This play is currently available as a sound work via Centrum Berlin, both online and irl.
BROOD I.
CICADA 4 (Chorus)
If there is time, this is not it!
CICADA 2 (Pilgrim)
How should I play without a thumb?
I can’t grip my instrument.
CICADA 3 (Guide)
Where’s your thumb?
CICADA 2
Time ate it, what time is it?
CICADA 4
The time when the sun sucks another
Thumb’s tip.
CICADA 1 (POET)
Soz for your loss! Riddle me this
Or nah ‒ does the sun also show
Her tits when strangers act innocent?
CICADA 3
Well,
The sun too once suckled
After which the sun too wanted
To feed.
CICADA 4
No thumb needed, lick the tip, take
It in.
CICADA 2
Wait
The sun sucks thumb
And nurses with
Wet nips?
CICADA 1
Depends who’s talking. Who’s talking?
Pause
Open your lips.
Pause
Your therapist
Says a stranger confessed a sexy
Sickness on the internet.
Pause
CICADA 3
One must be so careful in these times!
Pause
CICADA 2
Actually
The sun begs for my throat. It echoes
In my head, which is hollowed like my body
But isn’t what you might call
Empty.
CICADA 3
Well
The body is a vessel for the light
The head is a hole for psychology
Not souls. The throat is a pipe that sucks sun
Singing.
CICADA 2
No
The sun doesn’t suck, it thumbs my throat
Open. The moon points once
A month, accusing –
A hand
Follows its finger to my dreams
Through my throat –
Gagging…
Pause
I mean of course
I’m gagging
For it!
Pause
CICADA 1
Open your throat, it’s time to feed.
CICADA 2
Thank you, but I could not possibly!
CICADA 3
Say more about feeding.
CICADA 2
I heard
While feeding, the sun stood
On one foot, open
Mouth, tongue out,
Winking, tits –
Drip drip drip.
CICADA 3
Where’s the other foot?
CICADA 4
Time ate it, what time is it?
CICADA 1
Time to get a grip
With what toes you
Have. What toes have
you?
CICADA 3
Say more about toes
CICADA 2
Like Stoya I coached
My love’s filthy foot ‒ its one
Perfect toe ‒ to find
A hole.
After which my love left
Having sucked
Dry my soul –
Dripping or winking…
CICADA 3
One must be so precise in these times.
CICADA 1
A wink is a drip!
CICADA 4
Humans need milk!
CICADA 2
…out. Leaving only salt
In my hollows.
Pause
Yes I do believe at least one
Soul roams my body
Seeking milk for its
Gains.
Pause
O hungry, hungry
Time ate my filthy, filthy foot!
CICADA 3
Say more about foot.
CICADA 4
Wink wink wink…
Drip drip drip…
CICADA 2
My only foot is preserved
In milk.
It needs only one leg but
At noon it’s two not one alone.
Two legs walk into a bar.
Or to be precise ‒ one must be so guileless
In these times ‒ a thumb that’s a pipe disguised
As a leg
And a leg that’s also disguised as a leg!
CICADA 1
Love to see more of your hot little thumb,
Your sexy little pipe,
And your cute little leg ending in a perfect
Pointed toe.
Love to touch your beautiful face in a crowded bar.
Love to wedge between your inhuman teeth
My only human thumb.
CICADA 4
This game
Works your turn-out, your turn-
On and your turn-
around.
CICADA 2
My leg is turned away
From my pipe.
My pipe was a thumb
I could play to call
My dog –
Pause
I lost
My pipe or I became
It –
CICADA 4
Time ate it.
CICADA 1
If I had a dog I’d tame it!
CICADA 2
I know it’s there
Behind me but in my profile
I literally stated I’m not into
Salt. I have a very difficult
Relationship with
Salt.
CICADA 1
No take-backs from before
You knew not to turn
Around.
CICADA 3
Take your time. Say more
About salt.
CICADA 2
Where I come from
We rub salt on our most loved
Dogs to repel their most thirsty
Ticks.
CICADA 4
If I had a dog I’d tame it!
CICADA 2
The salt comes, of course,
From our hollows.
CICADA 1
Your therapist says a stranger
Posted on the feed that salt
Kills yeast and she
Was so infected
That she ‒
Pause
CICADA 3
One must be so explicit in these times.
CICADA 4
Salt must be rubbed
Only on most loved
Dogs, only
Externally!
Pause
CICADA 3
Say more about dogs.
Pause
CICADA 2
My first love was a dog.
Pause
His sleeping eyes I touched
With the dawn’s honeyed
Blossoms so that waking
He might love me
As I loved.
It didn’t work, he stomped
On my face with his little
Foot.
Pause
I was a naughty girl, I liked
It.
Pause
I locked him
Up.
Pause
When he died his body lightened
I mean, he had a soul in some
Hollow, winking
Out.
Drip drip drip on his little bed.
His perfect little body
Dead in the filthy garage.
His lid-locked hollows full
Of salt.
My entire life I’ve called
For my dog!
In my hollows
I’ve stashed
Salt for my dog!
Where is my dog!
O where is my dog!
CICADA 1
Soz for your loss. Riddle me this
Or nah –
CICADA 4
Time ate him, what time is it?
CICADA 1
What licks itself, its ribs removed
What loves the taste of its own sweat
And what can literally
Suck it…
Pause
Until it runs out ‒
Pause
I mean literally out of itself…
Pause
… leaving only salt.
Pause
CICADA 4
What is time?
CICADA 2
What is time, what time is it?
CICADA 1
One must be so literal in these times
CICADA 2
If there is time this is not it!
CICADA 3
Say more about time.
CICADA 4 & CICADA 2
If there is time, this literally is not it!