Altho' I'm only really re-iterating what I've said to Alison before about
this piece, but I do find this wonderfully camp and effectively theatrical.
And, too, there is a genuine dark edge to it, both in its quasi-porn imagery
at times and in certain cutting lines, like:

> How terribly terribly - intelligent.
>
> You could cut glass with it.

At the same time the quotes give it a certain 'body'. I can see Rimbaud as a
'lad' from a Leicester housing estate, for example, an equivalent to some
Melbourne suburbs, it rings true.

I'd just love to see it performed.


Best

Dave



----- Original Message -----
From: "Alison Croggon" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 12:59 AM
Subject: Re: Postmodern?/more baroque


> Somehow this discussion reminded me of this piece, which I wrote for a
> friend of mine to perform sometime next year -
>
> (somehow not interested in arguments so much as arguments in writings at
> the moment) -
>
> Best
>
> Alison
>
> _
>
> ARTHUR
>
>
> *A young man in a dress, clumsily applied lipstick. A tourniquet about
his
> arm. A needle.
>
> He injects. Takes off the tourniquet. He takes out the needle and holds
> it before his eyes.*
>
> The blood's poison.
>
> *Pause*
>
> The poison blood.
>
> *Pause. Grins. Cocks the syringe.*
>
> Your money - or your life!
>
> *His head droops. He drops the syringe. He forgets himself. Remembers.*
>
> Once I loved so many things. Hollywood movies. Old posters. Girl bands.
> Manga cartoons. Love songs. TV soaps. Internet porn. Ballroom dancing.
> Tacky magazines about movie stars. Cheap wedding photos. Glam rock.
> Strip shows. Neon signs in dark alleys.
>
> Those days are long gone.
>
> And now -
>
> *Pause*
>
> White eyes after how many sleepless nights? Black visions. My hands on
> fire. The rotting corpse of a child. A ship sailing through clouds. A
> mansion at the bottom of a puddle. Voices jeering my impotence. No - the
> real hunger is -
>
> *Pause*
>
> And this my badge of manhood! This - beautiful - dress -
>
> Call me - Ophelia!
>
> The real hunger is -
>
> *His head drops
>
> Long pause*
>
> Not one would sleep
> Not one wanted to be a river
> Not one loved the great leaves
> Not one, the blue tongue of the beach
>
> I was born into the chastened suburbs, a product of beige wall to wall and
> yellow bricks, my childhood was spent peeping between the slats of white
> venetian blinds, in those blinding summers I would jump through the
> sprinkler on the front lawn, ah the sizzle of water on hot flesh, the
> splaying of brown limbs, the white laughter
>
> and in my lonely room out the back I dreamed so many things under my
> posters with the tv flickering at the end of the bed I dreamed so many
>
> phantom soldiers fled across the stained walls of my boyhood desperate
last
> stands and courage mentioned in despatches I machinegunned countless
> enemies down from the cornices I slept in a sea of white feathers and woke
> to crystal dawns and the day was scrubbed clean as a whistle and my bed
was
> always neat and straight when I returned no trace at all of my
subterranean
> erotic life
>
> the product of bronze genealogies the stock which strode tall over the top
> flinging their heedless bodies towards the deadly hail
>
> but in me the seed was decadent something went wrong how my mother cried
> what would your father say she said if he was still alive
>
> o how they cried
>
> *Pause*
>
> Looking looking looking looking
>
> Always looking like a dumb bride a dummy bride a dumb looking for the
right
> cock the right mouth the right prince to ride me away over the sunset to
> the last sacrificial altar
>
> My abjection knew no bounds my pride was beyond measure
>
> Farewell childhood! I said and lay down among thieves and drugdealers and
> conmen with lice in my hair and in my heart farewell glorious illusion! I
> come to the real world a trembling virgin my veil is black leather my
heart
> is purer than any diamond come fuck me I said all will be well bring me
> your scabs your diseases your sorrows the undying regard of your
injustices
> bring your icy hearts and break them on my soft yielding flesh my patience
> is crueller than yours
>
> Flies sniffing dogshit glistened no more bright than me
>
> Feathers peroxide vomit amphetamines I stuffed the whole world up my arse
> and farted it out in shitty dribbles of come
>
> I almost died there
>
> *Pause*
>
> Has anyone been as bored as I am? Cultivating a monstrous cynicism which
is
> only the bridal dress
>
> for the usual pathetic longings the usual truncated knowings and now the
> men of science bend our genes o miracle! to be as god at last! but only
for
> the usual destructions
>
> Sad to be so predictable
>
> my poor prince poor spent cock I spit out of my humiliated mouth
>
> My poor Ophelia! What lies you tell yourself! How huge you loom in your
> own dreams! And the brown day squints through the drawn blinds and
> splinters your bloodshot eyes and draws up the accounts
>
> There's no profit in romance, that's for sure
>
> *Long pause*
>
> What angel is hidden in your cheek?
> What perfect voice will speak the truths of wheat?
> Who, that terrible dream of your stained wildflowers?
>
> Sweet Lorca. Shot up the arse by fascists. Like all poets.
>
> An age without dispensation, clutching our tawdry gods. Cemeteries full
of
> videos of the dead saying bye bye. The tv news our dumb chorus. Murder?
> Atrocity? Nightmare? Lives wallpapered with the banality of massacre.
> The prozac of compassion.
>
> White seductions! Eyes as blind as computer screens! Skin as sleek and
> nerveless as condoms! If at last we reach the pharmaceutical kingdom, we
> shall be happy!
>
> I wanted a free freedom, I wanted to map the atrocious chambers of myself,
> I wanted all knowings and all terrors, all ecstasies, all disasters, all
> crimes. I wanted the world flayed open to my penetrating intelligence, I
> wanted to bury my face in its warm stinking intestines, I filled myself
> with horror. I was so conventional! My nihilism couldn't compete with a
> single junior corporate executive. Free enterprise! Patron saint, the
> Marquis de Sade.
>
> All that's left is the celebrity of the voyeur.
>
> I wanted none of that.
>
> I was looking for my prince. My heart was pure as diamond. My eyes cold
> as cocaine. I'm the host of my own show!
>
> Watch me, you bored proletarians. I dazzle your puzzlement! Floating
down
> the polluted river in the fine glamour of suicide! My hair a golden
> coronal. My white hands. Watch me from the banks and contemplate your
> murderous hypocrisy and the mania of your indifference. Yes, it is I,
> Ophelia!
>
> Who was it who said, The real question about Hamlet is: is Hamlet mad, or
> is it the critics? - Wilde, it's Wilde. Another poet with a bullet up
his
> arse. He said: "The dreadful thing about modernity is that it puts
tragedy
> into the raiment of comedy".
>
> It's always been true of actual life. Only art could invent tragedy. I
> Tiresias have foresuffered all.
>
> In anguish we are all clowns. Grotesque, pathetic, mean. Meaningless.
>
> *Pause*
>
> How terribly terribly - intelligent.
>
> You could cut glass with it.
>
> *Silence
>
> He picks up a handmirror and contemplates himself. Readjusts his
lipstick. *
>
> I was talking to Ruth the other day. You know, Ruth. Yes, still sobbing
> into her martinis, poor flower, her mascara bubbling down her face, he
left
> me Arthur he left me. I warned you I said he's a slut Ruth you couldn't
> ever trust him go on have another martini. I know she wails but I love
him
> I love him and I can't bear the cruelty him flaunting her in my face I
know
> he was you know while we were it's hell just hell - he's just a cunt I
said
> and there's nothing you can do about it doll - they're all cunts she said
> and laughed I shouldn't say that. But they are. All I want she said is
> someone who loves me. He loved you doll I said but he's a cunt love
> doesn't solve anything.
>
> Et cetera et cetera et cetera.
>
> The energising whiff of brimstone. How delightful! At least here we can
> contemplate our own faces. The infernal boredom!
>
> Hell is going around in the same circles for ever and ever and ever. The
> inmost circle is ice. Numb ice. White sleep.
>
> My cruel prince.
>
> *Pause*
>
> There's no denying the anguish, of course. That despicable lust, so like
> murder. Be my pig, he said. Get down there and grunt. Be my dog, be my
> weasel, be my rat. I'll crawl into your arsehole like a spider and cover
> you with beautiful pink sores. How he cowered before the enormity of my
> love! I frightened him to death.
>
> But there, maybe, something true. Beneath the obscene comedy of pain, the
> possibility of oneself. Yes? One soul and one body. This harsh
> singularity. Meaning either - death. Or a position in the arms industry.
> What they used to call the petro-chemical-military-industrial complex. In
> the corridors of the IMF no one can hear you scream. Money is white and
> silent. Singular and ubiquitous.
>
> Do you follow me?
>
> Death or money. But there's something missing in that equation.
Something
> doesn't add up. Do you follow?
>
> Money or death.
>
> *He picks up the syringe*
>
> I bear the stigmata of my martyrdom. But is it me? That's the question.
> And if it's not, who am I? Am I someone else?
>
> Life is just a misery.
>
> Presenting my accounts. But something embezzles me, I exist only in my
> absence. I mistook my past for my future. It's easily enough done.
> Everything perishes before my sour laughter. No dawns of the real. No
> magnificent cities. No glorious deaths, no mentions in despatches, no
> triumphant marches through through ardent cities. No, only this endless
> present.
>
> Life is just a misery, a misery.
>
> *He sits silent, with bowed head, dangling the syringe in his hands. It
> drops to the floor.*
>
>
> Alison Croggon 2001
>