Hello. I am E.P. This is program number seventeen, a fragment of a long prose poem by Xzemach Faccio.
Day 281: I think they will try to do it with water. The glass vials look as if they have been filled during the night. One has a greenish tint to it. This must be nearer the end. SOMEONE MUST HAVE SWITCHED THEM AROUND. There are seven long beaded edges waiting for their treatment. A light golden dust from yesterday covers all the surrounding surfaces.
Day 282: Three young, brown-skinned girls, naked from the waist up, splash in the river. A man stands near the waterfall, hatted against the mists. VULVATE GASTROPOD. ORPHEUS. ARGONAUT. The red-faced Monkeyman hunkers against the cold, his long hair orange in the forest. The irons all gather dust, their noses pointed, their handles, handless.
Day 283: THE FROGS ARE COMING. First, one, in the distance. And then, maybe five. And then hundreds. They have come from the North. This is the first time. There have never been frogs. First they are very loud. Then they are silent. They wait for a sign. I MUST BE MORE CAREFUL WHOM I HONOR. I MUST WATCH FOR BARED TEETH. Whom to trust?
Day 284: The paired shoes are stacked like corded wood but asunder. Today it might rain. They said it might rain today. The thirst.
Day 285: A yellow gloved hand beckons from the green arch-way. Next to it a young girl in a stained white skirt opens her arms and reaches out, towards me. She fronts her mother, bare-breasted against the blue sky. They stand in a field of white flowers that flutter like butterflies.
Day 286: The fledgeling crow basks in the morning sunlight. The man leans now into the waterfall, his arm folded against his head.
Day 287: The large-faced woman fills the oriel, her face. Her face looks warmer now, her eyes. Her hair. The curled lizard. Its pinhole eyes and curled fingers. The arm and hammer. THE CASCADE OF THE EARTH’S WATERS and the upside down fish. Topsy Turvey.
Day 288: Only her big head and neck show now from the window. The stalagmites are deeply shaded against the star-night sky. The blunted stele. The organpipe cactus and the wind. THE CRUMBLED RUINS AROUND MAY 4TH. The strange old man puts down his briefcase, removes his hat and points a gun at the sky. He looks into the mirror. Behind him his dog. His dog woofs: his dogwolf. The blunted Sphinx.
Day 289: Now the woman is gone. The blunted phallus.
Day 290: A large mist rises above September and October. The hanging gardens in the mist. The purple haze, the catwalks, the rainbows. The large woman’s head telescopes back into the opening. The blunted yoni. The graph indicates that nothing has changed. SKELJB. The grey bedspread has leached the ink from my forgotten pen. The black stain spreads along its folds.
Day 291: The vines encrust her neck, a hummingbird at her throat. The dragon flies. The basket-ladle holds the single dusty rose. Diamond girls. The red sequinned pumps. The large lit building at night. The young girl scolds the haired-bird. Olio extra vergine di oliva. TRUE ROME ANTS.
Day 292: Ursa major, Leo minor, her broken leg, the tongues. THE GUARDIANS OF THE SARCOPHAGUS, the ivory skull.
Day 293: She primps now in the gated mirror, her eyes, her mouth. Her long fingers.
Day 294: The spider’s webs. The drunken birds. The mountains and the snow. The veiled lizards. The hypnotized man. The brushed fish. The large tongue. The watching Buddha. The hung eye. The dripping nozzle.
Day 295: I wait. I grind. THE THIRST.
Day 296: The large burning tree. The smoke from the fires. The young girl plays with the gynecoid doll. Her Mother. Each strand of hair behind her small ears. Like glass. THE RYTHM OF HER BEATING WINGS. The dust from the horses’ hooves. How long can I wait?
Day 297: Waking up to honeycombed clouds in disbelief. The shrine to Harry still there on the rise. The dark rise. The cloud shadows defining the distance and shape of the hills. Lagomorphs. Their delicacy of front limb. The black tip of their ears. Their slender speed and grace. The sticky flies, their frantic pulse. Desert monk O.D.’s on banana and lays low on his flattened belly under the table in the shade. Waiting for the wild horses to drink.
Day 298: RATTLESNAKE GIRL CRIES OUT FOR LOVE AND PASSION.
Day 299: Monkeyman looks for the texture of the hills and mind and the nature of self-destruction. Is it my lot to warble in the melancholia? The rumble of the earth revolving through space returns in this basin of silence. The last cigar of this celebration almost gone. Descriptions of this only one self.
Day 300: This day of perfect loveliness, many clouds, protection from the sun. No wind now. Summer turning to Fall between yesterday and today. The equinox between love and separation. The sky low, the world so small between love and lonliness.
Day 301: The shadows move the hills closer. They get washed back with the light. This ochre, green and tan crusting up to dryness.
Day 302: Today the man with stars and shaved head. His enlarged cheeks, his long nose. HIS TOO MANY TEETH! Now it is night and the crickets. Something is chewing in the walls. I check the case. The pins have been removed. The swelling on my cheek. I look into the mirror. The strange old man peers back. YESTERDAY I DRANK THE LIQUID. The pain. I am crying. HYPOMNESIA. I don’t remember. Why?
THAT’S ALL FOLKS!