Paris, France
October 12, 1889

It's been nearly a week now since the Le Premier Palais des Femmes has opened. I gander about, and see all the free faces. Misters in their best outfits slobbed themselves over the glories of an actual woman that was not their wife. They saw beauty and an opportunity for a feeling of strength and masculine power. Different attire worn by the women reveled much skin. The men gathered two or three mistresses and a bucket of *** and went off to their homes. I was disgusted and delighted to be here. I recently resigned the Misses just to do this tonight. It's 21:47. I look around for faces that I would be delighted in claiming my own for a night and two. Nothing caught my eye. I started to gather my stuff and leave, but suddenly a face I hadn't seen appeared in front of me. Her breath smelt of mint leaves and joy. She spoke to me and asked me for the night. Asked me! Such a remark from a woman of that low should earn a punishment, but she seemed like she was innocent. As rude as it was, I took her offer since I had no other plans for that night. She took me back to her home where she had set up a fire and food. It was as if she had planned it for me. It was so beautifully laid out. I looked around her home, it was astonishing. She then leaded me to her bedroom, where she left rose pedals on the floor and one candle lit. She grabbed me. That's when I met my Mistress from the Moulin Rouge.

The photographic chamber of the eye
records bare painted walls, while an electric light
lays the chromium nerves of plumbing raw;
such poverty assaults the ego; caught
naked in the merely actual room,
the stranger in the lavatory mirror
puts on a public grin, repeats our name
but scrupulously reflects the usual terror.

Just how guilty are we when the ceiling
reveals no cracks that can be decoded? when washbowl
maintains it has no more holy calling
than physical ablution, and the towel
dryly disclaims that fierce troll faces lurk
in its explicit folds? or when the window,
blind with steam, will not admit the dark
which shrouds our prospects in ambiguous shadow?

Twenty years ago, the familiar tub
bred an ample batch of omens; but now
water faucets spawn no danger; each crab
and octopus -- scrabbling just beyond the view,
waiting for some accidental break
in ritual, to strike -- is definitely gone;
the authentic sea denies them and will pluck
fantastic flesh down to the honest bone.

We take the plunge; under water our limbs
waver, faintly green, shuddering away
from the genuine color of skin; can our dreams
ever blur the intransigent lines which draw
the shape that shuts us in? absolute fact
intrudes even when the revolted eye
is closed; the tub exists behind our back;
its glittering surfaces are blank and true.

Yet always the ridiculous **** flanks urge
the fabrication of some cloth to cover
such starkness; accuracy must not stalk at large:
each day demands we create our whole world over,
disguising the constant horror in a coat
of many-colored fictions; we mask our past
in the green of Eden, pretend future's shining fruit
can sprout from the navel of this present waste.
In this particular tub, two knees jut up
like icebergs, while minute brown hairs rise
on arms and legs in a fringe of kelp; green soap
navigates the tidal slosh of seas
breaking on legendary beaches; in faith
we shall board our imagined ship and wildly sail
among sacred islands of the mad till death
shatters the fabulous stars and makes us real.

Better that every fiber crack
and fury make head,
blood drenching vivid
couch, carpet, floor
and the snake-figured almanac
vouching you are
a million green counties from here,

than to sit mute, twitching so
under prickling stars,
with stare, with curse
blackening the time
goodbyes were said, trains let go,
and I, great magnanimous fool, thus wrenched from
my one kingdom.

I've not been myself for a while,
had my heart
broken y'see;
It was a little while ago now,
the pain has faded,
it merely ebbs now and again

I've not been myself for a while,
it changed
me y'see;
I pieced myself back together,
best as I could,
but cynicism still spilled
into the cracks

I've not been myself for a while,
totally someone
new y'see;
there is so much that I want now,
so much more than boys or love,
I'm hardened to all that

I've just discovered myself,
I just realised a second ago,
I never really went away,
I was just concealed under the surface,
waiting for life's little pleasures
life's little happinesses,
to pull me through,
out of the ever-ebbing darkness.

I liked you when you didn't swear,
When innocence was commonplace;
Maybe we're all growing up,
Lost in life's cold embrace.