The Pure List and the Commentary

The pure list

The alarm clock invented the day

Savana the evil scientist

I loved you in blouses

It's the laundry ringing

Your bra was so flimsy

Albert Hotel sixth floor

A shoe box of drugs

I looked for you in the audience

Lie down forever in the Photomat

Your sister has blond hair

Does Perception work

Do you say zero or oh

Very few people have thighs

Etc.

The commentary

1. The alarm clock invented the day. Luckily the glass was

broken and I could twist the black moustaches. They

turned into angry black whips tethered to a screw in the

middle of a sundial, writhing to get free.

2. Savana the evil scientist, foe of Captain Marvel and the

entire Marvel family, I summon you from your migrating

Mosaic grave. Tireless worker! If I must lose, let me lose

like thee!

3. I loved you in blouses. I rubbed sun-tan lotion on your

back and other parts. I did this in all seasons. I loved you

in old-fashioned garters. I wanted to make a brown photo-

graph about you and pass it around cloakrooms. I would

have snatched it away from someone and beat up hisface.

4. It's the laundry ringing, ringing, ringing. It's a lovely

sound for a Saturday morning, n'est-ce pas? The delivery

boy has no place else to go. He is of a different race. Per-

haps he's looked through my shirts. I think these people

know too much about us.

5. Your bra was so flimsy and light, just a tantalizing formal-

ity. I thought it would die in my pocket like a corsage.

6. Albert Hotel sixth floor seven thirty p.m. On the scratched

table I set out in a row a copper bust of Stalin, a plaster of

paris bust of Beethoven, a china jug shaped like Winston

Churchill's head, a reproduction of a fragment of the True

Cross, a small idol, a photograph of a drawing of the

Indian Chief Pontiac, hair, an applicator used for artificial

insemination. I undressed and waited for power.

7. A shoe box of drugs. Isn't this carrying deception too far?

Where will you keep your shoes ?

8. I looked for you in the audience when I delivered the

Memorial Lecture. Ladies and Gents, the honour is the

same but the pleasure is somewhat diminished. I had

expected, I had hoped to find among your faces a face

which once -- No, I have said too much. Let me continue.

The pith of plant stems, the marrow of bones, the cellular,

central, inner part of animal hair, the medulla oblongata

... I exposed these fine minds to bravery, Etc.

-Leonard Cohen-