CANDID NARRATIVE
Reading edition
I
A chorus-girl falls asleep and, in a dream, speaks to a former lover. In her dream she holds the intelligence of a poet but still clings to certain of the qualities and mannerisms of her wakeful self.
SAY, kid, I’m in a candid mood; The kind of mood that silences The babbling dampness of my character. I’m feeling as improbable As an overworked Grecian myth Fainting amid the smells of a Ghetto. Now, Hypocrisy Always slinks along Winking an opaque eye at reality. But when he spies a fantasy He feels disgraced and leaves in haste. What’s the use of telling a lie to a lie? So, since I’m only a dream, Listen to my candid scream. You like to press a rouged cheek Against your obscurity, Like a third-rate poet Pasting a sunset upon his emptiness. Bashful mountebanks like you Can seduce the eloquent delusion Of time and give it a speechless limp. The insincere trickle of your words Was neither silence nor sound But falteringly tempted both, Like a tiny fountain unnoticed At the feet of two large coquettes The intricate laziness Of your dimpled face Received a petulantly naked Ghost of thought, and seized it without desire. Again it held the furbished effigies Of sensuality And tried to give them life From the weariness of my face. Yet I could have endured you But for the fact that your moustache Scraped across my lips Like a clumsy imitation of passion. Trivial insults have tumbled down The pillared complacency of empires Just as the thrust of your lips Tripped my mercenary balance. My lover now has the face of a dog, With each corner of his lips Pointing to a different Heaven, Yet his greed and melancholy Sometimes fondle each other Upon the pressures of his mouth, And the monotony of his kiss Does not dissolve my stoicism. Women who measure their gifts for lovers Never hope for more than this.