in the heat of a roman afternoon,
she kneels in front of the gilt framed mirror
propped on the floor against the impeccable wall.
she stoops to admire her new helmet... a black wig,
while he sits in a tepid bath smoking a cigarillo,
still wearing his brown felt hat on his head.
he wants to know if she
will go to capri with him.
"tu vas...", she pouts,
"moi, je reste ici toute seule..."
she reappears before him with the wig off
and her blonde tresses loosened, bardot-like,
enveloped in goddess flames... a big red towel.
breathing in the scent of the rubicon dahlias,
she then reclines on the sleek scarletta sofa
exposing herself in propitiatory sections.
swathed in a toga... two white towels,
odysseus-like, he commits her to
the epical voyage across the
bay of naples to the isle of
capri where they are
hailed at the heroic
casa malaparte.
stranded on a rocky
spur, the dramatic
"casa come me"
had been daringly
built by the writer,
invoking the muses
and olympian gods
to descend upon his
roof theatre playing
to the sky and sea.
as la vraie bardot
sunbathes nude
on stage behind
the white spiral
windbreakwall,
he will mount
the homeric stairway
to find out if she loves him.
she doesn't, and unpenelope-like,
she will not be returning to him...
coming away from the casa malaparte,
she meets with sorry fate on the road back to rome.
'come to my casa' by g.verster, 2004
[a light homage to curzio malaparte, who had this formidable casa built;
to jean-luc godard, who made the movie 'le mépris', so brilliantly filmed here;
to alberto moravia, who wrote the novel that inspired the movie;
and always to brigitte bardot, who oh so gloriously imbued them all - house, movie, men, books, even this calligram vers libre - with her much too easy sexiness...]
