Joe Dolce: ‘Twain on the Murray’, ‘Catoptromancy’ and ‘La Feé Verte’

Twain on the Murray

I wish that Time could bring again
To Letters—and so give to Art—
The healthy humour of Mark Twain,
The kindly scamps of poor Bret Harte!
—Henry Lawson, 1908

Off the plank of the Warrimoo,
Stepped Samuel Clemens’ polished shoe,
Daughter Clara, arm and arm,
His first impressions of Sydney’s charm—

An English city with American trimming,
Vast cow-kingdom with wattles brimming,
Rabbits, sheep-dip, ladies dressed fine,
But I never saw a blackfellow the entire time.

Way down upon the Murray River,
Surely shall we roam,
God made the harbor, but Satan made Sydney,
Mark Twain was heard to moan.

Clemens dreamt of Huckleberry Finn,
Shouting a pint, and drinking gin,
Down the pub, with Henry Lawson,
Way up the track, near Fitzroy Crossin’.

A paddleboat steamer, Christian hymn,
Don’t make no difference to ol’ slave Jim,
Hawkesbury River, Mississippi mud,
Snowy River pony or a Tennessee stud.

Way down upon the Murray River,
Surely shall we roam,
God made the harbor, but Satan made Sydney,
Mark Twain was heard to moan.

Joe Dolce

Catoptromancy

For now we see through a glass darkly…
—1 Corinthians 13:12

Divination with mirrors,
priests called specularii,
practised by Emperor Didius Julianus,
the Achaeans, besiegers of Troy.
The first were pools of dark, still water.
John Dee, 16th century mathematician,
occult astrologer, used polished obsidian.
Dr Raymond Moody, originator of the term,
near-death experience,
sat in a chamber—the psychomanteum—
surfaces angled to reflect only darkness.

Mirror mirror on the wall.
Bad luck to break one.
Traditionally covered, after death.
Ancestor of the selfie.

Joe Dolce

La Feé Verte

A wine-marinated wormwood leaf,
first brought the Egyptian Pharaohs grief.
Florence fennel and grey-green anise,
father of Ouzo and French Patis.
La feé verte had a much sharper tooth,
often bottled up to 90 proof.
Sugar squares, lit on a slotted spoon,
brought Aleister Crowley to his ruin.
A flaming cube, at Café Brulot,
was dropped, in a shot, by A. Rimbaud.
Ubu the King, and Alfred Jarry,
nodded backstage, with the Green Fairy.
Brightest of all aphrodisiacs,
fuel for the brushes of T. Lautrec.
More bohemian than gin or rum—
Artemisia Absinthium.

Joe Dolce