Come Burning (After T.S.
Eliot & Vivienne)
A Text for Performance
By Caridad Svich
And Vivienne said
SUMMER
Now like this
The days
Always 
Now
Never
After
Before
In days
Cursed
Laid waste
To love
Dance the desert
Of our hearts meeting
And Tom said
I was frightened
In Summer
Through much of the night
This woman, she
Lives me
This I know
This now of knowing
No waste
Here
Just love
Mad dancers they
Savage up the floor
With their disgust
'One must be so careful these days'
not to
sit
in the wrong chair
COMING EVENTS CAST THEIR SHADOWS BEFORE
HEAVIER THE INTERVAL THAN THE CONSUMMATION
One must be
So
Careful
She says
And then she writhes
And lifts up her dress
And caresses
the gramophone
Pack Up your Sins, ladies
And march on home
From the deadliest war
Free yourself from darkness
And he looks up her skirt
And wonders
What is he supposed to do
Here?
With this?
With this she?
He wonders
And she lets down her hair
And doesn't wait for him
But moves on
And in
And oh
He writhes
And the gramophone convulses
Under the amber fog
Of desire
Hold me, she says
And a bit more
The waste grows
To cover the pale skin of the lover
'I remember
Those were pearls that were his eyes'
Such things as this and more
We said to each other
In the cold dance
In the honeymoon of anguish
Beast of mine
Monster lavish
What games you play?
The torch song rides the wind
What games unearth your brutishness?
Whilst
Horror in the real world
Rages
Summer dear
Summer so elegant
It bathes us in its fetid glow
I am as wild as Ophelia
With her stains
And piss down…
Sing me a mordant tune
And he warbles
With his flesh
Dearest dear, mother sweet
If it rains we shall vanquish
All the sorrows in our midst
Let us descend into hell
It is where we are meant to be
No rain
No rain, my dear
And she stabs him with her eyes
And plays the coquette
All wrong
Did you want me? Did you need me? Did you
even consider me your comrade? Dearest dear, rotten man, keep
your eyes on me.
And she rushes out with her hair down
Not thinking about tomorrow
His lidless eyes meets hers in fury
'HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME'
ITS TIME
NOW
NOW
ALWAYS
BEFORE
NOT AFTER
BEFORE
TODAY
Consummation
In
Extinction
'In an age when the romance of machinery
is superseding the lilies and languor…Art must of necessity reflect
the angular tendencies of the times."
Empty bottle in hand, I sing my song
O O O
What vanity
These times
We're in
Give me death
Now
Now
In Life
Consume me.
And he didn't move, not an inch, his fingers
stiff, his gaze frozen The rattle of bones
…
The cigarette ends in my hands, the cigarette ends on the ground,
yellow fingers scrape sustenance. I am his mind now. He knows
this. Fully. In future there will be nothing left of him without
me. Let's have a good time, my dear. We must have a good time.
'HURRY UP PLEASE…'
'Sweet Thames, runs softly…'
And they dance to the broken gramophone
Pretending they are happy
We live in an unreal city, Bertie. We imagine
everything. I have not felt so well since…
So long.
Emptiness crowds the streets
(Of the Unreal city)
Sweat drips on the metal progress
Everyone laughs
Everyone laughs
Everyone drinks
And throws their cares
Upside
The ladder
Selfish, foolish, destined dreams wasted
on the glass of the lover
'This music crept by me upon the waters'
We must have a good time
Now
Now
And Always
Now
Vivienne, Vivie, Viv, and Tom
FALL
Upon the dinner table with a loud hmmm….
Their glasses breaking
Isn't that semen on your dress?
Such rivals, dear
Are you always like this?
Let us OD on art. It is all that matters.
Christ, what a chatter.
You should drop her now.
It is the only way
To survive.
Look at her
Look at her
Christ, what a wild hatter.
She'll pay for this.
Women always do.
Livid with rage
They dig their nails in and never stop.
Everyone laughs
Everyone laughs
And drinks
Viv, Vivie, my sweet
Wretched excess now
The winding staircase
Up and up we go
Toward the 'sevenbranched candelabra
Reflecting light upon the table as…'
Everyone laughs
And drinks
And plays chess
Their with excess
Cupid peeps glittering a blooming angel
Of damned darkness
There is no other where to go
But up
Toward the
Flesh
Dank
Sweat
Of your acid vengeance
Plunge straight into
Viv, Vivie, my sweet
Ruined chair
Aching breast
Cut strands of red
Your distemper ravels the unravel
And the game goes on
Queen to your Knight
Pawn for the sacrifice
'What shall I do now? What shall I do?'
Ooo, Ooo, as in the song….
Swallow your tears and wait for the knock
At the heavy door
Wind rattles glass
Man becomes a puppet
No more
HURRY UP HURRY UP PLEASE
And the game resumes
Come on, everyone, have a go at me.
Eat my tulips freely.
Bishop moves
Horse moves
In the jazz frenzy
Hand me another martini
As the teacup fills with gin.
And Vivienne casts off her vanity.
She was
WINTER
For me
Sweet as the Thames
Dark as its current
Cold 
I had to leave
Wait
I had to
Wait
I had to
Don't leave me.
And she would follow me
With her eyes
With her costume of dirty snow
The silk handkerchief made for strangling
In her cold wax hand
I walked
To the sea
Gulls breaking over thin sand
Hear them?
They won't let me sleep.
The starved dog eludes me. My senses run
foul.
Her perfume hangs acrid in the air,
Whilst the gulls keep circling
One
And another
And
Time jumps on this wasted shore, wasted
city of oblivion
The cant of machines in my ear
Her mocking shriek inside me
Don't leave…
Ever
And yet I do
Like this
So easy
With little more than
Fire
Sweet nymph departed
My angel of melancholy
In midst of progress you stand still
Imagining utopia
Cold blast in the belly
The peal of bells
To Carthage I come burning
Burning
burning
Possessed in death, this I prefigure
Possessed most completely
I move in Winter's cathedral
O'erwatched by mocking angels
Soothing pleasure no more
Never pleasure for me
My flesh is pristine
HURRY UP PLEASE ITS TIME
She says
Again and always
HURRY UP PLEASE
Who listens?
One figure in the glass moves
Phantom presence
She glides serene in habit's delirium
My feet carry down stream
I feel nothing
La la
La la
Nothing
La
And the gramophone is forgotten
And the record stops playing
But music remembered swells
So easy
Everything
Today
In war's wake
Tide possessed
Burning to Carthage I go
And Vivie cannot dream
In Winter
She sits and waits and hides behind the
mask
Of the wife
With red hands and broken teeth
A long breath
Some rouge, and lipstick
A long breath
For memory
I wear the bowler hat
And pretend I am someone else
Who he? Who she?
Like an owl's cry I am
Possessed still
By him
T
The wonder who
Who wondered me
Drink the last syllable
Carve me in strips
I follow you everywhere
In words
Through society
Not fit, you see
That's what they all…
You should hear them
They speak in words indelicate
While I scream and bellow
Aspic
Hullo, Vivie
I don't know you.
She is not me.
And Winter turns
Pronounced profound
In snowy years
Trapped outside the house
You know quite well who I am
I am Daisy Miller
Tiresias
And Dante
Imagine Dante without his robes
Imagine me
No will but her own
What could have consumed her so?
What is her story?
She the wife, she the who, the letter who
moved the he to
Bleed
I stabbed him once. It was a sight. I held
the knife just so and dug deep into his side. He didn't say a
word. He looked at me. No sound at all. But much blood. And how…
wishing now it were not so, this knife in my hand, but he…knew
better than me…then. This I know..Now. Always. Now. Cursed time
for me. Damned cursed free. Of him.
Dancing she goes
I see her now in snow
In ash covered
The lady of the moors
With her wide red sails
Of hair
Click shutter release
God bless my little wife
My little Daisy
Okay, so, not like this, more like Tom,
some other boy, in America, yes, where they don't pretend…He walks
confidently. Long strides. Healthy appetite. Some apples in his
hand. No dreams. His hat is on perfectly. He is not mistaken for
anyone but himself. See? You don't have to pretend here. Here
you can, uh, be, what, uh, you want, um, if you, want. I dunno.
Something like this… Him. That man there. Yes. Tall and fatherly.
Tall and full of insurance. Hello, Mr. Eliot. Hello. A wave and
then…He hums to himself. This is his habit. Vice. Drink. Okay.
Tom. T. Have you got your hat on correctly? Don't forget your
hat. It will be cold today. Mr. Eliot? Mr. Eliot? Is that you?
'O Lord thou pluckest me out
O Lord thou pluckest'
With a bowl of lilacs in your room
You move toward the door
Other echoes
Now
Time echoes
Words echo
SPRING
To each the dying day
'Where there is an end of it, the soundless
wailing'
'He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying'
At break of time
Held still
By the high sound
Of clarinets and strings
O joyous melancholy
Give me your shadows
Visible now
In matter
In the dark materials of our wonderment
Silence now
As Vivie, Viv, my sweet wife
My sweet little Daisy dear
Sips last breath
And I watch her silently
Flesh curls
Against the sorry sea
Of forgetting
What a garden of anemones
Here
Hold me
Still, still and then some more
The boy lifts his cold gaze
'over endless plains…
ringed by the flat horizon only'
to this we sing
in age
Time
Lost in slant of sun
To this we sing
When murder comes
The scenes of youth
Play on
In tiny strips of magic light
Her voice, her marked cadence now
Obliterated by the painted moon
My face
My dear
You see?
This is who
The boy who
The man T
Could not bring to bury she
How wonder now
What wonder please
HURRY UP dear ITS TIME ITS TIME
Abandon me
We met in blood
In quiet longing
One sex into another
Held up by night,
In a beaded tomb
We are
Neither man nor woman
A mosaic of halves
Leave my body here
Like this
Un-sexed
And pleading
No more of this
I am tired of seeing
What, Tiresias, no vision now?
A flash of lightning
Only.
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