Caresse Crosby:
believe my ardour for invention springs from his loins. I can’t say that the brassiere will ever take as great a place in history as the steamboat, but I did invent it.
Caresse Crosby
Harry Crosby
Harry Crosby
Harry Crosby (-) was an American heir, bon vivant, minor poet, and for some, an exemplar of the Lost Generation in American literature.
The Black Sun Press
I exchange eyes with the Mad Queen
the mirror crashes against my face
and bursts into a thousand suns
all over the city flags crackle and bang
fog horns scream in the harbor
the wind hurricanes through the window
and I begin to dance the dance of the
Kurd Shepherds
I stamp upon the floor
I whirl like dervishes
colors revolve dressing and undressing
I lash them with my fury
stark white with iron black
harsh red with blue
marble green with bright orange
and only gold remains naked
columns of steel rise and plunge
emerge and disappear
pistoning in the river of my soul
thrusting upwards
thrusting downwards
thrusting inwards
thrusting outwards
penetrating
I roar with pain
black-footed ferrets disappear into holes
the sun tattooed on my back
begins to spin
faster and faster
whirring whirling
throwing out a glory of sparks
sparks shoot off into space
sparks into shooting stars
shooting stars collide with comets
Explosions
Naked Colors Explode
Into
Red Disaster
I crash out through the
window naked, widespread
upon a
Heliosaurus
I uproot an obelisk and plunge
it into the ink-pot of the
Black Sea
I write the word
SUN
What is your feeling about the revolutionary spirit of your age, as expressed, for instance, in such movements as communism, surrealism, anarchism?
The revolutionary spirit of our age (as expressed by communism, surrealism, anarchism, madness) is a hot firebrand thrust into the dark lantern of the world.
In Nine Decades
a Mad Queen shall be born.
Mad Queen Aeronautical CorporationCyclone 3030Mad Queen Chemical CorporationGunpowder 3328Mad Queen Company for the Manufacture of Hand GrenadesGunpowder 8878Mad Queen Drug Store of Tonics and StimulantsDetonator 8808Mad Queen Dynamiting and Blasting CompanyRackarock 4196Mad Queen Express ElevatorsSpeedway 7898Mad Queen Fireworks CorporationHurricane 1144Mad Queen Garage for Vandals of the RoadSpeedway 3984Mad Queen Hospital for Electrifying the HeartCyclone 5679Mad Queen Jazz BandDetonator 8814Mad Queen Laboratory for the Manufacture of AphrodisiacsGunpowder 0090Mad Queen Lighting and Fuel CorporationGunpowder 4301Mad Queen Manufacturers of High ExplosivesThunderbolt 4414Mad Queen Racing AutomobilesSpeedway 6655Mad Queen Rum DistilleryExplosion 1152Mad Queen SkyscrapersHurricane 7444Mad Queen Society for the Vivisection of the PhilistinesThunderbolt 8778Mad Queen Society of IncendiariesRackarock 2254Mad Queen Steam Locomotive CompanySpeedway 1010Mad Queen Steam Roller ManufacturersDetonator 1234Mad Queen Windmills and WeathervanesHurricane 0164
Like mutilated skulls they roll
Across the soul’s white sand
And only she can make a wall
And only she can understand
Let my experience be a lamp displayed
To light the untried lover to his maid.
the colors have begun to form
silvergray with cramoisy and gold
into an arrow carved by storm
beyond the fear of new and old
and where the arrow fits the bow
the untroubled darkness of her eyes
watches the red-gold target grow
strong is the sun that purifies
but I have sought in vain to find
the riddle of the bow and archer
there were no shadows left behind
after the heart’s departure.
An Arab beats upon a kettle drum,
And tuneless is the wailing of the flutes
As on the sands a slavegirl executes
Her dance of wantonwild delirium;
Her body swaying like a pendulum
Backwards and forwards, while in evolutes
She weaves and weaves before fierce pagan brutes
Who gaze at her in wonder that is dumb.
I look upon her limbs bronzed by the sun,
And see within her eyes strange caravans,
Marching all day across blank desert lands,
Until they come at night to where in rings
The Nomad fires glimmer, one by one,
around the tombs of longforgotten kings.