Breton's Last Treasure

Beautiful as the chance meeting
On a dissecting table
Of a sewing machine and
An umbrella.
(Le Comte De Loutrémont)

        Brest, Brittany, beset by woes tenfold and a yellow satchel the great lemur Andre Breton has departed inwards. And upwards. At his request three men were invited to a mock house (shed) within a clock’s dock to view his last treasure. The house, made of slanted wood stood straight. Its walls blue and its windows curtainless. Though, they could not see inside. The house didn’t wish to give an early glimpse. The roof, made of gold painted red, glistened with dew.
        Outside three men approached. The Duke, Aragon, clean shaven and prim; though hardly proper, stroked his beard to ponder the house. Beside him, the lacy Antonin, le Comte de Froufrou# as some would bray. The third, a bent tower, Isidore, no fallen king smitten with a ring; or so he would profane. The fourth, the host, Le Tarrant, waited outside; pink velvet socks upon his hand; lest he scratch the door peasant#.
        “Ladies, gents, do come in and see the house of Andre Breton.”
        Inside it was spacious and all stairwells. They led the host throughout whilst looking through their kaleidoscopes. “Desist. Don’t be so childish.” Le Tarrant condemned. “Go onwards to his study room.”
        The room was packed full of Andre’s collectables. All were surprised. Especially the ghostly Isidore. His flesh faded not to bone though it tried. After a while their eyes fell upon something in the centre, upon a rug of twined armpit hair.

Death to the pigs.
(Benjamin Peret)

        Oppressed, litany, mind set to calculate. The room contained at its centre a green wicker chair. Upon which a table was becalmed. Le Tarrant smiled and followed them around the table upon a chair. “Look, see, which of these is the last treasure of Andre Breton?”
        A table leg sat upon the table. Surrounded as it was by more curious affairs. A miniature field of charcoal black grass swaying to the undulations of the Earth’s iron core. Two lumps of unfired clay or figurines dubbed Mr. Knife and Mrs. Fork. Both of which had a daylight like resemblance to René Crevel’s aunt Irene. “Can’t!” Aragon declared.
        To which Antonin nodded. “Figurines? Cutlery? I think not. They could be lumps of ore found in an oven and stamped upon by a dinosaur.”
        “I agree.” Isidore smiled as he traced his fingers around exhibit three. “Great wads of vellum piled high upon which sits a pot of ink, quill dipped, not feeling the pea beneath.”
        He said it how he saw it. Though only he could see the pea. And then the fourth or first, a terribly ornate table leg. Antonin nearly fainted at its sight. “A thing poisoned by the hand. So well crafted with hours of pollution. Bind me! It is totally displeasing to my sense of the automatique.”
        Until then silent, Le Tarrant, gestured with his socks. “Ladies, make a choice. You have no friends to phone, no audience and no juxtaposition to halven your odds. So what will it be? Vellum and ink, clay figurines, black grass, ore, a carved tree?”
 

Reviews

[John Lauterbach]

I love all the words you use for this piece, and I'm almost sure I understand what's happening - but the arrangement is quite disorienting.