for Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (1874-1927),
avant-garde poet and first American dadaist

Gertrude SteinÆs palms are on the table tapping in beat with the hissing oil.  Her fingers make hieroglyphics in the flour then raise a jelly jar of bourbon to Elsa's buttons:

 

AN UMBRELLA.

   A spoke is one answer.  Trajectory from any gutter makes charm.  In corner, in center, in a frame that is this room all dark all light.  Why is there a difference between one window and another?

A HAT.

   Aviator's grin.  Ears hear fears.  Scuttle inverted to broach a vegetable grater.  A shaved head declares the meaning of violet.   Transformation knows into pose.

A HAT.

   Carrots or beets are the haberdasher's commas.     

HATS.

   Rayman's frame.  Halo web like a cage.  Choker chokes tenderly.

A BOWL.

   If purpose is chipped, any where is crumb.  Yolk wins.   Stamps tattooed are cereal flakes.

A SOUND.

   Rat laps.  Philosophical about scraps.

A SOUND.

   Egg beater propelled by ears.

A CAGE.

Canary reasons and refutes.  If the warrior is standing, if the selection is arranged, if the arrangement is not arranged in arrangement,  if the color is brave.

                                                            

 

 

Applause erupts.  Edith Sitwell's cigar bobs  in her lipsticked mouth. A  lullaby for dada:                                   

AT THE vermilion cotillon
She was the steeped European
Madame Flaneur of this town
Skyscrapers her crown.

A most musical belle,
Teaballs dangling from swells;
Ice cream spoons scooping lobes,
black lipsticked OÆs

Oh oh oh oh
Heia! ja-
Hoho!

Madame Flaneuse she trots
Rubber tires, tired knots,
dolls and soldiers on her hems,
horse blanket pins in their pens.

For sex she wickedly confesses
Marcel, Carlos, avant-garde contessas.
Inspired barking and larking,
Paintings rearranged, shrills arcing

Till the moon and marionettes sleep
On tenement steps where cherubs weep
The Baroness has left the shore
Life mocked by Chance and core.

Laura Riding balances a plate of raw broccoli and dark chocolate on her knee caps and whispers into Elsa's ear, "the world and you".

The frame followed you across the sea.
Brutality is and wills its way
Until it is in each breath
And breath wills it to be.
Your gaiety rises but only against the sorrow
That gives it the meaning
You can't fully understand.
So words and deeds become ghosts--
And the brutality of the frame keeps them close
Until fragments and segments compress and implode.

 

The peeling door  is kicked open.  Myrna Loy bounds into the flat; her scarves form a halo, a modern woman:

A silver figure
dances nude
on mirrored sidewalks

Her feet are wheels
- - - her jewels
utilitarian.

Miscellany
and the forbidden
her luminous wands - - - -
body is her theater
her museum her notebook.

Without a country
the banner unfurls
against the chatty walls
of salons and blindman balls
while lampshades
monopolize moments
and

feathers are strewn.

Taillight conquers bustle - - -
cross dressing threatens kings.
A coded script to be deciphered
by many daughters who will follow
- - - -dauntless - - -
Evolving us - - - -

From Elsa's wall, H.D. grabs a mirror on which she arranges salamis and sugar doughnuts in Freudian procession.

Else:
What mystery is this?

You are Orpheus idealized,
female androgyne, art circle jewel.

Your long fingers poised,
lyre in repose, your days your art;

birches gleam their countenance,
poppy eyes at your feet.

You call forth nephrite and purple turmaline
from your Lechter, your rare bird.

Biddle summons your Hydra heads,
pound for pound you are Cassandra unleashed

rallying against cast iron lovers
wedged inside cannons.

O Amazone incarnate, trolling
this graveyard of unburied shells of souls.

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