Date:         Sat, 25 Oct 2003 16:12:39 -0700
From: Palafax Solipsigossa <solipsis@HEVANET.COM>
Subject: Vortex[t] Sh[r]edding
To: WRYTING-L@LISTSERV.UTORONTO.CA

Vortex[t] Sh[r]edding: combing "factishes" (faitiches)*

it was sometime after they had made her mothwoman
this moken seagypsy woman of the mergui islands
they had taken in another kind of squall called kawthaung
that they would first bring out the heavy cape
of brightly colored furs, feathers, moths, and tiny bright green votive
boots,
tiny crude glass bats, and a heavy red coral rod across the shoulders in
which
was scrawled in rough cunieform:
NIN-GIRIMMA, ONE CONCERNING SICK INNER PARTS
the 9 grimmers lined up on deck in soot paste with the leather sack
in which was held the antideluvian jaw-bone aeolian lyre crown
the pulleys were oil'd with palm wine and donkey semen
the firefly lanterns were hung from the pitched totem-mast
the 9 grimmers cryed out faire-faire, faire-faire, faire-faire
and then from a wooden hutch carved from a teak burl
from a wooden hutch which looked like a deformed new-born
the hollow-clay livers full of ants were brought out
and the blind albino aardvarks
and the livers were smashed on deck
and the drinking began
the moken mothwoman was hoisted up the pitchtotem
tied by knotted orchid rope from the manus
the storm was licking up the edges of the sea
the 9 grimmers dumped the cauldrons of coals into the churning waters
and the strings of the jawbone crown began to sing
the mothwoman's face was twisted into a smirk, her tongue lolled
and she laughed, seeing only a waterfall of tiny lizards
the face of the approaching storm, the face of fog
lit from within by the motherjunk, its great spidery pontoon legs
like rapt medusans in tribadic ectstasies
attracting silver tokens
like moths to a lantern



*from somewhere in the corpus of Bruno Latour