Intonation/Invocation

Intonation/Invocation(Douglas E. Cate) Intonation/Invocation: An Allusive Free-Verse Poem/Play/Essay/Colloquy Encompassing And Containing Virtually EVERYTHING
By Douglas E. Cate



Rococo corinthian davenport psychedelic paisley confection explosive elusive
transformative informant running
down darkened streets
blenders for sale
"9999.999" screams the impossible, misanthropic mendicant
A bullet whines, a bomb
The hat is a bomb, he says
In hushed tones, beneath the arbor
The interstices are covered, no sunlight drips down here.
What city will you go to, repairing in your phosphorescent, Airedale-pulled
1975 Lincoln Continental?
What tunes will spill and secrete out of your twin-quad stereophonic sanguinary speakers?
What beakers will the hunted assassin, in his haunted alleyway, disperse in St. Francis's metropolitan municipality by the sea?
When were you there last?
(I think I saw the sun once through the oval opera window in the rear, sitting there, quiet and candescent. The hue was vaguely reminiscent of a Swedish sunset I beheld once, at daybreak, in tremulous silence and shock)
Where was she?
I don't know.
Don't you?
No; I told you: I don't.
Where were YOU?
How is that relevant?
Madness is always relevant.
When did you creep down fetid, caliginous alleys, cradling the secrets to YOUR chest?
I never did; My secrets are my own.
So, then, wouldn't you hide them anyway, holding them close to your pulsating breast?
Maybe; but that's not what I was doing.
When did you see him last?
I was standing over him, eating from a dented tin of beans.
(Here I must correct you: We call them "cans" now-not "tins")
(Oh, sorry. Mea Culpa)
Did you dribble bean refuse on his broken, bloody head?
No; I wasn't eating offal...nor am I a beggar.
But you are a hobo, are you not?
No; just a humble street-wanderer, lost somewhere in time.
Are you claiming to be a time-traveler?
No; but in a way, we all are.
Come again?
I mean, we all travel through time and space. Why even you are doing it now, Chief.
Preposterous, I am no time-traveler.
I say you are; I am; we are.
Thanks for the declension, but I'm not interested.
If I may ask a question, O Great Perambulator: Why are we conducting this interview in a such place?
Is a deserted playground at dusk, with rusty chain-link fence, and shadowy corners and empty carousels like orbiting tables of immolation, bleak with blood-are these not to your liking? Is this setting so revolting?
It is; it induces a feeling of uneasiness and wariness in me.
Why be redundant? (You know they mean the same).
I coughed once; thinking....all this happened ten years ago.
I remember it, as the Swedish sunset, as clearly as if it happened a few moments ago.
How much time has passed, really?
Where are you? I cry in the dark.
No; how about this: "Where are you?" I cry in the dark.
Full sentence....with dialogue/monologue attribution.
When was the last time we walked with the Golden Guh-lumper?
Remember him? He was like the random, transmundane character-representing death-you always espy in a Swedish film.
But not an example of Swedish erotica, right?
No; that's different. The sex act itself is symbolic of death in that one.
Remember how some French people have a word for "orgasm" that translates as "the little death or little death"?
Yes; I do. I read it somewhere once.
In an alley?
No; In a darkened street-corner, a cul-de-sac.
What's the difference?
The difference is this: I never walked there, once, head held up high. I always traversed the darkened corners stealthily and afraid, scuttling and scurrying like the frightened rat who you never once stepped on, but the tread was felt by him all the same.
Did you kill him?
No; but I hated him.
Who-the rat?
No; the man.
Which man?
The man we've been speaking about all this time, in this playground by the roaring sea.
(You know I could throw you in at any time, don't you?)
You mean the man who was killed? Who was left for dead in filthy, fetid, malodorous, pestilential alleyways, pieces strewn about?
He wasn't dismembered.
Now, how would YOU know that?
I didn't kill him; if that's what you think.
I never said that; did I?
Did you? I don't know.
Listen the howling wind, it assays to compete with the roaring of these rushing waters beneath our pulsating feet.
Do you remember traffic, here by the east side of the sea?
I remember the band; were you speaking of them?
No; why would I?
I have no idea.
Did you murder him?
Why would I?
Didn't you just say you hated him?
Yes; but who of my indigence wouldn't hate such a wealthy man?
But you have a house and a Rolls Royce...don't you?
Yes; but I long ago sold them or gave them away...I have since decided to eschew the material world.
Materialism isn't so bad....just look at this Rollex.
Nice; give me it.
No; but why?
Because I hate gold.
It isn't gold; it's silver...it's a trick of the light.
What light? It's dusk now. (I hear the haunting, ominous creaking of the slightly swaying, empty swings, whose forms are lightly propelled by the wind).
I can't answer that.
Are you the product of a paranoid mind?
No; are you?
Why would I be? I don't scurry and scuttle like the prenominate frightened rat.
Don't use Shakespearean wording when you talk to me, good sir: For in sooth, shalt I strike thee thrice upon thine funky head, and deal you a blow such as a pismire couldn't heartily withstand.
Remember that epic poem you wanted to write?
Remember when you had legs and could walk, sir?
Remember the Corinthian who strode confident down that alleyway? He never cast an affrighted shadow on those checkered walls that encompassed him.
I remember rich, Corinthian leather...nothing else.
I am not referring to a nearly two-score-old commerical auto ad (I hate Ricardo Montalban; Retardo Montalban should be his name. What a lousy actor!)
(Yes; but he's lusty, too.)
(So what?)
(I'm just relating something slightly positive about him)
(Well, I don't want to hear it)
Anyway, a "Corinthian" is...
I got it! A book in the Bible, right?
No; wrong.
How so?
In this case, I refer to a rich, well-dressed man. (That's what and who a Corinthian is)
Was he rich?
Yes; didn't you just say so a while ago, yourself?
Maybe I did.
Maybe you did, indeed sir.
Indeed.
In deed.
No-Indeed.
Why can't I separate the "in" and the "deed"?
Because no one does that; It's not in the usage; It changed to one word long ago.
Did brave knights-errant spake it in days long ago-before the invention of commodes?
Yes; but that's not the point.
Why not? Don't you want this policial interrogation to encompass all history: past, present and future? And yes: to encapsulate all forms of writing?
Maybe; how allusive IS this life of ours?
Normally, it's not THAT allusive. But we make it allusive now and here.
Don't you mean: "Here and now"?
No;
No?
No.
Why so flatly refusing and dismissive?
Why are YOU so allusive?
I might ask you the same question!
(More allusions)
(More illusions)
(No; More ALLUSIONS)
Whatever. When will it all end?
When I see the tidal wave rising-coming to strike and devastate us...that's when.
When is that?
May 21st.
That was days ago.
That was days ago
That was days ago
How many allusions must you cram into our interview?
It's not an interview; it's an interrogation.
(An inquisition is more like it).
How can you say that?
Do you ever listen to yourself?
Do you?
No; why?
Questions are-or should be-fleeting...yet you persist in saltantly salting me with them.
"Saltantly salting"?
Saltantly salting.
Look over there.
Why? I don't long to be distracted. If I don't see the tidal wave it will never come.
Do you want it to? Do you ACTUALLY want it to?
No.
Then why witness it? If you don't we might live.
Sure: Rococo corinthian davenport psychedelic paisley explosion, erosion. An eclipse; an elipsis; two (or more) elipses.
(Quiet as we: FADE OUT)