The Naked Olympia, the Naked Una, or the Naked Thais

Edouard Manet 1863


THE NAKED OLYMPIA,
THE NAKED UNA
OR THE NAKED THAIS


Now the apparitions
Of Ammonius, Apemantus,
The Card Players, and the apples
Had disappeared.

Before the Card Players
Vanished, the Card Players
Were transformed into apples.

Now, all that remained in this
Spaceless, timeless realm
Was my bones
And the beautifully shaped mummy.

The mummy started unwrapping
Her wrappings,
It took a long time,
Although there is no sense of time here.
The discarded wrappings
Piled behind her,
Looked like the Swiss Alps.

Snow flakes began to fall
On my arm bones,
And I now stood on ice
Frozen over black dirt.
I could see the black dirt
Beneath the ice covering,
I could see specks
Of black dirt scattered throughout
The white ice above the black dirt

I felt cold,
Although I had no senses.

Unwrapped,
The mummy was now naked.
I thought she would be bones,
But no,
She had the apparition
Of human flesh.
She resembled exactly
Olympia in the painting
By Manet,
But instead of being prone,
She was standing upright,
Wore silver slippers.
I looked for the fat maid
Holding the embroidered pillow,
But she was not present..

Olympia stood naked.

I asked her if she
Were cold.
She did not answer
But looked at me
As if I were an idiot.

I quickly defended myself,
No, I am not
Prince Nikoláevich Mýshkin,
I am Troilus from Troy.
You know my father, Priam,
And my brothers, Hector,
Paris, Deiphobus and Helenus,
Don’t you, Olympia.

Yes, I know, your father
And your brothers, but I
Am not Olmypia.
I am Una, who rode a white mule.

I thought it was a white donkey.

No, it was a white mule.

Well, whatever, no
Great matter now.
Do you remember
The Red Crosse Knight?

No, not all.
We have no personal identities
In this spaceless-timeless realm,
And having no personal identities
Sometimes becomes confusing.

I always felt the same way
That no one had any personal identities
When I was alive among the living dead.
The resurrection of the body
Was just another lie believed by the living dead,
Although you Olympia,
I mean Una,
Have the apparition of a naked live body.
It seems only women in this realm of the dead
Have these apparitional bodies.
The men are only bones, and rendered
No more to be phallocentric.
I also heard, although I have no ears here,
That those once women
Among the living dead
Cannot see in this place,
Although it is no place,
These apparitional bodies of women,
Unless the women were lesbians
When alive among the living dead.
Gertrude Stein can see Alice.
The resurrection of the body
Was a lie conceived by sad hedonists
Among living dead, these sad hedonists
Who lived a “Buried Life”
Buried in the sense of Matthew Arnold,
Henry James and the latest interpretation
Of T. S. Eliot.
I gazed at her nudity,
Pale olive-tinted skin.
She was completely naked

Except for an ankle bracelet
Of simulated gold
And a thin simulated gold twisted cord
Shaped to resemble mistletoe
Hanging loose below her navel
Around her slender waist.

I addressed her as “Una,”
But she quickly corrected me,
Saying she was Thais,
And to prove that she was Thais,
She turned to show on her back
The scars left from self-flagellation
When she mortified her flesh
After being converted to Christianity
When alive among the living dead.
The scars are fading away, she said,
From my apparitional body
Since I am no longer alive.
There are no flagellations
In this realm of the dead,
Only among the living dead,

I know who you really are,
You are Cressid.

She disappeared.


Duane Locke

Posted over on Ditch Poetry