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2004-03-10
Theda Bara (b. Theodosia Burr Goodman)
B. 7.29.1885 Avondale, Ohio / D. 4.7.1955 Los Angeles
Cancer
Morning: gulls and garbage trucks; the neighbors’ first cigarettes. Don’t remind me. If there’d been a clerk at the counter last night I’d be smoking now, feasting on French tobacco.
For Lent I’m supposed to go to the desert
(which I still tend to spell “dessert” first try)
within, the desert place within, and there await
and there confront
the devil I suppose
while abstaining more or less from sweets.
In this desert I have found
(this year)
propensities—for instance here I am in bed again—
to up a lazy river go with only pairs of fast-pawed fishing cats for company.
Last night I did buy a slice of carrot cake to go with my coffee when I went to see Charlize Theron in Monster up at the Pavilion. It was dry and I think had gone a little stale but I ate it all. Then on the way back down Coney on the bus I decided I wouldn’t under any circumstances want to give either of the men across the aisle a blow job for twenty bucks. A hand job for ten apiece though—and it would add up. Extra income: I saw how.
But now there is no river in the bed.
A raft aground, no more afloat than rock
my blanket sinks beneath its freight of fur and dreams and haunches.
I wish
for a waitress to come refill my coffee cup.
Suddenly I’m married, bored, and drinking. 1932: mid-afternoon, drinking with the maid. "You should go through my closets some time and just just just TAKE! God knows the last time I wore anything in there but three four of the gowns you know. You should, I want you to. Damned waste when you have the figure and I don’t anymore no it’s true.” I’ve been passing the maid my gold-tipped cigarettes to smoke and every one she takes it’s as if I’m climbing on a ladder, step, step, step. There’s a diving platform somewhere.
Lent would seem to be there all the time but in fact it lasts less than two hours each day.
Darling—on
no
I ought to go under the stage; I generate mirage.
Abstinence is ecstasy:
I’m all eyeball white and flutter.
Consolation Site: Kiss me, my fool!