A Gothic Opening, 2 Objects, 1 Joke Told Completely in Marble

7/27/2019 A Gothic Opening, 2 Objects, 1 Joke Told Completely in Marble

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A GOTHIC OPENING, 2 OBJECTS, 1 JOKE TOLD COMPLETELY IN MARBLE

Marty Watt

Okay, here we go:

A Gothic opening, 2 objects, 1 joke told completely in marble:

A Gothic opening might be:At the end of each word stands a poet tonightBoots and gloves and a hat connectedBy a coat even longer thanThe silence at the end of a sonnet

Its teeth are StarsExtracted, this poet; theConstellations are gynecological,Penetrated by our gaze like

Tongues into bloody sockets...

How sharp are the howls ofWhat shapes of the windCould shred the marbleCurtains of its smile

Eyes like distant candles tornFrom the steady drip of their rootsHands melting, fingers lengtheningLike icicles in an x - ray of

A windowsill from which,

Clinging, each word dangles.

2 objects could be:A toaster and aA bicycle wheel.

A joke told completely in marblecould change each version of the poem - the joke , I mean;not the marble - joke would always be told in marble. Buthere, in this version ,it would go like this:

My face lengthens out behind me likea shadow made of flesh cast bysunsets of ever sadder events like:

A solid block of marble is suddenly chiseledInto an ornate perfect recreation of a barServing marble drinks with marble music playing

And lit by great shafts of marble light, A


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Human bartender: flesh, bones, eyeballs, heartbeat,Breathing all that human stuffwears a completely marble costume:Marble shirt, marble mask - even casts aMarble shadow ... SUDDENLY! Self Chiseling, SelfSculpting Blocks of mechanized marble appear one

After the other like the footsteps of a.... prehistoric giant:Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! white stone dustcovers everything - everyone starts looking like the ghost ofMichelangelo .... HORSES ! well, actuallyOne horse but in a sudden series of statuesThat give the illusion of motion, of it walking into the bar.

A 'marble' bar.

We are all some distance from our words: some 3 feet,some a couple of hundred yards, or miles, some peoplelike me have their words all towering behind them.... like:the bartender formerly a mausoleum angel - you

can see where they shattered off the wings ...he stands right there behind his words which comeup to just above his waist, you know: like a bar:and those words he's standing behind say,"Hey Horse, why is your head shaped exactly likeThe Pieta by Michelangelo?" He says thisbecause we're not in the Flesh & Blood world wherepeople use a chainsaw for a tongue and teethlike a keyboard to carve what they mean out of carnage -arranging the body parts and intestines to express thingsall rotting and covered with maggots like: "Why the long face?"In that world where music covers everything in flesh,

a long face means you're sad and horses havelong faces in THAT world. In THIS world of marble,when people are sad, their whole head, face etcbecomes an exact replica of Michelangelo's Pieta:Marble hat, marble sunglasses, marble collar,marble cigarette.. And sure enough: there's thehorse with it's head shaped exactly like The Pieta...Oh well, guess you had to - you know: "be there:"staggering among the ruins... the pillars all in mid topple,the fragments of moonlight, ANCIENT GREECE UPON ITS HIND LEGS JURASSIC IN SCALE BLINDINGLYWHITE IN THE FOSSILIZING STARLIGHT... cathedrals

crashing on the shoreline great staircasespatrolling the horizon.... not a sound.. the deathly silencenot one tooth rattling around in even one shaken skull: nothing....then: wait a minute:"its' head shaped exactly like Michelangelo's Pieta ?""its' head shaped exactly like Michelangelo's Pieta !"because, you see, in 1482, the Duke of Milan Ludovico il Morohad commissioned Michelangelo to sculpt a huge horse for himbut Michelangelo never completed it - which


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made him and the Duke very sad...then Laughter sent its' corridors through the silence....its' cold empty hallways through the smooth white silence....then Laughter sent its' corridorslacing through the silence....

and so, as ifEmily Dickinson had been a "Silent Film Poet"flickering in the dark like the windows of the

All Night Crematorium andCheck Cashing Service....Her gestures flashing likea graveyard of lightbulbs at the centerof a moon, luminescent asbones as fragile as neonher skin aglow with embers and ash,there you have it:

A Gothic opening remember:"the poet at the end of each wordcandles torn out by their dripping roots"the 2 objects the "TOASTER" and the "BICYCLE WHEEL,"The joke told completely in marblewith "the Marble horse - itshead shaped exactly like Michelangelo's Pieta,"and, what I think is a great last line:

"laughter sent its corridors lacing through thesilence."

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A Gothic Opening, 2 Objects, 1 Joke Told Completely in Marble