Coronation of the Pretender

The Ravens flee the Tower and Laughter dies to end Delight.

Where Squandered Blood cannot fade Caged Birds sing their Silence.

Bridges groan or else proclaim Disfavour by falling down.

Slammed Doors that Applaud without fealty Deafen in palaces no less than cottages.

While sullen Chimneys watch from clamant rooftops, the Smoke from hearths of Liegemen Declines to Wave.

The state-provisioned Welcome Mats of the Citizenry vaporise until merely the ‘O’ remains.

The People cry ‘O!’ 

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No fanfares. Trumpets droop, mute, the wilted flowers bruised by a Dynastical newborn Sun.

Children weep to see the coach horses tight-girthed by Caparisons torn from Night and Stars, and fear when – Behold! Mischief! – an unknown Season of Nature renders Black the whitest plumes.

Even the Oath of Office shrivels to a Spitball in the Archbishop’s hands.

The Procession disperses to muffled Brass, an Iron-shod Tread deadened by Loose Straw to calm the Most Notable Invalid’s final days, which sets the Measure when Mourning Veils descend with Leaden Pace to Drape the Chancellery and the Courthouse.

Unheeded, the Great Panjandrum’s Grand Inaugural Flypast is invisible at 30000 feet before – refueled mid-flight– the Honour Guard flees the Control Tower not to return.

The People’s Crier proclaims it’s Not Over until the Sick Man falls down and Declines to Wave. 

Meanwhile, low valleys of Kingcups are drowned in the Weeping of the Forsaken . . . before, praise God, the Moon turns Everyone to Stone. 

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A Reissue from the Harcourt Archives! Adhoc-ism: The Art of the Impromptu.

Reissued by Éditions Studio Harcourt in a facsimile of the now unprocurable first edition, Verity Askew’s popular standard work (1948) – Adhoc-ism: The Art of the Impromptu – remains an informed, entirely novel and exhaustive treatise on a neglected interwar cultural subcurrent, including new structures and patternings such as ‘Cut-ups’, Découpage, Papierausschnitte, Merz, ‘Flourishes’, Pataphysical Illusions, Conjurings and Happenings with an Appendix devoted to ‘past and present’ (interwar and circa mid-1940s) exemplars of this Dadaistic style. An edition to be cherished; to be had at all quality booksellers.

First edition. Original trompe l’oeil dustjacket (1948).