This essay was published October 10, 2017. I republish it here because it is spring and "the sap's a'risin'" as is said in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina. To such sap comes "Our Lady" as sung to, of and for by Jean Genet.
. . . he sang to her gypsy songs that pierced her body . . .
"He may go far away, but he is as faithful as a pigeon." - Jean Genet
ENANTIODROMIA . . . best definition, or one of them, this by Jean Genet: "Her perfume is violent and vulgar. From it we can already tell that she is fond of vulgarity. Divine has sure taste, good taste, and it is most upsetting that life always puts someone so delicate into vulgar positions, into contact with all kinds of filth. She cherishes vulgarity because her greatest love was for a dark skinned gypsy. On him, under him, when with his mouth pressed to hers he sang to her gypsy songs that pierced her body, she learned to submit to the charm of such vulgar cloths as silk and gold braid which are becoming to immodest persons.”
Of Divne, such mythopoeisis: "Let her consent to be the frozen statue. But I know that the poor Demiurge is forced to make his creature in his own image and that he did not invent Lucifer. In my cell, little by little, I shall have to give my thrills to the granite. I shall be alone with it for a long long time, and I shall make it live with my breath and the smell of my farts, both the solemn and the mild ones. It will take me an entire book before I draw her from her petrifaction and little by little impart to her my suffering, little by little deliver her from evil, and, holding her by the hand, lead her to saintliness."
Searching for a passage from Jean Genet's Our Lady of the Flowers (having left the worn out novel at home) a-googling I will go (sung in my best Elmer Fudd voice heh-eh-eh-ehhh), I stumble upon this too too short marvel with said quote, not the full passage I want but will do...of desire there is much to say, and more say than do though do is a fit for another shoe (I'm hunting wabbits Heh-eh-eh-ehhhhh) having been bred a fundamentalist fool from Bayou Evangeline moss to barnacled Baptist pier-ology dour deity, all toxin and lace such is Protestant grace poisoned with too much imagination-for-evil everywhere-in-everything, to convince a child of this so early on is such profanity, unforgiveable....
...when at 18 I came across Genet by accident, a freshman in a Christian college, Our Lady of the Flowers, non-virginal this Our Lady, the pox within broke out as did, some years later, with good analysis, I break down and into Genet-ian cadences, unbathed though sprinkled (not dunked but dipped in good Presbyterian fashion shallow baptismal fountain, a silver bowl is all it wuz-y) (comes eventually unsought "was found blind but now I ssss..."
Jean Genet's deep pool inundation of feeling and evocation "a cadence of veils and sweet cakes"...I came to forgive King David his Bathsheba moment for he once in his youth had but lost his heart and soul to Jonathan, loved him, even exchanged his underwear with him, it's in the Bible true, passion will out so David who murdered a Giant murdered one of his own, ended his best general for what the promise of vision of Bathsheba portended)...what is repentence for - grace all the more - robed in bodies, wants, desires from which we'll all expire while turning such to prayer and dare to live, exchange underwear and more - breath and the heart, the human heart, to teach that divine one there's more to heart than aerie light [makes no sense...just a fun thing to say..such is wabbit hunting].
I needed Catholic Imagination, that of extremes, of heaven, of hell, even limbo where one's toes and more are singed while aroma of Roses — Our Lady tinge noses, infringe upon our all too human suffering for re-evaluation. I found it soon enough in Harlem, in personal estrangement, the city kind, countering the country boy kind, which holds/contains/frames all estrangement, all extremes, a Catholicity most necessary where not only I am redeemed but by poetry and urban/machine sound and rhythm God is redeemed
. . . Jean's a saint in my world inner and outer, hiding out in my tower dorm room, the sleep room (such is dormition sleeping) secret communing and whispers, fogs engulfing the tower for weeks at a time, odd in Tennessee wind howl and, again, airee whistle as I moan shut in, enclosed on purpose behind bedsheets and shower curtain, between Holy Bible and Our Lady of the Flowers)(and Graham Green's The Power and the Glory but that's another story to come). . .
. . . an angel visited my little carcair (monk cell) a month ago, palpable beside me as I slept/wept on the pallet on the floor. I could only see the filthy hem of the heavenly once was white robe now gray and stained making me marvel and love all the more...never one for silk and such my desire tucked away till the day of my glad marry to come, had been, had been a thief indeed (Genet's Thief Journal), me, until undone by Christ and Buddha, warriors and wheelturners (chakravartins) both, ensuing for me a redemption of desire and the "dirty world upon my shoulders [and more] (Basho haiku)" -
body full bore to Manhattan then I came, Spanish Harlem replete with Roses, Florida Water, Siete Machos (men's colognes found in Latin America) and more, Puerto Rican/Domincan park bench dominos I would bike by down by the Hudson 3 am bound for Wall Street and Staten Island Ferry some kind of quiet, not mountain quiet that I had in Carolina, but that of early a.m. NYC streets, me tracking graffiti scripture on every train and station wall. I needed what I got, but did not know it too soon but never soon enough, I needed Catholic Imagination, that of extremes, of heaven, of hell, even limbo where one's toes and more are singed while aroma of Roses — Our Lady tinge noses, infringe upon our all too human suffering for re-evaluation. I found it soon enough in Harlem, in personal estrangement, the city kind, countering the country boy kind, which holds/contains/frames all estrangement, all extremes, a Catholicity most necessary where not only I am redeemed but by poetry and urban/machine sound and rhythm God is redeemed and enters, visionary company at last, once again, tracing, tracing (Hart Crane) into the broken world.
Catholicity and France and human gore produced Genet, the give-away grace, the reframe of guilt, blame, small favors of mourning, and such adoration as only parted persons, divided ones, can give. I was "not in Kansas anymore" unless it was a god and flesh storm tornadic with a froo froo instinct, little Toto, in the basket tucked, my anima/myself sucked up and away too into an Oz-y-man-dias such is an occassion for worship (worth-ship, what it means).
A black pentecostal church just next door to my basement room beneath West 142nd Street, the glad shouts, the sad earnest prayers, the tamborine and hand clap intertwine Latin beats, car horns, conga drums alive up the street on stoops all night, breaking bottles, tapping bottle caps on concrete sits young and old men bare-chested, sweating, cigarettes between drumming fingers or loose lips hand play/pound escape from day heat to river cooled darkness...new saturation/inundation for me, no longer the Christhaunted South or nation for that matter but a passionate parenthesis
of so much flesh, perspiration, desire, ejaculation, celebration in-the-face of large Orange Sky, the all night comidas place lively with taxi drivers, orange rice, pork all kinds and cafe con leche only 40 cents a cup...a place to escape one's self p.r.n., all that grease and men....
Enough evocation 1980 Bway and West 142nd and near...the cadence of Genet 1971 in my hand straight to heart, then/now, and now still inwardly wear him, angelic robe all tatters, stains - "I would be a monk but for the dust of the world on my shoulders (Basho)."
“Her perfume is violent and vulgar. From it we can already tell that she is fond of vulgarity. Divine has sure taste, good taste, and it is most upsetting that life always puts someone so delicate into vulgar positions, into contact with all kinds of filth. She cherishes vulgarity because her greatest love was for a dark skinned gypsy. On him, under him, when with his mouth pressed to hers he sang to her gypsy songs that pierced her body, she learned to submit to the charm of such vulgar cloths as silk and gold braid which are becoming to immodest persons.”
"Do you know some poison−poem that would burst my cell into a spray of myosotis? A weapon that would kill the perfect young man who inhabits me and makes me give asylum to a whole agglomeration of animals?. . .Swallows nest under his arms. They have masoned a nest there of dry earth.
Snuff−colored velvet caterpillars mingle with the curls of his hair. Beneath his feet, a hive of bees, and broods of asps behind his eyes. Nothing moves him. Nothing disturbs him, save little girls taking first communion who stick out their tongues at the priest as they clasp their hands and lower their eyes. He is cold as snow. I know he's sly. Gold makes him smile faintly, but if he does smile, he has the grace of angels. What gypsy would be quick enough to rid me of him with an inevitable dagger? It takes promptness, a good eye and a fine indifference. And... the murderer would take his place. He got back this morning from a round of the dives. He had sailors and whores, and one of the tarts has left the trace of a bloody hand on his cheek. He may go far away, but he is as faithful as a pigeon. The other night, an old actress left her camellia in his button−hole. I wanted to crumple it; the petals fell on the rug (but what rug? my cell is paved with flat stones) in big, warm transparent drops of water. I hardly dare look at him now, for my eyes go through his crystal flesh, and all those hard angles make so many rainbows there that that's why I cry. The end.
It doesn't seem like much to you, but yet this poem has relieved me."
You may read the novel online for free here:
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