Giacomo Joyce (3 page)

As I come out of
Ralli’s
house I come upon her suddenly as we both are giving alms to a blind beggar.
She answers my sudden greeting by turning and averting her black basilisk eyes.
E
col
suo
vedere
attosca
l’uomo
quando
lo
vede
.
I thank you for the word,
messer
Brunetto
.

They spread under my feet carpets of the
son of man. They await my passing. She stands in the yellow shadow of the hall,
a plaid cloak shielding from chill her sinking shoulders: and as I halt in
wonder and look about me she greets me wintrily and passes up the staircase
darting at me for an instant out of her sluggish sidelong eyes a jet of
liquorish venom.

A soft crumpled
peagreen
cover drapes the lounge.
A narrow Parisian room.
The
hairdresser
lay
her but now. I kissed her stocking and
the hem of her
rustblack
dusty skirt. It is the
other.
She.
Gogarty
came
yesterday to be introduced.
Ulysses
is the reason. Symbol of the
intellectual conscience....
Ireland then?
And the husband?
Pacing the corridor in list shoes or
playing chess against
himself
. Why are we left here?
The hairdresser lay here but now, clutching my head between her knobby
knees....
Intellectual symbol of my race.
Listen! The
plunging gloom has fallen. Listen!

-I am not convinced that such activities
of the mind or body can be called unhealthy.-

She speaks.
A weak
voice from beyond the cold stars.
Voice of wisdom.
Say on! O, say again, making me wise! This voice I never heard.

She coils towards me along the crumpled
lounge. I cannot move or speak.
Coiling approach of
starborn
flesh.
Adultery of
wisdom.
No. I will go. I will.

-Jim, love! -

Soft sucking lips kiss my left armpit: a
coiling kiss of myriad veins. I burn! I crumple like a burning leaf! From my
right armpit a fang of flame leaps out. A starry snake has kissed me: a cold
nightsnake
. I am lost!

-Nora! -

Jan
Pieters
Sweelink
. The quaint name of the
old
Dutch musician makes all beauty seem quaint and far. I hear his variations for
the clavichord on an old air:
Youth has an end
. In the vague mist of old
sounds a faint point of light appears: the speech of the soul is about to be
heard. Youth has an end: the end is here. It will never be. You know that well.
What then? Write it, damn you, write it! What else are you good for?

“Why?”

“Because
otherwise I could not see you.”

Sliding-space-ages-foliage
of stars-and waning heaven-stillness-and stillness deeper-stillness of
annihilation-and her voice.

Non
hunc
sed
Barabbam
!

Unreadiness.A
bare apartment.
Torbid
daylight.
A long black piano: coffin of music. Poised on its edge a
woman’s hat, red-flowered, and umbrella, furled. Her arms: a
casque
, gules, and blunt spear on a field, sable.

Envoy: Love me, love my umbrella.