No. 166 - Harold Bloom and the Boring Orgy of Umbrellas

It’s almost midnight and I’m listening to Harold Bloom talk about Gore Vidal

This indulgence of mine is the source of enormous joy

Mr. Bloom’s voice tickles my brainstem…

like

I’m

lying

on

chaise

longue

in an analyst’s office…

in a cul-de-sac off 10th street in Greenwich Village…in fashionable Patchin Place…in a rowhouse where E.E. Cummings lived

Through the window of the second floor I see a gas lamp…

And I’m smoking a Camel…

a glass ashtray lies on my chest…

the delicate sound of crackling tobacco brings peace…

I inhale…deeply…my stomach i n f l a t e s…elevating the ashtray…

I exhale through chapped winter lips…

clouds of gray smoke fog up a popcorn ceiling

In the corner is a brass canister that holds a collection of English umbrellas…polished maple crooks tangled in a boring orgy

On a wall are diplomas from Penn and Bowdoin…framed in mahogany…covered in dust

The room smells of old books and antiques…musty but comfortable…I grew up rummaging through antique shops in small coastal towns

On a coat rack hangs a tweed jacket…with the slouched shoulders of an octogenarian…

burgundy…olive…mustard…and pumpkin hues woven together…a cornucopia of autumn colors with a cotton handkerchief falling out of the breast pocket

Keys to a Porsche lay on the coffee table…next to a red Swiss Army knife

My right foot is crossed over my left foot…torn Levis…leather belt…plaid flannel…someone else’s mittens

A collection of William Blake books are on a metal shelf…next to a Folgers can full of dull pencils

I’m comfortable…I don’t care to talk…I want to smoke cigarettes…I have nowhere to go and nothing to do

Yet I am not there…I am here…listening to Bloom tickle my cerebellum