THE BURIAL OF THE COUNT OF ORGAZ

6.1.57. Cannes A.M.

1 here there’s nothing but some oil and shredded beef.

2 son of a bitch bitch wise guy double wise guy gash rheumatic wolf and ragtag owl

0 flower child with eyelids fluttering and yakking on the top of makeup box bent nai pried open with a knife point.

2 mickey rat dressed like a priest who sheds the skin from rags of darkness.

1 so having gotten the open envelope without a stamp it could have been eaten by the mailman or his grandmother and not responsible to anybody happy days.

2 but just hold on there! seeing what must be done is to unwind and bind the bundle to the ball and pluck the wind out of our sails.

1 old itch and cravings to break doors and windows down in heat or cold to start in taking shots and partridges and lions

0 skyhigh fringes.

2 the two thieves.

1 and so the hustle bustle of a binge.

2 with broken pots to make a soup of pinks and roses in gazpacho trembling points of light to take a count of everything and make a chain of every egg they lay.

0 and nothing more than any evening at the bull ring seeing nothing more is lacking not so much as thanks but no thanks.

2 i don’t say that what i don’t say i don’t say by saying i don’t say it.

1 a mess of i-say and a mess of say-it-to-me and a mess of say of don’t-say like a mess of castanets all praying with their torches and their fried eggs lightly lightly.

2 most likely things here aren’t meant for nudes and showcases not in museums nor the larger fashionable boutiques – because that’s the way it is.

0 nothing more than a glowworm hanging from the ceiling lighting up the danceinside the chandelier.

2 dog with so many heads so skinny and so paunchy.

0 anyone would say that you have never seen him fighting bulls and seen the peoples come up heads or tails so that you don’t know where you’re going or where you’re coming from while clipping coupons and vignettes all made into a lottery and all the starry engine into a game of ball.

1 because you’re already such a joker what with all those faces that you carry with you painted one atop the other melted and already dry and framed and hung on every leaf and feather duster.

0 no don Juan either

1 don’t tell me that you’re not not telling me that yes it all will be explained to you by Minuni and Paco Reina.

2 hard harder than a stone and fresh like lettuce.

0 chapter 31 by order of the king and times long gone between a rock and hard place settled and unruly full of wind and from the other side a crackling sound of lightnings tripes and snails and blood puddings not in the least pissed off at having left the sack of calamares at the station in the middle of the river curdling up.

2 thanks a lot and give a ribbon to the goat and to the kid and to the pigeons seeing how the wheat is shooting up.

1 so don’t tell me any more go scratch

2 if what i’m waiting for is you to sing so that you take the scales off of the sun.

1 don’t get dressed up in gold or sequins if you’re cold put on the garb of nakedness with grape leaves and begin to dance because today is Sunday.

0 i’m not saying anything you know already what i’m saying i’m not saying any more you know already what i’ve said.

1 one knows what one knows one knows what is known the known what isn’t known already is what’s known and then forgotten what is known and isn’t lived what’s seen and barely seen what isn’t ever seen and wanted both to see and to be seen within a wine stain on a table top beneath the empty glass beside a knife and littl scraps of bread.

2 i have believed it to be so again the light is fading out if you should light the light would not need light to see light clearly.

1 don’t you be talking nonsense dance and sing you big capuchin monk and don’t you tell me any stories.

THIRD SEGMENT

There did finally arrive the card announcing the festivities on monday night and next morning at dawn there were fires and worms up every ass hole and sugar palms appeared in every window the stars with pink and green cockades showed off their black hair to the sun down on their knees beside the well and touched and then retouched their makeup looking at the half moons on their fingernails and on the tiles with verdant clusters of black grapes in profile on the swarming blues the blue striped t-shirt and the greenish blue the sugared blue slapped on the pink the purple diaper of the lilac bunched up in the nest of the celestial purple of the blue omphalos of the camp bed straightened up with sunny smells of she goats and of he goats on the bank of some old mountain stream with such good spirits and no laughs or cries – at six began the dance of all the old retainers of the houses castles railroad stations taverns bakeries and tailor shops and priests and barbers servinggirls for fancy ladies nursemaids road gangs – all the girls from two weeks old to forty-something years decked out with roses and carnations jasmines spikenards handed out the ritzy french toast to the young guys and the higher ups – the sister of old Montserrat and La Pamela hit the jackpot and took off beaming to the olive grove. Then Don Augusto Manuel the shameless got soused up and sopping wet out on the Andalusian’s veranda. Thanks be to the presence of the Mayor’s spirit nothing came to pass but things were ugly for the next six weeks not counting holidays and sundays.
Here there was no one more in charge than me said Señor Rumansos pegbox de oficio and oldest brother of his kith and kin Juan Pedro and Gonzalo de la Merced and Julia and Rufina. Left without a father from the age of two days and a half good form and cleaved from head to toe they totaled up a million hundredweights and then the knackers lugged them down there on their backs – the baby of the bunch got married at age eighty something and gave birth at month’s end to a burro the other one got married to a crippled sandal weaver and she gave her husband ten blind rabbits and a partridge. The humungus woman stayed a widow well before she had the pair of watermelons that her husband owner of the flea ranch got for her one night back at the saint’s fair in the plaza hidden in the little boat – the children – Pedro little Pedro we won’t speak of him no more seeing how he acted flashy Manolete like and wound up down and out tough shit and no one in his family would say hello to him he ended like a doorman in a whore house in chinatown – Janete was a half a cretin but was very shrewd he acted like a jerk when he would play the lottery and won the big one – he got married with some babe the bastard daughter of the priest they said who cheated on him and gave birth from a young dimwitted bull who in the Siguenza bull ring was knocked off by El Pelao on February 13th 107 and they had to deck him out with twenty-nine pairs of fire shooting banderillas – Gonzalo went to war in Africa he went and nothing more was heard from him he didn’t marry and he had no children.
This family is like a paragon even today a lot of things are told about them true or false we have to factor in to our account of the corrida of this primitive humanity recorded on a post card.
The melon slices and the scraps of blotting paper upside down and snookering the surf that licks its chops over a half a watermelon its wheel barrow rattles in the whitish foam of someone’s linen laid out on the roof – the smooth silk of her body lunges at the nacre and the sword hilt thrust into the honey bun of where she dances – the refrain that makes the jasmine twinkle on the vine sings of a light that blows in from the garden warm with love and with a pinch of blue that dangles from the grapes – the rosy evening flavor whistles up its snail shells in its arms it rocks a drop of dew erupting in the lambkin’s fleece an onion unwinds its strings inside the caramel awakening of the moon – the silver lace the pigeons raise up making light of their sad plight
[jr]

This is a rare poem by the Spanish painter Pablo Picasso.