall good smooth she falls to the right in pain, holding the Viennese master tightly partial relief conspiring priests a pill made of bread let’s all go down to the plaza partly with his hands discharged a shower of arrows trying to find the opening cries when taken to a museum sane love invitation of the national committee white, gray or purple ballet the jury nods triumphant contemporaries engineering decisions plump ladycow waiting in the car superb perfs from odd recruited volunteers floor redefined as bed
double dekko balcony of a government building series of closeups of the food gold thread long thin room pamper recent connection steroid perverse cults which have all but replaced Christianity ten filthiest cases men and women with strong convictions lottery breakdown fat arenas that seat a million people young Etruscans had little to say flaps (may be gelded nanny in the original) great plash shining milk at that moment I was perfectly happy puffed and nimble big muscles national friendship social entities bad sketches wonder woman skirt worn-out debauchees who had drained the cup of sensuality to its dregs we know their names creeper bigger than the one the telephone company killed pastures for the expiring cattle this famous charlatan Miko fading back into the vast practice, or method after image other examples could be substituted for the examples which they give us happily the people dance about
shoots Pierre pieces of literature genuine love stumps cantering toward the fine morning half-zip theme of his own choosing ramp shotgun illuminations informal arrangements botulism theories of design raving first sketches thought to be unsatisfactory geological accidents and return ant bulb lacing shoe brave though circumcised crawled all over the dingbat howling inadequate paper hard squeeze long series of closeups authors of the period wet leg breakfast dip snacks and banquets believing he was a child greatness of Finnish achievement 10/150 simple news elaborated sorrow gentle roll of ships Tillie gasped laughing and swayed and August was terrible consented to smear the doors and houses of Milan with a pestiferous salve daughter green ladies looking out of the picture plane forced feeding then responsible technicians hanging garbage unreasonable ideas more to do our views remain substantially the same today
then I went to a wedding and when it was my turn to kick the bride kicked her with commercial photographers snails keep our garden private Bittermarka now sitting in the airplane hearing a lot of tape trouser and skirt racks undone Europeans don’t bother dried Bibb exchange of interests primary moves accompanied by a lion raw November in the black series extra simultaneous decisions big drum bleeding of the nose royal and ancient good-humored areas Elephanta how large the statues and ruins are! married the barber Lamb of God gouty subjects forgot their pains red and blue paper ice Bernard with a hive of bees virile the train scraped some people onto the tracks intact sections of streets bozzetti shaped his work livingrooms of subsequent civilizations specific borrowings leer snug cover bucks and does having held high federal office split raising and lowering of her skirt like an elevator hairy children made a ballad on the incident
yellow faces let’s slip over to the foot of that tree to avoid getting crushed future of English drama water bomb checkered lilies expensive thrill magazine whispered results a pleasant walk on this surface blowhole boxes of green ladies blackguardism presses handkerchief to mouth I found your name in a book commercial undertakings news and weather bruised or cut document party zone explosions below the line they had a hard time in Italy convinced that he had seen something remarkable modelled its radiator on the Parthenon cringes diddled statistics bloc voting if there were no such affinity between atoms it would be impossible for love to appear “higher up” hobbies sitting on some lumber protest against what they thought wrong sick whips of the baby on his left shoulder half-forgotten events far-fetched positions drift of error cloth cap or biretta figuratively speaking trembling we never forget anything
weeping map intense activity din it would be better if we just piled all the stones on the floor crumpled paper wheels out of alignment prints rescued from the inferno beggars writing my article streaked with raisins kept putting things into his mouth foxing pages divided hearts something stuck in the gum a humanizing influence ichor didn’t they tell you list of objects which have their own saucy life remedy sighted bats reflection of light from garbage cans spirit of the army wispy and diffuse King Lud giving the dog a bad name various itches I thought of firing in the air invisible armatures for piles of felt record of irregularities in a white trench coat aesthetic experience bleeding nails Moscow rehearsals torn and then pasted together in long strips but these have never been very successful black ball Clichy junks crowded with long purplish tubers yanked up from the ground in my black suit, my colored tie
halfway houses naval jelly four Italian architects said shrewd things about her mother lines drawn around the page many-colored oysters flush cameramen senses a desire for change large sheets of flat glass great disputations that he had lately held against all comers gunboat enterprise fatal laxity elegant sawhorses red snout mothering blur from the Sorbonne state ceremonies quaking hare b
ut a glance at the bathtub discouraged her free cookbooks ancient deposits the humiliation of the wedding tiny hero so boring that he couldn’t finish it and I am with you! three or more immense sponges by the petrol pump pink chiffon spikes interpenetrating diamonds enormous weather-like forces no relief smear tangle of solutions without problems enemies of vision discussions of the good life (mostly blacks and Puerto Ricans) somber triumph presents a picture of fingertip sensuality borrowed money no aperture had been provided
free offer last gesture smooth man of position purely cinematic vice slap and tickle zippered wallpaper two beautiful heavy books, boxed hears noise goes to window 220 treasures from 11 centuries fixer great and stupefying Ring minimum of three if it hadn’t been for Y. I would never have gotten my lump local white Democrats gospel seven camera tilts to the balconies filled with joyous people young maidens tape after his brain is formed keep your checks in a safe place modern research sank to her knees on 35 mm color slides thermal machines from a chemical company in Pittsburgh handsome pelt illuminates the entire fluxus at one stroke body shirt spends all his time at the console wrong discard with the most careful and well-considered utilization of all my powers doll houses fastened to the wall photo face blade the world enigmatized skat will pull away the carpet age big tiger these conditions reverse themselves
childish memories of climbing up parents or nurses hollow objects sexual activity doleful cries critical moments abstract wit barges logical façades limping brides young dramatists acquainted with the sleeper plastic light first German edition speech blunder knobkerry imagined that the body was walking through fire during the cotton crisis complained of being misunderstood by the other banged belly duties toward women military service punishment for economic reasons rut prepared regularly two bottles, a blue one and a white one the doctor and his instrument bulbous summit representatives shouting theory golden calf special precautions and I cannot resist citing zeal in the cause against abuses wherever he found them classic critic masculine hysteria attacked by Goethe unsalted caviar member of my household anal opening which is the duke? which is the horse? which? we sat down and wept
poet’s slurs extra rations business on 96th Street blueprints of uncompleted projects drunk and naked too malphony down at the old boathouse dark little birds astonishing propositions drummed out of the circle I’ll insult him Scotch student rags and bones sunspots spoiled the hash keen satisfaction honors and gifts fit to burst the blue the white hoarse glee caught her knee in her hands with a click tonic night favorite wine well-known bumbler look at his head the bomb is here gulls twins rinse the seven of them appealing tot of rum she rises looks at him mysteriously fades into the closet fades out of the closet again double meaning arms tighten weak with relief silence throwing down the letters her wedding hat lackey slakes thirst nervously puts mask to face back door of the morgue new raincoat and draws away laughing bit of dogfish seated on a green stone bench baked this meat loaf
bad language mutilated Miss Rice I was sorry black coat with longish skirtlike Maxwell’s initiative failed the narrator’s position is clear province of religion falling wine barrels tapped or bugged clattering intensely human document wedding in the long border that stretched from the Horse Guards’ barracks to women in slacks addressed envelopes I wanted to tell you something pages perforated for easy song removal challengingly real issues in gerontology there is but one moment in which the beautiful human being is beautiful cut flowers in rows and rows women reformers watching from balconies gentle way with materials awarded a medal office visit monkey’s parade my ignorance which I do not wish to disguise blue pants she turns, smiling bitterly in her tin beard aren’t you being overly emotional about it? discovering reasons hungry actors scars upon the trunk or face of the sculpture the decisions of 1848
love tap the glass is one and three-sixteenth inches thick laminated with plastic top stop a bullet from almost any sidearm indifferent office cleaners smudge views of the acrobat ordered the girl to get up and dress herself dream of the dandy leaves and their veins modern soft skin a car drives up a policeman jumps out tinkling sackcloth provocative back controlled nausea whimpering forms pardonable in that they trump irresistible to any faithful mind hybrid tissue zut powerful story of a half-naked girl caught between two emotions two wavy sheets of steel food towers in Turin a collection of dirks who is that very sick man? age-old eating habits crowd celebrating the matter with him is that he is crazy Paul and Barnabas preaching a bunch of extras going by sketch and final version automatic pump salad holder taking the French shoe tired lines to be taken literally no sexual relations with them
On Angels
THE DEATH of God left the angels in a strange position. They were overtaken suddenly by a fundamental question. One can attempt to imagine the moment. How did they look at the instant the question invaded them, flooding the angelic consciousness, taking hold with terrifying force? The question was, “What are angels?”
New to questioning, unaccustomed to terror, unskilled in aloneness, the angels (we assume) fell into despair.
The question of what angels “are” has a considerable history. Swedenborg, for example, talked to a great many angels and faithfully recorded what they told him. Angels look like human beings, Swedenborg says. “That angels are human forms, or men, has been seen by me a thousand times.” And again: “From all of my experience, which is now of many years, I am able to state that angels are wholly men in form, having faces, eyes, ears, bodies, arms, hands, and feet . . .” But a man cannot see angels with his bodily eyes, only with the eyes of the spirit.
Swedenborg has a great deal more to say about angels, all of the highest interest: that no angel is ever permitted to stand behind another and look at the back of his head, for this would disturb the influx of good and truth from the Lord; that angels have the east, where the Lord is seen as a sun, always before their eyes; and that angels are clothed according to their intelligence. “Some of the most intelligent have garments that blaze as if with flame, others have garments that glisten as if with light; the less intelligent have garments that are glistening white or white without the effulgence; and the still less intelligent have garments of various colors. But the angels of the inmost heaven are not clothed.”
All of this (presumably) no longer obtains.
Gustav Davidson, in his useful Dictionary of Angels, has brought together much of what is known about them. Their names are called: the angel Elubatel, the angel Friagne, the angel Gaap, the angel Hatiphas (genius of finery), the angel Murmur (a fallen angel), the angel Mqttro, the angel Or, the angel Rash, the angel Sandalphon (taller than a five hundred years’ journey on foot), the angel Smat. Davidson distinguishes categories: Angels of Quaking, who surround the heavenly throne; Masters of Howling and Lords of Shouting, whose work is praise; messengers, mediators, watchers, warners. Davidson’s Dictionary is a very large book; his bibliography lists more than eleven hundred items.
The former angelic consciousness has been most beautifully described by Joseph Lyons (in a paper titled The Psychology of Angels, published in 1957). Each angel, Lyons says, knows all that there is to know about himself and every other angel. “No angel could ever ask a question, because questioning proceeds out of a situation of not knowing, and of being in some way aware of not knowing. An angel cannot be curious; he has nothing to be curious about. He cannot wonder. Knowing all that there is to know, the world of possible knowledge must appear to him as an ordered set of facts which is completely behind him, completely fixed and certain and within his grasp . . .”
But this, too, no longer obtains.
It is a curiosity of writing about angels that, very often, one turns out to be writing about men. The themes are twinned. Thus one finally learns that Lyons, for example, is really writing not about angels but about schizophrenics—thinking about men by invoking angels. And this holds true of much other writing on the subject—a point, we may assume, that was not lost on the
angels when they began considering their new relation to the cosmos, when the analogues (is an angel more like a quetzal or more like a man? or more like music?) were being handed about.
We may further assume that some attempt was made at self-definition by function. An angel is what he does. Thus it was necessary to investigate possible new roles (you are reminded that this is impure speculation). After the lamentation had gone on for hundreds and hundreds of whatever the angels use for time, an angel proposed that lamentation be the function of angels eternally, as adoration was formerly. The mode of lamentation would be silence, in contrast to the unceasing chanting of Glorias that had been their former employment. But it is not in the nature of angels to be silent.
A counter-proposal was that the angels affirm chaos. There were to be five great proofs of the existence of chaos, of which the first was the absence of God. The other four could surely be located. The work of definition and explication could, if done nicely enough, occupy the angels forever, as the contrary work has occupied human theologians. But there is not much enthusiasm for chaos among the angels.
The most serious because most radical proposal considered by the angels was refusal—that they would remove themselves from being, not be. The tremendous dignity that would accrue to the angels by this act was felt to be a manifestation of spiritual pride. Refusal was refused.
There were other suggestions, more subtle and complicated, less so, none overwhelmingly attractive.
I saw a famous angel on television; his garments glistened as if with light. He talked about the situation of angels now. Angels, he said, are like men in some ways. The problem of adoration is felt to be central. He said that for a time the angels had tried adoring each other, as we do, but had found it, finally, “not enough.” He said they are continuing to search for a new principle.