Customers have torn open the Christmas
chocolates. Shoving it in mouths,
shopping bags, children’s eyes.
Quiet. We are shopping. as. a. family.
Smoke accordions out of Santa’s mailbox. The sprinkler system
hisses stale air. Custodians ride by on their metal cart laughing,
sanitation chemicals flickering out of buckets.
The 80 year-old piano player is hammering out Schoenberg.
Customers shove lamps into their shopping bags, shove children
into them.
Turn on the light Jimmy.
The ninth floor is barricaded off by old woman. They
have turned the clearance divans on their sides
and are throwing toasters. Down in the basement,
the security staff have locked themselves into 2’ by 2’
cells. Fetally-positioned, their panting echoes off stone walls. Static
sizzles on the array of sixteen camera screens. Customers
have begin to bow in the reinforced door next to the two-way mirror.
A fat man is leaning against it. He has been dead
for over an hour. Restaurant staff are tearing
down the great tree. Ornaments funnel down pop-crashing
upwards from the floor. Three pound ceramic dinnerware crashes
into the walnut bar The customers are putting mattresses in their bags,
they are putting the offices in their bags. Human resources
are backed into the employee orientation computer lab. Customers
have poured Starbucks on the circuit-breakers. The lights are dimming,
Escalators are jamming. Children scream
I want to see Santa.
Santa is dead. Employees calmly walk over  his protruding
belly. The velvet and fat feels good on tired
feet. An inhuman voice garbles
The store will be closing.
Families grab onto shelves, racks, other
families. Employees pick up the registers and slam
them on granite counters. Coins explode out like bells. The rotating
doors are not spinning. They are stuck, crunching on limbs.

The Butler Model of Tourism

I come back year after year
cracked black valise, busted zipper
spring-shot lobby divans drained of color,

to press crisp bills into Monte’s hand
come up for air from the tortoise shell
of his thread bare uniform, ease myself

down on a sagging mattress
wait for the clatter of ancient bones
his creaking cart and shuffling feet

to recede into absolute silence down
the dimly lit hall, broken only by a spate
of conversation between the couple

I can just make out in the water
stained fresco above the bed
two of them lost in a heated row

as if I couldn’t hear their bald appraisals
shockingly frank in this flocked walled room
with musty corners and milky windows

disagreeing only on the degree of my
progression through the dismal stages of
“The Butler Model of Tourism”

him making a half-hearted case for
Rejuvenation, the woman straddling
the thin line between Stagnation and Decline.

Ma dague d'un sang noir à mon côté ruisselle,
Et ma hache est pendue à l'arçon de ma selle.

J'aime le vrai soldat, effroi de Bélial.
Son turban évasé rend son front plus sévère,
Il baise avec respect la barbe de son père,
Il voue à son vieux sabre un amour filial,
Et porte un doliman, percé dans les mêlées
De plus de coups, que n'a de taches étoilées
La peau du tigre impérial.

Ma dague d'un sang noir à mon côté ruisselle,
Et ma hache est pendue à l'arçon de ma selle.

Un bouclier de cuivre à son bras sonne et luit,
Rouge comme la lune au milieu d'une brume.
Son cheval hennissant mâche un frein blanc d'écume ;
Un long sillon de poudre en sa course le suit.
Quand il passe au galop sur le pavé sonore,
On fait silence, on dit : C'est un cavalier maure !
Et chacun se retourne au bruit.

Ma dague d'un sang noir à mon côté ruisselle,
Et ma hache est pendue à l'arçon de ma selle.

Quand dix mille giaours viennent au son du cor,
Il leur répond ; il vole, et d'un souffle farouche
Fait jaillir la terreur du clairon qu'il embouche,
Tue, et parmi les morts sent croître son essor,
Rafraîchit dans leur sang son caftan écarlate,
Et pousse son coursier qui se lasse, et le flatte
Pour en égorger plus encor !

Ma dague d'un sang noir à mon côté ruisselle,
Et ma hache est pendue à l'arçon de ma selle.

J'aime, s'il est vainqueur, quand s'est tû le tambour,
Qu'il ait sa belle esclave aux paupières arquées,
Et, laissant les imans qui prêchent aux mosquées
Boire du vin la nuit, qu'il en boive au grand jour ;
J'aime, après le combat, que sa voix enjouée
Rie, et des cris de guerre encor tout enrouée,
Chante les houris et l'amour !

Ma dague d'un sang noir à mon côté ruisselle,
Et ma hache est pendue à l'arçon de ma selle.

Qu'il soit grave, et rapide à venger un affront ;
Qu'il aime mieux savoir le jeu du cimeterre
Que tout ce qu'à vieillir on apprend sur la terre ;
Qu'il ignore quel jour les soleils s'éteindront ;
Quand rouleront les mers sur les sables arides ;
Mais qu'il soit brave et jeune, et préfère à des rides
Des cicatrices sur son front.

Ma dague d'un sang noir à mon côté ruisselle,
Et ma hache est pendue à l'arçon de ma selle.

Tel est, coparadgis, spahis, timariots,
Le vrai guerrier croyant ! Mais celui qui se vante,
Et qui tremble au moment de semer l'épouvante,
Qui le dernier arrive aux camps impériaux,
Qui, lorsque d'une ville on a forcé la porte,
Ne fait pas, sous le poids du butin qu'il rapporte,
Plier l'essieu des chariots ;

Ma dague d'un sang noir à mon côté ruisselle,
Et ma hache est pendue à l'arçon de ma selle.

Celui qui d'une femme aime les entretiens ;
Celui qui ne sait pas dire dans une orgie
Quelle est d'un beau cheval la généalogie ;
Qui cherche ailleurs qu'en soi force, amis et soutiens,
Sur de soyeux divans se couche avec mollesse,
Craint le soleil, sait lire, et par scrupule laisse
Tout le vin de Chypre aux chrétiens ;

Ma dague d'un sang noir à mon côté ruisselle,
Et ma hache est pendue à l'arçon de ma selle.

Celui-là, c'est un lâche, et non pas un guerrier.
Ce n'est pas lui qu'on voit dans la bataille ardente
Pousser un fier cheval à la housse pendante,
Le sabre en main, debout sur le large étrier ;
Il n'est bon qu'à presser des talons une mule,
En murmurant tout bas quelque vaine formule,
Comme un prêtre qui va prier !

Ma dague d'un sang noir à mon côté ruisselle,
Et ma hache est pendue à l'arçon de ma selle.

Du 1 au 2 mai 1828.

Sonnet.

Nous aurons des lits pleins d'odeurs légères,
Des divans profonds comme des tombeaux,
Et d'étranges fleurs sur des étagères,
Ecloses pour nous sous des cieux plus beaux.

Usant à l'envi leurs chaleurs dernières,
Nos deux coeurs seront deux vastes flambeaux,
Qui réfléchiront leurs doubles lumières
Dans nos deux esprits, ces miroirs jumeaux.

Un soir fait de rose et de bleu mystique,
Nous échangerons un éclair unique,
Comme un long sanglot, tout chargé d'adieux ;

Et plus **** un Ange, entr'ouvrant les portes,
Viendra ranimer, fidèle et joyeux,
Les miroirs ternis et les flammes mortes.

Le soleil verse aux toits des chambres mal fermées
Ses urnes enflammées ;
En attendant le kief, toutes sont là, pâmées,
Sur les divans brodés de chimères armées ;

Annès, Nazlès, Assims, Bourbaras, Zalimées,
En lin blanc, la prunelle et la joue allumées
Par le fard, parfumées,
Tirant des narghilés de légères fumées,

Ou buvant, ranimées,
Les ongles teints, les doigts illustrés de camées,
Dans les dés d'argent fin des liqueurs renommées.

Sur les coussins vêtus d'étoffes imprimées,
Dans des poses d'almées,
Voluptueusement fument les bien-aimées.

ACT ONE

That night a savage tempest raged
the lightning flashed, the thunder roared
And boomed as loud as cannon-fire
While rain in giant torrents poured

But in his room, the prince just yawned
all tucked up in his feather-bed
With perfumed pillows made of silk
and cherubs swirling overhead

He did not think about the storm
or all the soaking serfs outside
The only thing he cared about
was how to bag himself a bride

And though he'd travelled far and wide
he could not find a maid to wed
For each of them just paled beside
the bride that lived inside his head

This girl she had to be, you see,
a "real" princess of bluest blood
Whose lineage stretched back until
that misty age before the Flood

He'd hunted her as if she were
the greatest prize a man could snag
To mount upon his wall just like
a roe deer or a trophy-stag

But still he went to bed alone
until he grew so tired he swore
He would not wed a real princess
unless she knocked upon his door

                ACT TWO

Well soon that knock came loud and clear-
so loud the prince fell out of bed
And there she stood inside the hall
a real princess, or so she said

Her hair was dripping wet and yet
it shone as bright as leaf of gold
And like a young gazelle she was,
though blue and shivering with the cold

She seemed a Tudor miniature,
with such a sweet and pearly face
It was as if a jeweller's hand had
set each feature in its place

But when the Queen came rushing down
to view her through her gold lorgnette
The girl twitched like a butterfly
ensnarled in an explorer's net

This queen she seemed to be the kind
you find in children's fairy-tales
A stiff, white ruff around her neck
and bony hands with claws for nails

A Gorgon in a diadem
with beady eyes and puffed-up hair
A dowager who could have turned
a man to stone with just one stare

And glaring through her opera-glass
with eyes of bloodshot sapphire-blue
She fixed the girl as if she were
A beast to gawp at in a zoo

"But is she real?" the old queen asked
she seemed to think the girl might be
An ignis fatuus or a ghost
and even poked her, just to see.

And so the royals hatched a plot
to see if she was who she said
They'd let the princess stay the night
and hide a pea inside her bed


                ACT THREE

The old queen led the princess through
a labyrinthine corridor
With peacocks staring from the walls
and tigers sprawled across the floor

Then showed her to a cosy room
with tapestries hung all around
A fire was popping in the hearth
and mossy rugs lay on the ground

The weary princess looked about
at all the gilded finery
The mirrors and the silk divans
the crystal and chinoiserie

And there, beneath the rafters, she
could see a bed piled up so high
With mattresses and blankets that
it seemed to tower to the sky

You'd think it would have been a dream
to lie on such a comfy heap
Instead the princess stirred all night
and did not get a wink of sleep

              ACT FOUR

But in the morning when she rose
and grumbled of her wakeful night
The prince seemed not to care a jot
and viewed her with a strange delight

"I've never tossed and turned so much
I'm black and blue," the princess said
"It seemed that something razor sharp
was trapped beneath me in the bed"

"A real princess! " rejoiced the queen,
for only a princess could be
Kept up all night for something quite
as trifling as a garden pea

The girl looked sheepish for a while
and then she said, "I must confess
I'm not, nor have I ever been,
what one could call a real princess.

I told you both a lie for I
was fearful if I did not say
That I was born of royal stock
you would have sent me on my way

The Queen turned pale and stared aghast
then viewed the girl through narrowed eyes
"You're nothing but a fraud!" she hissed
"A lowly peasant in disguise,"

            ACT FIVE

"But what is in a name?" the girl
asked, rising proudly to her feet
"That which we call a rose by any
other name would smell as sweet"

"The treasures that a person has
are not a measure of his worth
And he may be a king though he
is but a man of simple birth."

"Indeed, she's right," the prince agreed
"Who cares if she's of royal stock?
This talk of keeping bloodlines pure
is just a load of poppycock."

Besides this girl is more refined
than any royal I have met
She has no gems or castle for
a princess she is not... and yet

Her hair shines like a diadem
her eyes like jewels of emerald green
With her, for sure, I could fall more
in love than I have ever been."

                EPILOGUE
And so the two of them were wed....
much to the chagrin of the Queen

The snow was falling thick that night
like tiny feathers to the ground
while stiff white fossil-coral trees
Stood still as statues all around


And in their midst a mansion rose
with towers and frozen weather-vane
Where sparkling pavé diamond snows
encrusted every window pane

The match-girl shivered in the cold
then made a spy-hole in the ice
And peered into a golden realm,
an ante-room to paradise

But all the velvets and brocades,
the glowing fir-tree there inside
Appeared to her like pictures painted
on a magic lantern slide

For in her world these plush divans
with cushions bursting at the seams
The draperies and tapestries
would always be the stuff of dreams


Two cats with buttonholes for eyes
and fur that shone like watered silk
Were purring by an open fire
no doubt with bellies full of milk

While what our little match girl ate
was scarce enough to feed a fly
Though she was told by men in gold
her feast was waiting in the sky

No, here on earth, these coddled cats
like pharaohs basking in the heat,
Or padding round on velvet paws,
had choicer food than her to eat

So when she saw the gingerbread,
the frosted fruit, the marzipan
She wondered how this hunger could
be part of the Almighty's plan

And then, beside two girls, a youth
with dreamy gaze and rippling hair
Came in and hardly seemed to see
the many treasures waiting there

The  match-girl watched him button-eyed
as if he were a fire-plumed bird
Or some chimeric creature from
a fairy tale that she had heard

And as she dreamt she felt such joy
though hunger gnawed her like a mouse
For now she stood with him right there
inside that warm, ancestral house

They danced a sweeping ballroom waltz
while she was draped in crispest white
With diamonds sprinkled in her hair
like stars upon a cloudless night

Then as the lilting music swelled
he picked her up and twirled her round
Until, just like a swan in flight,
her feet were lifted off the ground

A swan who'd left her murky pond
with all the fetters lurking there
To reach up for the firmament
and taste its sweet, untainted air
                      ii
Next day as she was hard at work
she passed the house and there they were,
Her prince dressed all in powder-blue
the sisters swathed in sable fur

They'd flown down from their iv'ry tower
to tread with serfs upon the street!
Oh how she longed to be in silk
with buckled shoes upon her feet!

But as she blushed and stepped aside
to let the "dvoryanstvo".pass
The boy stared through her sallow face
as if it were a pane of glass

Dvoryanstvo=Russian nobility