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Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Dancer

Shalimar – 3:30 PM –13 Aug 76
Was sitting on a box of Lite Beer sipping coffee

reading Miss Read when Carmen warned me that the boss

might fire me for reading. Apparently writing he doesn’t mind

so much, probably because he can’t imagine anyone keeping

it up longer than 10 mins at a time. R. will be here soon, then

we hit the bank, pick up my stuff and we’re on the road for the

Finger Lakes. Five hours alone in the car. I find I have a lot

of inhibitions against voicing boundaries in our relationship –

mainly because I don’t want to be lied to. I want to find out

how things really are. For example, he spent last night in

Gaithersburg with his wife. Now her I’m jealous of, because

he used to love her, used to think she was a “catch” and

was surprised and gratified that she “descended” into

marriage with him.

I probably won’t ask him if they had sex because

it would be making too much of it. He’s said before he wouldn’t,

and she definitely wouldn’t. But I can’t believe a woman who

knows she’s losing a man might not change in her feelings –

just to see what power she has left. I would, if he wanted the

divorce and I didn’t. Will I be able to tell just by looking at him?

R feels the right to be jealous and possessive over me, which

I don’t grudge him since I’m naturally monogamous. He feels

no discomfort making rules for me. But he should.

6:00 PM Saturday 14 Aug 76 Finger Lakes
Lying on the bed in our tiny TINY two room cabin –

with just a curtain separating the rooms – I was going to write

here about how much I love my job (I really miss dancing so

much when I’m away from it – the ideal thing would be three

sets a day for life) – when R came in, threw himself on me,

tore my clothes off, began kissing my breasts and exploring

my tan lines and pressing his beautiful valued body hard hard

hard into mine – and you know what happened next. If he turns

the fan on high I don’t think the other campers can hear our little

yips and screams. At least I hope not. We spent last night in his

grandmother’s house in Binghamton, New York.

She bedded us down in separate rooms – he gave me a

long lecture about how you have to respect the house rules of

whoever you’re staying with – and then who do you think showed

up in the middle of the night saying he couldn’t sleep. It is ecstatic

to have sex almost without moving – this must be what Tantra is like.

We were directly over her and the bed creaked so we didn’t move a

muscle – absorbed and shed each other like snakes. Wonderful.

Next stop was R’s cousins who own the cabins. I don’t know

what to say about them – plastic flowers and Sonny James. My state

of deep shock probably resembled mental retardation. Some people’s

houses are frighteningly ugly. Their clock has eyes, they keep the

plastic on the lampshades. I just sat there while the ethnic and sex

jokes filtered around me. Who could blame R’s first wife for

shunning this bunch?

I would not choose them for buddies either. And the fact

that they are renting us a cabin doesn’t appear to mean we will

also get privacy – so I have taken to wearing my glasses. Number

one – I don’t see as well – number two – it creates a kind of screen

between me and them.

The Lake is beautiful – but I don’t need to go in more than

twice a day – I also don’t have the patience for the fish-a-thons that

absorb the rest of them, dawn till dusk.

Plus one time waterskiing was plenty. Since dinner is a

vast barbecue down at the beach every night and we only have

sandwiches for lunch and cereal for breakfast there is not that

much to do, thank God. Sadly the dinners are followed by

hours of dancing, drinking and fighting. I go to bed early to read

but R stays and plays “peacemaker”. Tonight he says he’s going

to let them kill each other and join me. Therefore I can set up my

typewriter on the kitchen table and get right to it. People keep

coming to bring me coffee and cookies – I think they really

want to see a writer “in action” – at the end of this trip I MAY

be 20 lbs heavier. The rest of my time is spent sunning and reading.

Unfortunately St. Secaire going VERY badly. Complete

horseshit, alas.

I’ve started it four separate times. I think at this point I just

have to keep going and hope it’s possible to clean up the mess later.

Tuesday 17 Aug 76 7:30 PM
Outside a fair number of people, all high as kites,

revving their engines and swearing they’re leaving and never

coming back. I don’t know if anybody’s actually going to GO

or not but I wish they would. No wonder R had nothing to do

with these people for four years – he may conveniently blame

his wife but the truth is none of them can stand each other.

Pack of wolverines. I’ve been left totally alone and am well

out of it – they may have forgotten I am even here. Last night R

was so depressed he just lay on the bed exhausted by them. I

tried to explain to him about resentment and the resulting succubae

and incubi thus created. (Subject of my novel, in fact.)

He said something about “our next 25 years” that just

floored me. Even my husband didn’t talk like that. Remember

saying to my father – I would be fine if I could only find a man who

treated me as well as I treated him. Dad – so ready to take

anybody’s part over mine, said, Has it ever occurred to you that

you might be hard to live with? Such a typical Daddy remark –

the more you think about it the worse it gets.

Well, R treats me better than anyone else so far.

He’s almost talked me into looking for a new job when I get back –

and that’s a lot. But if he wants to introduce me around, can’t lie

about what I do, etc etc. (This group – doesn’t know about my job –

he says they’d eat me – and him – alive. I can scarcely believe

they would take the moral high ground with me but I suppose

anything’s possible.) Tried to read a Redbook someone brought

–
shouldn’t do it. So depressing. Could never write like that or

be like that. If that’s the standard this whole thing is hopeless.

Then I picked up a book by Grace Livingston Hill. I’m going to

include her in my article on female pornographers.

R told me he had the impression that if I didn’t have my

novel to write I would probably go bananas. I said probably. I tried

to prepare him for the very different kind of vacation he’s going to

get in Maine – where people very deliberately leave each other alone.

If somebody sets off down the beach and you wanted also to walk

on the beach – you’d turn and go the opposite way. R says in his

family that would be grounds for a six-year grudge punctuated by

sobbing, screaming and threats of suicide.

12:10 am
Went night fishing with R because he wanted me to.

Wrote a wonderful poem about Coleridge – just came to me in

one piece. Couldn’t really share with R – he doesn’t know who

Coleridge is. So I showed him – Haunted Wedding.

HAUNTED WEDDING
The pregnant car disgorges
Only us. It’s winter.
Drunk as silver fish
We beat our gills as light
As hummingbirds.
In an amethyst ring
Of drypoint trees
The half-built house
Gapes and swells
Its timbers stink of sap.
Windrill fields occlude
Our crossing, so you carry me
High above the thorny osiers.
We sleep aloft for safety
Locked and levitating
In this space of air
One season only,
Unseen by angry outriders;
Bloodless in our wedding robes
Like the doubled membranes
Of the frozen flowers
```
    This triggered a fight because he says it wasn’t written 
```
for him. If he jealously searches my work for other lovers

madness is assured.) He almost talked me into thinking it a

bad poem.

I feel my mother’s disapproving stare on all of this – “

don’t ruin what you have by trying to get something else” – as

if showing R this poem would be a deliberate way of hurting him

by making him feel inferior – part of her larger accusation that I

channel so much energy into writing I’m no good with people and

that’s why my relationships suffer. All I can say is, thank God for

my diary.

Writing now with my feet in R’s lap while he plays cards.

He strokes my toes from time to time, as if I were a cat. We came in

from fishing and he just took my pants down – such earthy

sexuality has never existed for him. He told me he’s never

been so happy. And as for me? One side of my multi-prismed

personality is happy, but some of the other sides are complaining.

Difficult to contemplate an existence where I am not mentally alone

six hours a day.

One of the reasons I like my job is that it leaves that part

of me remarkably intact – dancing is a lot like sleepwalking. If I get

another job there’s a strong chance I’ll have to interact with humans.

Hell. And we both know how humans can be. Then I might be too

exhausted emotionally and battered psychologically to have the

energy to write – it’s a serious risk. Those architects ran roughshod

over me.
December 16, 2022
Inspired Pleasure

Diary of a Dancer

31 July 76 Shalimar

R came in but I managed to get rid of him. Sandy

brought in a huge bag of string beans, squash and tomatoes

from her garden – I told Ryder to take them home and cook them.

My job is turning into a source of tremendous conflict – he is the

snake in his own paradise. Plus tips really fall off when he is

here. I am already looking at a very tough month financially –

trying to take so much time off. He said he’ll be back at the end

of the night to pick me up – he’s hurt when I’m “in need” and

don’t call him. So that saves cab fare anyhow.

We took a walk between sets and talked about his

parents – second generation immigrants, lifelong Army. He doesn’t

tell them anything (they obviously know his marriage broke up

and now he’s with me – but they don’t know about his deafness,

for example or about his classes at Gallaudet.) He said to me,

can you believe I’ve only seen these people twice in the past

four years? And we live in the same state. Wait till he meets

my parents – shudder. I’ll put it off as long as I possibly can.

      Dancing tonight with Alicia. Poor Alicia. She’s a

“dripper”(constantly leaking pee) but blames it on hypoglycemia.

She hates dancing when there are so few people in here.

It’s kind of interesting. She sort of has a whorish appearance and

doesn’t realize she’s trapped in a vicious cycle – audience thinks

she’s a loose woman, she thinks they’re perverts.

      I’m trying not to fall into the super-loving, super-giving

trap but Ryder is the first guy I’ve ever met who would obviously

be a wonderful father. Rare among men under thirty? Or something.

      Talked to A on the phone – she was bored to tears at home

so I suggested she come in. We shared a burger basket and she

saw me dance for the first time. She wasn’t grossed out at all by

the semi-nudity – which is good – told me I’m a great dancer and

she really envies me my pelvic wiggle.

Also told me I have a terrific body – which really cheered

me up because I still feel too hefty around Ryder. (At his parents’ house

we went over his old scrapbooks – he was the star quarterback in

high school football. They described him as 5’4”! That’s a lot

shorter than he admits to these days. His boots have at least two

inch heels.) A left after one set because all the guys of course

came on to her. Obvious losers, alas, including the one who insists

he’s a hitman for the CIA and another who claims to be giving

away government jobs.

Unfortunately I’m dependent on the tips of these characters.

Ryder has been telling them all that I’m a writer (instead of a call girl,

presumably) which gives me a lot of explaining to do.

I wish I had money to buy things the house needs –

flashlights and fuses and drainers and shelving and all that stuff –

but I’m saving every bit for our trip to the Finger Lakes. Aug 5 will

mark one month in the house and six months since I quit the

architects. Seems like much longer than that. Where will I be

six months from now?

Hope my gothic novel sells – I need an immediate

hundred grand. I really can’t write with R sucking up all my free time.

I’ve been struggling with another poem about him – even that isn’t

coming. Hopefully we’ll settle down into being able to work side

by side quietly – maybe after our vacation.

6:00 PM, Chevy Chase Tyler St, 2 Aug 76

Across the street Shoulders, dressed in a skimpy football

undershirt, is mowing his lawn. He is a sight to behold.

Sitting over my repaired typewriter with a cup of hot tea

and a case of writer’s block. I could write a poem about Shoulders –

already R is interfering with my life. Beautiful day – a little chilly –

a little Maine edge to it.

Finished Stead’s Dark Places – which I adored – absolutely

one of a kind. Another bothersome thing about R – he really doesn’t

read. He’s been dragging around a sleazy paperback “heist comedy”

he pretends to read from time to time. At this rate it will take him six

months. I am struggling with All Authors are Equal but I may give

up on it and read Famous Washington Ghosts which R picked up

for me to add to my considerable collection of ghost stories (I must

have 50 vols.)

On the phone with Maeve my old Baltimore buddy –

she is behind in her rent but looking for a new job. In the meantime

borrowing from boyfriends.   I take a perverse pleasure that anyone

is managing worse than me.

Shalimar – 10:20 PM

Called in tonight to replace another girl – great – that

means I work 5 times this week. Just that small amount makes a

big difference. A is in the chips right now and I could owe her

but don’t want to.

When I came in they told me R had been in 30 mins

before. That was a little unsettling – I didn’t realize he would come in

if I weren’t here. Of course it is really close to his job – but equally

of course the food is more expensive here than just about

anywhere else he could choose. I look at who was dancing

to see whether he would think she was in any way better than me –

luckily it was the pisser Alicia instead of potentially scary

competition like, say, Gloria. He didn’t know I was coming in,

because Carmen didn’t tell him. Reading the Ghosts of

Washington. Wonderful poem potential.

Shalimar Thurs 5 Aug 76

R dearer every day, in spite of the fact that he’s

been checking up on me. Called and called last night – wondered

where I was – I wasn’t too sure how to tell him A and I were

over at Shoulders’ drinking, so I just said we were visiting

the neighbors. Standing in their yard, which wasn’t true. He is

jealous of Shoulders and I don’t blame him – such lush male

beauty makes women helpless. A is a complete mess over him.

He frequently wanders around the house in nothing but his

boxers – we call them as his “huppa”.

      R. finally got an apt and can stop “crashing” with

friends – one bedroom at the top of a Rockville skyscraper.

Sounds crazy expensive to me. Wrote a good poem –

capitol ghosts – today from the book R gave me.

Trying to think where to send it. Tomorrow’s my day off –

R coming over at 2.

CAPITOL GHOSTS

Pale Guiteau
slants his disappointed child’s face
downwards; the better to study bloodstains left
by assassins more accomplished than himself
who required benefit of anonymous surgeons
specially qualified for skewering
the muscles of the mighty.

The guard who saw him
claimed also to hear demon cats
and could not be relied upon.
these portents once were matters of
congressional dispute; now
no matter; caught within the marbled lurch
of history, victims

of the uninspired mad;
those who pursue the corpse from whom
the ghost escaped. He haunts our history
like the villainous barber who sings as he slits
both throats and wombs, a pure tune
some say, picked clean of tragedy
which only the dying hear.

Shalimar 7 Aug 76

Sitting here in a stupor of exhaustion. We had an

Al Green fan in here tonight – kept playing same song over

and over. Presumably working through some kind of a

relationship crisis. They don’t realize coming here and blowing

their money kills any relationship – and I am not going to tell

them. Anyway I hate Al Green. Missed my bus this AM so

took the Fessenden bus and walked across. A better way to go –

I like the walk – to hell with this transfer business.

I have to admit R doesn’t seem to understand

poetry. He’s very suspicious of all ease, elegance, lightness.

Too much Nature! “Work” should make you grit your teeth,

groan and bulge your forehead veins. The easier it comes,

the less valuable it MUST be. (He would hate Picasso’s very

best stuff!) I’ve tried getting him to understand by comparing

art to athletics – it only looks easy – it’s the training beforehand

that’s so hard. The trick is to render training invisible. But he

seems to think modern poetry is a plot to make him look stupid.

Really worried about money lately – everything at

Unibank is bouncing. It doesn’t take much to set off a chain

reaction. Guess I’ll have to borrow from A after all.

      How true it is that before you can love you must

love yourself. My love for myself is wavering. Just finished

Sean Stiles’ Occam’s Razor. I hate to see a good idea wasted.

Mostly I am depressed by the poor quality of the stories in

the Times Detective Story competition anthology. This is

something I should aspire to? I’m on a wonderful streak

of poetry – keep piling them up – got ophelia and

haunted house this eve.

OPHELIA WAS A MAN
The best revenge is growing up.
Behold a street of suicides –
Fringed lampshades &
Mullioned windows where
The dentist’s son grew dope
From seed (they had eight bathrooms and
The dentist couldn’t be everywhere)
His wife was nowhere; we saw her leave
With the cat in a suitcase clawing to get out.
“Crazier than thou” averred my aunt.
That boy blew the fruits of orthodontal science until
The day he blew his mind –
We traced the hissing-pissing-noise
To the garage of the stockbroker’s son; he’s
The one who stayed home from Yale to rewrite Hamlet
(Made it better – put in people you could recognize)
Type-cast himself – since he saw ghosts.
Two fine boys married to each other
Rosy-cheeked and sightless
In their parents’ wedding clothes.

      Tomorrow R is taking me on a tour of the television

station and out to lunch. This is a biggie – see where he works.

So I had to buy a gorgeous black linen jumpsuit (size 5!) Should

be worn with high red heels – but needless to say, can’t around

R. So instead, flat sandals. Fortunately everything is on sale.

A and I have decided to ask Maeve to move in with us – we can’t

seem to manage alone and we do have three bedrooms, but

she’ll have to hide from the landlord. I hate to do it. Letter from

D today – he’s in love with the 18 yr old virgin daughter of his minister.

Didn’t do a thing to me. God bless ‘em.

      Rick the gambler in tonight. He’s a friend of R’s – cheered

me up by telling me I’ve done so much for R who was really “hurting”

over his divorce.

Ryder – I love you – but I don’t really know who you are.

Hope you are who you pretend to be.

December 15, 2022
Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Dancer
```
    Fri 23 July 76 - Tyler St, Chevy Chase, Maryland 
    R and I have seen each other every day since Fri – 
```
I think he’s in love. I could fall if I let myself but something holds me back.
I like our relationship now – he drops by the house after work
and we’re both in jeans. I think tonight’s the night for sex –
first time – I’m nervous but since I love his body I expect
to be all right.
Adore these slow working mornings. I get up
with A (depending on when her first run is – she’s now
working courier) to have time to set my hair before leaving
at 10. Beautiful walks up Tyler St. Early AM at the Shalimar
such a pleasure – sitting at the bar with my diary balanced
on my hipbones, watching the barmaids get ready, feeling
like a character out of Toulouse Lautrec.
Yesterday we met our across the street neighbors –
one of them is a gorgeous guy named Larry getting a degree
in Hospital Administration. Among ourselves we call him
“Shoulders” because he has such a gorgeous pair. To see
them dimpled with sweat on his way back from a run is to be
in heaven. Invited Larry and roommates Garrett and Opal to
dinner tomorrow night – if they can come.

Thurs 22 July 76 – 9:25 PM
God I’m in love. I love his fragile, tense blond body –
love holding it. Love looking at his Lorenzo diMedici face.
Those blond Italians! He wouldn’t like to hear me say it –
he has a black belt in karate and thinks he’s so tough – but
he probably only outweighs me by 20 lbs. Made love all afternoon –
he is very skilful – obsessed with my pleasure. Says he doesn’t
care if he ever comes – wants to see what gives a woman pleasure.
We fit together exactly – interlocking puzzle pieces even
upside down. I can feel his feet with my feet – his knees
with my knees – it’s like having a mirror body – only with a
hard chest and penis. After the first time the relief of the orgasm
was so great I wept. I fell asleep with him inside me. Wrote
a poem about him but don’t know if I want to show him. If I
learned anything from Bruce it’s that people misrepresent.
He could be shockable and its early days yet. Today I want
to buy a bookcase.
Love equals, unfortunately, anxiety attacks – could
he possibly love me as much as I love him? Yesterday walking
in the park I expressed fear about him going straight from one
serious relationship right into another – but he says he refuses to
limit the experience. Which of course was exactly the right answer.
The worst part is his trouble with my job.
He says he knows he can’t ask me to quit because
he can’t support me – I pointed out he wants me to go on the Divers
World expedition, and then to Cozumel, and I want to take him to Maine,
all of which would be impossible if I had a regular job. He says he
can deal with it only by avoiding the Shalimar – OK by me as long as
I see him outside. He came in today – I got rid of him after a half hour,
before my set.

11:05 AM – Shalimar Tues 27 July 76
Feel like throwing out all my diaries. Driveling gush broken
up by gushing drivel. But I go right ahead and produce some more.
Randy throwing ice and cases of beer, Bobbi cleaning trays, Carmen
checking paper towels and me writing. Perfect.
We were lying in bed – me and Ryder – I have to lie on his
right side because he only has one good ear – and he told me a long
purposeless allegory about bullfighting. Can’t tell which of us is the
supposed to be the matador. I’m the only one with a poetic license
in this relationship.) He said I should just write, and he’s going
to see to it. I said fine by me. I love this job but not as much
as writing, love and freedom. Then he said, I love you.
```
9:45 AM Wed July 28 76
        Anniversary of Toss Sheffield relieving me of 
```
my impacted virginity (as I relieved him of his.) R came yesterday at 2 –
left at 3 – came back at 5. Another watershed in our relationship – Fears.
He’s afraid to lose the hearing in his good ear. He speaks sign
language but doesn’t want to live in a world without sound. I made
him promise to go the doctor. He agreed to make an appointment no
later than Weds.
Reading Christina Stead’s wonderful Dark Places of
the Heart. Considered inviting Ryder to live with us – rejected
the idea. I need too much alone time. So important to establish
amour proper. I am so impoverished from setting up the house
(though I’ve made enough in tips to pay my taxi ride home tonight)
I am barely going to make the rent. Need a windfall.
Sweaty and smelly. I think I’ve boogie –oogie-oogied
till I just can’t boogie no more.

Club Shalimar– 30 July 76
Cookout at Ryder’s parents – I met his folks – two
roly-poly people who are nothing like him – one sister who is
a lot younger.
We had glorious talks on our way there and back –
about having our own space – (we agreed he needs to live alone);
our hopes and dreams (he used to write music, wants to do that
again someday – I told him I have an agent shopping a novel around)
first impressions (I discovered he was in the bar when I auditioned!
Horrors!) He said what intrigues him most about me is that he
can’t figure me out – still can’t – everything about me is a surprise.
I guess I could say the same about him.
Wonderful abandoned sex – just crazy stuff – I came and
came. He told me he spent last night at his old house – he and
his wife had to have a “meeting”. I was jealous until he told me
that his wife is sexually dead – and always has been. He didn’t
understand it when they married, assuming it was something you
get over. I suggested she was probably molested as a child –
he didn’t want to believe it. He thinks some people are sexually
just asexual. I thought – but didn’t say – there’s a self-protective
concept. He doesn’t want to think she is turned off of him but in
my experience – such as it is – chemistry is a completely
mysterious yet crucial factor women have a tendency to discount
it when choosing a life partner. So they end up married to the
“perfect” person, except they’re not sexually stirred.
2:00 AM. He tucked me in – kissed me – left – then
I was wakened with his hands all over me. When he got to his
car he realized our clock had stopped and he didn’t have time
to go home before work. So he snuck back in the sliding door.
We had sex again, and the whole night became a snake
eating its own tail. This morning got a wonderful poem:
Love, the Magician.

The Magician is a Capricorn
Bleeding cock’s milk from nipples
Pale like mine but
Maler.
Illusion, he says is memory
Of things that should have been.
Doves and rabbits he entices
From sacred groves between my legs
Placed by ruse, and freed by art.
When he dies, passion turns his eyes
To quarters.
He hears the world but faintly
Through his one good ear.
The other turns to me,
Safecracker’s daughter.
Trust the magician, voices tell me
He knows when to drop the dice.
December 14, 2022
Inspired Pleasure
Diary of a Dancer
```
    1:15 AM – Sat 3 July 76
    We’re supposed to “wait” in the dressing room 
```
but they don’t seem to care if you don’t so I spend all my
time talking to Ryder. He says he’s just separating from
his wife and it’s extremely traumatic. They have been
together since high school. He’s a tad hyper – always on
the go, but very entertaining He usually brings me gifts –
flowers, magazines, stuffed toys and cards. Also he’s a
diver and underwater photog. Today he brought pink roses.
Avril warns me not to fall in love. Just date.
Easy to say! I want security, privacy, ecstasy, exclusivity…
and love. It’s a problem!
The oilman came to the house today says he’s
shocked we have no credit references and will have to pay
COD! Fortunately I had just got off work and I had the cash
on me but I don’t like it at all. Guess we won’t need
much oil till winter. Let’s hope.
Ryder gave me a long spiel about how he
gave another dancer a ride home (Darlene) and she
expected him to go to bed with her and he said, I don’t do
that. I could tell he was sounding me out! I said,
I don’t either! No sex, ever! Sex, bad. He laughed till
it hurt and he begged for mercy. Poor Avril had a long hard
day – 7:30 AM to 6:30! I promised to take her out to eat at
Steak & Egg if she picks me up. She said make it Bob’s
and it’s a deal.
```
    10:30 AM Tues 6 July 76
    Sitting on a mattress on the floor of my Tyler St 
```
bedroom surrounded by a jumble of stuff. So exciting
starting a New Life. This time I am waiting for the gasman
– if he doesn’t come by 1 pm I have to leave.
9:25 PM – sitting in the Shalimar dressing room
eating a plum. Last night A and I saw Antonioni’s The
Passenger. Goes down with La Prisonniere, Persona,
Pierrot Le Fou and Weekend as one of my favorite all-time
films. So perfectly constructed it was like a series of Canalettos.
Ryder just asked me if I wanted to go to dinner some-
time. I said sure. He asked me about a lot of Italian food I
didn’t recognize – I said I like everything. Covered with sweat
from dancing to ”No one knows what its like to be the bad man…”
have to take it really slow, freezing in a series of poses. Then
suddenly I meet someone’s eyes and he drops his drink.
```
    Sat 10 July 76 – 9 pm – Shalimar 
    7 hours packing at Zevin Towers before I showed up 
```
here so I was already exhausted. I hate packing. Getting to
be a bit of a trial having Ryder in the bar all the time. His
expressions embarrass me to dance around him. I said I
thought this place was full of stories. He said, don’t stay
here just to pick up stories. He said he would “subsidize”
me to keep me from “doing this.” Hmmmm. Right after
talking about how little money he’ll have when he splits
with his wife!
He’s been offered a job in Detroit for a lot more
money – that’s how they get ahead in his business –
jump from station to station. I told him he should take it –
turned out that was the “wrong thing” because he hoped
I’d want him here. But I told him, I’m a citizen of the world.
I can go anywhere. Fear only empty experiences. So he says,
why are you doing this? I said, to meet you.
Otherwise he is perfect. So charming, smart and
funny, with so much ambition, spirituality and humility.
4 sets left – then 2 days off. Just bought 3 costumes from
Sunny for $30. Feeling personally confident in a way I
haven’t for years. R invites me out to dinner next week.
Have to buy special shoes so I won’t be too tall. Today
marks year and a half since my separation from Bruce.
```
    Fri 16 July 76 – Club Shalimar
    A & I hung living room paintings today, and last piece 
```
was moved in. Half an hour till my date with Ryder. Will his
name mean anything to me in twenty years? Brought blow dryer,
change of clothes and unguents sufficient to slap me back
into shape after 7 hrs dancing. Idly listening to gossip of Randy
(bouncer), Jinx (dancer) and Bobbi (bartender).
A and I had pleasant evening last night – wild storm
and the power failed. So we went out walking afterwards with
dogs & flashlights. Fun looking into people’s houses, seeing
them move about with candles. What does the future hold?
I worry both that Ryder will be there and that he won’t be there.
Margery Sharp’s The Faithful Servants has a lot of charm.
```
    17 July 76
    Interesting date. I want to write about it but first I have 
```
to say today has been a TERRIBLE day – I had to follow ex-stripper
named Edie who wore a black lace corset and gloves and carried
a whip onstage – everything but a donkey, as one of the other
dancers remarked. Then I had to listen to loud speculation on
how I got the bruise on my ass when it was my turn.
But Ryder Arlen. We had a wonderful dinner. He
ordered in Italian. The weirdest thing about him is that he
doesn’t like mushrooms. Long dinner, then over to the Gangplank
for Irish coffee. He insisted upon carrying me across two puddles –
he’s not very big and I was sure he’d get a hernia – but he made it.
We got back to Chevy Chase the house looked wonderful –
A had obviously slaved for hours. We had her down for a glass of
wine, then she went back upstairs. We ended up reading my poetry
I didn’t show him the erotic stuff because I didn’t feel the time was right.
He liked valentine the best –

Valentine
I sent myself in a letter
Heart-creased
Like a glove
Too much folded
An anecdote
Too much told
Dear stranger don’t
Lose me
I forgot the rule
(Hold back a copy)

Then we made out for hours. He was deliciously
passionate. I said, “You don’t want to end up in bed on the
first date, do you?” He said, “You pick the time and the place
but I hope it’s inevitable.”
I said it was certainly feeling that way but I’d have
to get to know him better. I wouldn’t let him take down the
top of my dress either. He left at 2:45 AM. He seems to
really care for me – so my worry that I’m just a first experiment
after leaving wife seems baseless. He invited me to go crabbing
tomorrow, then on a four day cruise sometime in August.
December 13, 2022
Correction!
Diary of a Dancer
```
    Zevin Towers – Wash DC 9:30 AM Wed 21 Apr 76
    Baby sis Avril and I are totally broke. We are eating 
```
our way thru Mom & Dad’s supplies. The grapenuts went first
then the soup. Now we are on sauerkraut and spinach.
Playing Fleetwood Mac & Jimmy Spheeris while sitting on
the balcony looking over Rock Creek Park. You don’t see one
building; Washington DC masquerades as a virgin world. I
need a job by next Mon. Something tells me I can’t finish my
novel and sell it in time. I refuse to be a cubicle drudge again
so what is there? Nude modeling sounds dangerous. Topless
dancing? Avril admits she sits on a park bench instead of going
to class as she told Mom! Uh oh. She says she just can’t “make
herself” do things. What a relief to have someone worse off
than me. Went to see All the Presidents Men with A. How I
wish I could fall in love with Marc Kramer. He’s longing to buy
jewelry for someone! I could sell it rather than the contents of
this old folks’ apartment. But he’s too sane if anything and
wears funny old man lace-up shoes. Plus he’s covered in a
thick mat of dark fur. And there’s his endless talk about shorts,
hedges, futures. SO PARALYZINGLY DULL. Raining outside.
Isn’t life rotten?
```
    10:50 AM Sun 2 May 76
    Answered an ad for “go-go girl”.  You wear fringed 
```
bikinis and go-go boots and dance for the troops! No
more than 2 gigs a day (you have to drive there) and
each one only lasts an hour so $60 seems very generous.
She asked for my “experience” – I said I used to be a Maxim’s
dancer! (I didn’t say it was for the nuns’ THEATRE
SCHOOL in Minnesota!)
DeeDee is giving me my schedule tomorrow.
Tips are welcome because I don’t get paid till the 15th. Have
to clean this apt and I don’t want to at all. Dad says apt
lease up in two months so I’ll have to find somewhere else
to live (Mom refuses to live here because n16th floor.) Dad
says men are put off by us because Avril and I are too
“masculine” by which he means determined, decisive and
pleasure seeking. (A. very disappointed because she’s had
two dates with Paul and they haven’t had sex yet.) Reading
Spink’s Hans Christian Andersen and his World – what
a painful ugly duckling story!
```
    Tues. 4 May 76 9:45 pm
    Totally exhausted. Had to dance 2 hrs at Andrews 
```
AFB because my partner didn’t show up (but it’s double the
money.) Jefferson Starship’s Miracles my favorite song to
dance to. Soldiers always want to play I’m A Man and
that’s no fun. Of course I did see Spencer Davis’ dark side up
close while I was trailing around dragging an echo-plex after
rockstar husband Bruce. Would be reading The Place at
Whitton by Thos Keneally if I could keep my eyes open.
```
    11:20 AM Sat 8 May 76
    No word from Beautiful Faraway Perfect Man 
```
Devon about whether he will ever visit, but speaking of
attractive young men I had a “conversion experience” at
the Ft. Myers’ officers club yesterday. I was registering
at the young desk when this young man with dark curly
hair and the face of an angel asked me who I was and
what I was up to. I was wearing my go-go outfit plus
military-style jacket so I did stand out. He wore a sweatband
around his head and was all set for running but his plans
changed in a flash. He would rather watch me dance instead.
His name is Frank and something Italian. Took me down to
the dark Hideaway Club and watched me the whole time –
playing and replaying the Pointer Sisters’ Chick on the Side.
I gave him my number and he gave me a $20 tip. Does he
represent a break from lonely masturbation? At this stage
of my relationship with Devon I can hardly be unfaithful.
We shall see.
Marc Kramer called offering to fly me to the island
and back for Memorial Day weekend. I have $266 in the bank.
Should I take him up on it? Just doesn’t feel right.
Wouldn’t be able to get rid of him when I wanted to.
I hate feeling “beholden.” Reading Norah Lofts’ Hauntings
to help me with my ghost stories.
```
    2:15 PM – Sun 9 May 76
    Lying in bed surrounded by Sun papers. Have decided 
```
to get tix for me and Avril to Royal Danish Ballet’s Triumph of Death,
Royal Ballet’s Romeo and Juliet and All’s Well That Ends Well
at the Folger Shakespeare Library. So glorious having money.
```
    Tues. 2:30 pm 18 May 76
    Guy came forward at the Army Navy Yard, offered 
```
me his card and said I could make a whole lot more money
dancing at his club. I have to admit this rushing around in a
car is getting old – the Gremlin “el Diablo” is acting up. Think
I will go to his club, talk to the other dancers and see what
the scoop is. It is “topless”, but so what if you aren’t supposed
to (or expected to) “fraternize’ with the audience. There is a stage.
Went to look at a townhouse off Dupont Circle –
2 bedroom, $435 a month but no place for dogs. Can’t live without
my dogs forever. Jeannie and I perform at a private party in
Annandale. I am nervous but she is completely cool and they
are content to look. Avril has a new man – Jack.
```
    Wed 26 May 1976 – The Parkway East
    Waiting my turn to go on. Thought I was going to have 
```
dance alone but thank God Darby finally showed up – fucked up,
but she can dance. (Her boyfriend brought her.) Phoned Devon –
boy that was stupid – to see if he wanted to go to the island for
Mem Day Weekend. He is playing in a tournament and not
“available”. Every time I reach out to him I feel like a sap.
Never know whether his mysterious “tides” are “in” or “out”.
He did his best to sound warm and affectionate but he is obviously
very stressed – he was actually panting! Now he’ll have to meditate
for a week. I have to let this man go. When I wail about him, Avril
makes me laugh by saying, “He’s GAY! He just won’t admit it!”
But I have to say he didn’t seem gay to me.
Genevieve invites us to NYC for Mem Day weekend.
She has filed for divorce and fallen in love with someone else.
Ex Kent doesn’t know but she warns us he is calling everyone in
the family begging us to intervene.
```
    2 PM – 9 June 76
    Sun night I invited Frank and his roommate to dinner.  
```
Horrible. They were 45 mins late and my blintzes were ruined.
Avril & roommate took against each other immediately. They
brought Thai sticks, we refused to smoke. On an up note I
took a cab to the Club Shalimar (Gremlin in shop) and the taxi
driver was so excited about having a poet in his car he didn’t
charge me. Said he had never met a poet before. (Gave him
a poem on the spot.) Shalimar seems possible – other dancers
like it but constant turnover; no one has been there long.
Bouncer very nice, and I can take a bus there so A. can have car.
Tempted to risk it.

11:05 PM – waiting for Jeannie in the empty Bethesda
Naval Officers Club. She is giving me a ride home. She is an
interesting person – has done a lot of nude modeling – showed
me her portfolio. Very Playboy. Officers keep marching through
in their whites. They are very polite.
```
    Fri. 11 June 76 8:15 PM - 
    Things could hardly be worse.  Got my hair cut the 
```
other day – I only wanted a trim – he absolutely butchered me.
It is barely shoulder length and it looks like a cow slept in it.
I hate all hairdressers, gynecologists and dentists – you’re just
completely helpless in their hands. Plus I got another piercing
in each ear and the left one seems infected. Now my face looks
crooked. Also having my period so I am swollen up like I’m
pregnant. Avril has a college friend (male) coming for the
weekend and she is beating herself up – “Why did I say yes?”
She would call and cancel if he had a phone.
On the plus side, tips at the Shalimar are really
good and the dancing is as energetic as you feel like –
which means standing there swaying is Just Fine. You
can rock yourself to sleep if you want to. Of course my
ego won’t allow too much relaxation.
Piece of good news – agent loves my gothic novel!
Reading The Royal Victorians. Gremlin seems stabilized
so Avril applied for a job as a driver with a messenger service.

Avril friend a complete bozo but

places to be so we hardly see him. Huge sigh of relief and
lesson learned. Let’s just hope he doesn’t steal the silver.
DeeDee and I come to a Sad Parting of the Ways – her
money too small, gas costs, etc.
A and I got a wonderful 3 bedroom in Chevy Chase
on a charming little side street but the landlord very snooty
about only 2 tenants. We said OK, OK. Big yard. I can
have my dogs! Moving in July 5. Struggling with Christina
Stead’s Puzzleheaded Girl. She is overrated. Maybe I can’t
read fiction any more.
```
    Fri 25 June 76 – Club Shalimar 
    Eating free scrambled eggs the cook gave me: 
```
“Somebody’s got to eat them” while waiting to go on. A lot
of interesting men come into this place. None perfect obviously
– and unfortunately I need more than perfection. I need
mysticism. The owner seems to be something of a gangster.
I got 2 standing ovations today.
The job is actually enjoyable. I am really getting
into it – dancing for pleasure – for the connection with
the audience. They stare spellbound like deer in the
headlights. Feel like I’m living in a Simenon novel as
I learn the ins and outs.
Avril loves her new job – thank God – they
want her to do dispatch (no wear and tear on fragile Gremlin)
and the drivers are all foreigners who don’t know the city.
She’s always yelling at them to “Look out the car window
and tell me what you see.”
Met the most charming little man – a TV director
at a local station – speaks sign language, is a magician
and a karate black belt, he’s just so full of joie de vivre.
His name is Ryder and his excitement about me puts
my non-relationship with Devon in a new light. Reading
Meyer’s Ibsen.
December 12, 2022

Inspired Pleasure

Diary of a Dancer

Fri. 16 April 1976 – 2 PM – Train to Philly – a zombified redhead in suede coat, oversized purse & glasses. Lacking mirrors, we lose our faces. Got to get my emotional house in order but I can’t think how. I used to have a roadmap and none of this was on it. What am I? An idiot? No. Just an addict of spiritually orgasmic sex. Still, all is grist for the art mill. My novel’s gothic hero is hopeless (he’s 63.)
Reading the Fortunate Miss East, a charming, charming little novel. Aunt Fred picking me up – I’m scheduled to read my poetry at Baldwin School.

Fri. 16 April 1976 - 2 PM – Train to Philly – a zombified redhead in suede coat, oversized purse & glasses. Lacking mirrors, we lose our faces. Got to get my emotional house in order but I can’t think how. I used to have a roadmap and none of this was on it. What am I? An idiot? No. Just an addict of spiritually orgasmic sex. Still, all is grist for the art mill. My novel’s gothic hero is hopeless (he’s 63.)
Reading the Fortunate Miss East, a charming, charming little novel. Aunt Fred picking me up – I’m scheduled to read my poetry at Baldwin School.

Zevin Towers – Wash DC 9:30 AM Wed 21 Apr 76
Baby sis Avril and I are totally broke. We are eating our way thru Mom & Dad’s supplies. The grapenuts went first then the soup. Now we are on sauerkraut and spinach. Playing Fleetwood Mac & Jimmy Spheeris while sitting on the balcony looking over Rock Creek Park. You don’t see one building; Washington DC masquerades as a virgin world. I need a job by next Mon. Something tells me I can’t finish my novel and sell it in time. I refuse to be a cubicle drudge again so what is there? Nude modeling sounds dangerous. Topless dancing? Avril admits she sits on a park bench instead of going to class as she told Mom! Uh oh. She says she just can’t “make herself” do things. What a relief to have someone worse off than me. Went to see All the Presidents Men with A. How I wish I could fall in love with Marc Kramer. He’s longing to buy jewelry for someone! I could sell it rather than the contents of this old folks’ apartment. But he’s too sane if anything and wears funny old man lace-up shoes. Plus he’s covered in a thick mat of dark fur. And there’s his endless talk about shorts, hedges, futures. SO PARALYZINGLY DULL. Raining outside. Isn’t life rotten?

10:50 AM Sun 2 May 76
Answered an ad for “go-go girl”. You wear fringed bikinis and go-go boots and dance for the troops! No more than 2 gigs a day (you have to drive there) and each one only lasts an hour so $60 seems very generous. She asked for my “experience” – I said I used to be a Maxim’s dancer! (I didn’t say it was for the nuns’ THEATRE SCHOOL in Minnesota!)
DeeDee is giving me my schedule tomorrow. Tips are welcome because I don’t get paid till the 15th. Have to clean this apt and I don’t want to at all. Dad says apt lease up in two months so I’ll have to find somewhere else to live (Mom refuses to live here because n16th floor.) Dad says men are put off by us because Avril and I are too “masculine” by which he means determined, decisive and pleasure seeking. (A. very disappointed because she’s had two dates with Paul and they haven’t had sex yet.) Reading Spink’s Hans Christian Andersen and his World – what a painful ugly duckling story!

Tues. 4 May 76 9:45 pm
Totally exhausted. Had to dance 2 hrs at Andrews AFB because my partner didn’t show up (but it’s double the money.) Jefferson Starship’s Miracles my favorite song to dance to. Soldiers always want to play I’m A Man and that’s no fun. Of course I did see Spencer Davis’ dark side up close while I was trailing around dragging an echo-plex after rockstar husband Bruce. Would be reading The Place at Whitton by Thos Keneally if I could keep my eyes open.

11:20 AM Sat 8 May 76
No word from Beautiful Faraway Perfect Man Devon about whether he will ever visit, but speaking of attractive young men I had a “conversion experience” at the Ft. Myers’ officers club yesterday. I was registering at the young desk when this young man with dark curly hair and the face of an angel asked me who I was and what I was up to. I was wearing my go-go outfit plus military-style jacket so I did stand out. He wore a sweatband around his head and was all set for running but his plans changed in a flash. He would rather watch me dance instead. His name is Frank and something Italian. Took me down to the dark Hideaway Club and watched me the whole time – playing and replaying the Pointer Sisters’ Chick on the Side. I gave him my number and he gave me a $20 tip. Does he represent a break from lonely masturbation? At this stage of my relationship with Devon I can hardly be unfaithful. We shall see.
Marc Kramer called offering to fly me to the island and back for Memorial Day weekend. I have $266 in the bank. Should I take him up on it? Just doesn’t feel right. Wouldn’t be able to get rid of him when I wanted to. I hate feeling “beholden.” Reading Norah Lofts’ Hauntings to help me with my ghost stories.

2:15 PM – Sun 9 May 76
Lying in bed surrounded by Sun papers. Have decided to get tix for me and Avril to Royal Danish Ballet’s Triumph of Death, Royal Ballet’s Romeo and Juliet and All’s Well That Ends Well at the Folger Shakespeare Library. So glorious having money.

Tues. 2:30 pm 18 May 76
Guy came forward at the Army Navy Yard, offered me his card and said I could make a whole lot more money dancing at his club. I have to admit this rushing around in a car is getting old – the Gremlin “el Diablo” is acting up. Think I will go to his club, talk to the other dancers and see what the scoop is. It is “topless”, but so what if you aren’t supposed to (or expected to) “fraternize’ with the audience. There is a stage.
Went to look at a townhouse off Dupont Circle – 2 bedroom, $435 a month but no place for dogs. Can’t live without my dogs forever. Jeannie and I perform at a private party in Annandale. I am nervous but she is completely cool and they are content to look. Avril has a new man – Jack.

Wed 26 May 1976 – The Parkway East
Waiting my turn to go on. Thought I was going to have dance alone but thank God Darby finally showed up – fucked up, but she can dance. (Her boyfriend brought her.) Phoned Devon – boy that was stupid – to see if he wanted to go to the island for Mem Day Weekend. He is playing in a tournament and not “available”. Every time I reach out to him I feel like a sap. Never know whether his mysterious “tides” are “in” or “out”. He did his best to sound warm and affectionate but he is obviously very stressed – he was actually panting! Now he’ll have to meditate for a week. I have to let this man go. When I wail about him, Avril makes me laugh by saying, “He’s GAY! He just won’t admit it!” But I have to say he didn’t seem gay to me.
Genevieve invites us to NYC for Mem Day weekend. She has filed for divorce and fallen in love with someone else. Ex Kent doesn’t know but she warns us he is calling everyone in the family begging us to intervene.

2 PM – 9 June 76
Sun night I invited Frank and his roommate to dinner. Horrible. They were 45 mins late and my blintzes were ruined. Avril & roommate took against each other immediately. They brought Thai sticks, we refused to smoke. On an up note I took a cab to the Club Shalimar (Gremlin in shop) and the taxi driver was so excited about having a poet in his car he didn’t charge me. Said he had never met a poet before. (Gave him a poem on the spot.) Shalimar seems possible – other dancers like it but constant turnover; no one has been there long. Bouncer very nice, and I can take a bus there so A. can have car. Tempted to risk it.
11:05 PM – waiting for Jeannie in the empty Bethesda Naval Officers Club. She is giving me a ride home. She is an interesting person – has done a lot of nude modeling – showed me her portfolio. Very Playboy. Officers keep marching through in their whites. They are very polite.

Fri. 11 June 76 8:15 PM -
Things could hardly be worse. Got my hair cut the other day – I only wanted a trim – he absolutely butchered me. It is barely shoulder length and it looks like a cow slept in it. I hate all hairdressers, gynecologists and dentists – you’re just completely helpless in their hands. Plus I got another piercing in each ear and the left one seems infected. Now my face looks crooked. Also having my period so I am swollen up like I’m pregnant. Avril has a college friend (male) coming for the weekend and she is beating herself up – “Why did I say yes?” She would call and cancel if he had a phone.
On the plus side, tips at the Shalimar are really good and the dancing is as energetic as you feel like – which means standing there swaying is Just Fine. You can rock yourself to sleep if you want to. Of course my ego won’t allow too much relaxation.
Piece of good news – agent loves my gothic! Reading The Royal Victorians. Gremlin seems stabilized so Avril applied for a job as a driver with a messenger service.

Fri. 18 June 76 ll:00 Am
A’s friend a complete bozo. Fortunately he has other places to be so we hardly see him. Huge sigh of relief and lesson learned. Let’s just hope he doesn’t steal the silver. DeeDee and I come to a Sad Parting of the Ways – her money too small, gas costs, etc.
A and I got a wonderful 3 bedroom in Chevy Chase on a charming little side street but the landlord very snooty about only 2 tenants. We said OK, OK. Big yard. I can have my dogs! Moving in July 5. Struggling with Christina Stead’s Puzzleheaded Girl. She is overrated. Maybe I can’t read fiction any more.

Fri 25 June 76 – Club Shalimar
Eating free scrambled eggs the cook gave me: “Somebody’s got to eat them” while waiting to go on. A lot of interesting men come into this place. None perfect obviously – and unfortunately I need more than perfection. I need mysticism. The owner seems to be something of a gangster. I got 2 standing ovations today.
The job is actually enjoyable. I am really getting into it – dancing for pleasure – for the connection with the audience. They stare spellbound like deer in the headlights. Feel like I’m living in a Simenon novel as I learn the ins and outs.
Avril loves her new job – thank God – they want her to do dispatch (no wear and tear on fragile Gremlin) and the drivers are all foreigners who don’t know the city. She’s always yelling at them to “Look out the car window and tell me what you see.”
Met the most charming little man – a TV director at a local station – speaks sign language, is a magician and a karate black belt, he’s just so full of joie de vivre. His name is Ryder and his excitement about me puts my non-relationship with Devon in a new light. Reading Meyer’s Ibsen.

December 12, 2022

In the Butterfly Pavilion

A Poem

IN THE BUTTERFLY PAVILION

This evening you said you wished

I was more conventional.

I bowed my head. I did not speak.

Outside the animals leaned together,

Breathing lightly; waiting

For my answer.

Cats-tongue ferns

Swelled up like swords, pushed out a stink

Occluding fields of vision while

The rabbit-bloodied lawn curled away.

Phlox flamed

Sows littered in the cyclamen

Dwarf stars broke free as

Frazzled molten ore raced across a sky

Darkening to night.

Summoning my power

My hands stay folded in my sleeves.

Nighttime is my kingdom.

December 11, 2022
#Haiku: Translation

What could you become?

#Haiku: Translation

What the caterpillar calls

“the end”

Universe calls

“a butterfly.”

December 10, 2022
Haunted by Emily…a play

The Last Scene

Scene 10

(The 1930’s. HOMESTEAD to the left, EVERGREENS still to the right but the DELL in between has vanished. Both houses look the worse for wear; HOMESTEAD sports a “For Sale” sign. Arms crossed, two young women in thirties clothing study one another. They are the actresses who played SUE and MABEL restored to youth…as their daughters, MATTIE and MILLICENT. MATTIE stands proudly on the EVERGREENS porch, surveying MILLICENT who tows a wheeled trunk plastered with travel and Ivy League stickers. EMILY tries to stick collapsed shingles back on the HOMESTEAD; they fall off of course)

EMILY
Sue! Sue! I meant to find her when I came
Death had the same design.
The success was his it seems
The surrender, mine.
I knew I lost her when remoteness traveled to her face and tongue.

(Grabs a broom)

The thrill came slowly – centuries delayed
Life is shorter than summer
Seventy years is spent. Sorrow is polite and stays.
We must be sweeping up the heart and putting love away. We shall not want to use it until eternity. Pain’s element of blank can’t recollect when it were not. It has no future but itself; infinity contain.

MATTIE
(Mockingly)

Leaving so soon, Mrs. Bingham?

MILLICENT
Goodbye, Mrs. Bianchi.

(Stresses the title.)

EMILY
(Sighs dispiritedly)

It is the Children’s Hour. Love that was meets love too best to be. Their junction is … eternity. Even a prison gets to be a friend.

MATTIE
I’m sorry you’ll miss the grand gala celebrating the publication of my book – Mama’s and mine. The Single Hound – Poems of a Lifetime.

(Sighs ecstatically)

EMILY
Did you ever read poems backwards, because the plunge at the front overturned you?

MILLICENT
You are obnoxious to the last degree, like all your family. Deliver me from “push”.

EMILY
Love is a loaded gun that grants the power to kill without the power to die. Girls, girls! Shall we laugh at this catastrophe?

MATTIE
Your history – insofar as you have one – is scandal, convictions and homelessness. You wouldn’t understand.

EMILY
Mattie, were revenge accessible, I would surely wreak it. Trust me. Revenge is an apparition. More prudent to assault the dawn.

MILLICENT
I understand that when one conveys the impression that the work one did is one’s own work when it is actually appropriated, one commits an act of piracy. When there is misrepresentation of facts it is falsehood, deception, perjury, fraud, deceit, sham, pretence, perfidy, distortion, invention, dishonesty, treachery, counterfeit, fiction, myth, humbug, hyperbole and swindle!

MATTIE
Your mother was no better than a common whore!

EMILY
Mattie, Mattie, you are royal! As there are apartments in our minds we never enter so we should respect the seals of others. Spirits rising too high inflate and feed on awe. You will never merit the ethereal scorn she evanesced.

MILLICENT
And what was your mother? I know all about her affair with Mr. Bowles, all the while she behaved so high and mighty! She was a vindictive –

(MATTIE Slams the door to avoid another recitation. A shingle falls off The EVERGREENS and its lights fade. MILLICENT drags her trunk a short distance, then opens it and sets up camp – a cabana-tent, folding table, campstool, etc. Ties a pennant reading “Purity & Wisdom” to the top of the cabana.)

MILLICENT
(Shouting in the direction of the EVERGREENS)

Vassar’s song was written by Edna St. Vincent Millay!

(Shouts the words)

Offended God of love and kindness
We have denied, forgotten thee,
Twisted, unlovely and obscure
Gifts we – er- hum-tum.

(Realizes the song is depressing and badly written plus she doesn’t remember it. Mutters sheepishly to herself)

Unfortunately Edna was expelled.

EMILY
(Stroking her hair)

Love’s transmigration becomes idolatry of family. This silence is infinity – it has no face. Absence disembodies just like death. Poor child.

MILLICENT
(Collapses on campstool, shoulders bowed, head down. Opens a notebook:)

Principles of Human Geography by Millicent Todd Bingham!

(Begins scribbling feverishly.)

EMILY
Oh, Child! We have at least a pair of lives. With tomorrow in the cupboard, who can hunger? We do not play on graves because there isn’t room! People come – they hang their faces so we’re fearing that their hearts will drop and crush our pretty play. And so we move as far as enemies away.

(Spotlight on MATTIE at her much more elaborate desk)

MATTIE
Dear Houghton Mifflin, As the sole heir of the Dickinson family in Amherst and holder of the Dickinson copyrights, I am preparing a volume of recently discovered poems by my aunt Emily Dickinson that were withheld from publication by her sister Lavinia …

EMILY
(Peering in the window)

Each age is a lens. Poets light a lamp; themselves go out. Light, Mattie. Light!

MILLICENT
(Writing a letter of her own)

Dear Houghton Mifflin, my mother Mabel Loomis Todd, editor of the four original volumes of poetry and letters of Emily Dickinson, is interested in publishing a further volume based on papers left her by Lavinia Dickinson in a will which has mysteriously disappeared… Fortunately mother is in possession of an original contract granting her half ownership of the published volumes –

(Gouges the paper so angrily it rips. Says in frustration)

MILLICENT
I feel I exist to do this. I am involved without question and I am glad to be.

EMILY
(Wandering sadly between the two of them)

Finding is the first act; the second is – loss. Absence of the witch does not invalidate the spell.

(Feigning an argument)

There is a megatherium among the strawberries! Your nettle stung my rose!

MATTIE
To the Trustees of Harvard College: I would be willing to meet with your literary curators who are interested in discussing the ultimate disposition of papers pertaining to my late, much revered aunt, the poet Emily Dickinson –

MILLICENT
To the Trustees of Amherst College: I would be very interested in discussing with you the acquisition and protection of my mother Mabel Loomis Todd’s papers. As you know she was a friend of the American poet Emily Dickinson as well as her first editor –

MATTIE
Mrs. Todd’s so-called “contract” is a draft copy prepared by herself. My aunt Lavinia’s papers makes no mention of Mrs. Todd’s contribution whatever and her contract states unequivocally that copyright resides solely in the Dickinson family…Patrimony! Patrimony, patrimony, patrimony!

EMILY
What about matrimony, bridalled and shrouded in a day? Longing is a seed that wrestles with the ground.

MILLICENT
(Addressing the audience)

Real hate is focused, waiting for vengeance. The emotion of hatred keeps the hater alive and vigorous. Hatred cannot continue unless the souls are kindred and the closer the likeness the more virulent the hatred.

EMILY
(Sighs)

I hope heaven is warm. There are so many barefoot ones. If a flower keeps its appointments, why should the heart be so tardy?

MATTIE
(Still writing – recites in a throbbingly romantic, thrilling voice)

In the witchery of an undreamed Southern spring Emily was overtaken – doomed forever by her own heart. It was instantaneous, overwhelming and impossible. Two predestined souls were only kept apart by her sense of the duty to preserve love untarnished by the destruction of another woman’s life…

(Throat catches on a sob)

EMILY
(Embattled)

Biography first convinces us of the fleeing of the biographed. She mistook a winged spark for lightning! Consummation is the hurry of fools; expectation the elixir of the Gods. Go slow my soul to feed itself! Love deferred will fade like … ice cream. Redemption – for a kiss!

MILLICENT
(Shouting in MATTIE’s direction)

The enclosed volume, Bolts of Melody, contains more than six hundred previously unknown poems by Emily Dickinson from my mother’s extensive private collection…

EMILY
Poor fatherless serpent!

MATTIE
Dear Houghton Mifflin, if you publish any volume of poems to which I hold the copyright I will sue!

EMILY
Here’s a pretty lawsuit! It is essential to the sanity of mankind that each should think the other crazy. Thus does spirit dialog with dust.

(MILLICENT and MATTIE speak at once)

MILLICENT
Dear Amherst College, In securing my treasure trove of Dickinson papers I seek an institution that will –

MATTIE
Dear Harvard College, In preventing further interference with the Dickinson copyrights I seek to leave them to an institution that will –

(They stop and glare at each other. EMILY throws up her hands)

EMILY
Heaven or hell? Think, Mattie! Character determines whether eternity be velocity or pause! Fundamental signals come from fundamental laws. The way is closed from where they came. The seconds pursue the centuries, the centuries pursue – eternity. A plank of balm is swallowed by the escapeless sea. My little force explodes and leaves me bare and charred.

(The two girls speak at the same time)

MILLICENT
Dear Harvard College – It is my intention to sue –

MATTIE
Dear Amherst College – It is my intention to sue –

EMILY
Only love can wound and only love can heal the wound. To have lost an enemy is almost more memorable than to find a friend.

MILLICENT
Ignoramus!

MATTIE
Upstart!

(They both clutch their chests and, miming heart attacks, sink floorward like marionettes. Emily tries to rouse them)

EMILY
Inter the docile ones – we will dare to live!

(It doesn’t work. Lights out on the girls. Alone, EMILY comes to sit at the edge of the stage)

EMILY
Can human nature survive without a listener? Life is but Life! And Death but Death! And Bliss is Bliss! And breath is breath! Death’s waylaying’s not the sharpest tool of time. There marauds a sorer robber – Silence is his name. The éclat of death is unknown renown. I don’t like paradise. I am not used to hope – I’d perish of delight. I never felt at home below, in the handsome skies I shall not feel at home, I know. I stand witness to the certainty of immortality – but – departing grace afflicts me with a double loss.
Is heaven a place – or sky or tree?
The dead have no geography
Abdication of belief makes behavior small.
Hope’s a subtle glutton!
Love is resurrection
Scooping up the dust and chanting, Live!
Take all away from me but leave me ecstasy!

(Coming close, peering into audience)

O, Master, master, is it you? Have you come to keep your promise to the sparrows who know how to starve or to shatter me with Dawn?

(Attempts to dismiss us)

Art thou the thing I wanted? Begone – my tooth has grown
Supply a minor palate that has not starved so long.
I tell thee while I waited the mystery of food
Increased till I abjured it and dine without – like God.

(Looks uneasily into the utter darkness behind her. There is nowhere to go. She is alone.)

What is earth but a nest from whose rim we are falling? I had a terror I could tell to none. Who knows how deep the heart is or how much it holds? Perhaps the balm seemed better because you bled me first. When did the dark happen? I thought I could play where sundown couldn’t find me. It would be comfort forever to look into your face and have you look in mine. Did you bring the little chest to keep the “alive” in? Heaven is so cold! It will never look kind to me if God, who causes all, denies such little wishes. Fabulous is the revelation that we shall hunger no more!

(Holds out her arms)

Life is the finest secret. So long as that remains, we must whisper.

(Whispers)

The only thing worth larceny is immortality.

(Closes her eyes to feel the darkness)

A love so big it scares me rushes in my breast. Master, open wide your life, and take me in forever! Sinew and snow in one, an avalanche of sun!

(Closer and closer to audience)

“It is finished” can never be said of us! Creator! May I bloom?

END

December 9, 2022
Haunted by Emily…a play

scene 9

(Curtain rises on a Massachusetts courtroom in the 1890’s. Judge seated at center; witness box directly beneath his high lectern, bleachers to left and right. Buzzing noises of excited crowd)

JUDGE
(Banging gavel)

We will have order in this court! Mr. Hammond, call your witness!

EMILY
(Pretends to bang the gavel too)

The Unknown is the largest need of the Intellect!

(Ruffling the JUDGE’s hair)

He fought like those who’ve naught to lose
But death was coy of him. He was left alive because
Of greediness to die!

(Purses his chubby cheeks as if he’s an infant. Of course he ignores her)

A little madness in the spring is wholesome even for the king!

HAMMOND
I call Miss Lavinia Dickinson to the stand.

(EMILY bangs the gavel)

EMILY
Grief is a mouse! Grief is a thief!

(VINNIE makes her way slowly to stage center. She is wearing a ridiculous hat trimmed with ridiculous homemade, home picked flowers.)

HAMMOND
State your name for the record.

(EMILY bangs the gavel)

EMILY
Grief is a juggler! Grief is a gourmand!

(Loud whispered aside to judge)

Anger soon as fed is dead. T’is starving makes it fat.

VINNIE
I am Miss Lavinia Dickinson of Amherst. I have always been Miss Lavinia Dickinson and I have always lived at the Dickinson Homestead in Amherst.

HAMMOND
Except when you lived at the Dickinson Mansion.

(EMILY bangs the gavel)

EMILY
There will be mourning, mourning, mourning at the judgment seat. The dangerous moment is when the meaning goes out of things.

VINNIE
Eh?

HAMMOND
Where you were born.

VINNIE
Well of course I was born!

EMILY
Tell the truth but tell it slant, little sister. The truth must dazzle gradually or every man be blind.

HAMMOND
Raise your right hand, Miss Dickinson. Clerk, Bible!

EMILY
Can dumb define divine?

VINNIE
Well naturally I keep my own Bible.

(Feels in her apparently endless bag)

It was Emily’s Bible, too.

(Excited sighs of crowd. VINNIE opens the Bible, and then bats at her face.)

EMILY
Laid away, I’d hoped, where moth cannot corrupt. It was a subtle moth, in its mothy way.

HAMMOND
Do you solemnly swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

VINNIE
(Triumphantly shaking the Bible)

I do indeed!

(Holds it to her chest)

EMILY
Truth is old as God; his twin identity. Excess of Monkey, Vinnie! As Father used to say!

HAMMOND
Now Miss Dickinson, are you accustomed to business and taking care of your own property?

VINNIE
Not in the slightest. Mr. Hills always acts for me.

HAMMOND
Miss Dickinson; is this your signature on this document?

VINNIE
No.

(Sensation.)

VINNIE
That is to say, it’s my autograph.

EMILY
Vinnie, Vinnie! Up from the pit you spoke!

HAMMOND
Do you recall the occasion of giving this autograph?

VINNIE
I have been very painfully reminded.

EMILY
Whether she has forgotten or is forgetting now or never remembered it is safer not to know. Miseries of conjecture are a softer woe than is a fact of iron!

HAMMOND
You invited Mrs. Todd to the house?

VINNIE
(sniffs)

I never invited her. She was in the habit of coming to copy my sister’s poems. They needed to be copied. My sister’s is a very difficult hand.

HAMMOND
But on this occasion of which we speak did she bring with her a gentleman?

VINNIE
Between seven and eight in the evening. She brought a friend to hear about my late sister. He so cherished her memory.

EMILY
What a prank of the heart! We met as sparks – diverging flints subsisting on the light we bore before we felt the dark!

HAMMOND
Did you give him an autograph?

VINNIE
She asked me to sign a paper. I do not recall Mr. Spaulding speaking to me on the subject. He did not point to the seal where I should sign; Mrs. Todd pointed to it, and I signed. That is all that I remember about it.

HAMMOND
(Triumphantly)

Witness is dismissed!

HAMLIN
(Defense Attorney steps forward)

One moment. Miss Dickinson. A few more questions if you please.

(VINNIE subsides back into her seat.)

Mrs. Todd frequented your house, did she not, to assist you with your late sister’s papers?

VINNIE
She asked for the privilege of doing it.

EMILY
(Shivering at his silky voice)

Zero at the bone! It must be cold because the trees shiver. The leaves are gay, but elderly. Nature gives us all her love – but science will not trust us with another world.

HAMLIN
Wasn’t the transfer of this tiny – this disputed strip of land – a strip directly fronting Mrs. Todd’s residence – understood to be her recompense for the arduous labors of preparing your sister’s books for the press?

VINNIE
No.

HAMLIN
No?

VINNIE
Isn’t that business? Mr. Hills takes care of all my business. That’s settled and gone.

(Washes her hands)

EMILY
A word is dead when said some say. I say it just began to live that day. An unsifted girl, I thought that words were cheap and weak. Now I can’t conceive of anything so mighty. They glow like sapphires.

JUDGE
Excuse me, Mr. Hamlin, but the Defendant responded in her Defendant’s answer that Mr. Austin Dickinson wished her to be compensated, not Miss Dickinson. Therefore the issue of compensation is quite irrelevant to this case.

He that is robbed and smiles, steals from the thief.

HAMLIN
Call Mrs. Todd as a witness!

(VINNIE bustles away, clutching her Bible. MABEL is elegantly, fashionably, glamorously dressed, a ship under full sail. Mr. HAMLIN proffers her a Bible)

HAMLIN
Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God?

MABEL
Naturally.

(Settles into her seat like a burrowing dove with gloves, veil, the whole bit)

JUDGE
Speak up, Mrs. Todd!

EMILY
It’s a rare ear that’s not too dull to hear. Your judgeship, this woman’s constitution requires stolen fruit. Perfidy were more genuine.

HAMLIN
You considered yourself a friend to the Dickinson sisters?

MABEL
I did. They were sadly housebound – Miss Emily entirely so. I offered myself up unto their service.

HAMMOND
(Rising up and chiming dangerously in)

You knew Miss Emily?

EMILY
Not precisely knowing and not precisely knowing not. We talked about each other though neither of us spoke.

MABEL
(An uneasy laugh – sounds like she’s lying)

I saw her flitting. I heard her. She was a recluse, as you know.

(Gathering confidence, trying to work the crowd)

She was never seen in church.

EMILY
Divulging why I shunned them would rest my heart but ravage theirs. Doesn’t anybody notice how wide and broad these church aisles are? It took hours afterwards to catch my breath. A lonesome glee will sanctify the mind. The cricket is earth’s utmost elegy to me.

HAMMOND
You spoke to her?

MABEL
We corresponded. She spoke to me.

HAMMOND
You spoke to her?

MABEL
Words! I never spoke to her.

(HAMMOND turns away satisfied)

EMILY
The only commandment I ever obeyed is “consider the lilies.” I could not bear to live aloud! It may puzzle the public exceedingly but my hard-heartedness gets me many prayers.

HAMLIN
(Resuming control, Ostentatiously reverent)

And Emily is gone.

EMILY
“Forever” is deciduous except to those who die. Sir, I have been introducing myself to planets.

HAMLIN
And following Emily’s death you received property from the Dickinsons? Property on which to build your house?

MABEL
Right next door to the Homestead! Within hail of the Evergreens! Naturally.

EMILY
(Mockingly)

Ah, the hollow awfulness of the world! Nothing’s so stale as yesterday’s surprise!

HAMMOND
(Interrupting – attacking)

And what did you pay for this property?

MABEL
(Produces a lace handkerchief – works it)

Oh, I don’t recall.

EMILY
We’d flee from memory – if we had wings.

MABEL
It was all arranged between my husband and Mr. Dickinson.

HAMMOND
Isn’t the deed in your name?

EMILY
Ah! Revelation is the seed of romance! How luscious is the dripping of February! It makes our thinking pink. I’m amazed that the fascination of our predicament does not entice us more.

MABEL
Everything is as Mr. Dickinson and Mr. Todd wished.

EMILY
Modesty befits the soul that wears another’s name.

HAMMOND
So it is fair to say no cash money exchanged hands?

MABEL
Of course no money changed hands! I was helpful – merely.

HAMLIN
(Attempting to resume control)

As would a generous lady act.

MABEL
A generous, generous lady. Quite.

HAMMOND
Offering what services in specific, if I may inquire?

MABEL
I was the only one to comprehend dear Emily’s uniquely gnomic poesies.

HAMMOND
Gnomic?

EMILY
(Crossing her arms)

Resurrection had to wait until they moved a stone

MABEL
Mystic. It was left up to me to explain her to the world from which she shut herself off.

EMILY
Believing what we don’t believe does not exhilarate. I dwell in possibility –a fairer house than prose. Gathering paradise in my narrow hands.

(Attempts to dance with Mr. Hammond)

Mortality is fatal; gentility is fine, rascality heroic,
Insolvency, sublime!

MABEL
(Modestly)

It was I who saw every one of Emily’s books through the press!

HAMMOND
Wasn’t that after Mr. Austin Dickinson died? But while Mr. Dickinson lived –

EMILY
Wild nights! Wild nights! Republic of delight!

(MABEL breaks out in noisy sobbing)

EMILY
I like a look of agony because I know its true.

HAMMOND
(Pressing)

Did Miss Dickinson tell you she has a man of business?

MABEL
Well of course I know Mr. Hills! I dine with Mr. Hills regularly! And his mother! A true lady! The sweetest –

EMILY
The sincere spite of the woman, rocking truth to sleep!

HAMMOND
Why did you bring your own man of business to a business meeting when Mr. Hills was absent?

MABEL
Mr. Spaulding is not my man of business!

HAMMOND
Then who is he?

MABEL
(Feeling in her purse for a document)

Mr. Spaulding is a Northampton attorney who was recommended to me as a witness for a very minor transfer of land.

(Produces document with great relief.)

I have his deposition here.

HAMMOND
And I have the disputed document here. It’s in your handwriting I see.

MABEL
It’s just a tiny strip of land! Six hundred feet by –

HAMMOND
Did Miss Dickinson inspect the property?

MABEL
(Nonplussed)
Inspect it! Emily’s meadow? On a freezing night!

HAMMOND
How was Mr. Spaulding compensated?

MABEL
Mr. Spaulding? Er – it was a gentleman’s favor.

HAMMOND
A gentleman’s favor?

MABEL
(Confused. Looks to HAMLIN for assistance.)

A lady’s favor.

EMILY
Now, that’s a bundle of nonsense!

HAMMOND
Had you ever met Mr. Spaulding before?

MABEL
He wished to see the poet’s house!

EMILY
Ah, the enchantless Pod! The suburbs of a secret a strategist should keep. Better on a dream intrude than scrutinize the sleep.

HAMMOND
And that favor was within your gift?

MABEL
Within my gift? No. But I was so often in attendance on dear Miss Vinnie.

HAMMOND
On Miss Lavinia Dickinson?

MABEL
Exactly. We were such great friends.

EMILY
My only friend was my lexicon.

HAMMOND
Wasn’t it Mr. Dickinson on whom you danced attendance?

EMILY
Sir! You are shallow intentionally and profound by accident!

HAMMOND
(MABEL’s mouth drops open.) Call Maggie Maher to the stand.

EMILY
Ah, Maggie! Maggie is a warm name, as home is the definition of God.

(MABEL rushes away sobbing, seats herself unobtrusively in the audience. Garbed in a simple shawl MAGGIE steps up holding her out Bible.)

HAMMOND
Do you swear –?

MAGGIE
I swear no oaths. I’ve never lied in my life. I’ve got my own Bible here – a present from the Dickinson sisters.

HAMMOND
You are maid of all work for Miss Lavinia Dickinson at the Homestead?

MAGGIE
So I am.

HAMMOND
You know Mrs. Todd?

MAGGIE
(A world of disapproval)

I do.

HAMMOND
You admitted her to the house?

MAGGIE
Mr. Dickinson admitted her. Mr. Austin Dickinson. After that she let her own self in. Sometimes they would take a whole day out in the carriage and ask me to put up a lunch. I always put one up. He sent her messages at any hour of the day or night, and I had to carry them.

(Sensation)

EMILY
Oh, Maggie! Remorse is memory awake! Departed acts are a cureless disease!

HAMMOND
Did Mrs. Todd give you a reply?

MAGGIE
Only to say, “Tell the Master I am always ready.”

(Wild buzzing of crowd. JUDGE stirs uneasily.)

HAMMOND
Did Mrs. Todd discuss any business arrangements of compensation for editorial work in your hearing?

MAGGIE
She talked about it all the time. She called it a “labor of love”.

HAMMOND
You knew Mrs. Todd had received a piece of land to build her house?

MAGGIE
(Crossing her arms disapprovingly)

I did. Mr. Dickinson arranged that in spite of everyone. Mrs. Dickinson was ever so grieved.

EMILY
Oh, Maggie, Maggie! You had better starch the geraniums!

HAMMOND
Did you see Mr. Dickinson and Mrs. Todd together?

MAGGIE
She embraced him. She called him “my King” and “you dear old man.”

(Sniffs)

But they were together alone behind closed doors most of the time. While poor Mrs. Dickinson was closed up in mourning for her son.

EMILY
I watched her face to see which way
She took the awful news.
Whether she died before she heard
Or in a protracted bruise.

HAMMOND
(Bringing us back on track – speaks to the audience with satisfaction)

While Mrs. Todd and Mr. Dickinson were alone together behind closed doors at the Homestead?

(Crowd gasps. Lynch mob noises. MAGGIE nods.)

MAGGIE
Hours at a time. That’s what their consciences allowed them.

EMILY
Ah, the smitings of conscience! If there’s one thing to be grateful for, it’s that one is oneself and not somebody else. Faithful to mystery. The rest is perjury!

JUDGE
(Banging gavel)

I am ready to rule!

HAMLIN
But your honor –

EMILY
Bring out the stocks and the long-lashed whip! If your nerve denies you, go above your nerve! Can there more than love and death? Tell me its name!

JUDGE
I am ready to rule! Where testimonies are irreconcilable, one must look at habits of life. Miss Dickinson, a gentlewoman of sixty years, lives alone with her maid in the house her grandfather built, and was very quiet, and of a retiring disposition. She knows nothing of the world or of business and her testimony gives a sufficiently clear picture of the refinement of her life and the urgency, secrecy and misrepresentation of the defendant.

MABEL
(Rising)

Oh!

JUDGE
On the other hand the defendant is very much a woman of the world. She has not spent her life in seclusion in this little town of Amherst. She has the business experience of extensive travel as a public lecturer.

MABEL
Oh!

EMILY
Two swimmers wrestled on a spar
Until the morning sun
When one turned smiling to the land –
Oh God! The other one!

JUDGE
Clear case of fraud and so I rule! Deed is voided, land is returned, Defendant to pay costs. Court dismissed!

EMILY
Eyes in death still begging – raised
And hands beseeching, thrown!

(Watches participants file out.)

How happy was I, could I forget how sad I am.

(Lights out.)

December 8, 2022

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#Haiku: Translation