Sunday, June 3, 2012

Two Husbands'... Part 2, Chapter 20

 
A Glimmering Stasis Up Above

2 Husbands' strange graph trick

(In the Husbands’ office the ‘2 Can Do’ experiment continues)

BIGGY
We’re waiting until the rainbow banner
of figures drops.

SMALLY
Until the unfurling
and re-curling rainbow banner of numbers 
drops, collected into our bowls.

BIGGY trying to keep his coffee cup steady,
Handheld up
in a miraculous unease.

SMALLY
Because we cannot tell
what we’re going to do with them.

BIGGY
Or how we’re going to make use of their contents.

SMALLY
Two stupid questions! 
Questions of clumsy, spent unease.
Wasted, badly spent numbers;
just as good, dripping into our cups,
as old poured-out coffee.

BIGGY
We see a wide-open chart
that shows our uncertainty.

SMALLY
And it’s doing amazing things -
but not much for our benefit.

BIGGY
It has tropical magic
like smoke from burning skulls.

SMALLY
Well, it’s not machine-generated.
It seems like the breeze
on the curtains, waving them
and turning them silky;
bending them back and forth
revealing both sides - the in and the out
and all the light all up in between.

BIGGY
But the numbers are on them
and they’re unattached to the wall
and they’re being stretched and perpetuated
between our mugs!

SMALLY
Like fire breathing fire
between our cups.

BIGGY
Yeah, they’re stretching out like
    smoke damage
    from an unholy fire
creating heat vacuums;
sucking back and forth,
in and out of the coffee mugs
    in our hands.

SMALLY
Yet, they’re just pages
of ordinary numbers, not making money,
hovering above our poor, empty pens.
Our work!

BIGGY
Our future!

SMALLY
We’ve reached a glimmering stasis
up above.

(The Husbands’ '2 Can Do' experiment dies down and becomes extinguished)

 

The Witchdoctor’s Building

Witchdoctor with building goes to his cave

(Outside the Jungle Chieftain’s village the Witchdoctor is seen
carrying a familiar object)

NARRATOR
There is the building
in the Witchdoctor’s hands!

ONLOOKER
What will he do?
How has he found or made it?

NARRATOR
‘Prerogative’, I’m thinking...
Manifesting the building is his prerogative.
What ever that means?

ONLOOKER
Maybe, it means that it’s his prerogative
to be wandering off in his mind
    building the building,
holding it up in the air in his two hands,
    subjugating it, wishing upon it,
(gesturing)
over it - all over it - all around it -
above - below - underneath,
    wishing it best;
so that his Two Wives can get up there
    safely on the roof 
to meet their two husbands at last!?

NARRATOR breathlessly,
At last, yes, for the two Ladies
to get out of the jungle,
away from mites, frogs, bugs, et cetera,
to their lawful, wedded men;
    and to do up there,
    on the office-building roof,
all that they have been making out to do
    every where else -
all that they have ungainly substituted heretofore 
(by all those stunts, trips and falls that they’ve
been forced to do during their own Adventure).

So, I determine that the Two Wives
have been the silent, unwilling (maybe, at first)
and willing (now) partners of the Witchdoctor
ever since they left the Ship’s Captain on the sea.

ONLOOKER
Yeah. At first, they were scared of him
until he saved them from a large snake, like a python,
who could have eaten them, since they were so small.
Then, they plotted with this Witchdoctor
(and against him at times, trying to steal his powers)
to find a way to escape from the jungle village
back to their two husbands.
This he, omnisciently, didn’t mind.
And, now, more or less, will let them do, if he can.

NARRATOR
And, now, he has constructed a rare, raw structure,
tallish, with five and twenty windows.
And this is their husband’s office tower
in an easy size of shrunken dimensions.

ONLOOKER
Witchdoctors are so good at doing this;
at shrinking things!

Witchdoctor contemplates 2 Husbands' office building


(End of Chapter 20)

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