Archicembalo - G.C. Waldrep

G.C. Waldrep’s Archicembalo is a wonderful book. Everyone should have a copy or two.

What Is an Anthem
G.C. Waldrep


I sought a near care and left without having paid any particular price, I was not stingy, I did not think I was covetous, perhaps I betrayed a more vivid avulsion but I was not without integrity, I was possessed of a certain bodily charm.

When a charm grows ghoulish it demands more from the body, it is a consumptive delight.

I left the money on the table. Each penny separate and together, this is copper, this is how copper behaves: most elegant at high noon burnish. Like noon a furnished room requests the pleasure of a body’s judgment, its sovereign will, as seen in the shadow a hinged door makes, as seen in a cannon’s mouth.

What is inheritance, inheritance is subjugation of time through flesh, it is a staying motion and like a harp’s pedal but more slowly, it remains an intervailing conceit. I left the money on the table, I made every calculation.

Is this pretty at a distance.

When on is beautiful (which is to say when one has inherited) one may stand alone. Does this make one lonely, does this make one less beautiful or more, does this express a miserly disposition and if so when and to what purpose.

The country around Karbala is desert, meaning a dry wind and sand and pilgrims in like season, later skirmish coached with salt. What is a desert, a desert is, and empty desert makes one beautiful, an emptied desert is a breach and thus makes also whole.

I was walking away but I had left the money on the table. This is a question of citizenship, this cannot be disputed. I was not giving up anything, I was within my rights, I was perfectly assured.

I left the money on the table and walked down to the bridge.

A bridge asks more of us. A bridge asks for commitment, a bridge is the instrument of a plaintive investiture, a bridge is the negation of one reputable stance. A bridge is an argument about form, a toll. A bridge may be a disguise.

To be alone one must be beautiful. To be beautiful one must be alone. To lie, with her and again precludes the possibility, to speak when spoken to is a modified circumspection.

To look into a cannon’s mouth is likewise an argument about solitude, it is a risky business. Does this make one beautiful. Of course. Which we have done and more surely for not wanting enough, for not waiting, for wasting and not trusting and for so. In my father’s house are many mansions. Does this absolve.

I left the money on the table and walked down to the bridge. Root and stone, my heart gives way to a third arm. I felt and I thought I was done.