Poet William Carlos Williams had “a non-affair with the flamboyant minor-Dadaist poet Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven.”
The New York Times Book Review
Elsa, you must not take it amiss
if I do not succumb to your fervent kiss;
I have a wife I've cheated on before
So it's not because I'm true to the missus.
Williams
It's just that—well, I don't know how to put this—
With a Dadaist poet a non-affair is the height of erotic bliss.
The way you Dadas turn everything ceiling to floor
If we are to love, a mile is as good as a miss is.
The Baroness, gettin' jiggy with it.
Another impediment, although you I'm loven—
I've counted your syllables—and you have a dozen!
If we were to marry, my friends I would bore
Introducing “my wife, Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven.”
So let's keep it chaste, between you and me,
For minor Dada-ettes forever free should be.
Oh, I forgot, one absurd thing more—
My hat rack adores your other bee's knee.
I've long waited for someone to write this & I love poetic cliffhangers. English can be so...bendable. Like a pretzel.
Don't ask The Baroness to do The Pretzel, she gets all bent out of shape.
Williams could have done no less. *
This is the second mention of Williams today. I love it. You have revived my interest in him.
If you want a doctor who's also a poet,
Williams is your man, and don't I know it.
I had to come back and fave it.
This is worth it for the title alone.
That's what I told The New Yorker when I sent them my coming of age/puke up your guts as a teen short story "The Eskimo Rides Shotgun."