THE BOOK OF REPULSIVE WOMEN

Djuna Barnes

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  • FROM FIFTH AVENUE UP
  • IN GENERAL
  • SEEN FROM THE "L"
  • IN PARTICULAR
  • FROM THIRD AVENUE ON
  • TWILIGHT OF THE ILLICIT
  • TO A CABARET DANCER
  • SUICIDE



  • FROM FIFTH AVENUE UP



    SOMEDAY beneath some hard
    Capricious star—
    Spreading its light a little
    Over far,
    We'll know you for the woman
    That you are.

    For though one took you, hurled you
    Out of space,
    With your legs half strangled
    In your lace,
    You'd lip the world to madness
    On your face.

    We'd see your body in the grass
    With cool pale eyes.
    We'd strain to touch those lang'rous
    Length of thighs,
    And hear your short sharp modern
    Babylonic cries.

    It wouldn't go. We'd feel you
    Coil in fear
    Leaning across the fertile
    Fields to leer
    As you urged some bitter secret
    Through the ear.

    We see your arms grow humid
    In the heat;
    We see your damp chemise lie
    Pulsing in the beat
    Of the over-hearts left oozing
    At your feet.

    See you sagging down with bulging
    Hair to sip,
    The dappled damp from some vague
    Under lip,
    Your soft saliva, loosed
    With orgy, drip.

    Once we'd not have called this
    Woman you—
    When leaning above your mothers
    Spleen you drew
    Your mouth across her breast as
    Trick musicians do.

    Plunging grandly out to fall
    Upon your face.
    Naked—female—baby
    In grimace,
    With your belly bulging stately
    Into space.



    IN GENERAL



    WHAT altar cloth, what rag of worth
        Unpriced?
    What turn of card, what trick of game
    Undiced?
    And you we valued still a little
    More than Christ.



    SEEN FROM THE "L"



    SO SHE stands—nude—stretching dully
          Two amber combs loll through her hair
    A vague molested carpet pitches
    Down the dusty length of stair.
    She does not see, she does not care
    It's always there.

    The frail mosaic on her window
    Facing starkly toward the street
    Is scribbled there by tipsy sparrows—
    Etched there with their rocking feet.
    Is fashioned too, by every beat
           Of shirt and sheet.

    Sill her clothing is less risky
    Than her body in its prime,
    They are chain-stitched and so is she
    Chain-stitched to her soul for time.
    Ravelling grandly into vice
    Dropping crooked into rhyme.
    Slipping through the stitch of virtue,
           Into crime.

    Though her lips are vague as fancy
    In her youth—
    They bloom vivid and repulsive
    As the truth.
    Even vases in the making
           Are uncouth.





    IN PARTICULAR



    WHAT loin-cloth, what rag of wrong
        Unpriced?
    What turn of body, what of lust
    Undiced?
    So we've worshipped you a little
    More than Christ.



    FROM THIRD AVENUE ON



    AND now she walks on out turned feet
            Beside the litter in the street
    Or rolls beneath a dirty sheet
           Within the town.
    She does not stir to doff her dress,
    She does not kneel low to confess,
    A little conscience, no distress
           And settled down.

    Ah God! she settles down we say;
    It means her powers slip away
    It means she draws back. day by day
           From good or bad.
    And so she looks upon the floor
    Or listens at an open door
    Or lies her down, upturned to snore
           Both loud and sad.

    Or sits besides the chinaware,
    Sits mouthing meekly in a chair,
    With over-curled, hard waving hair
           Above her eyes.
    Or grins too vacant into space—
    A vacant space is in her face—
    Where nothing came to take the place
           Of high hard cries.

    Or yet we hear her on the stairs
    With some few elements of prayers,
    Until she breaks it off and swears
           A loved bad word.
    Somewhere beneath her hurried curse,
    A corpse lies bounding in a hearse;
    And friends and relatives disperse,
           And are not stirred.

    Those living dead up in their rooms
    Must note how partial are the tombs,
    That take men back into their wombs
           While theirs must fast.
    And those who have their blooms in jars
    No longer stare into the stars,
    Instead, they watch the dinky cars—
           And live aghast.



    TWILIGHT OF THE ILLICIT



    YOU, with your long blank udders
              And your calms,
    Your spotted linen and your
    Slack'ning arms.
    With satiated fingers dragging
    At your palms.

    Your knees set far apart like
    Heavy spheres;
    With discs upon your eyes like
    Husks of tears,
    And great ghastly loops of gold
    Snared in your ears.

    Your dying hair hand-beaten
    'Round your head.
    Lips, long lengthened by wise words
    Unsaid.
    And in your living all grimaces
    Of the dead.

    One sees you sitting in the sun
    Asleep;
    With the sweeter gifts you had
    And didn't keep,
    One grieves that the altars of
    Your vice lie deep.

    You, the twilight powder of
    A fire-wet dawn;
    You, the massive mother of
    Illicit spawn;
    While the others shrink in virtue
    You have borne.

    We'll see you staring in the sun
    A few more years,
    With discs upon your eyes like
    Husks of tears;
    And great ghastly loops of gold
    Snared in your ears.



    TO A CABARET DANCER



    A THOUSAND lights had smitten her
           Into this thing;
    Life had taken her and given her
            One place to sing.

    She came with laughter wide and calm;
            And splendid grace;
    And looked between the lights and wine
            For one fine face.

    And found life only passion wide
            'Twixt mouth and wine.
    She ceased to search, and growing wise
            Became less fine.

    Yet some wondrous thing within the mess
            Was held in check:—
    Was missing as she groped and clung
            About his neck.

    One master chord we couldn't sound
            For lost the keys,
    Yet she hinted of it as she sang
            Between our knees.

    We watched her come with subtle fire
            And learned feet,
    Stumbling among the lustful drunk
            Yet somehow sweet.

    We saw the crimson leave her cheeks
            Flame in her eyes;
    For when a woman lives in awful haste
            A woman dies.

    The jests that lit our hours by night
            And made them gay,
    Soiled a sweet and ignorant soul
            And fouled its play.

    Barriers and heart both broken—dust
            Beneath her feet.
    You've passed her forty times and sneered
            Out in the street.

    A thousand jibes had driven her
            To this at last;
    Till the ruined crimson of her lips
            Grew vague and vast.

    Until her songless soul admits
            Time comes to kill;
    You pay her price and wonder why
            You need her still.



    SUICIDE



    Corpse A

    THEY brought her in, a shattered small
           Cocoon,
    With a little bruised body like
    A startled moon;
    And all the subtle symphonies of her
    A twilight rune.

    Corpse B

    THEY gave her hurried shoves this way
            And that.
    Her body shock-abbreviated
    As a city cat.
    She lay out listlessly like some small mug
    Of beer gone flat.