Entr’acte: upkeep (civ)

(the muckrake and mire of process and production, or

slowmo marble round down funnel fall)

loops (loops) loops

(engine revving obliqueness of we)

many small moments that make up the day,

amounting diligently to something, something (…)

wan light creeps ex post coital over the well fluffed and thoroughly ravaged emptiness of scene

(like sun as viewed by clams through foam)

oh and regarding the record player (spun out)

stylus stuck in inmost rivet, groove

soothing analog pop (coo of crumple paper circle shush)

as in her sprinklers endlessly commencing, commencing

the kind of ash-gray patter that gently cloaks a semi-private conversation with the shrink

(or “talk to me behind the waterfall” music)

but ivory tower still full dark (yes, full dark)

and below…

boiler room door closed, no sign of Mr. Mann

but sounds like C is back at work (behind)

laundry room scattered with ABC scruples of devoured diary

Enter Bessie (up to her brows in sheet and mat)

plops pile on machine, sniffs linens,

studies spots (blacklit they sing)

notices crumbs (on floor), bends over, attempts to

piece together puzzle (for first times’ sake)

gives up, sweeps under machine

first load (permanent press)

listens, relishes rinse cycle purr, thinks

sits on washer, enjoys

(not quite as much as dryer rumble

but still nice, still nice)

Cordula back in the Gilded Lily, sleuthing slough-tub,

digging out old booties from the bins

(and blowing them up like leaden balloons)

Closet: very dim

puff of something from the trunk (ta-da:)

Ada. (wearing long-maned lion-mask)

slithers out and over to the crack (lookylooky)

feels about perimeter with cane, pokes around –

inserts, slowly (…slips it through…) […]

bandmates catching some z’s – dozing in the lounge

periodic snoring from tuba (contrabassoon, accordion, et al)

Gus behind front desk (whistling again) and inadvisably

mixing up concoction of several different cleaning products

(variously labeled with X’s, skulls) in a big white bucket.finishes, places vessel in middle of the lobby, dips mop,

starts polishing the floor in methodical swirl, beginning by

perimeter and slowly making his way back to the bucket

back at the (pessssssssssssssssssstiferous) pool:

Rudy with net, donning space helmet or volcanic

proximity suit (perennial loser of “nose-goes”)

tasked with fishing (it out, it all out…) incidental

findings include: one lone-long ribbon, a few pairs

pince nez or irregular Roosevelts, several

exceedingly long stems of kelp, placing all in large

bucket, stopping here and there to swat the

occasional mosquito or other standing water-nymph

Baldi attending the trattoria, purposelessly

polishing every undirty dish roundn’roundn’

re-tucking every last chair in a repressively

extravagant performance of unobserved

decorum, escalating in anxiety and

punctuated by spastic glaring at the watch

and impatient peeping through the crack

(kitchen slit) where Cook and Friend

stir pots (many pots (rent ores in

savage seas) swap runs to the meat

freezer (frisson), returning with

increasingly large cuts to furnish

increasingly large pots

lobby squeaky clean; Gus admires his reflection in the marble

*knocks heard from netherside of poodle intubation room* (door behind)

breaks mirrorspell (and coming to: (!late!) scurries over to closet (knocking over bucket in wake

construction persons pile on in (all slushy-like) and commence (cue anvils:)

III.

vigorous work on the pipes

(or, the mad mad mad mad mad mad mad mad rush)

slight wheeze from behind the boiler room door

(cheesy gothic creak of hinge):

Eva! (gasp.) – slinks into closet

returns Ada’s cane (and removes her mask)

Rudy now en route toot toot

(with his own big bucket o’slough to boot)

band slowly rises (stirred by the rhythm of the whack

the need to smother and a deep sympathetic drip)

Wally also wakened by the bang, surveys from vantage-loge (awaiting flood of foods)

slow lurch of lighthouse lume (from lantern) in ivory tower

(handheld but fully gloved, fully gloved)Veen stirs, studies mermaid mound in sheets

peels pearls from nightstand

slips (in pocket) and out (as wraith)

(spilling hot oil in wake…)

kitchen: ding. (at last!)

Baldi springs to with violent fidget and a dogged stiffness of the spine

begins rushing thimbled remoulades, foams, and other

futuristic delectations into the theater (to and fro, to and fro)

buzzing lips, gaseous rips, and a garbled assortment of

syllabic vocal warmups begin to bubble fountainous from the dusky closet

(mingling gagaku-like with anesthetic kitchen-dings)

as the inhabitants set about the rather chaotic process

of foraging for their respective costumes

but auntie Bessie on the buzz (on the buzz)

still down there…

“…mmmmmmmi may mah moh moo!”

performative ritual? pre-show prep?

“…mommy made me mash my em’n’ems!”

her way of getting “in the zone”?

“….brrrrrrrrrrr!…” (a big ol’ wet one

(plosive plucking of chops in time)

“gunna git me my fifteen minutes, baby!”

N.B. (closet, viz. boiler room): fumes begin to billow from the crack

various shits hitting various fans

and a desperate, desperate clinging to it all

kitchen: conch (crustacean station)

Cook drops big red

(lobster squeal music)

Baldi takes a dish (and involuntary whiff) –

Friend (alarmist in the freezer): Gas! gas! gas!

Cordula (grunting): Where’re the king-size cutters?

Cook unspools floor-length recipe-scroll (whpblsh).

Cook (reads (ignoring): “Bring to a gentle simmer…

Or the smear for grandma’s eggwhite glowup-

…mull, dread, pierce…

”

Wally (ogling hors d’oeuvres): -chickenshank-

Gus: High res mulch.

(breathless) Baldi (ma mismo (to and fro): margarine…

Friend (rapt): (voluminous backwash…)

Cook: “emulsive flecking…”

“…fish foods in white bowl…”

Rudy wringing kelps from bucket.

Gus (busied in the dig): Either a bucket of grunter

Or several thousand sheets of gelatin

Do we require, for the tank.

Wally (lapping it all up (lobby labor): -lay pipe, boys!Rudy (overstrung): -but how to measure

the uncontrollabubble -bubballooning of it?

Wally (viz. kitchen carnage): -only your finest chucks-

Gus (solemn): -in all my duties

I have never beheld such a mound…

(più) -up with it!-

Cook (seeking funnel): -gravydrain- Friend flings [it] from freezer.

Cordula: -a sludgefuck.

Gus: -has a sort of Roman sweep to it…

First a rotten tragedy, then a grand farce-

Wally (leering (kitchen-slit): -B-b-b-build me a turret of snail and butter-

Cook (to freezer): -seeds, seeds- No answer.

Rudy (wimperbell (fidgety morose): but what – what if it never clicks –

Gus (commands): Jaws.

–

Cordula extracts mechanical hellmouth prop

(from trunk (by wire lattice (Medieval).

Friend (en rêve) : …coolly calcified…

[…a cold-shortening…sharpening riverveins of leaf…]

Rudy: -comes together, hangs there lineless in confusion,

suspended in goos, incommunicable and utterly stuck-

Cook: (più): -them’s firstrot figgies!-

-inert-

Friend: -just binding my thyme-

Cordula (within trunk): (as in the agonizing tedium

of the pattern recognition room) […]

Friend (woozy): …stirred for a bird… Pause.

Cook: -give‘er a cream bath, won’tchya?

No answer.

-[but] save white plumes for confetti drop- (releases scroll, stirs)

Friend (piqued): -pillow fight?-

-fish skins?- No answer.

-bunny cubbies?- Same.

Eva begins sucking at the crack.

Gus (draped in rubbery mat): Can you pick me out lady?

I cover in seeds as eyes.

(aquiver) …[and I] position me diver-like

for the lickity split…

Friend comes out (head in turkey gut).

Friend (to the tune of Edelweiss): “Idle hands/

Rotted work…” No response.

Cook plates gigantic aspic jello.

Cordula: That’s not your jelly, boy. (Tosses him lion mask.)

Rudy: -and have you then the Narwhal tusks?

Gus (shedding mat for mane): -unicorn on the cobb-

Cordula (spear peaking from trunk): Sweet tooth;-

Ada grabs and twiddles.(If you soak it in sugar

It looks like the moon)

Gus watches Eva cofumicate with crack (whippets).

[Ding.]

Gus (to Cordula): Get her big fucking beaver thing.

Inquisitive squall from trunk.

Baldi bears gelatinous glob to the theater on silver platter.

-Burmese mountain rug.

Wally pokes, jiggles it with glee.

Friend removes turkey from head and places it in pot.

Bathes it in cream.

Friend: -sad fate to linearize

what to our feeders is merely

a sandwich- Nothing.

Cordula ejects filthy tasseled show-fur from trunk

(pink, spiny, urchin-like) –

Aspic castle collapses under wiggly torque.

Cook (sniffs): -methane or-?

Gus tries it on, continues watching (Eva).

Wally (thundering on kitchen door): -Well I’ll be dammed-!-

Friend (trembling): -we have as it were

brought forth wind- Withdraws into freezer. [Cook: -heartburning at both ends-]

-She moos-

-Me house drop through-!-

(tickled) -(a something Sapphic)-

Cook cuts finger, howls. Friend: -cannot multitask-

Cook (snaps): -cakes!

(turns (around (più) -sea-things! Friend hauls out (living) net of squid.

-quick- (staring into pot)

[peak of laundry room rinse cycle purr (Bessie bubbles over)]

-she’s ‘bout to bellow above! Mess of froth.

(squeal ritornello)

Gus delicately extracts the tusk from Ada’s palm.

suds all around (mop and stir, mop and stir)

they [cut it out and] pick up the pace –

Gus (pointing with tusk, low): This being – peer, a must.

Ada turns a pirouette (takes it back).

Cordula (mesmeric): The It girl.

Rudy: -which? (Eva.)

Gus: -something avian about her;

It, it all-

Cordula: -her imaginations,

the craning-

Gus: -[the] impenetrable lookings;

Sudden movements of the neck.

Ada runs tip of tusk along her spine.Rudy: She’s preening-

Cordula (hushhush): -

“the Zone”

-

Gus: -Breaking leg or-

Rudy: -whipping herself up

into one of those states-

Cordula (doubledouble): -whiff, huff, sniff, snuff-

Gus (wet): -Lush, with salts-

Cordula (dry): -she kisses the wall

(not your lips at all)-

Gus: -old grandpa clockface-

Cordula: -or the bean-counter of Delphi,

counting beans-

Rudy: -(utterly) unwatchable-

Gus (seizing tusk): -git’er the big bad gerbil bubble- Cordula digs.

Wally wrests and raises leaky thimble of something (amuse-bouche; pudding, soup).

(Dolly’s vials.) Examines.

Cordula: -all vents lead to HVAC-

Gus: -(smells as though she’s returned from

one of his famous mud pies)-

[heartburning at both ends] Rudy: …wherein sweet little kernels do find their way…

Friend (breaking flow): Pssssst –

Thimble begins to drip.

Eyes passing trays.

Wally (ogle, think, digest): Artichoke…

Friend (stirring): Do we harvest the garnish

from the lady’s lair?

(ponderous) …leaves

Cook (ignoring): (Tulip heads)-

Roots-

Gus: Human garden-

Cordula: (Man-grove-)

…meats…

Baldi (delirious): …margarine…

[…]

Wally (putting it all together): Eatable flowers. (Smiles.)

[Ding. (Christmas Hog, glazed (apple in mouth)]

Gus: (Marionettes.)

Cordula digs up clear pink man-sized gerbil bubble from the trunk.

Wally (overglazing (eyes closed):

For there is nothing that, without a ham,

Entering, can defile it,

For it goeth out,

Into the draught,

Purging all meats (glottal frisson).

Ada crawls inside.

Cordula: Perpetual stew-Rudy: -and so great is the perfume

that it is bourne thence

even unto us, even us-

Perfidy…

Profiteroles-

Gus: Peacock plush-

Extra char…

Raising vial (enraged).

Rudy (donning boiled-sausage-gray bodybag (spandex),

mewling): -attic leather stretches crotch-

Wherefore this fricative slush? Lumbers over to kitchen slit.

Cordula mindlessly tosses lube from within the trunk.

Gus (prodding bubble with tusk): …coiled spring,

tickle of tip, robust boing…

So then because thou art lukewarm

(breaking rhythm and sweat)

Cook (slow sniff): …an elusive vapor rising from the Chuck… Peers through slit.

And neither hot nor cold

Cordula: -let ‘em spread a couch-

Baldi passes out splattering cuplets of slug).

Will I spue thee out of my mouth –

Downs liquid.

Spews, Mounts Mount Baldi –

Ada (in bubble) attempts to paw

her way over to the crack.

Though you drip down the chinny

Thence shall me licker take thee

Gus: We are merely the strains

Of another man’s movements –

Though you claw round by the rim

Thence shall me lap ye down

Cordula: Who fancies iron as mud

And straw as rotted brass –

And there shall be upon every high mountain,

And upon every high hill, – Raises soldering iron.

Gus: Hungerbitten –

Cordula: Hoseflusher –

Gus: Explorer of buttons –

Rivers and streams of water

(strenuous squint) I see (as in a map) the end of all –

In the day of the great slaughter,

When the towers fall.

Rudy (stuck in bag): Shiver me pillars!

To the doghouse, meaties – Razes hinge (of molten brass).

Friend: up here where the angels cackle and jeer –Give ‘em char, boys!

Loosens latch. Door falls with violent thud.

Cordula (drawing bird mask from trunk): Heaven is a cobalt cave

And Hell is full of windows.

Cook and Friend drop appliances and scamper rodentine to the closet,

Set about furiously inflating slough-booties with foot pumps (fashioning into balloon animals,

heads, wings, et cetera).

[a devilish hubbub]

(p-p-p-pythia huffing (sotto voce)

whooping cough, clamorous, shellrider

slurping up smoke and fat C through the crack –

Wally groans thick and reedy as he scales the Grand steps

Baldi dives headlong into closet as a penguin to the howling sea

And Ada enbubbled, entranced –

Eva (low, quasi vocal fry or saline

gargle post molar extraction):

C is dead.

He eated by the muds of it.

Three-mouthed, yes.

No ripples are left him by.

Finished, coy, ponderer.

Frotted with salt.

Embattled spectacles.

The Mudman ribbed.

Waterbedding.

A matrimony of muds.

Well he the well be

Down by the lugging.

Grain bind grain.

Hooved.

Lilly-feeder.

The suds of it.

(No thing is strong as the tickle.)

Mudflat.

Floodmat.Blurfjords.

Fleurbyoards.

Slaid.

Cortico, sugarnymph.

She pinketh up her deaths.

Bronze, bronze.

Bronze the pot.

And bronze the lid.

I dirty on dish

(And look at it).

Veen to the boiler room. Bessie up for one more load.

They meet in the stairwell, meet in the crawlspace, pass one another through the ventricles,

see one another through the crack, miss each other sadly in a cistern,

and in ache of tragic glamorcode phrase form halve hands together mum still blind and tip to tip

[…]

Strange stirrings of encounter; a hesitation.

Bessie: My vaunted twinkle-star.

Veen (waits): I don’t want to talk I want to take you away –

Bessie: Shut the fuck up.

Let me speak.

I can only say it when I see you.

When you are not here I merely want to tell you

Without knowing what to say

But when you are here I know full well:

You sang: a garden enclosed, a spring shut up

A fountain sealed –

Veen: and I have never washed this glove –

Bessie: Yet you’ve ravaged our trust.

Perforated the peephole to our own special world.

And I ate you for it.

That it was something exclusionary,

Illicit, yes, but between us, Veen, us.

Warmly alone were we then –

Veen: (Attic that you are in dust or shade) –Bessie: A yawning gap to leave us between –

Veen: Brasen sea of me and thee –

Bessie: Now I’ve bent over sick for you

And your cretinous thing invades me;

Makes me upchuck over the throne

On which we invented It.

(I drank the water from the mattress).

Veen: Darling –

Bessie: For unstable as water, thou shalt not excel.

And dogs will lick thy blood, even thine.

And though you meted me in secret,

I will leave me of this, yes,

By all the sun.

Veen (waits as though searching for a decent excuse before coming up empty handed):

Compulsory constriction, perhaps.

Maybe my inner tyrant, despot. [But it’s true, it’s true –

Why spill me [spill me] here or there when I can save it all for you?]

And though prospects and divertissements

Suck me away from you here, there,

Wherever they may or might,

It is you, only you, the one that is my kissy girl,

Moomoomate, playcow (muff) or pillow of bilateral affections,

And hush: – no wait – I can’t tell you no not quite so yetty but

I may just yet might well just (barring incident) visit you (swift) and full soft in (due) season

And afterwards yes at the place then reveal me to you, speak true things yes to you

For it will slip away at night or during a tender interval,

Rinse cycle or carpet rumble,

To deduce duvet or something down (you know, you know)

With the seams showing vigorously and unapologetically

You see I’ve never seen (heard) anything like that before

And I wanted to examine it,

Palpate it, see what it was like […]

In any event –

I will bare to you the judgement of my night

And my ways which are unsearchable

…tomorrow.(fingers pearls in breast coat pocket)

See, I’m not so bad.

(wreaths Bessie, who remains motionless)

One for the road? Nothing.

(low) Give mama some slug.

Bessie tips (irreverent).

Begrudging-slow and passionless, they vomit scrolls to one another

(that spool from tongue to floor;

they gob as ones duckbilled, baleful, a little bit sorrowed)

[The following scenes [i. – ii. – iii.] are interwoven, until they converge at [iv.]:]

[i. Flowersuite:]

…tread (dead) trod plod plough down sillion…

[bootstains…the mudman ribbed… klingsor’s bassoons…]

Mindless whistling from behind vanity (“accipite et manducate ex hoc…” (tin Pan tune half lost)

Walter forth (k-knox).

Dolly opens door by feel (cucumbers in eyes).

Dolly: Oh Wallydoll,

I hate to say it, but I will:

The cookies were bad. –

Yes, yes, of course, you couldn’t have known –

Though we wouldn’t hesitate to tell you (or ask again) –

I know – you apologize – you’ll even thank us later –

Yes-yes, I’ve been told I have the gift of Gabbo –

Now swab me sfumato – handing him eyeshadow brush, which he begins liberally smearing –

Speaking of – I’ve heard we’ve had some closet drama –

Disgusting – truly disgusting – to imagine the letting – of all that –

Wally (grinning): Buttersweat –

Dolly: Sickening – biblical – but I suppose we suppose

at the end of the day the Grand is more

a place than a process or vice versa – isn’t that right, Walterdear? – as they say:

give or be given over to (so they say) – isn’t that right now,

Mister Mann? – but Wallydoll, Waterdear, Walterwall, what about the cakes?

Wally makes guttural noise.

Oh dear you dog you know I do adore you but (simply put)

This is getting out of hand, bad, bad cookies, no cakes, floury fudge and shit for dough –

Wally clears his throat.

Bad, bad, bad – and Walt right dog you hand to impose a pawn, me, even me, and here,

Even here in my stricken grievings, without a compensatory cake-tarte or two?

Continue rasp and burble. [She swats brush from his hand.]

[a crude, derisive imitation of his noise] –no you won’t lick the end of this one paunchy –

Not in these logs of times, nor in those (swift) the next –

Wally (Exorcist): Because –Dolly (Godfather): sing, Fatcake –

Wally (largo risoluto): Because I eated your book. (Toothy smile.)

[Ding.]

Sharp uncharacteristic flinch from Ms. Flower.

[(whispers) Polaroids were rumbly in belly

But pages were as honey for sweetness (gulps) –]

Stares him through a moment (cucumbers notwithstanding).

Wally opens wide, begins to disgorge (voice of Dolly from his mouth):

…mmmmmmm… …mmmmmmm…rrrrrrrrrrrrr…

…a rash-red gown of this and that…

…the florist’s dilemma; immovable ladder…

…achingly so, yes, but somehow, the time passes,

is guzzled by you, clockface…

…(for your music is the candy part)…

…lollipop to mommy’s narcissus poeticus; toxic, convulsant…

…yes (we stress it) less a thing breathing and more a moment…

…more you as moment…

…no not a moment, but a series of disconnected impulses,

graphically specific, romantic…

…no-no, not whether they roar nor shock nor test me wild…

…ex post her cure (your forming my exposure remedy)

well yellow lean let those long things conjello in my…

…well you see it manifests as a fear of abundance,

Of the ecstasy or of what might come of losing control…

…but lo I’ve loosened you in here (big C)

Recorded your wrigglings, [Smacks lips.]

Taped up your mouthparts like Dixie Nick –

[Dolly (stabbing): where did you get that? – ]

…king of the buttons :) […]

I always loathed your long, long hair, the prerogative of boys…

…or that you cut town with that vaudeville bicyclist –

Infirm and lovely was I,

Helpless and the object of much pity and adoration…

My floor spotted with pixeled cheers and a litany of if-me-what’s –

[Dolly (by turns chattering, seductive, teetering on brink):

Oh please, Wallydoll, please

You really needn’t [go on] –

It just gets cringey now from here –

Like grandma’s dirty undies, or worse,

Her poem read loud at dinner, while we grin and bear it, (lower, grating)

Crushing napkin under cloth – Wally continues:

Why keep it up, Red?

Why line you down long through my milk-white margins?

[sings:] “My bloody barberpole –

”

…(the bookers cut you up and stashed you here)…Re-mantic trance-me-nots,

Pile of limb (windwall) […]

…trenches, rivets, grooves – [(the many faucets of me)]

Nail-gutter (red red rut on white)

along go long lost spine, back, neck, back, back –

Yes, I never read back

But I never omit details.

I want to tell these readers about our civilization

And I call them readers, yes (!)

Would that be presumptuous, Red? [Simper.] [/My great white bull…]

[…] [Soft moan.]

A cold-shortening in my face

When I think of you darling.

But I like you flat. Flat.

Medieval flat. –

[(lower)] (ever-giving in side-eye, punim,

flounder-face…)

You see I don’t tell you so that you can understand,

I tell you so I can watch you listen.

[Satisfied purr.]

[(sneaky coquette)] So you’ve nothing to say now?

(it’s as though the gods just gave right up and

packed their holy lunch forevermore!)

[(helium voice)] (And we don’t mind.)

We simply permit things to make their impression on us,

Reproduce them faithfully:

The permissible delight of our souls.

Let me list it out for you:

[Cold panic.]

Oh C, –

[Dolly: No –]

Dear C, –

[(più) No –]

Sweet C, –

I want to kiss you[, (full body kiss) you]and stay your becoming,

Your all-coming-together without flash flood fire or end,

[(più) Stop it –]

(but first there must and will be a great drinking) –My C,

Whose fat cheeks do speak with objects (things like:

“She’s an Ice Giant, a Gas Queen,

Able to cry on command, full of nervous energy and vitality and pitifully eager to please –

[(più) Stop – ]

[(with relish)] Everyone. [(tenuto)] Who frot my flesh with salt.

”

– [Extinguishes with screech;

Double screeches back (come sopra, come prima).]

Yes C, Oh C,

You poached and poached

so one day they would say:

He was a good man,

He lived, and lived

And died a little.

Well you made you proud, little lion.

What can we say? Life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, short –

Just ask the riverfaller boy, [Dolly (delicately) opens nightstand drawer]

(Peat lad of the milk-wash face

And the long, long hair on his Red)

[That does fall, gall, gash him gold

Vermillion in a murky spring.]

Puddled (yes) puddled is he –

Mud-ruddied in loam and [silt] – Oh Red, – Red C,

[Draws revolver.]

…You see, I have the soul of a collector

Or a taxidermist, collecting [Reds] –

[Cocks slide.]

[(violent turn)] What of it?

You want me roaming the wild,

wearing animal skins, grieving?

[Aims (back of head).]

Oh C,

It’s not that I don’t love you,

It’s that I haven’t yet picked you out of my teeth –

[Snuff the lights.]

[ii. Ivory Tower:]

molehill sonambulant (stray limb turns LP to B-side –

favorite naptime number, warble:

(her own voice in gramophone)

something like an infomercial for relax the back ®

or an NSMR tape (normantic sensory meridian response)

onion husks of interiority (coquettish

cheap softcore Siri ™(but swoonbutter, sweet)

cloudmeadow, pastureporn, musicbox:

Oh, hellorma [(crumples paper (burnt parchment-like consistency)][(sweetsoft simper)] mhhmmm… hi there –

… hi –

… [(less)] hi-

[(more clipped (delicately (lower)] mmhm…

It’s me, your crackletone

[(voices (layers):] (crinkletone crackledrone crecklemoan

cricketphone crepitome – ) [normale:] spinning, spinning, spinning –

(crepi(toot)ing like toad(dle) or frogpart that bubbles

[(the music of it)] [(giggles, giggles again)] –

[(blowing bubbles or tongue splashing postalveolar clicking)]

bubblenest bilabial bubblenest [tee-hee] your little waterwings,

floaty [giggle] kanoodle (skimming, skimming)

he dreams a bubble (peacefully buballooning there) as in: [fishlipped ‘p’ in tri-po-let pop]

popless fizz of crinklers endlessly commencing (shhhhhhhhh) shush [sus cymb]

clouddunes buballooning [(lipless laugh)] (the warming)

rippleless plume du mind {fountainkiss} “pillow pillow”

or what is the tipping top part of the stream [(giggles] gently

creaming the water part of it, the part where the water is up-wettest, pure, and most

cream-like (run reddening light as leaked through lids (or viewed by clams through foam)

lyring lilydorm and rupturous, (tip) top [(giggles)]

(ferris wheel round on red)

redness is good (mhhhmmmm)

red is beauty

red runalong, skim, feelalong, round (but lest we forget:

there is an upping (in the drift) (as evidenced by:

vestigial monkeybrain twitch thing [delicate pop]

[tongue on teeth] little coddlegg (laying analog feels along meridian)

therein we curl our tail round branch (or bat ourselves, a little) “…a dawdle, a day…”

it is the smidgeon of spasmodic violence that indicates the drifting

the nodding,

the slipping away, […]

(oh silly, silly) [(giggles)]

put down your toes, yes yes those little webby ones

feel full wellonglove follicles for grazing by the belly (mmmmm) rummy tub

and mostfully (yes you little spindle) let down your back [breath, tongue, soft palate:] (italics)

[wriggles in sheets] slow bow sweep smooth bough bow-bend [long] (waterscrim, arch)

lovely b-side, hindering nun (you know, you know)

the one that spines you down, tendonless […]

[sound of dry skin scratching] […]

Just imagine you by rainbow, plucking [nylon strings, open fourths]

k’thara, k’thara, k’thon […] vertebrating, aquarelishing its bands, strings, spine,

sweet cultivated you, light face blush (with tingle)

lone ukulelist fore the dim pastelclouds

‘vent horizon or stripmall of the nevermind [(lipless titter)]

I bet your flushing now, swirlyone […] why?

(because that is the feeling of sheets and you have now a winered glow about you paleone)

redness is good. red is beauty…. remember? […] [(soft with simile)] scratchy, scratchor just imagine you a plainness

no neither meadow now nor field but see a picture of a voice

yes yes your own we so admire with the way you warble on in hiss-muddle-cry

or that one line uslurped by the ‘l’ it could be something cocooning (yes lovely yes)

being now in happy nature or sometimes yes surrounding yourself with green

lyring here in stipple gilded meltitation [rustling leaves]

follow we thither leprechaun [breathy giggle]

green, green, green […] red and green… […]

….mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm [space] like christmas...]

[tee-hee, mousey titter]

where there’s a hushing cadence and collectival

breathing about it, whiff of stopwafting by a lastling chord or

Pedaloff’s firstripe sonare [infinitely gentle:] (figgy, figgy) palincesting here, there, by the by

thelusive mist of a thing-that-was-there, by the ingress (‘gress…)

the fluff of an air from other door (soft close)

her muted toesteps leafing through another ‘gress, ‘gress [feety-socks on carpet]

a lonecompanied warming

your skyscape unzipping (there’s rind in here you are not a lone)

opera (ate her box) or questal quaalude

[(lower)] lick try and dark kiss me of my languages

lelivuv, like this:

[music of another crackletone (crinklemoan) crepitating with mesmeric

mummings of labial fissure and vowel (smothered bellfrogs, jellies, rubs)

a muffled episode of movement and communion with the sheets)]

[…]

now think about you directly, or rather, think in a direct way about you

remember, you a merely a mosaic of things you “like” […]

inviolate, ticklish

(cocooning in the corner of someone else’s thought

in which you never knew you were involved) […]

and you would never know by looking

but you all have tiny rudimentary wings inside your bodies […]

because getting a look inside is not so easy,

disturbing the little chrysalis risks scuttling its transformation (shame, shame)

or so say the greens […]

do moths remember where they wiggled

in the later stages of their lives as caterpillars? […]

it’s just provision for a journey (her ferryfare, we say, we sigh:

because let’s face it, it probably isn’t black or white the event,

there is probably a slipping

(and no deep bow nor dress rehearsal can account it, account it

(the way beautiful things can’t be held without forbearing their loss)

and is there is a pain there still redoubled by the pain of not being able to speak it out

[…] grain by grain […]

we wouldn’t take it back no not for nothing in the treasures of sandshhhhh I don’t want to jinx it but I want to tell you: It moves […]

[(giggles)] what are we torqueing about? [(coquettish titter)] […]

as we crawl into that crevissal moment

torque to me (behind the waterfall)

we love you, Norma

[iii. Closet:]

Baldi steals away from the closet clad in mermaid tail, Roman helmet.

Bessie stumbles into closet, joins the dig.

Cordula: What part did you reach?

Bessie: I sought to reconstruct the meal from the pellets:

No latent image in emulsion,

Nor holy ghost in the cheesecake. Pause.

Cordula: Her history thunders me through.

Bessie: What part did you leave unchewed?

Cordula: I started at the start and waded through the end-parts. Pause.

Bessie (under breath): …all the labor of Mann is for his mouth…

Already in angelwear, Friend sneaks off for a one last little moment with the meats.

Startling gulp from the boiler room. Bessie grabs her gut.

Pulls rusty coat hanger from the trunk, twisting it as she listens.

Bessie (sniffing): Scirocco carbonara…

Cordula: No hot, but conspicuous water noise –

Something like a methane miasma, and living…

(But it doesn’t smell, smell)

Bessie (cold): Does he also do hook? Pause.

Cordula (wide-eyed): The letting?

Pause. (wider) The fishing? Pause.

Bessie (muttering to self): …in this our realm of broken waters…

Pause. (less) …neither living nor live…

I loathe Veens.

Cordula: Boy is drunk on the blood of the saints.

Bessie: And we are thirsty for the whole lake of it.

Cordula: He’s a raker –

Bessie: A mop –

Cordula: A louche Nosferatu in mauve.

Bessie: …they that were brought up

in scarlet embrace dunghills…

During this time Baldi unspools red carpet down the spiral staircase and into the Oscura

then wanders over to a carillon-concealed belltower by the entrance to the theater…

Cordula: Angel of death, smothered in fur.

…yet the bough of steel shall strike him through,

remember: (whispers in her ear, grazing her arm) mercy…mercy……it is drawn, and cometh out of the body…

…and a softness lies hid in those secret places…

…you will conceive chaff (yes) bring forth straw…

…your breath as fire shall devour it…

…as the burnings of lime… …as thorns dissevered

will it be burned in your fire…

…as a fig fresh shaken from the vine…

(…let it fall into the mouth of the eater…)

[…]

[iv.] liminal stillness (trio of sighing femmes):

becoming quartet, quintet, spiral

Dolly:

Norma:

Bessie:

Friend:

Cordula:

[Altri]:

Read, readers,

Read in this page of my book

Paper fine, my walls, my house

They cannot even blot out the light,

Dress, gralloch,

Draw this old deer down the steps.

See, seers,

Come and watch me in white (red and white)

Does old C with the pipe have a hook?

You cover my curtains with white,

Red and white (I feel you pooling)

Seal the book of guests (forevermore)

Gag me, waterbag me.

Sleep, sleepers,

Spoil and molder me down,

Seal her spine with sleep (and white)

Seal my eyes with sleep (and time)

Throw this old sow down the stairs.

Dying down, erode me in white,

Strike me down

Seal my eyes with sleep and rime,

Extra char

Clothed in light, [crystal white]

Paper fine (my walls)

Fill his head with iron

Fill my mouth with barbs and spearsSeal her spine (with sleep)

Seal her spine

Way up high

Paper fine

Rarified

Clean, cleaners,

Spear his tongue with your cord let down

A louche Nosferatu in mauve

Flush me down

Strike me through

Shake the vine

Bluebirds fly

Cardboard sea

Chimney tops

Canvas sky

Lemon drops

Starry-eyed

Llama land

One-man band

On a string

Droop and sigh

Eye on spring

Round the bend

Church bells ring

Rainbow’s end

Wishing wells

Gone astray

Blossoms fall

Charms and spells

Valentine

Dream in vain

Someone new

Down my spine

Love’s refrain

Cigarette

Will remain

Years long by

Dreams come true

Fate is kind

Heart of stone

Lips met mine

Telephone

Walk on air

Crazy game

Curtain up

SolitaireLight the lights

Beat the birds

In our hearts

Shadows write

Magic words

Linger on

Lonely flight

Ending starts

“Night-ie-night”

(The drifting,

The letting,

The fishing,

The nodding,

The falling,

The slipping

away.)

[…]

!!!~~~ BELLS BELLS BELLS! ~~~!!!

!!Hot(h)ells bells!!

Baldi with interrupting joystick (now used as bludgeon or bat) ignores carillon clappers in favor

of fervid banging on their big cast bronze bells.

Deafening din stirs all:

Friend rushes back to closet

(bovid carcass trailing in wake

(colliding cold screwball with helmeted Baldi en route).

Dolly hides revolver.

Dolly (fingering Wally’s lapel):

We’ll take this up later Samson …studmuffin (lower, in ear) …beefcake – (malevolent titter)

Wally takes leave of Dolly through her closet,

encounters flayed dogskin, releases girlish squeal,

examines (piqued), proceeds past, departs through ventricles.

~Rows of regal salpinges assemble at the foot of the steps~

Veen arrives at the Flowersuite.

Dolly: Hello gorgeous!

Kneels, kisses her hand.

Veen: Shall we?

Escorts her to the top of the stairs.Bunny and Flo emerge from their hoard on floor one, looking swell and reeking of shell.

Veen kneels and gestures her down the steps (notre chevalier!).

COMMENCE PROMENADE!

CATWALK CRAWL

BANISTER BASH

Today’s theme is: FLAT.

MEDIEVAL FLAT.

(With a bestiary twist!)

MAD-HOT BEAUTY-STRENGTH AND UNBEARABLY GLAMOUROUS BRASS

Dolly struts long drawn slow by the banister letting sash droop deliciously down.

A few antlered starlets tarry her train.

Bunny: GIMME GIMME GAZINGSTOCK!

Flo: Gay! Gay! Gay! –

Bunny: And what does she wear?!

Flo: A rash-red gown of this and that –

Bunny: The Naked Empress –

Flo (stricken): Sylphic in sheer!

Yellow newsies click, snap, and sprinkle their peekaboo glitter over the dawn-golden noise.

Veen descends with cane, swoon, and ne’er-do-well twinkle in eye.

[Meanwhile in the Ivory Tower:]

Wally arrives (accidentally) in Norma’s room (like Santa).

Norma (recirculating): Paper fine, my walls […]

Wally clears his throat.

Oh Walter,

I’d love to but

I can’t – you see,

I do have an idea about my ending now (but I still need to watch it)

In the meantime I’m hovering, swirling (soft) and I can’t go down.

But don’t worry dear I’ll let them know –

Norma gets out of bed (fully costumed for the catwalk).

[And back on set:]

Lester, having positioned himself daintily by the balustrade, stumbles down flight

with face far overstudied and muddied by clenching and tooth-eating grin.

Flo: I bet we almost forgot about him –

Bunny: Look’s like mummy’s had some work done –

Flo: Oh darling– [Norma is descried on the landing, pacing circles concentric.]

Bunny unleashes primaeval screech.

Flo (plunged up from solar plexus): Mater dolorosa! –

Norma blows a kiss to the fans. Crowd goes wild. Bunny faints.And Finally, at Long Hungry Last, that Well Good Fine Great Manly Mann of the Pipes,

The Water Man Himself, Mister –

Flo (tearing his collar, deadweight in arm): Il Gran Vermo!

Bunny (briefly reviving for obligatory re-clutching of pearls): Gasp! Faints again.

Wally lumbers down hoggishly while Norma re-paces mindless circles at the top of the staircase.

Flo: Bright cloud of music!

[Chorus of ladies cooing:] Who Clave the Stone (that Old Gray Stone)

And Brought the Water to the Thirsty Land?

You know It’s Wally, Oh yes, It’s Wally,

WallyWalterWalt Wally, (Our Very Own)

Walter Mann.

[One lone bass:] (The Water Man)

[…]

Wally […]: NOW FEED, BABIES!

All arrive at:

~LA MARIA OSCURA~

Where the band is striking up a steamy oom-pah-pah

Kashmir couches and reclining statuettes!

A self-serving feast! Bubbles and rain of mead and champagne!

And most of all:

A fabulous ball!

carousel clouds that go round room make spin slush and

dizzy as the green-white whorl of phytoplankton from above

all guests on the floor in delirious Do-Si-Do

[Sung amid a gracefully unbroken exchange of dance partners:]

Lester (to self): You’re looking rather red, Mister Gall –

Veen: You filled his mouths with mud, Misses Flower –

Bunny (backbrain merry-go-round [(flossings)]): pretty pulpous pile of the past –

Lester: But what about the cakes, Mister Veen?

Dolly: Yes you see that’s why I need a choux, a puff –

Flo (same): marinate in Norma Veen every morn –

Veen: An alienation of affections tarte-tatin –

Dolly: With pitch and fat and hair and nails and –

Lester: Camel-skin and straw –

Veen: A blighted fruit-tree (shook)

Bunny: molasses milk of mannequins in clay –

Lester: The scuff and scad of bardsbeards antic sleepings –

Flo/(Bunny): to intimately muttermelt me (maim me madly) miming my own –

Lester (lost in whirl): And there was none end to their corpses, none end –

Veen: Who cast his last, cindered apple to the soil –

Bunny/Flo: minefield of flowers –

Ladies cooing: He gathers up the waters as a heap –Bunny/Flo: like ripples in suspended waterfall (on flowerwall) –

Ladies: His breasts are full of milk –

Bunny/Flo: or rivula of lava limned in rime –

Lester: The winds swirling within him –

Veen: He becomes distended –

Ladies: His bones moistened with marrow – [heartburning at both ends]

Dolly (starry-eyed): No widow, no sorrow –

[Veen: My great white bull –]

Dolly: We’ll sing as he bursts –

Ladies: With Walter is terrible majesty –

Dolly: You’ll go and tell the cooks, won’t you now?

Veen[Lester?]: (Though Wally [he] whacks with stick for stalk of twining snakes) –

Dolly: Well we can always do the nymph-to-tree thing (or melt –

Veen[Lester?]: into laondaonda like laocoön, darling) –

[Veen: (Politics and water do not mix) –]

Norma arrives (somehow) and watches with Wally from royal box above.

Flo (ogling): Mermaid of still sheets –

Norma (opera goggles): A people terrible from their beginning hitherto –

Flo: Hot air society –

Bunny (blind, mum, limned in starlight): Two-hundred-mile-high club –

Norma: Whose Grand the rivers have spoiled –

Flo (approaching the bandstand): Do you take requests, Mister Horn?

Bunny: Oh oh oh – (whispers in Contrabassoonist’s ear)

Band transitions to “Paradise is a Fat Pink Gateau”

Guests begin humming along –

Bunny sobbing again –

Flo (clasping her): And behold, joy and gladness!

Norma and Wally join the fun –

Cooing ladies et al (to the melody of “For compassion will pass away…”):

“Slaying oxen, and killing sheep, eating flesh and [drinking] wine:

Let us eat and drink; for to morrow we shall die!” –

Lester (exultant): I shall die!

Ensemble: “Paradise is a fat pink gateau –

”

Veen: Sing stipple sky!

Ensemble: “Or heaven is a fat pink –

Flo (to accordionist): “Bodyfarm Foxtrot!” –

They play collective jukebox in a jumble of dissociated dances.

Lester: “Slime Pit Polka” –

Flo (in cornet face): “Messalina Munch!”

Bunny: “Doppelgängelwrängeltanz!”

Flo: “Iron and Mud”

Lester: “Camelskin and Straw!”

Bunny: “My Bloody Barberpole!”

Lester: “Moonbootie Bounce!”

Bunny (in euphonium bell): “Lady!! Lady!!!”

Flo (piangendo): “Que Somá, Somá!”Veen (cold, sharp): “Rot out the Rhythm[.]”

Full stop. [:::::::::::::::::]

–

~EVIL DANCE~

Wally and Dolly swing crop spirals in the middle of the maze –

EVIL EVIL SEXUAL EVIL

SARCOPHAGUS EVIL ALIEN EVIL BALD AND EVIL

MELT INTO LAONDAONDA LIKE LAOCOÖN EVIL

WHACK WITH STICK FOR STALK OF TWINING SNAKES EVIL

Veen (gently to whistler): Now slip us into something more somatic –

~STICKY DANCE~

a waltz a gorgeous waltz that hangs or droops or lilts with a losthappy sigh of days long bye

Norma and Veen meet on the floor –

…remembering embers and membranes of beauty…

wherein slivered language (liquid) yes does leak does leak (from all) [*see top of IV.]

soft ache, lovelain loam; becoming sticky, grand, eruptive lush

[…] (magic castle miasma) […]

~Return of the kingly tubes~

Barkers assemble –

Dolly: Oh give us something hopeful, uplifting –

[Lester (pointing to big neon marquee or supertitles): The writing’s on the wall – ]

~Fanfare for the G(l)utted Guest~

Veen: Let he who creates words, scramble:

Mic rises regal rhomboid rapt and seismic centerstage

Walter mounts it, mouths, ventriloquizes deliriously directionless auto-da-fé:::

Voice I:

Voice II:

Voice III:

Friends,

Gentries,

Ladybugs,

Lily flowers and plum blossoms!

Pink mushroom treasures and clear bottom skies!

It gives we great pleasure to be your Cicerone[(And you can’t spell “GREAT” without “EAT”!)]

[(Or “PLEASURE” without “PURE”)]

[(Or “EASE”)]

[(Or “LEER”)]

[(Or “LURE”)]

[(Or DEEEELICIOUS! – )]

Your guiding crown and happy hands!

On our adventurous little voyage into Evaland!

Events simply cannot affect an observer!

From the bodacious boundary beyond which

We offer a peep into the cunning seats

And a glimpse of the future too! [*Wink*]

You know Miss Eva never really cared so much for

Heroes,

Villains,

Plots(!):

Miss Eva never really had a story (!)

Miss Eva is herself a story,

The story of an era,

That was gay,

Bright,

Beautiful!

And that’s just how Eva likes it! [Stray holler from crowd.]

Petting parties!

Midnight revels!

Champagne baths!

The Truth!

Bold!

Naked!

SENSATIONAL! [Cheers from crowd.]

Oh, and we almost forgot –

The STAIRS! [Cheers.]

Miss Eva is a specialist at glorifying stairs!

That’s one of the most important things about the show!

So let us now embolden you, gay watchers,

To drink!

To dance!

And to decide!

And permit US to make an IMPRESSION on YOU!

Lay it bare!

[The Numbers Folk! – ]

So the more scientifically-minded of you

can go right on and

Cut it up!

Take it all apart!

And see forth the workings therein!So…

‘ya ruddy beauties!

‘ya buttery bleary-eyeds!

Let the waters BURN from East to West!

Rrrrrrrrrrroll up those panties as a scroll!

And LIVE! LIVE! LIVE!

[Crowd: Woooooohoooo!]

For tomorrow you could die!

[Crowd: We could die!]

Are you up to your brows in PITCH and FAT? [More noise.]

Are you ready to put those MANOS on the PLATE!?

[Ballistic tabering and beating of breasts.]

Are you ready for some heat, ‘ya hypothermophiles!?

[A little juicy-making?! –]

[Tang?! –]

Acidophiles?!

B-B-B-Best of the Sea!

Beast in Show!

(yet more unhinged) Are you ready to fall?!

[Crowd:] YES!

G-G-G-Gall?!!

[Crowd:] MORE YES!

Gash gold vermillion!?!?

[Crowd:] YAAAAAAAAASSSSSSS(!!!)

Who’s thirsty!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

[Savage squealing.]

Backstage [closet]:

Friend: cut the tape –

[Cordula]: scissor it wildly –

Rudy (tremulous): curtain’s up – [Bessie: charade’s on –]

Cook (shoving Rudy): give ‘em hell –

Cordula: give ‘em char –

Gus: give ‘em something them boys

didn’t even know they needed –

Chuck arrives with a dumpster fire of

obligato sludge as everyone files onto stage.

LIGHTS!

MUSIC!

REVIEW AND BEGIN AGAIN!

[Birth of a Pearl]

[…]