oh, but the drug of it!  feels so good. feels so good, good, good.

the sweetness, aww...

ooooh... the pleasure.

i need it.  i'm a pleasure junky.

i think you'd love it here.  i feel
so liberated! ...and drawn to
edith piaf's's song, 'non, je ne
regrette rien'.

...listening to it now.  i see
the correlation.  we all
need this... yet, indulgence
in new romance minimizes
self-triumph.

it begins with an arrival, which isn't always expected.
in each case, the fact of invitation may not be recalled.

there is the approach.  then, the awaited delivery of... subject or object,
but who awaits whom?  ring it or not, here it comes...

the pressing moment - wait for it.

so it rings... sound rushes through the thick of it.  so much
captured in a bell tone - like the snap of a wishbone -
we do it for the rush of it.

humans soil themselves with purpose, sewing seeds of meaning.
meaningful... meaningless?  it all diverts us.  of course,
detours are not always aberrations.

early on, the two of us played a coquettish sport
full of mind games.  we were only partially visible
and always half present.

my eyes would move in a constant, rapid motion.
i had feral dreams and acute perceptions.
i felt like a wildcat.

ppp-pounce!

our passion was heavy, but it would always soften
to a happy, pleased purr.  ppp-purrr...

more mind games... we became our own alternate compositions.
so it seemed only natural, to progress into a transition.

i thought i saw a man spot me through the window,

but when he looked, all he saw

were the black clouds rolling in.

now dancers... through the cracks in the enormous curtains.

first i heard a trumpet rhapsody.  then,

renoir was whispering in her ear.

the baritones were singing.  

the two silhouettes passed.  they were not shadows.
they possessed a heaviness.

there was a passionate couple on the veranda.

the unreliable narrator said that these were the only rules
of the game.

blindfolded,  from outside the villa leopolda,

i saw her through the window.

she was in an enormous room, next to a candelabra.

she was watching herself dance under tiny spotlights on the floor.

she was no more than six inches tall.  villefranche-sur-mer.  1948.

arthur, chantal will be coming soon.  behave yourself.  are you listening?

i passed

hans richter

on the street

today.

new york.  1948.

oslo. 1948.  the children of war

have made fires, in the lot, next to

 the frogner church.

chantal, you knew what train you were taking.
this is the slow train.

this is the slow train.  a beautiful one. this is a slow life.

is this you wanting to script my biography?  ha!  
so does it begin this way, with you pacing me,
pacing life?  her hot air breathing into glass...

i thought you were clever.  apparently only black and white is visible to you.
well then... do please take notice of my stripes!

there are many planes of brightness and just as many streaks of absent light.
we are like zebras!  my stripes are unlike yours but lack nothing.
see into my mind, and there is color!

there is unrevealed substance behind us, but i don't see through you.
i see into you.  yet, you... you look at me imperiously!  then
you look away... you gaze elongates as if seeing me
from a vanishing point.

but arthur!  don't you get it...??  are we that distant?!
ignore my pursed lips and look!  even the bottle glass has stripes.

i regret to inform you that the performance
will be cancelled tonight.

simone eluard drove her car

into the bay of biscay this morning.  brest.  1948.

at present, her body has not been found.