Oh my loves my lo-ammi, oh tiger-children and witch-women, I am so full of words! They bunch together and get stuck in my eyes and my hands.

Timeo Danaos indeed, for are not most of the dead the dead the dead from Greece? Socrates is a sharp-clawed manticore, and Plato a gargantuan water-bear too far-sighted for spectacles. Odysseus is a jackal, Helen the butcher-bird, and Athena grey-eyed goddess has more blood in her chamber than Bluebeard. Those who love them become like them, and their teeth are admirably strong. What big, bright, white, wet, shining, solid, well-rooted cuspids and bicuspids and cusps of all kinds! They grow fat and flourishing.

Out here in the desert the winds blow through my eye-sockets. Out here the vulture and I discuss the words of the abbas in measured tones, with long pauses that the sunlight fills. Out here the bones in my hands hum but gently.

The prophet and the Marigold Woman hesitate still on the verge of the swamp. The elephants have one last chance to achieve their pirouettes. The morning-doves mutter amongst themselves, watching the king of jacks with suspicious eyes. The clouds sit low and weep occasional tears in an occasional eulogy.

Out here in the desert the sun tries to find a finger-hold in the shade of the cells. Out here I know two things, two things and a third. Out here the dust is warm.

Out here, I wait.

SCENE: The prophet and the Marigold Woman look at the trees with considering eyes. It is night, and they are alone. The moon is not quite–not quite–full. The clouds haze around it. The bottlefield spreads its twinkling fruit behind them.

Prophet: We can’t stay there.

Marigold Woman: Why not?

Prophet: I don’t know. They won’t let us. The witch is still out there, and the bees, and the robots, and–oh!–a million and one things. The elephants–

Marigold Woman: The elephants are leaving.

Prophet: I guess. For now. I don’t trust those elephants.

Marigold Woman: scowling I will never go back to the witch’s kingdom.

Prophet: Oh, you will. You will. You’ll do it every day. You’ve closed the doors nice and tight but you know what? I think you just wove yourself another cocoon.

Marigold Woman: What if I did? What’s it to you?

Prophet: I wish I knew. I only wish I knew. removes cap, scratching head Got a light?

Marigold Woman: No.

3.3.3

SCENE: The elephants are here! The elephants continue to shuffle about in the moonlight, but they still have not got the beat. The Cheshire watches them from the spot where the garden gnome used to stand, in the tall grass.

Cheshire: Look, the king of jacks is in the window again. this to the boy with the angel face

Boy: Oh, let him stay.

Cheshire: looks at him sharply Oh?

Boy: Yeah, maybe–maybe I like him. Maybe we need him around here. I mean, where would I be if I wasn’t needed? Maybe if he left–maybe I– he half-raises his hands, a helpless expression making his eyebrows slip

Cheshire: You’re afraid, my precious foxling.

Boy: N… nobody needs me any more. he shoves his hands in his pockets, glancing away from the dancing-lawn and down along the path, all edged with monarch butterflies and white wire, that leads to the pool. The sound of scorpions and blacksnakes drifts through the cool air.

Cheshire: What is it you think makes you so necessary, foxling?

Boy: kicks at the ground and frowns more deeply, but does not respond

Cheshire: Bless you.

Boy: I didn’t sneeze.

Cheshire: Who said anything about sneezes?

The elephants continue to shuffle about.

My blood is made of yellow sunshine, it only dries red-brown homely.

Blessed ones, I strive to be whatever you need, an abba-of-every-shape that I may have words for each and every inexpressibly adored visitor. I hang in little ribbons some days, it is a relief to know that my job has been done well. But sometimes, on those days, a little voice comes in the dirty sunlight and he whispers to me. He suggests most subtly that I have not done right, I have not done enough, or perhaps I have done too much.

I would die for them, I tell him, is that not enough?

But what good are gifts given in folly?

That is the king of jacks, that one, he’s a clever poker player and he plays the blues like nobody’s business. But he stole the blues from the oldest bluesman that ever was, who hung himself with someone else’s hands. That man knew how to die for ‘em, all right. One he’d finished there was no point anyone having a go.

So why do I keep trying?

He was a tiger, and his children are tiger-cubs. So why does the king of jacks sit on my window-sill licking his chops and whispering wolf-words?

Mostly I don’t know what to be, if the original bluesman, the original abba, the certified original tiger, got the last word in. What other key is there to play in? They only taught me the one, I can’t jump to the next fifth on the circle.

Maybe if I knew that, maybe I wouldn’t feel so kindly towards the king of jacks. Maybe I could finish up that dear john and change all the locks.

Who knows?

Prophet and Marigold Woman are at last on the move again, but slowly, brother, slowly, looking at Mt. Fuji with snail’s eyes. The air bubbles with thick-tongued thoughts looking for heads to inhabit.

The dead the dead the dead, they whisper insistent hissing suspicions of every tradition that someone else preached. If you love truth too well they will catch your ankles in cold hands, warbling in their throats false promises of gnosis too delicious for words.

Avoid the graveyards, if you love truth too well, for your jealousy will open your ears to the dead the dead the dead, and rob you of your discernment. They will tempt you and shame you and slide their fingers through your skull, so that the cold air blows through and the night rot sets in.

If you love truth, beware the dead the dead the dead, their tongues are thick with winsome words.

It’s true, they do not mean to destroy you. It’s true, some of them mouth truths most healthful and nourishing. It’s true, a thicker hide might let you walk among them unscathed.

But if you love truth, beware. Those who love truth too well are always most vulnerable to doubt.

3.3.3

I am floating high on the crest of pain, admiring the spots and speckles at arm’s length. Nothing can touch me, nothing can touch me, up here where the sky is clear and the geese are outlined so crisp and the dead the dead the dead are silent.

How do I make you understand, it’s like strong drink, it’s like success.

How do I make you understand how easy it is

And how high I float, above everything, untouchable, not powerful not weak, not happy nor sad, not boy nor girl, not wanted nor unwanted, a yellow balloon above the rooftops. Sometimes I think about loneliness, but I can float above that, too.

3.3.3

when the world is so full of words, and your life is so short, how do you dare open your mouth?

3.3.3

that warm-weather devil jumps to life and tries to break out at the pores, reaching long fingers around teeth and staring through your eyes with his own.

They kept walking.

Sweet Airedale fumbled gamely and mumbled mainly touching his toes diligently. Diligentibus, leaving open the question of heorshe, toforofby I am interested it concerns me specially.

O pulchrae! O pulchri!

O honey-Latin dulcet ones, Vergil tilts his head to one side, marveling at the Greek. In the wings his Italian acolyte waits impatient, to tour the dead the dead the dead.

No need, Alighieri, the dead the dead the dead whisper hiss susurrate their peculiar preoccupation with my failures continually. Take a tour of my skull, sir. I think there are popes here.

Mother Mary cradles her son, and what good is a thing done decently and in good order? Yet the bread is the same, the wine is the same, the air and fire reach down on lightning fingers though no one knows for sure what path they take. That flash frightens the dead the dead the dead for five seconds of perfect sky. Their bones rattle and fade.

Who can discern this?

The footfalls of the elephants, that sound, disrupts the silence. Their hides are painted with bees. They fill the lawn with the smell of their dusty backs, they knock over the gnome and dance solemnly amongst the tall grass. Everyone watches from the safety of the long portico. Where are the prophet and the Marigold Woman? Does anyone know? I’m sorry, sir, they’re still out. Would you care to leave a message? Yes, I would. Withoureyesturnedinward howcanweseeGod? At the tone, sir.

This is the last dance, but the dead the dead the dead are intent on spoiling it. Their hissing disturbs the elephants. If someone–someone who is now sitting in the window-seat wrapped in a blanket–could walk onto the lawn and call halt, perhaps the elephants would discharge their duties and return to Carthage for the last time. But the window-seat and Carthage are both a million miles away, out with the stars but unable to sing with them, wheeling interminable cycles in the cold and the silence. Earth looks very small from here.

The elephants try to keep dancing, the bees on their sides wrinkle and ripple, the dead keep hissing, no one quite knows what to do.

Soon, someone must arrive. Perhaps it will be Mother Mary with a crowd of saints and abbas, and we will dance with them instead of the elephants. Until then, is there nothing to be done?

God only knows, sir.