rembrandt's nightwatchman's soliloquies 2,3, & 4

rembrandt's nightwatchman's soliloquies 2

At the bar, an imitation English pub,
a pair of legs sat at my table.
I don’t think she suspected
what I was hiding--that I was a tabula rasa.

She said, “Répondez s’il vous plait.” Handed
me a billet doux.

I noted she was bare-legged,
and the bracelet around her ankle
had a key on each link.

The letter was blank, but on the third page
there was print of the lips in lipstick,
but she did not have any lips, only legs.
I looked at the print of her lips,
and then looked at the empty space
where her lips were normally supposed to be,
but since Picasso
lips can be any place.

I looked at her knee to see
if the lips were there,
but there were not--very disappointing,
only a knee cap.

I wanted her lips, as much
as I wanted a belief,
a faith.

I came to this bar to find a belief, a faith,
but I was still a tabula rasa,
becoming more forlorn. Now,
I wanted to find her lips.


rembrandt's nightwatchman's soliloquies 3

She, the two legs beside me, wore
Egyptian
Styled shoes. I could tell, for I had seen
On documentaries the same type of shoes
On mummies exhumed from buried pyramids.

She dangled, one of the shoes
Off her foot,
Let the shoe fall to the barroom floor,
And touched the pants of
A body-shirted man with tattoos
Of portraits of painters from
the Mannerist school
On his arms, Bronzino, Pontormo,
who was flexing his biceps at the next table.
She seemed to understand the allegory,
For she started praying.
He started praying.
He and the pair of legs were on the floor
Praying together.

I watched their rapture. They believed.
They had faith. They had found salvation.

As a tabula rasa, I sat there alone and sad.


rembrandt's nightwatchman's soliloquies 4

The two legs returned, after her baptism
on the bar floor,
To my table in the shadows, the shadows
Of the two Rosetta stones on each side.
But the writing on the stones was

Etruscan,

The same as found on funeral memorials,
Expressed sorrow
that something esurient had died before dinner.

The two legs with a pencil held between her toes,
Started writing something in Coptic.

She said she could not decide whether to call
her wisdom, “The Gospel of Tom,”
Or the “The Gospel of Jimmy.” Then her two
Legs started to shimmy.

She said she just had a vision that the weather
Was balmy in Cuba.

She said she was returning to her hundred
per hour job in Las Vegas,
scribbled her Las Vegas phone number
on the tablecloth,
and asked me if I would take a trip to Egypt
and bury her writing in the desert.
She would make it worth my while.

For she was going to get the rest of her body
in Las Vegas.
She had secured it in a safety deposit box.

I sat there alone,
Wondering if I were going to spend
The rest of my life as a tabula rasa.


Duane Locke

Posted over on Smokebox