Tired strings slung together
a bag of bones on its back
and no way, no how- possibly never.
This is when, exactly when:
The three am hour when my head starts to crumble
just a little bit, before the dreams come
and I wake.
Here’s the score: sleep’s been chancy, rare
and generally ineffective due to the surplus of thoughts
and electricity in the veins. Loud drunks braying outside
on the street for hours also do deter.
Raggedly pushing piles and boxes doorward, downstairs and out.
The water in the building’s been out for four days now.
Supposedly the Sewage and Water Board is behind it.
Meanwhile, it’s getting pretty mediaeval over here
and I’m getting quite sick of living like squatters,
which is basically what we are, at this point.
I need a chamber pot, I guess.
Some incentive to make moving more attractive.
Running water is really one of those key essentials, I feel.
Incidentally,
Yes, a new place has been located, actually quite a while ago
I just have been too distracted to mention.
It’s good, near and not too far..Up high the way I like it
with a gargantuan wraparound balcony and lots of floor to ceiling windows,
lots of good light. High ceilings, not sprawlingly huge like this palace here,
but what is? A clawfoot for a midget, and porcelain to boot.
A stained glass window in the pantry, and a free-standing fireplace,
Nice details above the doors and intricate door-knobs.
so I think I 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 gorgeous autumn day
in La Nouvelle Orleans..My thanks to all those who came and left staggering under the weight of ten years of pack-ratting..Spartan living is a concept I can only smile and wonder at in others. I find it interesting, but not feasible for an instinctual treasure hunter and squirreler-away of random objects.
Moving them is tedious, however.
A few notes:
1. Tobias Schneebaum and Floriano Vecchi must come and have tea with me someday.
2. They can be accompanied by wild men from Borneo, if they like.
3. Beware giving directions to seemingly harmless young men in burgundy sedans.
They may have pseudo-continental accents and appear to be fumbling for the
address of an imaginary bar on Dauphine.
In truth, they are fumbling for their penis.
Which then found, they will proceed to wank, with great fervor.
All the while entreating you as you turn away to,
“Please! Watch me? Please! Wait! It’s safe, it’s safe!”
in cracked and needy tones. Now really. How absurdly rude.
4. I would rather ruminate on the great wine press of love, whatever that is exactly- Alexandria, ah Durrell..”One needs a tremendous amount of ignorance to approach God.
I have always known too much I suppose.”
and then this also-
“Place Zagloul – silverware and caged doves. A vaulted cave lined with black barrels and choking with smoke from flying whitebait and the smell of retzinnato. A message scribbled on the edge of the newspaper. Here I spilt wine on her cloak, and while attempting to help repair the damage, accidentally touched her breasts. No word was spoken. While the Pursewarden spoke so brilliantly of Alexandria and the burning library. In the room above a poor wretch screaming with meningitis..”
5. And memories of late-night conversations, comparing secrets
voiceless and visionless, but with a fervent stirring somewhere.
There was there a weathered soldat, there were tiger stripes white;
here an opaque field, here an imaginary embrace.
6. Nostalgia begets nostalgia begets nostalgia begets nostalgia.
Ad nauseam.
And now that is all.

No, really.
If you do not come to my garage sale tomorrow,
I will be really perturbed, and probably beat you up.
I have enormous piles of fantastically good stuff.
You know you want it.
807 Esplanade (corner of Bourbon)
Saturday + Sunday
October 18th + 19th
If I don’t see you walking away with a giant armload of stuff,
I better see a damn good excuse.
Poverty is not one.
Seriously. Just take it.
Because I’m not going to walk it back up three flights of stairs.
Oh! and garage sales are fun, especially when they’re mine.
Also, if you happen to be walking alone one night,
and a guy in a burgundy sedan stops and asks you how to get to
a bar on Dauphine in a vaguely european accent,
don’t talk to him.
He may be masturbating.
It’s really not alright.
I mean it.
Don’t masturbate while I’m giving you directions.
It’s so rude.

Only these things:
I saw Cremaster 3 a few days ago,
enjoyed very much the Masonic allegory,
and as I also have a crush on the Chrysler building
it was a bit terrifying seeing it so manhandled
and turned into demolition derby and
elevators into rough ashlars,
silver towers into maypoles, and so on.
Afterwards we stood on top of the parking garage
and stared over the city, shrouded in fog
those days where the sky is opaque, a pane of glass
and were surprised to see a milk white mule
galloping unfettered down the avenue..
No one chased it.
Life imitates art, as per usual.
On the way to the theater,
our beloved Anal Lace Enema
we had passed the mule carts huddled together
in the morning drizzle and I had remarked
on the beautiful pure white mule there
and how I would like to steal it and ride it
through the streets.. I sometimes wonder
if I’m in a coma, or living in a long dream
where my random thoughts keep manifesting
themselves into some sort of twisted tangential reality..
In cold thicket.
Spending much time putting off packing,
For another day, inevitable..
Though going through boxes and bottles of flies and fingernails
All this ash and dust I’ve saved over the years,
Fragments of dead stars and shell and bone
It’s time to part with faded wings and rot-petals.
Sorting through one box I stifled a shriek as
A rustle, then a tiny wiggling thing leapt out-
One of the transparent lizards had been residing within.
I have a difficult time throwing things away,
I would rather leave them in odd places
For others to happen upon, or possibly not.
To bury, throw it all in the river, not to burn
But to hang in trees, or in the foundations and floorboards.
The memory of passing objects.
And so perhaps a lucky soul would like to receive
A box packed with my assorted detritus?
Really, now- if you’ll leave it in interesting places
I’d be happy for someone to have parcels of bits and bobs.
Three bees are trapped inside, though the doors are open
and I spend the morning interrupting writing and tea
to let them out again.
And the noise of the squirrel on the balcony
chewing on a bull’s femur, rodentine dental hygiene?
With a piano on a rainy day it’s all I ask
for you and your flickered eyes and shuttered eyelids
gentle beneath a fingernail of skin alone
in your bed alone in your day every day
there is no one and don’t you know it.

ah, hullo.
yes and then

after our first aeroplane
from amsterdam was dubbed defective
we had to wait for a new one
which took an hour or so
putting us behind so much
that after the clustered chaos of customs
in memphis our flights were sorely missed
and another four hours of airport waiting was incurred.
all this adding up to over 24 hours of solid travel
from 3 am to 3 am – it can wear you out.

I arrived home tattered and scattered,
but in one piece, for tea and cat and sleep
in a clean house, clean sheets, lovely flowers on the table
so glad to be home, to be surrounded by my treasures
and waking to the juggernaut jackhammering into concrete
outside my bedroom window, ah- I should have known then
any sense of peace was to be fleeting, fleeting..
I lay in bed, head under pillow when I hear through the din
knocking at the door, my landlord’s voice
he checks the key and goes away leaving residual suspicion
like a bad taste in my mouth- what’s all this about?
the phone rings and rings, I try to sleep but can’t
I have to know, the doubt creeping up my neck makes me itch,
restless, rising I head for the phone and find
the evidence I wasn’t supposed to discover
until later, until breakfast had been had-
Here it is:
The end it is nigh
The end of an era, of us in this home
this paradise- it has been ours
for almost five years, but no more.
No one will insure the building,
which is neglected and decaying.
Six months ago we had this same scare
here it was
but managed to postpone disaster for just a bit longer
but it seems there are no last chances this time
and we will have to go-
out into the world of tiny shitbox apartments
that are not
crumbling palaces with giant windows
and doorways and gorgeous chandeliers
and italian marble fireplaces and two balconies
and the most wonderful clawfoot bathtub in the world
and enormous rooms that look cramped when filled up with
all of our stuff and a garden courtyard and a tower
and rent that is ridiculously, absurdly cheap.
No, this is a once in a lifetime kind of place.
The possibility of inhabiting an ordinary little dumpy house
with 70’s plastic bathroom fixtures
that costs twice what we pay now
makes me want to vomit.
The thought of packing up all of my massive collection
of detritus and precious objets trouves
makes me want to hang myself from the balcony.
The idea of moving about 800 boxes of books and
furniture and fragile breakable antiques
down three flights of steep stairs
makes me want to hurl myself down the stairs.
The good news is that originally we had until October 8th
to be moved out entirely, after that the Sheriff would come
and they would board up the house and we would have to break out the rifles.
What rifles? Jesus, this is a nightmare.
Luckily, we now have until November 15th to find new, acceptable digs
and sell half of our belongings, and pack the rest and move.
This is not exactly what I had hoped to come home to.
It feels so good to be back, but I can’t let myself enjoy it,
ease into it, relax and plan anything for the future but the
disruption and dissolution of the world I have spent so long creating.
I want to fight it, to resist like I have done for so long
but there is a part of me that’s tired of fighting,
that’s exhausted from waiting for the next scare
for the next axe to fall, the other shoe to drop.
I just need a beautiful home that no one can take away from me.
I wish it could be here.
This is my house in circa 1905-1910

And here it is in 1948

I have a feeling I’ll be taking a lot of photographs of it
in this next month, so you can see what it looks like now.
If you’ve never visited me here, now is the time.
This is the sound of a heartbreak.

And when Rome falls, falls the world..
Yes indeed, shortly after arriving in Roma
I was taken hostage by a particularly nasty strain
of influenza which reduced me to a heaving, snotty mess
on the bathroom floor for about 24 hours..
The Italian dottore was summoned,
with his threats of inyecktions and suppositories..eek!
By morning, the vomiting had finally ceased and I woke to
Grampa flicking on and off all the lights in the room,
none of which were functional..
I knew before I heard the maid’s broken english rumor through the walls:
Massive blackout for all of Italy..
Being sick, and it also being rainy and gray outside,
I really didn’t mind being laid up for a day..
I recovered somewhat and got enough days in for Rome to
charm me completely, or at least bowl me over in the best way..
The sense of history literally seeping up from every corner is mindblowing-
layers upon layers of time, stacked like the bricks of the ancient wall
I walked along, the Via Campania..
At the Colloseum, an Egyptian man gave me the evil eye
for strenuously objecting to his insistent pawning of
faux chanel scarves depicting the vatican and cheap plastic headdresses.
I gave it right back to him, quick as a wink and he disappeared..
The Vatican was..hum. Beautiful, and kind of disconcerting..
I felt like I was in an immense catholic shopping mall-
everyone pushing and shoving in a psychotic tourist frenzy,
it’s all been here for 3000 years or so, I doubt it’s going anywhere
in the next three minutes, could you please not kick my grandfather’s
wheelchair, you herd-minded, slavering tourist lemming? ergh.
Alas, if only I’d had the fortitude to get to the Sistine Chapel
early enough to avoid the massive crush of bodies..
It’s hard to take in that kind of 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 sickness it was lovely..
I have so many other things I want to write right now
but I’m in Amsterdam and nervous about getting back to the gate in time
so I think I’ll run. In fifteen hours or so, I’ll be home.
Alas.

I seem to have caught an irritating little cold.
Likely it was last night, hunkering over my bare knees
during a surprisingly chilly outdoor performance of Macbeth.
Macbeth has always been my favorite Shakespearean drama.
It’s got the best soliloquies, I suppose that’s why.
They did a decent job of it, and it was enjoyable-
especially with the cedars rising up and the stars deep and bright.
Lately I’ve noticed how easy it is to get caught up in the habit
of watching the little red flags that pop up alongside coincidence-
It’s like watching the changing currents in the tide,
or seeing faces and burning angels in clouds-
you note their shapes and then let them pass.
I have, however, a strange predilection for
attracting the strangest synchronicities-
maybe I’ve just gotten used to it.
Florence is a shockingly small town, I’ll say that much.
The days are growing shorter, and our holiday is one week away
from its end- I don’t even want to contemplate it really..
We are taking each day in a slower stride-
Allowing more time for st(rolling) through the streets,
and wandering the museums..It was thrilling to finally
visit the Uffizi Gallery, after longing for so many years to see it.
I spent almost an hour in contemplation of my favorite Annunciation,
and seeing the Botticelli pieces- how wonderful..
Standing in front of the Birth of Venus, a print of which hung
over my mother’s bed in my childhood- some of my earliest memories
are of laying there in that big bed in the afternoons,
staring at that painting, transfixed by it.
Later we went to the Farmacia of Santa Maria di Novella,
“The best-smelling place on earth”
And it was indeed heavenly..
Hannibal Lecter shops there, after all.
I bought rosewater and Armenia Paper, and was torn between
Pomegranate Perfume, or the Colonia Russa..
The Russa won in the end, no surprise, as autumn is coming on,
and it smells like strong black tea and..is indescribable..
I’ve been so obsessed with scent lately..
I haven’t bought much on this trip but postcards,
elaborate scarves and perfumes..
Fig Pulp, and Spiced Tea, Sandalwood and Murmure..
They sell L’Artisan all over the place, and I’ve been
struggling to resist, though it is the best..
But which one? Premier Figuer, is my absolute favorite
(in case you ever intended to try to woo me.)
But Voleur des Roses, Tea for Two, Passage d’Enfer
and the most perfect name ever: Mechant Loup
It smells like the forest, hazelnuts and pernod- extremely sexy.
I’ve been reading like mad- it’s lovely to have some time to-
So far, I’ve torn through everything I brought with me:
The Master and Margarita- Mikhail Bulgakov
Margery Kempe -Robert Gluck
(umlaut should be there, over the u, but isn’t- again, I lack the ability to be diacritical on this Italian machine.)
The End of the Affair, by Graham Greene
Someone left a battered old Bantam copy in my house. At the time it was originally sold, it only cost 35 cents. The first (I would imagine) owner marked every passage regarding belief with a fountain pen, it’s blue ink faded the milky blue of cataracts now..
The Abyss, by Marguerite Yourcenar, which I mentioned earlier and highly reccomend..
Weird Europe, by Anneli Rufus – I’d been looking for this ever since I first came across it years ago- It’s been reprinted and is essential travel reading for anyone with eccentric tastes.
Magnificent Corpses, also by Anneli Rufus – A wonderful book detailing the search for incorrupt bodies of saints and other saintly relics across Europe. Very useful, and well written.
Very special books to me, the lot of them.
But now I’m at loose ends for reading material..
What can you reccomend? I’m down to reading Grampa’s
Raymond Chandler and Andrew Vacchs, who I actually like quite alot
but I finished it in one sitting and I need something a bit more..
substantial..
My grandfather stops me to give coins to the gypsy women..
One plays the same tune over and over on a battered accordion,
her infant son lolling in a stroller, his dark eyes huge.
Tomorrow we go to Rome.

Ravenna and Padova were a blur of
subterranean crypts filled with water,
silver coins glinting on the tiled mosaic floor
and transparent fish gliding through the clear water
seeming to float there, suspended in space above the graves..
In Padua we managed to get in to see the Giotto frescos in the chapel,
and they were unimaginably lovely of course.
The Basilica of Saint Anthony houses his tongue, jawbone, and vocal cords.
I paid them all a visit, and was horrified and delighted to 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, with our hotels situated so far away
from the city centre, and everything closed up after 11 or so
we were at a loss for how to occupy ourselves in the evenings..
Hence, we took up playing gin rummy every night-
My grandfather has turned out to be a card sharp,
and though I am no slouch myself, he still manages
to beat me 98% of the time- luck he says, eh?
We were, however, tossed out of the bar 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 hied ourselves to the room and used a suitcase as a table.
Dangerous gin rummy players here, watch yourself!
Now in Florence, where the roar of vespas almost
drowns out the blind man playing violin beneath our window..
Viciously pointy shoes, faux-hawks, shiny sunglasses and roman noses abound.
Last night we found a concert of baroque music being played at a church nearby-
it featured a controtenore, which I hadn’t been expecting..
Marvelous to hear such a butch-looking man sing so beautifully,
like an innocent choirboy, he brought Farinelli to mind..
And the organist! My god, you haven’t lived until you’ve heard
Bach’s Toccata in Fuga on a gigantor church organ- it shakes the soul,
and I could barely contain my wild grin and urge to howl maniacally with glee-
some music will just have that effect on you..
And few things are sexier than an awkwardly beautiful (or is it beautifully awkward) man
playing violin beautifully, especially when he happens to be playing Paganini.
Lovely.
Out of time now,
more soon.

During our last dinner, at which I had
what was described as
“Drowned Little Octopus and Polenta”
I was waving the little guys around
and making them dance as I tend to
when confronted by baby octopi
and my Grandfather said to me,
“Darling, you’re not impossible-
but you’re definitely improbable!”
The train to Ravenna was not without
its minor dramas, as we were to change
trains in Ferrara- and with an 89 year
old man, a portable wheelchair and
altogether way too many bags
this is already a feat..
Even more so when the door in the train
opens for about two seconds,
long enough for Grampapa to hop off-
but as I turned to start hauling the
baggage out, the door shut and would not open
and the train started rolling off to Bologna!
After searching through seventeen train cars
for the conductor, I finally accosted one
and in a panic explained that mi Nono
was stranded and I was here with all of
our luggage headed away from him..
In the end, I went to Bologna,
turned around and came back to Ferrara,
all in enough time for us to catch our train
to Ravenna. Eh. Train travel is exciting.
So here we are by the shining sea,
little sand-crabs sidle away from me
in the surf and wave their pincers menacingly..
I collect shells, mermaids teeth and crustacean corpses.
From this height, the ocean glimmers faintly
over the rise of cedars and becomes one with the sky-
The big fishing boats out on the horizon appear to be
floating- suspended in mid-air..
Night has fallen, and from the balcony I watch
the lighthouse tower a lonely sentinel on the shore.
Its beacon turning slowly to pierce me with that
bright beam for an instant before I close the curtains.
I, too, have been in Ravenna.
It is a little dead city
That has churches and a good many ruins.
You can read about it in books.
You walk back through it and look around you:
The streets are so muddy and damp, and so
Dumbstruck for a thousand years,
And moss and grass, everywhere.
That is what old songs are like–
You listen to them, and nobody laughs
And everybody draws back into
His own time till night falls into him.
-Hermann Hesse

“L’om po far e die in pensar – E vega quelo che gli po inchontar”
-Venetian vernacular approximately translated as,
“Let man do and say as he pleases, and see what happens to him..”
Last afternoon in La Bella Serenissima..
Our train pulls out for Ravenna via Ferrara
at some ungodly early hour, egads..
From the depths of the fissure
an alluring Chimaera was rising..
I am undone by this place.
The Accademia, its ceiling covered with
the solemn faces of many-winged angels,
silver strands connecting each to each
as in the celestial firmament fretted..
I had not enough time there, my satchel
plucked from me at the door so I could not
sketch the strange wonders I saw there-
The Great Whore of Babylon, astride her beast,
a goat-like hydra, and her with her smile and chalice..
All the works from the Apocalypse, truly terrifying
the dead rising out of the river, hanging skin and holding bibles..
The sanguine lamb with seven eyes and seven horns,
the four harbingers, all covered with a multitude of eyes..
Tarrochi and tortoise-shell hair combs keep company
alongside alembics and other alchemical tools in the Correr.
The library there with case after case
of the most marvelous illuminated manuscripts I have ever seen.
And a requisite trip to the Guggenheim here to see
my dear, dear old lovely Mister Cornell, my lost friend..
Oh his miraculous boxes!
The fortune-telling parrot, a stuffed African Grey
and his whimsical victorian divinatory device..
My favorite, A Setting for a Fairy Tale..
Rows of glass bottles filled with powdered lapis lazuli,
feathers, gears, bits of map, theater tickets and other detritus..
(Insert massive sigh here)
I’ve been dreaming of children, toddling through fallow orchards
with a giant red apple cart, howling with wolves
as the marsh lights appear and the hazy sun fades..
And the rainy night escape from the hospital,
my brother there, unwashed and mad in a heap
of bedding and clothing, in the closed off wing-
The Involuntary Ward..
I’m doing covert research,
in a locked room my papers are spread out
on the floor in a circle around me,
I’m taking names, making lists-
Is this the Kingdom or just my mind?
There is an infant, a little girl who I watch die
as the operation fails- her tiny face crumpling
like a rotting fruit, turning black and fetid..
I wake as her heart gives out.
So sayeth Death, the world is mine.
Incidentally, I’m reading The Abyss, a wonderful book
by Marguerite Yourcenar, author of The Memoirs of Hadrian
which I also reccomend. If plague and alchemy interest you,
you should find this much to your liking.
I found it falling apart in the hotel lobby in Vienna,
and decided it must accompany me on my journey,
excellent travel reading that it is..
Now I head back to that fantastic restaurant
for a last dinner, mayhap a gondola ride,
and bid adieu to Venezia, city of masks
of water and glass, of bookbinders and silk stalls,
this outpost of heaven in earthly guise..

This sense of vertigo has not passed,
is alarming, still swaying
and everything at a tilt
sea legs I have, land legs- however…
Even seated I feel the horizon careening..
what is happening here?
I am impossibly enamoured of this place,
how could I not be? There are few cities
more strange and beautiful than this..
And this food, well..
Let us just say..
Oh. Hell. Yes.
Last night I found an enticing place,
Le Bistrot Venise
serving what they described as
historically authentic Venetian cuisine..
My goodness, but it was the pinnacle of gastronomic perfection.
I had fennel soup with pine nuts and sliced grapes
surrounding a gloriously golden raw egg yolk and dusted with cinnamon..
And then..Homemade cocoa fettucine with lobster, pilgrim scallops and beetroot.
With a nice chianti (insert innappropriate tongue sounds here)
and the best goddamn cappuccino you could ever hope for..
As far as food goes on this trip, Italy is coming out the clear and obvious winner..
The Czech goulash with weird bread dumplings and frozen vegetables
left much to be desired, and as nice as a good wienerschnitzel is,
especially at the Hotel Sacher, birthplace of the eponynmous sacher torte,
which I tried along with some delectable heisse schokolade with sacher liquer
and loads of chantilly cream..mmm-hmm..
Today we wandered all over San Croce after the Costume Museum
searching for this one particular gelato place with bizarre flavours..
It was found readily, and I had Fennel and Fig ice cream
and nearly died right there on the cobblestones.
yam yam yam.
I likes me some good eatin.
The End.
ps. Also, I saw a giant skeleton key what shoots poison darts.
Very difficult to restrain myself from smashing glass with wheelchair and running away fast.