Danse Macabre 2019 Artist-in-Residence

Mercedes Webb-Pullman

Wine, Women, and Songs

 

 

some Bessie blues (for Jan)

 

Beale Street blue Mama blue

standin' in the rain blue

aggravatin' Papa blue

me and my gin blue

 

eavesdropper blue

thinking blue

there’ll be a hot time blue

Alexander’s rag time blue

 

see if I'll care blue

outside of that blue

ain’t nobody’s business blue

dirty no-gooder blue

 

keep it to yourself blue

my sweetie went away blue

oh Daddy blue

I've got what it takes blue

 

do your duty blue

you've got to give me some blue

I'm wild about that thing blue

baby won't you please come blue

 

put it right here blue

baby doll blue

mean old bedbug blue

squeeze me blue

 

St. Louis gal blue

Chicago bound blue

worn out Papa blue

yellow dog blue

 

young woman blue

bleeding hearted blue

whoa Tillie take your time blue

cake walking babies blue

 

blue spirit blue

at the Christmas ball blue

nobody knows you when you’re blue

rocking chair blue reckless blue

 

back water blue bo’weavil blue

muddy water blue safety blue

Gulf Coast blue hard time blue

careless love blue

 

don't cry baby blue

gimme a pigfoot blue

send me to the 'lectric chair blue

yodeling blue

 

my man blue poor man blue

preachin’ the blues blue

lost your head blue

Sam Jones blue

 

empty bed blue

Mama's got the blues blue

graveyard dream blue

Devil's gonna get you blue

 

a good man is hard to find blue

I ain't got nobody blue

down hearted blue

cemetery blue

 

 

Jane Bowles

 

If I still wrote it would be of you
Cherifa. You in the black niqab
and sunglasses, you in my bed,
wanton as Tangier’s cracked black

nights. My tropical illness.

 

Fever. The room fills with bugs, bats,

empty bottles; parasitical elevators

lead to the desert. The wind wild-imp-nervous.
The derangement of salvation.

You place spells, blood, in my houseplants.
Small skeletons and knots. You bring drums
from the medina. I shall suffer.
 

Detachment, starvation under sheltering 
sky. My head stopped ticking. Self-indulgent
decadence, more kif, more gin. The Indian
trying not to look at me. 

For years, Paul, for years and years I forged
my own hammer and nails.
You eclipsed me.

 

 

Cleopatra’s suicide soliloquy
 

A cooler evening breeze brings
tatters of music, battle cries;
my final night in Alexandria.

Pan abandoned Anthony;

he died, just now, as I held him.
His gods all are fickle. I am Isis.

My life lies behind me, a tapestry;

queen and goddess, mother and wife,

twice lover of Imperial Rome.

Smoke shrouds the lighthouse,

light glows along the quay, like

the night Caesar fired our ships,

 

bright against a reddened sky.
Loud with battle, the crowd.
I strain to hear
 

last echoes of one exquisite tune
that curls and floats, fragile as ash
through the air.

your lover was here, now he's leaving

This is my punishment;
to be aware of time’s paradox
so at this moment
 

all possible moments exist
except Mark Anthony,

turning back. I face

only endless night, as the sound

of my lover, leaving forever,

slowly fades away.

 

 

Coco

 

Although I couldn’t sing a note in tune

it wasn’t for my voice they filled the room.

Life’s easier when wealthy friends can help

with details. Power loosens knots as well.

An orphan, convent raised, I stayed alive

with thread and scissors, lucky number five.

 

A wealthy lover passed me to his friend,

debauched aristocratic Englishman

who set me up in Paris. Luxury

soon put to flight the nun’s frugality.

 

As miliner, society knew me,

then suits and dresses, perfume, jewelery,

as I moved on to conquer Russian Dukes,

composers, dancers, artists, Ballet Russe,

the Prince of Wales, young Churchill, Picasso,

and Goldwyn (though I hated Jews). Garbo

and Dietrich best of Hollywood’s sparse fare,

its vulgar unrefined vin ordinaire.

 

I introduced Visconti to Renoir,

drank Brut champagne at noon in my pegnoir,

indulged in reverie with Revardy,

designed a double meaning with Iribe

and took a spy as lover, military

intelligence that keep me in the Ritz

for war’s duration. Purgers had to quit

when Cooper intervened. If not, maybe

I’d have my head shaved. That could ruin me, 

the empire I’d amassed. Someone stepped in

but to protect investments, or for friend

I never knew. White petals wilted on

black dresses, death and romance, siren song.

 

For almost eighty years my Number Five

has kept the scent of women vibrant, live

inside exquisite costly glass, remote

from time, and age; a melting winter note.

 

 

 

Mercedes Webb-Pullman graduated from the International Institute of Modern Letters, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand with her MA in Creative Writing. She is the author of Tasseography (2014) Track Tales (Truth Serum Press, 2017) and The Jean Genie (Hammer & Anvil Books, 2018). Her poems, and the odd short story, have appeared online (Bone Orchard Poetry, Caesura, Connotations, Danse Macabre, The Electronic Bridge, 4th Floor, Main Street Rag, Otoliths, Reconfigurations, Scum, Swamp, Pure Slush, Turbine, among others) and in print (Mana magazine, Poets to the People; Poetry from Lembas Cafe 2009, The 2010 Readstrange Collection, PoetryNZ Yearbook, many anthologies from Kind of a Hurricane Press, and the Danse Macabre anthologies Amour Sombre, Belles-Lettres, Hauptfriedhof, and Weihnachtsmarkt (Hammer & Anvil Books, 2017 & 2018). She has also won the Wellington Cafe Poetry contest in 2010, and wrote a foreword for their collection of 2012 contest entrants, which included another of her poems. Since then she has been awarded 3rd prize in United Poets Laureate International Poetry Contest 2015, and is particularly proud of having a haiku (the only one from New Zealand) in 100 Haiku for Peace, an international publication in five languages. Her lucky number is 8. Blue. She lives in Paraparaumu Beach, New Zealand. 

 

We are proud to announce Mercedes Webb-Pullman as Danse Macabre’s 2019 Artist-in-Residence. More of her captivating poetry will appear throughout the coming year in both Danse Macabre & DM du Jour. Previous DM Artists-in-Residence include Peter Weltner, Tom Sheehan, and Peter Marra.