White Acetylene! – Jacques Vaché, translated from the French by Stephan Crown-Weber

January 21, 2026

You all! — My handsome whiskeys — My fiendish concoction trickling yellow — an apothecary jarful — My green chartreuse — Citrin — Choked-up carthamin pink.

Now smoke!


Angostura — strychnine fruit and syrupy uncertainty — I am a mosaicist.

“Say, waiter…you are a damn fraud, you are!”

You all, see me as the bleeding abscess in this prairie oyster; its drowned eye looks at me like anatomy; Perhaps the barkeep eyes me too. Punched beneath eyeballs…iridescent edge, a layer, in a rainbow.

WITH ALL THAT SAID
The man with the dead-fish head leaves his moistened cigar hanging.
That Scottish vest!

The cross-adorned officer, the soft white powdered woman yawns, yawns, and sucks on hair lotion (in this case, for love)

“These creatures have been dancing for nine hours, Sir.” “How greasy that must be.” (In this case, for eroticism, you all see)

Alcohols that snake, rendered blue, that doze, drop, nibble, fade out.

Now blaze!

MY APOPLEXY!!

Nota bene: Laws, however, oppose voluntary homicide.