my body I'm trying to reach my body I can see it It's across the road Stacked on the pyre My body is burning I can see my green dolly shoes and brown hair All mussed up How I don't know It's chaos here I can smell my musky perfume or is it the sanguine flame 

o how I am ravenous My body O my body How we two shall sing like birds in a cage Like strangers in the night

CORDELIA lights a candle
she becomes accustomed to her surroundings

I am constantly trying to expose the fraudulence of those in charge Ein wort noch wie dies und die hämmer schwingen im freien Will somebody out there please help me All the birds have been released from the sky's tender embrace The zoo is now empty And everything smells of urine and straw I am hungry for a narrative I detect more than one voice here I detect a feeling of nausea in my belly

I'm trying to find out exactly where this war is located but it's destination unknown The streets read like the indexes of the undesirables laid bare

my mother They never gave her a name Eviscerated by the law of the Father Dark musty womb unknown Even the page cannot help me

pause

buzz buzz buzz 

my words excavate through the skin Through the Flesh Through the juice The centres are falling away

o the lulling love of the small gilded fly

buzz buzz buzz 

I am in search of the seed

pause

my body once had a lover Yes My love's more ponderous than my tongue My body would lie in the embrace of The Other And how I liked to be held My breasts my altar My vulva my receptacle There is nothing the hand can hold now Even full it is empty How the seed passes through 

I am constantly trying to expose the fraudulence of those in charge Can anybody hear me How the bombs negate the blackness of sinning People and dogs fuck and shit on the streets in lanes in alleyways by the canals

I reach out into the darkness 

pause

I reach for the seed from which the elm springs forth The seed that leaks from the core of the fruit The seed embedded within all memories and all moments

o father Lear you are wedged in the futile corridor linking the limpid text and nothingness O father Lear how your cock has been trussed up with barbed wire Yes Nothing comes of nothing Yes Yes Yes Libraries have ordained thee a member of the gilded circle 

what meaning can my body lend to these moans To this desecrated history To the veracity of feeling

I open my hands thus 

the words leap across the ages

pause

whenever there is a white powder there are some who say it's poison but I know the truth It's the dust of ground human bones There is a war on after all The churches have been emptied Signifiers annihilate each other and themselves And so even the ashes of nuns are now buoyant

it's alight now My body My red dress is up in flames I could be the revelation A spectacle of fireworks All on my own My body combusts No No No It is the work of the hallowed men whose faces are implacable It is the will of the matrices that are long gone underground With their mechanistic alphabets and congratulatory smiles How I thank the gods that I am innumerate 

from across the street I watch my fruits and my flowers burn

pause

I am constantly trying to expose I am I am constantly trying I am constantly trying to expose the fraudulence of those in charge

how the text is corrupt

CORDELIA throws fist-fulls of grain

I beg you Rescue me and there will be plentiful gifts Please For these seeds are an immeasurable currency Or you will be forsaken

mama Mama Ma Ma O my body Two nameless characters banished from the weave of the words I hold in my hand Yes I clutch at my heart in the black From across the street I watch my body burn Help me Someone Help O I cannot pleasure myself For my body is burning on the pyre On the other side of the street 

my body cannot be beatified

pause

ah If I could catch a butterfly in my hand I would pin it to my dress O stars watch me stars as I struggle I have not been granted permission to speak

the empire hath not the power to assuage the pain in the orphans' distended bellies My father is a beastly apparition I curtsy in deference I will give everything I own

I have dreamt that I held my womb in my hands It was like small balloon filled with crimson blood Which seeped through my fingers Down the length of my arms Past my belly Down my leg To my feet Between my toes and into my soul In this play all the doors have been locked and the mirrors removed

my mouth is open to the darkness

I am hungry for cleanliness

I despise all that which is flesh

buzz buzz buzz

pause

three soldiers approach my body on the other side of the street Are they holding daggers or guns or syringes Yes They wield their cocks They wield their words No No No Small hungry worms trapped by their pants 

buzz buzz buzz

the fat one says I am your brother Puts it in my mouth The tall blonde one opens my blouse and brushes my breast with his hand Is this the apocalypse that was prophesied by the ancients Blondie lets his cigarette fall Mama if only you had a name I could call out to you Crawl out to you The third one rests his gun on the inside of my thigh They say all's fair in love and war The touch of the barrel is cool Mama Mama Mama

the animal cries intensify

did Merlin clasp his heart when this grotesque vision floated to the surface of the crystal ball Did Teiresias lie on the sand and offer himself to the circling vultures because of this heinous scene Did Cassandra persist with her unmitigated cries What say thee soothsayer

I am constantly trying to expose the fraudulence of those in charge

buzz buzz buzz

the one that says he is my brother grunts and moans in a language I have never heard before The third man is whistling Father Son Holy ghost There is seed spilling from my lips Holy Holy Holy From between my legs now Seed and blood Mama mama mama My body has been raped by the holy trinity My openings bow under the pressure of the monstrous torrent No No No No No Stop Subject-in-the-making Stop Hallelujah heavenly hosts My blood blackened the waters at Troy And they tell me Rome was a wilderness of tigers

I cannot bear this

pause

the trinity push my body down into the pile 

I see myself sink

there will be no redemption

the future will not come to pass

pause

there is more than a wall separating me from my body

pause

it sounds as though someone is coming

undone Done up Hello Hello Is there someone out there Are you the resistance fighters If only I was shot through with light I am constantly trying to expose the fraudulence I can see flares in the distance Hello Are you the one Could you be the revolution Ah Yes Hello It's me You know me It's Cordelia Could I be perhaps The one You are looking for Can you tell me where we are Hello No I am not Philomela I am still in possession of my tongue

pause

I am constantly I am looking for my body I am constantly looking for my body I am constantly trying to expose the fraudulence of those in charge I am in search of the seed

buzz buzz buzz

CORDELIA begins to fill the suitcase with seed

hello Ah Yes This must be the empire of the senseless And the men who are in charge are humdrum men indeed Hello Hello Babies are born behind wire Babies are born dead Where is the script This is not necessary You know it all We cannot make out their faces Hello I'm losing you Yes Only a god could institute unity here

once upon a time We interrogated those with the power What The line here is bad At the same time we are unsure of who these people are exactly But they ransom language to satiate their lust for power Yes it's Cordelia And their abundance of wealth bleeds into the abstract O what use is the name I have been given

I am rorting the tower of Babel of bricks and packing them into my suitcase I am not Cordelia My suitcase is heavy and all the words it contains are indecipherable I am not Cordelia Is the seed the only measure of reality left O father Lear did you see my breath on the mirror before you died I am not Cordelia I do not know where this war is located Das namengeben hat ein ende über dich werf ich mein schicksal For I am not Cordelia

pause

how the angels float in brine

pause

my body lies across the street 

I cannot talk to it

I yearn for closure that will not come

blackout
 
 

Notes

Ein Wort noch, wie dies, und die Hämmer
schwingen im Freien
[One more word like this, and the hammers 
will swing over open ground]
from 'Blume', (Flower).

*

Das Namengeben hat ein Ende,
über dich werf ich mein Schicksal.
[There's an end to the giving of names,
over you I cast my fate.]