Lone Ukulelist in Lilac Black:

Sharp, sharp,

Must it be sharp?

Sharp the dividing will be.

Yet still, still,

Still is my harp,

Still are her cords and string.

(For with stammering lips

And a far-off tongue

Does her windblown body sing.)

Who makes the depths to tremble?

Who troubles the times?

For where there were flowers and ferns

And rushes, there now is dust and rime.

And burning instead of beauty.

[difficult to discern:]

…blizzardoom… …dezzerdbloom…

…a lunglyness refeeling (shape) [pause]

(…but what about the middle times?...) [hiccups]

(…we say, we sigh, we sting, we stain…)

let harpy an’ hearth misclose her flud

(as pyurr as the blud uf the grape)

and sing:

red silt, red silt,

red silt, uncover your slain.

-

(pssssst –

we could actually

use the coordinates

of the in-swirl

or the period

of the loops

to calculate the end

if only we knew

where it all began

or at what position

we started up –)IV. [stretto]

a great blurring

(through which slivered language yes does leak)

picture-words enfluffed in drowning bubbles

or the stylometry whodunnit

infinite regress of watchers (watching)

in the habitation of dragons, where each (either) lay

[Hotel;]

Something beautiful though

About playing the perfect pantomime

Of shapelings scratchingly familiar

Or even half-remembered, lost

Likely for the geriatric:

Is there not nobility in that?

Down:

[i.] kitchen: Cook scratching at the door again (slow hole to China, Friend not visible)

[ii.] laundry room: Bessie on dryer rumble (buckybroncophilia)

(noises resemble pervasive cat-calls and jeerings from revue)

[iii.] Cordula: fist-full o’ tar, sealing cracks (closeup of pudgy fingers filling holes

[iv.] Rudy: ritual washing of the mouths of statues (ear-opening ceremony

[v.] Gus whistling again, polishing floor until it resembles a mirror

[vi.] Bunny and Flo, two watchers watching in the theater

[vii.] Ada taking dip in the pool (little swimmer,

evening dip); cane, hat, and penguin hanging nigh

[viii.] one cold light in closet (flitting,

fulvous (empty (dust manger)

[ix.] widespread music: the band

splitted about the plane [salpinges]

[x.] Chuck in high gear

[1.2.3.etc.*: the whereabouts of DVV]

Up:

[I.] Le(s)tcetera (Mister Gall)

linen pajamas; man + clock

[II.] Leopard-upholstered love-dungeon (Wally’s room): [barn or cave]Chained pumas, peacocks, wild oxen

Wally in the tub (naked suit, fully clothed)

Sawing on massive chickenshank [xxx]

Dolly bathing him, squeegee, ducky, bubbles

[the contemplation: revenge fantasy (or, poison in the ear (or in the bath (gonzago)]

[III.] Eva studies Ada in the pool

[i.a.] ding: [“the cakes”]

[1.] Veen [emerges from trunk]

wearing Baldi suit (and vacant smile)

trays them upstairs

[ix.a.] first trumpet (below)

[II.b.] knock-knock:

(Veen with *the cakes)

Wally harangues him with trumpetface (implosive plungermouth)

a sea of canine trombones choking on Wally’s ‘B’s’ and ‘P’s’

Dolly answers door (stealthily, kissywink*);

feeds fat Walter (space, italics:) *the cakes.

[2.] Veen creates a ruckus in the trattoria (smashed china, teacups)

[ix.b.] second trumpet (above)

[iv.a.] Rudy rushes out of lobby with statue (romantically, to trattoria);

fearing breach of intimate moments with the mouths, rubbings […]

[II.b.cont.] above: Wally fulminates

[III.a.] Eva steals Ada’s clothes, begins to dress

[v.a.] Gus: cleanup on isle five

[xi.a] thud –

houdunnit?

Baldi: tied up;

bound, gagged

and duct-taped in

chair, kicks open

door of poodle

intubation room

[II.c.] continue Wally, restrained by faux-amorous D[xi.b.] Baldi, hell-bent

on making his wake-

up call, stumbles

(chair-bound)

through the (empty)

lobby over to the

stairs, spilling

bitumen vat in wake

(seep seep siddim)

[3.] Veen whispers to Chuck (through closet slit, to the effect of:

“ramp it up”) (as) Cordula has yet to seal this crack

(then V. enters the ventricles)

[II.d.]“*The Drama*”

Wally gets up (lake-black lagoon-thing) fully amniotic water-whet

to inspect the noises in the hoard

Dolly locks door behind him

[II.e.] Dolly finds Veen in the closet, they embrace

[II.f.] Wally rearrives, finds door locked,

hangrily retrieves big metal pipe from lobby construction arena;

[II.g.] Wally hacks door, lumbers over to closet

[II.h.] V hold’s back door, is (after several moments hacking) hacked

D escapes through ventricles amid an exhumed swarm of termites,

Veen trails (bleeding)

[x.a.] {Chuck} [sharp cresc.

(reverse cymbal crash)]

[vii.a.] drowning mermaid (sucked through pipe)

[II.i] Wally dives in (opens up an angry artery,

dig for uppy Peat)

[…]

---

The Chase

(in three pictures):

[X.] Veen is a trouvère singing for Wally, enthroned

(who smolders as V harps)

[number:] isle of the dead [return of a lifeboat][Y.] Wally holds a rake in a dark cave;

Veen hides nearby, [arachnid,] with scissors.

[xii.] Freezer:

snow globe: Friend’s eye view: lilly wonderbland of icy crystal-crust, mommy’s diamond crater,

metal mine, the dangling, whorling, diptoeing en pointe toward imminent and evident conclusion

[Lester] spins (hands) of clock as (ferris) wheel (fortune)

round on red

[Z.] Wally chases Veen through the vents

(dogging the trail of blue bloods)

[Wall Eat Man. Demolition of a Waltz.]

they recirculate to the flowersuite

(Dolly darkening the coroner bearing diamond-studded glock)

[…] then whispered Veen (lovingly, to Wally) such that the fibrous nubile fuzz

on the inside of his ear stood on end;

Wally raises pipe […]

---

silence in Hotel for the space of [one lone heel lost in the sand]

continue wheel (round on red) [but no more boiler hum]

not a moment, but a series of disconnected impulses, graphically specific, romantic

[i.b.] ding* (soft basu) [Cook drinking all the water from Lake Tiberius [Minnehaha]

[I.a.] wan (crescent) sun through ash-blackened window

soft patter of rainfall

[...] Lester wakes […]

[accordion player] respirating by nightstand

[III.b.] Eva (hornshadowed (mimed:)

“Ada? Ada?” (vacant smile)

Eva to the (empty, tar-drenched)

lobby with crowbar (cane)

wrenches floorboard, discovers koi pond

draws out whiskered fish

robs key from its mouth

(to the bottomless pit) {HVAC}

imagines (bubbledream, panting):

[bucking bronco]

stuffs in bra, leaves (for pit)

[AA.] VV releases the Cooks

[I.b.] Lester rises in haze.Thinks: stylus. Drop needle.

Strange music. [monkeyshines no.1]

[welcome mat, shimmering water]

first Ciacco, then Veen speaks to him through the gramophone […]

Lester removes full-body Lester suit,

revealing Lester (the sloughing)

follows voice upstairs, rising spiral

punctuated by glittery ejaculations of pistol-puff [viz. II. à]

[i.c.] Cook wakes, peers into freezer [smothered scream music]

digs for stolen reel, heads to theater (nitrate trailing in wake)

[I. à II.] Lester arrives, watches the world’s first movie in vermillion (impuddled)

[full body kiss:]

Wally writhes as he bursts, heartburning at both ends

(mantic movie in the gut, druidic augury)

Dolly paints confession with his dirt on the wall behind them

its eated pages, shining

[iv.b.] Rudy romances the Walter statuette (but real belly ‘bout to burst

above) slimily obsequious, brain-laundered, unobserved (wethinks)

[BB.] [laundry room:] Veen punctures the sac [gentle kiss on the headtop]

[capsize of lifeboat]

[xi.b.] Baldi, tar-

stained and chair-

bound, staggers

up the steps

[CC.] Veen whispers low to Rudy through a long out-stretched earhorn

[ii.a.] Bessie bursts enthroned by broken waters (theoxenophilia)

cries for magi: “horn! horn!”

falters leakily to makeshift manger (closet), stumbles into trunk

[iv.c.] Rudy lets shatter the statue and frantic-blind-slow hunts her voice

[DD.] Veen visits Cordula (through bubbles in the vat)

who seals the crack so none can peer (boiler slit, last slit)

enters closet, seals seam of door with tar

as if to say: “burn the baby in my arms now won’t you”

[xi.c] Baldi arrives at

the top of the stairsand with his brick-

thick skull produces

four thundering

knocks

---

Norma, expectant, descending, sylphic in sheer

[mounted cavalry charge:] seraphim circumscribe her

tears stream through thick mascara

vision shower of glitter, wormwood (but labile, the boiler)

Veen waits with outstretched arms at the foot of the steps as she descends,

then leads her (and all) away in a danse macabre.

[III.c.] Eva down to HVAC: opens door, swallows key

[v.b.] Gus in lieu of Mann, inspects the boiler (jiggles handle)

[vi.a.] Cook joins Bunny and Flo in the theatre, plays porn:

[The Kiss] [Something Good] [Washing Child]

the thirsty land, sated now from rain, begins to blossom

an enormity of tape(spools) and buttons

angels invade Hotel

Titles Read:

fire in the theater above (peaceful gassings)

[The Burning Stable] [Going to the Fire] [A Morning Alarm]

deluge in HVAC below

*[(“living”-)water-pictures]*

[Minnehaha] [Falls] [Lower Falls] [Surf] [Passaic]

Rudy thundering dimly at the closet door, crying into visibly unhooked receiver:

post-script:

the record player plays and plays

The End. [1/2]