the painting

which agent rice took from the hotel palmiers in casablanca
while on a limited engagement assignment with the fbi

a lost fauve or it could be
the strange alchemist and his homunculus
are in the process of turning into one another
this is the middle section where they become a
hotchpotch (really pickles my noodle)

in a hillside park
on a fairly steep slope of pink granite gravel
the alchemist is caught standing
the alchemist's jet black armor is being distorted
by geometric sections of powdered blue
tetradecahedrons
and the bright red brocaded cape he usually wears
looks like there's someone underneath
trying to rustle her way out
there's a hillock rising behind him
part solid lilac and the other half
all fallen straw
and closer to the alchemist
a few old italian cedars stand bright green
and very tall (one about a quarter taller than the other)
with a stone bench between them
on which an old woman in a sky blue
body-cocoon-cowl with bright red seams
is sitting looking down
the alchemist has no metal helmet
but instead
an absurdly floppy bulbous purple velvet hat
and more absurdly
a polished golden partial spheroid
made perhaps of glass
which he wears like a mask or a visor
and he wears another more oozy
or squashed golden sphere
under his right armpit
around which the bright red
brocaded cape is tied
so that the corners of the cape
look like inverted horns
an incidental or even accidental
rendition
of the mano cornuto
and he carries a staff
of finely carved mahogany
which looks to be a spiral coiled
serpent with the head of a duck
with whole inset pearls for eyes
and a dark blue glass beak
and from the staff
there stands
a stiff indigo flag
in the shape of what could be
a version of a blade
the edge closest to the staff
and the top edge are slightly darker
and quilted like a huge pillowish
piping
it's troubling because the alchemist's
lower half seems to be made
of a melange of glassware
and whose liquid the same powdered blue
color as the tetradecahedrons
has all collected at the top of the vessels
leaving the lowest area
hollow transparent and empty
and all of which is set up over a fire
which seems to burn right
there in the rocks of the granite gravel
or maybe it's bright red moss

and then not three feet away
are two huge purple salamander
which i suppose are dead
one has an etiolated pale blue
tortoise shell
and the other one
has two too many legs
and is on fire

on the last day of agent's rice's mission for the fbi
in morocco
he calmly wraps the painting in brown butcher paper
slips the picture under his arm
and absconds from a remote exit
to hail a taxi on a nearby street
and makes his way to the train station
for departure


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