(after a drawing by General Idea)
Wayne Koestenbaum
no dog has ever been friendly to me
or I don’t know how to decode dog kindness
dog invasiveness might be amicable
the dog notices me by seeming to do violence to me
I misinterpret the signal of the dog’s regard
curlicues of animal hair reiterate human hair
the man dreams of the poodle
I keep calling him a man but he is a god
or a devil
a troublemaker in elementary school
an artist in labor
will you make inroads on the poodle’s sanctity
or will you leave the poodle to its inviolate serenity
like an ice-cream concoction served at Serendipity
an advertisement for poetic license
the saint’s infernal horns almost touch the poodle’s buttock-curlicues
does my nervous system’s unrest duplicate the drawing
the famous man said I was full of shit
I shook his hand in response to the insult
his face, tiny as an ultimatum, had become even more miniature
facial miniaturization underwrote his vocation as filmmaker
the air froze around his miniaturization
return to the drawing
be tempted by the drawn man’s
reposeful elbow like Déjeneur sur l’herbe but with a dog companion
is bestiality illegal in the U.S.
the star mentioned that my review of her performance had not been favorable
her silver turban a Cinecittá emblem
her son a Bertolucci Luna apparition
aureole of boy curls an affront and a miniaturization
seek a shame effect because it will sell or redeem
perdition avoided if you claim shame
love to have my pole drawn he said
wish I’d gotten a tantric massage I said at the art fair
Manet made a fortune from public urinal art
I took the poodle literally as a symbol of conflagration
or a thought bubble manifested by the reclining savior
the poodle a materialization of the recumbent figure’s cogitations
the satyr, like Henry James’s Fleda Vetch, had designs
or is Fleda notable for her absence of cunning
must eroticism contain cunning
fuck my face he said with the impromptu air of a court musician
more mild-mannered than I’d expected
not a dom daddy
just a Pez container sans alibi
that’s a polite way of saying I’m smitten I replied with no reference to my toupee intended
the poodle’s curlicues are discourse
they authorize any fantasy
stylized repetition frees them from the responsibility of being original
you can repeat your smittenness like a pole dance in the trauma unit
can I get extra-credit in the trauma class by stylizing my smittenness
tinting it pink and green to match the Formica countertop of the diner
where you drew the poodle and the saint on a napkin
and then turned the napkin over and wrote an elegy for grandfathered eroticism
you retroactively give license to earlier lubricities
and you don’t penalize them for being born after the date when liberation was announced
I like the drawing because it tells me how to think about my life
it tells me to subtract dog and satyr from the picture
and thereby create negative-space pudding
eat negative-space pudding on the subway
he said I saw you on Fire Island
I replied I haven’t been to Fire Island in twenty years
he insisted he’d seen me on Fire Island
thus insistence is the miniaturization of the curlicue according to
either Kant or Arendt or Misha Dichter
or Telemachus or Alpo
or Tanaquil Le Clercq or Mickey Hargitay or Lassie or Fatty Arbuckle
or Jean Harlow or Frances Farmer or Barbara Loden
or Jean Dubuffet or Eartha Kitt or Tommy Tune or Transylvania Airlines
the gargantuan power of an engine determines the flow of capital
who is the engine
is the poodle the engine is the satyr the engine
is pink the agenda or is green
I once decreed that agential was not a word but now I am being agential
is the satyr agential is the poodle agential is the curlicue agential
is the general idea of the poodle agential
is the general idea of the satyr agential minus one like music minus one
or minus capitalism or minus Silvia Federici’s book Patriarchy of the Wage
are the poodle’s curlicues patriarchy of the wage
or are curlicues the undoing of wage patriarchy
anti-work curlicues
A4 paper is the usual size of the daydream
the satyr’s elbow hits the page’s right-hand wall
the time I couldn’t remember the Contes d’Hoffmann melody in the night
mentioned already and why is repetition a crime against decorum
I keep violating logic
I keep drawing from the deep well of malfacture
mal facture
like fleurs du mal facture
a climacteric rictus
when you have an orgasm your face freezes
an unemployable grimace
is orgasmic rictus an exit from patriarchy of the wage
can we stop emphasizing tops and bottoms
I forgot to ask what the temptation is
poodle tempts satyr
or satyr tempts poodle
poodle wants cross-species sex
flaccid satyr is indifferent to poodle
so horny poodle dreams up satyr for entertainment while walking
poodle defecates on satyr’s head perchance
a possibility within the satyr’s pleasure toolkit
Spank Me Red was his handle
do kink aliases erupt from evading plot
doodles represent distraction
if your pelt is a distraction
a strategy of embroidery that stains the living and prevents forward motion
poodle strolls on no seen surface
satyr rests on no seen ledge or field
no visible means of support for satyr or poodle
floating-world poodle and floating-world satyr
our status as floaters (hovering above wage patriarchy)
creates vertigo and acrophobia
am I entitled to write a porno based on this drawing
is the drawing already a porno
is a porno a philosophical direction to pursue
is drawing a philosophical practice
what prompts me to call an art activity a philosophical practice
maybe it was an accident, this drawing
but it became your friend
and accompanied you on your travels
to Astoria and Fishkill and Cairo
they pronounce Cairo “Kay Roe”
because they want to distinguish themselves from Egypt
a desire of which I don’t approve
I could find you by accident at the baths
would that be embarrassing or would that be a philosophical practice
Wayne Koestenbaum—poet, critic, fiction-writer, artist, performer—has published twenty-two books, including Ultramarine, The Cheerful Scapegoat, Figure It Out, Camp Marmalade, My 1980s & Other Essays, The Anatomy of Harpo Marx, Humiliation, Hotel Theory, Circus, Andy Warhol, Jackie Under My Skin, and The Queen’s Throat (nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award). He is a Distinguished Professor of English, French, and comparative literature at the CUNY Graduate Center. “The Temptation of the Continental Poodle” was originally written for at an event at The Drawing Center, at the invitation of Claire Gilman and Alex Kitnick.
In the Moment 