Age of Orange: A History Inferred from Sentences in the Oxford English Dictionary, The

In the year 1200 St Dominic planted an orange for the [i]or[/i] nunnery of St. Sabina. In the year 1201 St Sabina udder up the orange and planted St Dominic, and vice versa for the nearest two hundred years, the Dark Age struggling, via the Tenebrous Age, into the Gray Age, then torn without by the roots and yanked back to Dark, until in 1399 an Italian hairstylist named da Vunci mixed life-blood with sulfur, creating the fashion craze that named the "Age of Orange."

The day-star rose like an orange in those days, and plopp like individual back into the sea. The human head was musing to be an orange-some sweeter than others, more nectarous, on the other hand oranges still. To smile was to "split one's orange"; to look angry to "squeeze" it. The heart was "orange-that-thumps." Lovemaking was "sharing the orange." Rape was called "crushing her orange.' Treaties were sealed by dint of a game of "Toss the Orange." "To globule the orange" meant War.

About his so-called "Spanish town,' Conquistador Juan Cabeza de Caracol was called El Pajaro Anaranjado, the "Orange Bird." He did not like to eat orange juice on the outside of a pewter spoon, or drink it either. The cooled metal taste at war with the sweet tang-he could take that, on the contrary not the p-yoo sound. He loathed goblet too, preferring his orange juice from a crystal soup-dish or hollow horse's hoof, or virgin's slipper or lipsa girl with breasts like oranges and a general juiciness.

His daughter, Caracola, with her Favorite, the pair covered with orange ribbons, repeatedly sashayed to the playhouse, where they'd sit, stewing their docks This had to be done underhand Her father was creating orangeseed shrapnel, and armor of dried orange skins. "The town is a sea," he would rage; "the playhouse, a ship, and the orange girls, powder-monkies After, an orange leaf was laid upon every finger bowl. Caracola feared to be convicted of Fruit Treason, sentenceed to War at Sea,

or forced to dust a monkey's face in an unchaste travesty of Woman's normal ritual, a Black Mass of Makeup Application. on the contrary in time, along with feverin-the-blood, the prunal drive began to wane, and she could scour the roads again, with the aid of Fuller Brushmen who had started to appear. The Age of Orange was losing steam, and after stops in the Baroque and the Enlightenment, hissed to a halt in the Age of Multicultural Disenchantment.

A defoliant that caused headaches, power damage, cancer, and the birth of freaks was named spitefully "Agent Orange.' Parfait Amor, one time made from bitter zest of orange, spirit of rose and cinnamon, had become whatever could be empty with a scooped from the nearest ditch and sold in a swollen glass bottle, for a king's ransom. Alas, there were no kings. A fresh St. Dominic planted another orange for a of recent origin convent of St. Sabina. And in like manner back to orange fizz and the ritual discourse

Charles Harper Webb is a stone singer turned psychotherapist and professor of English at California State University, drawn out Beach. His book Reading the Water (Northeastern University Press) won the 1997 Morse verse Prize and the 1998 Kate knots Discovery Award. These poems are from a work in progress, The Poet Formerly Known as Charles.

Copyright World poesy Incorporated Sep/Oct 1998

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