Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven

портрет Марселя Дюшана

-
Affectionate
Wheels are growing on rose-bushes
grey and affectionate
O Jonathan - Jonathan - dear
Did some swallow Prendergast's silverheels-
be drunk forever and more
- with lemon appendicitis?
 ---
from Mine Soul Singeth...
He is hidden like the hidden toad - - - hidden animal - cave-
animal - chiseled animal - animal of shadow! - - goldrimmed
pupils narrowing in light - blinking - thinking dark dreams!
Hidden - lightshy - skinpale - does not perish in flame - I remem-
ber old witchword;
Jewels hidden in its head - - - hidden - hidden - hidden animal!
Splendid - proud - majestic - immobile - - - when it feeds it
moveth swift like thought!
 ---
Untitled
No spinsterlollypop for me!
Yes! We have no bananas
I got lusting palate
I always eat them...
There's the vibrator
Coy flappertoy! ...

A dozen cocktails, please!
---
Subjoyride

‹Sense into Nonsense›

Between the acts:

Holeproof –

Pompean Nightcream

for feeble old people!

spread on thickly –

massage briskly with Vicks –

until skin is red –

Then repeat!

If necessary!

Caution!!!

Don’t rush!

Please!

Life’s best work!

An ambition realized!

Against jars:

Melanchrino

Dykman Oval –

against harsh winds:

Cover with hot flannel

Sloping lines!

Be alert!

sanitary!

clean!

after hydrox!

subjoy passengers

can always

Lorna Doone!

Look for it!

Delicious with poached egg!

Makes you

eat –

sleep –

feel –

work –

the runkels of a man better!

Protects you

when buying sliced meat

the guard will tell you!

—Live happier in Leonia – —

---

Subjoyride

           Ready-to-wear

           American Soul Poetry

           ‹The right kind›

Lux Kamel hands off the

Better Bologna’s Beauty –

Get this straight—Wrigley’s

Pinaud’s Heels for the wise –

Nothing so Pepsodent – woothing

Pussywillow – kept clean

Cheese.

They satisfy the man of

Largest Mustard Underwear –

No dosing

Just rub it on –

---

Subjoy Ride IV

You can teach a saelect

seal packerparrot – rinso –

postum lister world-war

on saxo salve – —

Try a veenotoic semi-

sofit of a stiff indigestion

Don’t scratch!

Original sunshine makes

Tanlac children

Do you know that made

from rich pure shaving

cream Jim Henry tired

out? –

Famous fain reduces

reg’lar fellows to the

toughest korry-krome

pancake apparel – kept

antiseptic with gold dust

Rapid transit – —

It has raised 3 generations

of mince-piston-rings-pie.

 ---

A Dozen Cocktails-- Please

No spinsterlollypop for me-- yes-- we have 
No bananasI got lusting palate-- I 
Always eat them-- -- -- -- -- -- --       
They have dandy celluloid tubes-- all sizes-- 
Tinted diabolically as a baboon's hind-complexion. 
A man's a-- 
Piffle! 
Will-o'-th'-wisp! What's the dread 
Matter with the up-to-date-American- 
Home-comforts? Bum insufficient for the 
Should-be wellgroomed upsy! 
That's the leading question. 
There's the vibrator-- -- --   
Coy flappertoy! I am adult citizen with 
Vote-- I demand my unstinted share 
In roofeden-- witchsabbath of our baby- 
Lonian obelisk.  
What's radio for--if you please? 
"Eve's dart pricks snookums upon 
Wirefence. " 
An apple a day-- -- --   
It'll come-- -- -- --    
Ha! When? I'm no tongueswallowing yogi. 
Progress is ravishlng-- 
It doesn't me--  
Nudge it --
Kick it--
Prod it-- 
Push it-- 
Broadcast-- -- -- -- 
That's the lightning idea! 
S.O.S. national shortage of--  
What ? 
How are we going to put it befitting 
Lifted upsys? 
Psh! Any sissy poet has sufficient freezing 
Chemicals in his Freudian icechest to snuff all 
Cockiness. We'll hire one. 
Hell! Not that! That's the trouble-- --  
Cock crow silly! 
Oh fine! 
They're in France-- the air on the line-- 
The Poles-- -- -- -- -- --      
Have them send waves-- like candy-- 
Valentines-- -- -- -- 
"Say it with-- -- --   
Bolts ! 
Oh thunder! 
Serpentine aircurrents-- -- --   
Hhhhhphssssssss! The very word penetrates 
I feel whoozy! 
I like that. I don't hanker after Billyboys-- but I am entitled 
To be deeply shocked. 
So are we-- but you fill the hiatus. 
Dear-- I ain't queer-- I need it straight -- -- 
A dozen cocktails-- please-- -- -- --     

---

Bereft

Stuck — —
once that great!
Prone — —
once that flirtet
skirt –
into men’s blood
bright.
Amber shone
scull of mate
icy eye
alert
lit night.
Clutched vitals
tight –
Call:
Mate tall
fly — quick —!
Aye — — —
is he sick —
dead
in bed?
to not fondle
glint —
to not stress
deft caress —
to be left
flint.

---
Is It?

It is—is it--?
heart white sheet!
kiss it
flame beat!
in chest midst
print teeth
bite— — —
this green
ponderous night.

---
Cathedral

Why didst thou go away from me?Say——why?art not enslaved by balmy wizzardryout of mine jewelled eye ?not by mine lips——so softly passionate——with harnessed strength——in bridled strain——musk——amber——myrrh and francincense——gold——damask——ivory——mine gothic cathedrál——is that upbuild in vainfor thee—— ?the whom I shall desire——to pray ?art nor thou worshipper nor devotee ?
Thus stand I desolate——priest to mine tarnished self——light tapers stately——upon jadeworsted shelf——not to decay.

(1920)

---
Gihirda's Dance

Nose straightsmile flowerunfolding in sun of love.Petals : large——sweetoverwhelming cinnamon-scented——almond——sandal——rose-carmine——tuberosecheekpale in ray of moon torchghosts——with strength of ghosts——enticing as passion in graveyard of flesh dead————alive—— ——remembering.
Hands cupped in greed of tissues parched——owner's wolfheart—— !devotion simple as child's suckled——eyes of god drink out of tankard of palm mine face's palegold champagne.Whereas now thine polar-bear's sinister ivorywhite mouth black——black lips cruel tender pluckpurple black in face white——Tremble—— ?not weep—— !I——thou.Tombstone——lie I beneathweight——passionate weight——pallor—— !not life shall callfrom stoneheaviness'encompassing weight.Eyes of god drain from veins cinnamonscented rosedisks carmine: to blend——thou——I .
No move—— !from mine thine cheek not partdual rock——on Nile——rigid :

(1920)





---
Subjoyride


Ready-to-wear
American Soul Poetry

Lux Kamel hands off the
Beatter Bologna’s Beauty—
Get this straight—Wrigley’s
Pinaud’s Heels for the wise—
Nothing so Pepsodent—soothing
Pussywillow—kept clean
with Philadelphia Cream
Cheese.
They satisfy the man of
Largest Mustard Underwear—
No dosing
Just rub it on—

---
Subjoy Ride IV

You can teach a saelect
seal packerpaarrot —rinso—
postum lister world-war
on saxo salve — —
Try a veenotonic semi-
sofit of a stiff indigestion
Don’t scratch!
Original sunshine makes
Tanlac children

Do you know that made
from rich pure shaving
cram Jim Henry tired
out! —

Famous fain reduces
reg’lar fellows to the
toughest korry-krome
pancake apparel—kept
antiseptic with gold dust
Rapid transit — —
It has raised 3 generations
of mince-piston-rings-pie.

---

Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven was born Elsa Hildegard Plötz in Swinemünde, Germany, on July 12, 1874.  Her mother died when she was eighteen years old; rather than subject herself to an overbearing and abusive father, she left home to live with an aunt in Berlin.  There she took painting lessons at the Berlin Art School, trained as an actress, and worked as a chorus girl.  She eventually moved to Munich, where, in August of 1901, she married the architect August Endell.  Six months later, she met the writer Felix Paul Greve, whom she married in 1907.   In 1910, Greve and Elsa moved to America, settling on a farm in Kentucky, but within a year, Greve abandoned her and moved to Canada (where he changed his name to Grove and became a prize-winning novelist).  Elsa slowly made her way to New York, where she would spend the next ten years working as an artist’s model, barely earning enough money to survive, yet reaching full maturity as an artist in America’s liberating cultural climate.

Shortly after her arrival in New York, Elsa met and married Leopold Baron von Freytag-Loringhoven (although she was presumably still married).  Soon thereafter, her new husband embarked for Europe to enlist as an officer in the German army.  Instead, he was captured by the French and held as a prisoner of war, only to commit suicide a few years later (an act, Elsa later remarked, that was the most heroic of his life).  It was over the course of the next five years—while living in a small apartment in Greenwich Village—that Elsa became notorious for her eccentric dress and outlandish behavior.  Few who caught a glimpse of this extraordinary woman could forget her.  What she put on her head alone was enough to engrave her curious countenance permanently in memory.  “She wore the lid of a coal scuttle,” one person remembered, “strapped under her chin like a helmet.”  She walked the streets with a bird cage over her head (with a live canary inside), decorated her face with postage stamps, and tied tomato cans together for a bra.  In effect, she treated her body as a living work of art, causing  historians today to recognize her preeminence as America’s first performance artist.

With the departure of her husband, the Baroness was left to fend for herself on the streets of New York.  Since she was very willing to pose in the nude, she earned some money working as an artists’ model.  The American realist painter Theresa Bernstein painted her portrait, and made several studies (both in pencil and in oil) of her somewhat androgynous physique, while the artist George Biddle made a lithographic portrait in which her closely cropped hair and angular facial features were rendered in multiple form.  It was in these years that Elsa began to make her first collages and assemblages, most of which were—like her dress—fashioned from an assortment of discarded materials (as in her Portrait of Marcel Duchamp, recorded in a photograph by Charles Sheeler).  With the American artist Morton Schamberg, she made a sculpture that many have come to view as the ultimate expression of New York Dada: a plumbing trap mounted onto a miter box that was given the simple but blasphemous title God (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Arensberg Collection).  Her poetry was published in the vanguard literary journal The Little Review, where she was declared “the first American dada… the only one living anywhere who dresses dada, loves dada, lives dada.”

By 1923, finding it nearly impossible to live in New York without a regular source of income, she returned to Germany.  On December 14, 1927, Elsa and her dogs died quietly while sleeping.   Some speculated that a sailor the Baroness had picked up on the street turned the gas jets on, slowly killing the occupants of the small room by asphyxiation.   Whether the act was accidental or intentional has never been determined.  She might have been, as the writer Djuna Barnes later speculated, simply the tragic victim of “a cruel joke carried too far.”

-

Astride
(read the original manuscript in the Baroness archives)

Saddling
Up
From
Fir
Nightbrimmed ⎯
Clinkstirrupchink!
Silverbugle
Copperrimmed ⎯
Keening ⎯
Heathbound
Roves
Moon
Pink ⎯
Straddling
Neighing
Stallion :
“HUEESSUEESSUEESSSOOO
HYEEEEEE PRUSH
HEE HEE HEEEEEEAAA
OCHKZPNJRPRRRR
            HÜ
           /     \
HÜÜ            HÜÜÜÜÜÜ
        HÜ-HÜ!”
Aflush
Brink
Through
Foggy
Bog
They
Slink ⎯
Sink
Into
Throbb
Bated.
Hush
Falls ⎯
Stiffling ⎯
Shill
Crickets
Shrill ⎯
Bullfrog
Squalls
Inflated
Bark
Riding
Moon’s
Mica –
Groin ⎯
Strident!

Hark!

Stallion
Whinny’s
In
Thickets.

EvFL

Aphrodite to Mars(read the original manuscript in the Baroness archives)

Flashing blade –
Poniard buried –
High
Flexible tenderness web
Abdominal
Of
Systems
Equal steel
Shaped
Female

Aflirt
Mars’
Buried blade’s
Keenness aggressive
Into
Keenness’ receptive
Aristocratic
Fit.

Octopus charm’s
Alluring
Rubberdisk tenacity –
Sucking
Soft – energetic
Into
Systems mobile
Knit
Ceasar’s
Digging
Point
Sharp kiss
Plenishing
Snapping thirst’s
Drill gash
Rimflush
Ruby blood’s desire
Equal
Of
Quality true –
Gushing –
Ejaculating silently
High
To
Stain glintedges chased
Pained tempered
Flirt
Ceasar’s crimson
Supreme
Cardinal
Sheath
In
Hedges
Of
Pride’s beam –
Brave blade’s
Flash point –
Poniard steel
Mars asleep
At
Hearth
Olympic.

Octopus love pillows
Recuperating
Capacity
Suckdisks clinglust
To
Sharp arm
Within
Ecstatic
Elasticity
Feminine

Increases!

Tournament dale –
Mattress
Of
Supremely laurelled
Victor

Maturesmiled –
Rosestrewn –
Gaping –
Openpetalled –
Abandonflushed –
Deep – satiated – red
By:
Virtue’s daring
Brilliancy –
Adorned

EvFL

Hell’s Wisdom(read the original manuscript in the Baroness archives)

<All wisdom is profoundly trivial>
Love is gravitation

My "Derangement" dwells in absence – as – under circumstances existing – normally – it
should be present.
It maintains in circumstance –
There I leave it.
My being in senses right is normal height.
It being uncommon – presents strange - as genius does - uncompanioned.
Victim of circumstance I am not – as I am no dweller in
For me - to be touched - touchably - by circumstance - normal
To vacuous spectres of substance past - should so be abnormal – as to cause revulsion
degree –
Provoking instant insanity – whence I am protected by radius of spiritual emanation

To circumstance I am immaterial - as is circumstance to me.
Diametricaly opposed - alone we leave each other - charmed aloft
Lone I - enhanced shrouded earth – by own atmosphere mine self’s own self – out-of
circumstance cosmic star - volve revolve - evolve -I do - by starshaped pride stygmatized
outcast from circumstanced press - presssure – I am.

Social insanity - cosmic sanity - visible flesh - I am not present.
Cosmic resident .
That means :
Responsibility sublime
Capacity to measure.
Bliss – damnation – alternating until equilibrium attainment
Sway
Balance
Scalefix.

Solution perfect of two in one.
2: 1.
Two in one is nil.
2 : 1 = .
Urstate sublimatedly
Lifted sublime by blood sacrificial power flux :
Radiance suffusion.
Light equals light:
Motion – rise
Impulse. Motion –
Top sun - it
              
Scalefix.

Matter at ever higher level put
Until cristal state –
Graded circle:
                                 
One and all is circle
      1 + =
All in one is nil.
: 1 =
Nil is allsum
=
Allsum is in nil
= :
Life conquered – emotion solved
Measureless limitless urfigure
Assembled.
Circle
Navel
Nil.

           Betwixt :
           Swing –
           Wheel
           Scale
           Until:
           Shot
           Middle
           Spot
           Hit - :
           Radiance
           Adash.

EvFL

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