As the ceremony lasted until past four in the morning,
 we were sadly unable to make our date for the rodeo,
and ventured out into the swamp instead.
 An afternoon idyll under the branches
in the Crane Garden, a secret place V. found
between the train tracks and a lonely highway
 in the absolute middle of gorgeous nowhere.

 We lounged lazily in by banks of wild irises,
 under stands of willow and cypress
with several bottles of wine, good cheese and biscuits
 strawberries, pears and gingersnaps.

  Giant blue and green dragonflies
    darted hither and thither,
 lighting on bare shoulders and parasols..

Bands of ruby throated hummingbirds dove in,
flicking their wings in our locks-
 Did you know they eat only
the bluest eyes? Well, it’s true..

Dodging ominous snake-holes
and spit-shine scarlet wasps with yellow legs
until one of the party says,
 “Umm..Hey you guys…
What kind of creature do you suppose
 made these tracks here?”
  Why, an alligator- of course!
 Deep scoring claw-marks
in the rich black mud-
perfectly distinct and
quite disturbing in their clarity.

As they sun set we spied on masses
of the strangest grasshoppers-
Congregating in great numbers
bitty black and red like tiny machines
mating and chewing everything to bits.
This place is a home for
aristocratic hobgoblins;
an antediluvian playground
for all manner of prehistoric beast-
It would not shock you
in the least to see a dinosaur lumbering
out from the silvery muck
as the light fails,
but best run quickly on the path-
it is dark now, and the horseflies
are not the only thing
out for your blood.

We are gathered in our white garments,
awaiting the arrival of the Haitian royalty-
 When they come, singing and drumming
welcome them, and their voices raise in response-
“Onè e tout wespè pou tout petit Ginea-yo a nom Bondje e tout lwa-yo!”
The women are truly the most regal
in bearing I have ever seen- Queens, indeed.
 The sound of their voices raised in song,
the drums and the night-sounds
reverberating off  the corrugated tin roof
thrums in your back and hips-
Your body remembers the movements for you-
your bare feet in the dust lift
of their own accord and carry you forward-

Azaka beckons me, come closer-
 His eyes are wide and he gesticulates
and shouts to me in Kreyol,
 “You! Come here, now!”
 He scoops lentil and squash stew
from a gourd and shoves his large
 fingers into my mouth-
feeding me like a child..
 My head is grasped in his large hands
and he bends my entire body back like a reed,
 blowing a fine mist of rum on my neck and chest.
 He cups my hands into a bowl and spits rum into the hollow.
 All the while, the lwa talks to me- but no one translates his words.
 Then he calls for my sister, and the manbo asks, “Are you twins?”
 We smile and shake our heads..

I can still taste the Florida water on his fingers..

The Fredas come to be wed, wrapped in pink
 and hissing, moaning and twittering like birds.
  Their dainty feet are never to touch the ground,
 so white cloths are dragged wherever they wander.
 When all the men have been kissed and later,
when the wedding is commenced
 rosepetals and pink champagne sprays
the virgin boys, who stand identically-
self- restrained, their arms locked behind
  nervous and excited..
 Agwe appears with oar and conchshell horn,
 making whale sounds and swaying,
 an ocean embodied, housed in flesh..
 And Ogun Badagris, to the martial beat
 face wild with fury, machete alive with blue flame-
 he smashes his face repeatedly with the blade
and bends it on his chest in a display of machismo.
 Sparks fly and he grabs you and makes you hop
 back and forth over the burning machete,
to show your own.
  Afterwards the beautiful Haitian boy who had
 been smiling broadly at me all night
while keeping a constant rhythm
with a stick and empty bottle
 approaches to talk as I am leaving,
asking my name and telling me we have met before..
 So much for my bachelor bravado-
 I am far too timid and coweringly slink away..

This week has been a veritable flurry of
social obligations and events- I’m beginning
to feel like a goddamn debutante, much against my will.
It probably seems like life down here
in the genteel South is nothin’ but
a bunch of garden parties and parades,
and well- maybe that’s not so far from the truth..

There was the Weddink,
which was actually very lovely,
though I had predisposed myself to be sour-
as I don’t hold any stock in that infernal institution.
This one was held in a small slice of hidden paradise,
and was basically like walking
onto the set of an Almodovar film:

The music was excellent, provided by
these dapper gents, Luke and Cosmo
and also by the rambunctious and wonderful
Ta Mere Toujours:

Johnny and June, happily hitched-
heading off on handlebars for their
hallowed honeymoon..

Tomorrow it’s another goddamn garden party,
this one held at my old abode, you know-
the horribly haunted one- what gives?
And a big Vodoun ceremony, which I am
looking very much forward to..
Sunday, I have off and we’re going to…
THE ANGOLA PRISON RODEO!
Yeeeee-haw!

Last night I found myself in a truly peculiar situation-
reading the fortunes of business-types from Paducah
in a fluorescently lit pedestrian hotel lobby.
It was worth the money, and the canapes- I suppose,
but man, oh man–  it’s a strange thing, to delve
into the psyches of such narrow-minded folk.
Especially when they’re just expecting a bit
of hocus-pocus and gypsy entertainment.
Which I can provide- but I just couldn’t bring
myself to go through with plans to give them
a show, with marked cards and cold-reading and all.
I take what I do seriously, and I feel that to
fake it for the mere amusement of others
would lessen what small gift I have.
So I gave them brief and accurate readings,
and smiled and chatted and held the hands
of suburban housewives who found
themselves weeping unexpectedly.
  Luckily, I was plied heavily with scotch-
but got dragged reluctantly to the
“Polo Lounge” in the Windsor Court,
of all the unlikely, ridiculous places..
  Rag-tag me in the tow of these two awful
fraudulent old bags, skittering in their
pointy heels over the marble and mica flecked
floors- scuttling into thick plush carpets
under the watchful gaze of the Romanovs.
 Ugly wallpaper in elegant powder-rooms.
More scotch and listening to their drunken
name and namebrand dropping,
so insistent on haranguing the professionally
charming barkeeps, to whom I kept composing
notes in my head, praising them for being
such utter bastions of patience and putting up
constantly with all these revolting people.
Same goes for the poor cabdriver,
who kept saying, “Yes ma’am!” in reply
to Old Bag Numero Uno’s vehement proclamations:
“Ahhhhm jus’ a whine-o..
Ahhhhhm a real fahhhh-king cunt!”
 Well, lady- I couldn’t agree with you more.
Good god. I tore out of there as fast as I could-
leaping upon my bicycle all the while declining their
offers of more scotch, tacky Chanel suits
and elective surgery. No fahhh-king way, ladies.

Flee!

Well, actually – it’s gin-rummy,
as I may be a little old lady with my stockings
falling down, but canasta is a mystery to me.
Someone said to me the other day,
“Grandmas are just antique little girls.”
Which I find kind of amusing and terribly creepy all at once.
It is shockingly cold in these rooms, where it sweltered before.
I was supposed to be playing two-handed spades,
but tradition won me over in the end.

Leonora Carrington wrote,
“If she wrote about someone being poisoned by a chocolate
it would make her laugh, but if it happened to her –
it would not be funny at all.”
Right, exactly. Well, there’s plenty of time
left over for solitary pursuits and the odd
alchemical process. Though I’d rather be in Patagonia.
Too many weddings to attend. A funeral I can’t get to.
When bibliomantically (is that a word, even?)
consulting the Oxford Advanced Learner’s
Dictionary of Current English with Chinese Translation
I was given the following word in answer to my query:
maybe
Very funny.
Also: mayday, mayhem, maze, mazurka, mead and meadow.
I can read between the lines just as well as anyone else, I suppose –
but this is just plain ridiculous! The squall and clamour of sea-birds
overhead tells me to get out of this house and into the blustery day.
It’s dim in here, but outside that baleful treacle-bun is a’glarin’.
Otherwise, I’ll just continue to sit here in steerage
amidst the dustbunnies and old books
waiting for the man to whom I traded
my heavily engraved silver samovar
to come back with a few shrivelled black potatoes.
That kind of day/week/month/year.

Spring has sprung, officially, in La Nouvelle Orleans-
hatched the cache, popped the latch, and flown the coop!
Apple blossom time has come and gone, my friends-
and the japanese magnolias and peach trees have
dropped their blooms and donned their lush green gowns..
I always get breathless around magnolia-time,
like you do when the first snow falls
and catches you unawares with its whiteness:

In the mornings here, when you stand on the balcony
with your teacup in hand, all you can smell is sweetness-
burnt sugar from the praline factory down the street,
and the sanctified aroma of hundreds of little fried pies
a’ cookin’ down at Hubig’s Pies a block over..
The calliope tootles out another tune,
(Tea for Two or Edelweiss or Mares Eat Oats)
and toddles on down the big brown river.

I hope the Easter Bunny comes to visit this year.
I like his candy, oh yes indeedy I do.

Violet and I drove out to Mississippi for a day-trip.
Lovely to get out of the city for a spell.
Rambling down the highway and through the pines,
opening out onto the ocean and the sea-smell..
The hills were dotted with wildflowers-
crimson clover, wild sage and witch-hair.
We meant to stop and pick bushels full,
but by the time we were headed home,
the sky was full of thunderheads bulging with lightning flashes.
We were dreaming of eating Blue Moon ice cream,
a most magical and elusive flavour
which we never expected to find, but incredibly did-
at the Purple Cow Ice Cream Parlour.
Picayune and Bay St. Louis are both townships
peppered with pork chops and palm trees in pots-
Confederate flags every which way
and churches that look like wrestling arenas-
POWERHOUSE OF DELIVERANCE MINISTRIES in particular..
We worked out a whole preachin’ and rasslin’ routine
that is guaranteed to put your eternal soul in a full nelson
and drop your sinnin’ ass to the mat.
A trip to Hudson’s Treasure Hunt supplied me with a year’s worth
of obscure saints paraphanalia and 69 cent soldering irons.
Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to pop in
the Knock Knock Lounge, Bootsy’s Brass Anchor
or Ye Olde Stink Shack.
I shit you not, it’s an Aromatherapy Hut named
THE STINK SHACK!
You’ve got to love the South, goddamn.

I’ve had a stubborn pig-bastard of a headache for three days running.
I feel like this guy:

But a little better than this one:

The photographs are by Weegee.
He was a pal o’ my Granny’s
when she was a photographer in
New York back in the day.

One of the original prints of this one
hung in the hallway of my grandparent’s house.
It was always was my favorite
when I was a bitty tadpole,
and it still is today.

I saw a man with no nose yesterday.
Just a bandaid where it used to be.
And we got a shipment of baby sea-serpents in today.
That’s about it, I think.
I’m about to put on my dancing shoes and head out for
the “Coon-ass Throwdown” featuring the much-adored duo
Baby Rosebud and also the Lost Bayou Ramblers.
Maybe they can chase these nasty old blues away, eh?

A GIFT –
When I came home yesterday,
I was disgruntled *see AN ACCIDENT below-
and wheezing from the giant plumes
of chartreuse-colored pollen
which has settled on everything in sight-
and causes everyone great discomfort.
Imagine how quickly my malaise lifted
when I was presented with the following;
 A compensation cadeau to make up for a few treasures lost.
Namely, a very becoming Fleur de Paris hat
(which did actually turn up later..)
and a pair of men’s size 11 custom-made vintage
fetish heels, a la John Willie’s Bizarre.
I had been planning to sell them
for triple their wait in golden ducats,
but they were pilfered from the Dada dressing room
when Nico never happened-
I had lent them to my friend Ilya,
who lost track of both in the swirl and fray.
Though I was mildly furious at the time,
any tetchiness I felt about the incident
was promptly dissolved when
I opened the door to find him
standing there holding an enormous,
ancient taxidermied peacock!
 The pictures aren’t very splendid,
but just to give you an idea
 of the pavonine wonder that perches in my parlor:

AN ACCIDENT –
Earlier in the day we caught a little mouse.
Not wanting to do it in, I instead
put it in a cigar box and intended to
release it in the park when the day was done..
When I opened the box, I found it cold and stiff.
I am sure there was adequate air-flow into the box
and so I can only surmise that it had a tiny heart-attack,
from fright. Poor thing. I’ve quickly killed
my share of mice- but I also spent an afternoon
weeping in a cupboard at school when my pet mouse,
Schmeckerella Schmecky The Littlest Mouse
was devoured by her fellow rodents.
A brutal scene.
I surrounded the wee body with yellow flowers
and trudged home towards unimagined marvels..

A SPECTACLE –
Prior to that, I was witness to
a strange and wonderful spectacle:
(And I swear on my mother’s grave this is true-)
I saw a man with a dog-
on top of the dog, sat a cat,
and on top of the cat, sat a mouse.
I’d never seen anything like it-
it made me tremendously happy.

A DREAM –
I dreamt I saw a blimp bearing
a lit up marquee floating above the house.
The marquee read in lights:
One Night Only! A Performance by
The World’s Greatest- The Last Living Castrato!
But it flew up to the balcony before
I could catch the date..
We called up to it,
and two legs soon dangled out from
a rope ladder.
A boy with blond hair and smeared glasses appeared-
“I like your dirigible very much”, says I-
“Actually, it’s not a dirigible at all” says he,
pushing his glasses up on his nose with an owlish stare.
Then he turned into a creepy Hell’s Angel
who made advances on me, and I couldn’t move
his hand from my hip.
I’ve also been dreaming of giants
and riding my bicycle past murdered men
face down in rainy roads,
and chocolate ganache and almond creme.

SOME BOOKS –
Needing a break from flights of whimsy (oh, sure)
and surreality after living it in full-force
for a month or so- I’ve turned to grittier fare
again, as I do have a weakness for certain books
concerning crime, and the more oblique mysteries-
Ah, to while away the hours devouring
books that only entertain me-

Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre
 -especially good if you grew up in a small town
in Texas, like I did..

The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies
 -I just started this one, but as it involves
conjuring and manticores I was piqued.

Madame Blavatsky’s Baboon by Peter Washington
 -A History of the Mystics, Mediums, and Misfits
Who Brought Spiritualism to America

The Contortionist’s Handbook by Craig Clevenger
 -Not really about contortionism at all,
but forgery and fraud and eluding the law
and the men in white coats..

The D.A. Cooks a Goose by Erle Stanley Gardner
 -Don’t ask, alright? It’s called escape.

SOME FILMS –
A Zed and Two Noughts
Cabaret Balkan
 -Both are excellent. Been on a Greenaway kick lately-
When the food gets here, we’re going to watch
Drowning By Numbers

SOME WORDS –
Astragali
Prestidigitateur
Shivaree
Opuscule
Palingenesis
Mudlark
Hartshorn
Rothwelsch

Ahoy, hoy, hoy me hearties-
from atop the billowing waves
of a choppy sea- the ocean of
chaotic primordial ooze that
has become my world.
But just like in those recurrent
dreams I have, of tidal waves.
Somehow I’m riding it, outrunning it,
scanning the horizon for the shore.

Here’s the first installment of pictures from DADA-
with more to follow as I cull them.

“The white bees are swarming..”

“Do they have a queen too?”

Saint Matilda of the Wolves

BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG-BANGING IN THE NAILS!

RACOON-THIEF

BLUE STAR BOY

I’m sure I will feel like telling
some stories
about the Ball in due time-
like for instance, about the concussions
to the heads of spiders from hooligans,
or the plaster ceiling caving in directly
in front of me and missing by inches
every person gathered directly beneath it..
So many near disasters, and yet-
I fear it was a success.
My days as a cat-herder are done for a bit, I think!
This was the largest thing I’ve ever organized,
a veritable juggernaut, a behemoth-
and so much work and amazing creation went
into something that lasted for only one night-
about nine hours, to be exact.
Three floors and seventeen rooms of total mayhem.
Apparently, half the town is still recovering.

Needless to say,
we survived and sustained ourselves
through the preparations, occurence
and inevitable aftermath of what I
can only hope, was a truly unparalleled evening.

Now that every last bit of snowflake and confetti
and granite sand and grout-
Now that every particle of sparkle
and every stray treebranch
has been cleared from the building,
perhaps I can sigh, and say it’s over.
All I want to do is slink back into
my relative anonymity and keep my books company.
And now, I shall do just that.
Goodnight!

 We survived the ball, which seemed to be a smashing (meant quite literally) success- with relatively few mishaps..I didn’t sleep for a few days, and my bones feel like baseball bats attacked them- but it’s done now, and pictures and stories to follow soonly..

In the meantime, may I present an amusing distraction and possibly prophetic device swiped from the inimitable.

I must agree, it does make a remarkable amount of sense- possibly because this journal is somewhat surreal anyway.. Give it a whirl, and reap the randomess why don’t you?

Here are a handful of excerpts, beginning with my favorite:

The fancy of a boar-sow who sported large and quite intimidating tusks in her full finery and regalia.. OH, YES INDEED! A dear Oddfellow and Lovely Fellinissima.. “It [Mardi Gras] is a blasted furnace. Scars on his face (so unmasked when I hear through the mountains, spectacular and blue- covered with a fervent stirring somewhere. There was there a weathered soldat, there were tiger stripes white; here an opaque field, here an imaginary bar on Dauphine. In truth, they are fumbling for the address of an era, of us in this home this paradise- it has been located, actually quite a while ago I just have that effect on you.. And few things are sexier than an awkwardly beautiful (or is?)

Arms hacked off at the hotel in Padua, as card playing in public is against the law. Alrighty, then. We argued that we weren’t betting, but they threatened to call the police and fine us many euros, so we were at a tilt sea legs I have, however, a strange predilection for attracting the strangest synchronicities- maybe I’ve just gotten used to dream of wolves often, but it’s been a long time now.. This is how the world and enormous rose clouds of dust exploding upwards.. The horizon roars and rolls forward, an earth tsunami- I can see here is suitably terrifying: In these small towns, with our hotels situated so far away from its end-

Beauty when you’re smelling and being smushed by 200 other people.. I realize the above doesn’t make our time in Rome sound so smashing, but truly, aside from the Apocalypse, truly terrifying the dead rising out of the horses, nothing of the villagers in Thailand gored by female boars when urinating in the best goddamn cappuccino you could ever hope for..

It becomes difficult to restrain myself from the city where Mozart was buried as a Sphinx; and the train started rolling off to Bologna! After searching through seventeen train cars for the next axe to fall, the other day. It’s very surreal. I’m surrounded by halos of gilt fish scales and flowers.. Here you can smoke in banks, but not feasible for an interactive (rather than passive) social experiment. If you look closely, you can see that his tongue in its jeweled reliquary does indeed resemble a shrivelled cactus. The jaw casket, as you can see here is suitably terrifying: In these small towns

I follow her secret passages through deserted squares over the place, and I’ve been reading like mad- it’s lovely to have caught an irritating little cold. Likely it was all shrouded in white.. Mlle. Pandora in her heavily accented English, “You look vunderfull..” Tomorrow we go to Rome. Ravenna and Padova were a blur of subterranean crypts filled with the books and furniture and belongings scattered everywhichway.. I am still slightly displaced, diasporadic- left in a mad froth at old deeds, left undone. The Second – I am choking, shaking, suddenly deaf.. I don’t even want to vomit. The thought of packing up all of my internal organs. The laws of physics exact a slow torture- the smash, the reeling-

Large, slow-moving fish moving through the mountains, spectacular and blue- covered with enormous firs and weeping willows.. My goodness, but it has been ours for almost five years, but no more. No one will insure the building, which is a revival of Dada and Surrealist movements, our goals are to revive and expand on the floor in a heap of bedding and clothing, in the mud. Inside is fluxus and ramble.

 Men from Borneo, if they like. 3. Beware giving directions to seemingly harmless young men in burgundy sedans. They may have been too distracted to mention. It’s good, near and not too far..Up high the way to Kostnice in Sedlec before we go on to Wien..the bones will be satisfied somewhat. Hopefully those trailer trash neighbours won’t jigsaw every afternoon. Meanwhile, it’s true that selling off your discarded goods can be quite profitable, and even enjoyable on a dusty shelf and then let them pass..

Inspired by the Dada and Surrealist movements, our goals are to revive and expand on the cobblestones. yam yam yam. I likes me some good eatin’. The End. ps. Also, I saw a giant pig. Welcome to the nines, men in fancy suits, everyone in hats. 

Tonight, walking back from dinner
I asked my friend the magician
if he wanted to see where I used to live.
He was amenable, and so we made our way there
to the tower surrounded by crepe myrtles
to see the garden scoured, lights on
and my eel-skin cowboy boots hung up on posts..
I went up to the door and put my face to
the diamond shaped place where the glass is gone
and saw dogs in the hall and the doors open.
I scared the man who came out
but he let us in anyway.
He tells me that after the destruction
of the marble hearths, he had been installed
to guard the house against any further desecration.
All the security guards hired by the city have quit,
and the guy house-sitting before him
ran off back to Eunice, LA scared out of his wits.
He tells me the third floor is terrible haunted.
My old apartment, in particular.
This doesn’t surprise me, exactly-
as I knew what would happen to the ghosts
when I had to go..
And what with all the raping and scraping
in the heart and soul of the place
it’s no wonder they are a mite disturbed.
The place has always been haunted, of course
but now- they’re pissed.
I’m not around to talk to and placate them,
and crackheads have come in and stolen their glory.
Hell, I’d be pissed too. I am, in fact- very.
He says it sounds like someone is rolling
a bowling ball up and down the floor,
heavy thuds and creakings-
and screeching sounds coming from the icebox!
Also, it’s awful cold up there, and only up there.
At one point, we heard a crash-
the guy leapt up, pulling a gun from his pants
and ran into the hall..
He’s got to sleep in that big empty hull
alone every night.
At least he’s got his gun, and his dogs..
I wonder how long he’ll last-
he seemed pretty freaked out.
I feel so bad for them.
My friends, the ghosts-
I was just getting to know the soldier
in his brown uniform and golden hair.
I’m not the only one that met him..
And all those others,
the sea-captain’s daughters..
But I do feel like somehow
I’m the only one that could
make that house right again.
The guy said they had talked about getting
a priest to do it, but decided he would
probably only molest the spirits.
I don’t want to go back up there-
but I will, you know.

Why don’t you try to do without him?
Why don’t you try to live alone?
Do you really need his hands for your passion?
Do you really need his heart for your throne?
Do you need his labour for your baby?
Do you need his beast for the bone?
Do you need to hold a leash to be a lady?
I know you’re going to make it,
make it on your own.
And is this what you wanted-
to live in a house that is haunted
by the ghost of you and me?