The King in Yellow Tales: Volume 1
Page 20
Fire. Drumming.drumming.stretching. The Spell. The face of black fire. Echoes. Tastes. Love. Hot love. The fire. Burns. The kiss of love blooming. The echoes of love. Love bites. The face under the face uncoiled. Unwinding. The kiss of love. Love tastes of fire. Fire. The lips—The gift. The kiss. The feast. The bite. Unwinding. Yellow shadows. Cold and deep. Fate on her hollow lips. Perfect lips. Consuming. The echoes consuming sun. consuming me. me. cold. And deep. In the rolling shadows. Coal black fire lips. Chewing . . .
The defects.in me. the light in me.weak . . . Sliding. First time. Echoed. On her lips—The gift, black and black. The black gift in her kiss. Born again. Echoes. Knots. Rolling. The kiss.inches.bending in the parting lips. The kiss.hymnal sail of lullabies transfused. The face under the face. Layer of shadows under the shadows. Echoes. Preying on day harvested, kneeling. The face. Seen. The lips coming in, tasted. Chewing. Deep. Black and deep. Blooming. The fire mouth raised.open. Cannibal yellow. Lips, inkwell bridge. The tongue of nightshade mysteries. The mask of shadows under the face. In the perfect circle of lips the kiss of no colors, told and retold—oh, yes.oh,yes. Lips blooming, blackness burning. Curved with a thousand oval flitting poems whispered, these trophies—Ribbons and pens jeweled, trembling, drawing out the musical miracle of sleep. The wave murmuring. The wave of sleep, the kiss. Chewing. In the kiss. A kiss inside a kiss. The flow. The wheel, the vow of falcon lips. The chain of future orphaned. The voice of bare branches never stops. Never still.the echoes. Blood flows.a prayer. The lips. The kiss. The spider eating moments. The spider black, opened, pressed in the inmost, the secret place of desire whispered and adored. The kiss. The feast—foam. The kiss. Silk. Silk on my cheek. Delicate perfect kiss.waves.spilling love. Slave.burning…the tears of eternity.billowing foam burning
Stretched.spread.
Exposed.hope and suffering . . .
The kiss. The stroke.of black black light.lyrical consuming light.
The swift kiss. The hand still.closed . . . carried away on a burning kiss.
Spilled into the black stream,
the weightless dreaming. The tender curve . . .
overcome. . .
by the flame
. . . naked
night’s lawn
touched by fire
rippling . . . the drifting distances . . .twlight.touching
The face under the mask thrown off in the soft midnight hour . . .
Mouth open. hollow. Man.chased to Paradise. Chewing. Still . . . the chain. Slave. The kiss. The sigh of action. Chewing. Breath in breath. Knots. Birth breath—the hurricane. The birth of the mouth open . . . Live. The hurricane. Chewing. Chewing. Echoes, coming in.on a tide of you and you and lips inscribed. Papered in moss . . .
Warm surrendering to the technique of cold . . .
. . . a silhouette of ice, a cloud, a fog.a bed of leaves,dead and beautiful. Cut down, spilled by the sword of nothingness.
The moment. Pushing.
Pushing.
. . .Pushing. The scent . . .
Heavy and sweet, rose edges open . . .
Lips. Troubadour sweet. The oracle kiss. The sport.shouldering the death of flowers. Chewing. Chewing. The face under the face. Laughing at beauty. At day. At light. At shallow images . . . Echoed in shadows. Hollow. Shadows. Cannibal.shadows.chewing. sweet this kiss of lips of abandoned voices.chewing. The touch.of ash, of opals. The fear, the death of flowers. Chemical. Touch writhing. Echoes of long-stemmed constellations writhing. Chewing. Sweet lips, sweet kiss of tears chewing. Everywhere. Tears rubbed with grace, with ashes. Across the nameless emptiness. Tears. Less. Less. Less mounting, blooming the dark thunder now. Chewing shadows. Echoes. Rolling.rolling. noise. Chewing. The kiss. The cannibal kiss. Chewing . . .
Time.dreams.vanishing . . .the heart. The eyes to see.the tongue.
The kiss of drifting distances. Soft coal black. The teeth. Chewing . . .softly.
Falling.slowly. . . softly . . .
Twilight stained.loved.
Removed. detached.pressed in the regards of coal black.nothingness.hollowblack. Her coal black legs.her coal black skirt.nature redesigned.black and black ... spread.beautiful. caught in the black ribbon. twig.wrapped in the cold soft curves of an indifferent hollow sea. Deep.
falling.
Still life. Less.Out of breath. less.Out of next days. less.less.slave bidding.me. To the echoes, cannibal echoes of fever. To the kiss. The perfect coal black sweet kiss—chewing. On my knees.flat.the chewing. The face under the face. Perfect. grace. Chewing. Man as sun.sun as day shining in the deep kiss of hollow shadows. Consuming the light. the day. last day of all days.the man.the body.the leatherette left behind at the world’s end of its dry tongue. Every elegant perfect coal black shadow.Hollow. Chewing. Consuming woven day.slip away softly. Blood-prayer.Close in the yellow blaze of the magic iron mouth. Laughing—the shape of the tempest this kiss—the quicksand wounds of chaos—alone in the embrace of death.soft is the kiss. The hollow kiss of grace, princess—priestess of flowers.and ghosts. Grace. Perfect. And sleek. Soft black . . . And hollow.
Hollow.
. . . these pearl wings of rain.
hollow . . .
slowly . . . falling.vanishing.
Less.
the sweet last kiss.a tide of eyes sighs.looks out.look.out. faithful and deaf, wanting. Wanting, to lunge . . . across. So slow.this nothing.. .
The grey distances drifting.
Stretching . . .
The kiss. Long-stemmed and black as coal. Cold.to touch . . . Black is the color . . .
Immortal black . . .
falling.
Echoes in a different tongue Goodbye day. Echoes on the tongue Goodbye sweet man. Echoes.cold dry echoes Sweet meat. . . So sweet. So soft the taste of goodbye . . .
Across the drifting distances . . .
The kiss
of the perfect face
black as coal
under
the face . . . to the gate of last goodbye. unraveled.
coalblack horizon. still.ravenwing-silent. shut. close.closed.
the final page on the other side.the black incarceration
slave in tatters of darkness
emptiness . . . irretrievably
(after the video for Grace Jones’ “Corporate Cannibal” and Patti Smith and Kevin Shield’s beguiling & brilliant THE CORAL SEA 22.06.05)
My Mirage
(for BJ)
Came in from the rain, murderous rain—the drops of rain falling off her didn’t seem to be hitting the floor. Looked around. Looked at me.
Like she knew me.
Left suddenly.
I meant to pull myself away from the conversation I was stuck in. Couldn’t find my feet. Sometimes I drink too much.
I kept thinking she was barefoot.
Did I know her?
All I could settle on was maybe?
I know I thought something odd about the light, but I’ll be damned if I recall what. I think it had to do with shadows.
Or dust.
Happens in drunken.
Floating in that fleeing universe. You believe you feel something. Think you see something. Can’t decide on what’s real.
Never leaves flowers.
Or joy.
Or solid.
~*~
A little hung-over. Hazy, with an exceedingly bitchy nail deciding my temple was a roof that needed tending to. Eggs. Tomato juice. 2 cigarettes. 2 aspirin. Tea. No angels. Parts of last night almost something I could almost touch.
2pm. I’m even on time. Print Works Bookstore. Very comfortable friendly Indie. 20 copies of my new one, Portraits of Ruin, in the front window. Nice display, someone considered style and yearning.
David Lynch came in. Lifted one up from the front table went and sat. Had coffee. Thumbed through it.
Came over to where I was signing.
“Dedicated to ME?”
Nodded. “Inland Empire. Loved it . . . You might be the only guy on
the planet nuttier than I am.”
Two 9 year olds that shared the secret the world couldn’t grasp, we exchanged smiles.
“Let’s have a drink and talk about that.”
We did.
“I’m working on a new film. Brandi Jording is starring. A friend of yours I believe.”
“She is. Sort of. Laurence is . . . Well, we’re close.”
He was polite. Didn’t say everyone out here knows about the killer and the conqueror and the galleons they sunk. Said, “She says you’re the real King In Yellow.”
Didn’t laugh. Smiled. “She’s a nutbag. Sweet kid, talented as hell. Smart, but a nutbag.” Did laugh a bit after that.
“That’s why I wanted to see you. Wondered if you’d look at the script.”
“Me? I’m no movie guy. I watch some here and there. ‘bout it. Comes to film, you’re the genius.”
“Part’s noir. Part surreal.”
Wanted to say, like that’s a shocker coming from you. Didn’t. Didn’t yawn either.
“It’s a King In Yellow film.”
“I’ll read it. When?”
“What are you doing tonight?”
“Whatever you have in mind.”
Was his turn to smile.
~*~
Brandi showed up at 8.
Walked over like summer curves on a hula girl. Friend of the lies on the bottom of the Devil’s bottle I am, but even I had solid thoughts of a slow dance with a fast girl.
We sat by David’s pool.
Me with my back to it.
I don’t like looking down in the depths.
Waves make it worse.
David: “Starts as a cartoon, not sure what it’s comprised of yet. Leaning toward an old train platform in the desert? There’s a woman’s hands, she’s holding a hatbox and you can see the hem of her dress, her shoes . . . 3am noir/dub music in the background. A slow surf guitar too. Some effect and we cut from animation to film and see bare feet walking in a foggy vale—strange lighting, dead moths litter the ground. Then we cut and see her feet on a damp deck around a pool. Stone work of the deck is the color of sand. Toying with the wet footprints she leaves being letters or changing into them. Neon maybe, red or orange with blurry green borders? They may spell vacancy?” He shrugged. Smiled. If anyone ever looked 9 years old.
“And the water dripping off her never hits the ground. Maybe?” He looked at the cement deck around his pool but his expression said he wasn’t receiving the answer.
“The pool’s lit by torchlight. Not Bright. Just a few torches. Moths are fluttering. Brandi’s feet descend the pool stairs and her night gown rises to her knees. There’s blood in the water, not a lot, and it’s slowly drifting toward her. Might be faces, or a face, in the water too? A woman’s face. But we wouldn’t see her eyes. Her hair covers them.”
“Her name is Gil Brewer. She’s a writer who’s acting now. Her new book and the film she’s making are called, Lady’s A Walking Heartbreak.’
“Throughout the film we’ll keep seeing a dark-haired woman kissing Gil’s Yellow Sign tattoo. Just the lips, nose, never the eyes, not open. Very pale skin. Blood red lips.”
Brandi flashed a smile. Very pale skin. Blood red lips.
I looked at her tat. I wouldn’t have minded just taking in her shoulder, but with the tat on it, kinda became something I wanted to sip. Many’s the time I’ve seen pics of her, but sitting there breathing that’s something else. Lady glows and you know her slightest touch is pure heroin. Told myself to behave. Started by not staring. Not an easy thing to do when your skull’s dreaming of stretched out on the bed with her and her eyes are softly brushing you and you can feel the moonlight on her knee.
At least I wasn’t panting.
“Next scene is a train station in some old and out of the way place. Night. Foggy. We see a ticket and the red hatbox in her hand. You can see the letters CA on the ticket, the rest of the word is covered up by her fingers. Could be Carcosa or California.’
“She’s barefoot, steps onto the train. She may have cut her foot and it leaves a red imprint? A woman with black hair and blood red lips blows her a kiss. It’s slow and soft, but still it’s an incinerator. The soundtrack of dub/noir jazz kicks back in. A liquid guitar loaded with reverb plays a spare single-note waltz over it.”
David smoked what he smokes.
I sat in a moment of departure.
“When we see the woman again, she’s standing there in a pale cotton dress, one sleeve’s been ripped, and it’s nearly see-through, almost off one shoulder. You can kind of make out her skin and it’s cracked and peeling like an old mannequin that’s been left out in the weather too long. But you can’t see her eyes.”
Brandi set down her coffee cup. “The woman on the platform is a touch Dorian Grey in reverse.”
I thought she added, “Lost summer dreams.”
I wanted to say I thought I saw you last night in a bar and you didn’t have shoes on. Didn’t.
Lynch’s phone rang and he excused himself.
She excused herself too.
Watched her walk away. Steambath of wow that pull any man from dry dock.
I smoked what I smoke.
Slow coils . . .
The fragrance of my cigarette smoke tested the air for stems and blooms . . .
Butted it.
Waited.
~*~
Bare feet. Not much else on.
Shivered
in the damp air. Air that drifted like it was lost.
Tragic is the sign above the blue light cobbles here.
Three floors up the roofs and the pallid clouds lean away from the grime and blisters below. The rags know they won’t get far.
The street lantern reveals the depths of sour and sunken . . .
A rat that lost its property squeals –springs away in disgust.
The one cold detail she has to spread she’s dragging along.
The door –robber –syphilis –dangerous, opens with a calm perversity.
She holds out her hand . . .
but not even the gaslight will take it . . .
~*~
Waited.
Pushed the butt in the ashtray away with another cigarette.
Didn’t light it.
“A walking heartbreak.” Low. A drowned voice behind me, miles away.
There was a splash behind me. I turned to it. A little blood in the water—looked like little red roots reaching, adjusting. No one was in or around the pool.
I looked at the blood.
Reaching for me. Could have been hungry for some endless dream of feathers my margins were too weak to tread beyond.
Hearing shit.
I heard Brandi coming back. Stood.
When I went to sit back down I looked and the pool was clear.
Seeing it too.
She smiled. “Odd we haven’t met before this.”
“Not so odd. You guys have been going out for what, 6 months? He’s always so busy, you’re a rising star. Cannes really turned up the heat for both of you.”
“True.”
“I thought I’d heard you were going to work with Aronofsky. FLICKER or—”
“You know how it is. What if, maybe. Deal’s done then it’s gone. Puff of smoke. I was going to do that robot picture and play Anubis Loki. Looked like fun with Snyder attached to direct, but we bumped into David in Cannes and this was too good to pass on.”
I lit the smoke I was holding instead of laughing. Engaged to Laurence Amiotte it would be. He was almost as big on the King In Yellow as I was. We’d even talked of doing something with my last book. But he got sick and then busy and I got drunk. Some say I lost my mind. I called it a vacation.
Livia left me too. Took her engine of desire back.
The liquid on my 2nd liquid vacation flattened me. Went and played a small speck in the high desert. Finally found a lantern that would talk to me. Came back, wrote about magnetism, youth, and the air in a sepulcher.
&n
bsp; “After Del Toro’s hit with Lovecraft, David said it was a good time to do something from an old weird fiction writer, but he didn’t want horror-horror. You know how he loves to get in people’s heads.”
David came out. Left the door open. The radio or stereo was playing War’s “Spill The Wine”.
Brandi starting singing it.
“Take –That –Girl.” Laughed a little.
David smiled. Was talking but all I could hear was
Take –That –Girl
“You think that’s ok?” David asked.
“Huh?”
“There’s a murder. Montages of the same murder. Framed in different ways. One commonplace, one a keyhole. Maybe as the formalities of a detective? You see capable, decisive.”
“OK.”
“We’ll see crime scene photos and paintings of the dead woman framed on a red wall. Not mixed.”
Brandi. Sitting there. “Different colors. Different angles. Once or twice we’ll see the photographs framed in neon.”
David lit a smoke. “We only see them over Gil’s shoulders. Pictures at an exhibition. A gallery. A real cheesy organ and piano will play a noirish version of Mussorgsky’s “Promenade” every time she walks the gallery. That’s all we see. The pictures, Gil’s shoulder, the red wall . . . It’s a flat wall but like the folds in a curtain it’s a maze too.”
“I like that.”
David flashed that 9 year old boy smile again.
There was more coffee and more talk of the film.
“Scenes . . . Reason is, ah, in the eye and heart of the beholder. Let the experience unlock the motivation.”
And the song was still playing.
For an hour?
Same song.
“Your stereo is messing up.”
~*~
Rectangle. Rectangles. Brown and brown and brown. Luggage. Stacked. I wouldn’t call it neatly. No white. No black. I would have called that odd.
Breeze.
Dialed up to wind.
Woman’s hand in a red glove drops a brown suitcase.