-- For Gertrude Stein. For Simone de Beauvoir.
Once upon a time there was a girl born into 1954 and a family and later she hid behind a Jean Harlow mask. She sat at home a lot because she suffered from an ever fever, a fever that ever made her want to paint or create and the others would never understand the ever fever. Then she decided to let her eyebrows grow back and she sat at home a lot because there was ever the ever fever and never would it go away, ever.
She sat at home alone because at least when she was Jean Harlow there was the mask and she was not alone. But with her eyebrows she was just plain her with eyebrows alone.
The girl wanted to sing a song, an alone song amid the dimness of alone, because of the ever fever. But she could never. Never could she sing the alone song, but if she could have done, this is how it would have gone and how she alone could have sung it:
Alone, oh, yes, I am aloneThat is the song she would have sung.
in the large moments past midnight.
I am alone with only my eyebrows
and the ever fever
alone and hurting because of all the songs
I cannot sing.
Oh, yes, I cannot sing of how alone.
Oh, yes, oh, no.
The girl grew sadder and one day while looking into a reddish dish she decided that everything that was painted should just as well be unpainted, and that is what she did. She unpainted. Never would the ever fever cease, so ceaseless was the ever fever, so she unpainted. All things seen and unseen, were unpainted, bending and unbending, being and unbeing. When all was folded into the whole she wanted to sing, but never could she sing, ever. If she could have sung, this is the song that would have been:
All being unpainted,If she could have sung, that is the song she would have sung. As it was, she left it unsung and folded down the whole.
the song, the eyebrows,
the chairs,
I sit on the mountain
and sing of the unbeen, the unbeing
the unseen, the unseeing.
Never will the ever fever
cease, so ceaseless the sweet
ever fever
so I will paint and create.
All unpainted
All unbeing.
Ever the fever,
never the ever fever
ceases.
