MAAR I

He begins to flourish aggressively and his competitors drop away. More honored in the breach, he is given the center aisle, is preferred seat. The others line up along the wall. This game may require a bold gesture, like hailing a cab. Gleam of watch with diamonds in place of numbers. They cultivate alliances, initiate ampersands: Ninety-five million angles to take in this bazaar. Objet d’art. Self-mutilator. Double-breasted postwar contemporary. A Dora Maar au Chat. When the fight is over, he passes out Cohibas, shakes hands. Imminent Moët. The glory hounds know when to applaud. Whose purchase, whose hammer? He leans over to his neighbor, fingering the laser-engraved buttons of his jacket: Just lay back and try not to create a fevered atmosphere.

  Maar II

Who are we to interfere? It is only fair after exaltation. There are many ways, almost infinite, to expend. He wants to stub out his cigars on her. She wants it, too. She can art as well as muse, “dark-haired huntress of images whom long chases don’t fatigue.”[ii] Our Weeper, the only one who knows the inexpressible of flowers, fetal Pére Ubu, the shadow-lined rue or, rather, being swallowed by shadow its own self, mobile. But the self is not so much self as an other reflection. Of perhaps a lover. Of a lover version. Many media, many filters for a her, observing through a series of old world windows. Lit tapers, Sunday after Sunday, the many prayers-to-Marys, the many somethings “to crystallize upon,”[iii] to concentrate, to rise above this two-bit jacket. A sad mystery of violence.

NOTES