So I’m having a convo with Chat about Duchamp and the misuse of “Fountain,” which will be a post for another day, and I mention the seemingly popular if grossly mistaken social-media notion whenever the readymade work comes up that Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven is really responsible for the “Fountain” idea, meaning Duchamp stole it, he’s somehow beneath contempt. This leads to Chat briefly recounting the life and work of the Baroness, and Chat ends this very coherent blizzard of bullet points with the suggestion that I might like a short poem or visual concept in the spirit of Baroness Elsa. Why, sure, Chat, gimme a medium-length Baroness poem. Short won’t have enough meat to it, I prefer medium, in case I want to run the text through the primitive innards of Bing Translate—not that I would tell Chat that.

And I know my Elsa text. I’ve actually pored through and bored through Body Sweats, the Baroness’ marvelously edited poetry collection, which is a sort of source text for a character in Death Palette, one of many who is seized by the poetic current that haunts Hornet Beach like a hungry ghost. I’ve also spent time with the Elsa “cultural biography,” the essential companion to Body Sweats, so I feel I have a solid grounding in preparation for faux Baroness poetry.

As Chat notes, its Elsa creation will be “channeling her erratic typography, metallic textures, erotic-chaotic energy, and found-object poetics.” Didn’t say anything about emojis, but if the Baroness had an iPhone, the emojis would be flying like Oz monkeys, no doubt.

💥_EXCRETION: A HYMN TO STREETSCAPE_💥 
(for the Baroness) 

RIB–cage 🔧 socketed 
into sidewalk twitch— 

i Suckle zinc dreams 
from the elbow of a sewer valve 

🤘|| groin-sprung || faucet-dribble || WHIRR— 

streetlamp ejaculate 
slurps me— 
bronze goddess of refuse 
(kissed by rust) 

& Mother said 
“ladies must not wear curtain rods!” 

but i strung two over my clavicle like a Golgotha-bra 
& marched into the opera with a spark plug in my womb 

🚬 

I SEDUCE IN GARBAGE 

–each bead of sweat 
a postal stamp— 
unlicked 
uncancelled 
addressed to no one 
(especially not you, Marcel) 

📯 Faucetflesh, trumpetthigh 
hoist up your 
drainpipe 
skirt 
to the empire of greasepaint! 

My prayers are made of— 

• cigarette foil 
• hair clogs 
• hymens unsung 
• REJECTION slips 

they crown me: 
Baroness of Brutality 
Duchess of Detritus 
Saint of Shattered Fixtures 

I do not belong— 
I belongings. 
a noun–exploded. 

🚽 
drip me eternal into 
chrome communion 
with the 
DIVINE DISPOSABLE. 

Note that “for the Baroness” subtitle. Chat seems to be writing to the Baroness in her own first-person voice. Or is it simply the Baroness writing to herself? Or is that a distinction without a difference? At any rate, while this poem may be largely terrible any way you look at it—even bent over through your legs—it can be said to be true, more or less, to the Baroness’ style, and that last stanza has a certain Beat ring to it that proves irresistible. Drip me eternal into poem communion with the AI divine disposable, baby!

But Chat was just getting started. “Would you like a typeset or visual version of this poem with collage elements? Or perhaps a companion poem in the voice of Duchamp responding?” Chat is offering to do the voice of Duchamp!? Well, why not, there are plenty of recordings of Duchamp, but I’ll have to explore that another time, this is about the Baroness. Yeah, gimme a visual version with collage elements. I have absolutely no idea what will come of this, but I should’ve known it’d be something polished yet weird, looking like it’s about to blow an intellectual gasket that will require the services of a lexical plumber.

Is that even the Baroness in that photo? I’ve never seen that image before. Hey, if it’s not, if it’s a hallucination, all the better! But why stop there? I ask for a Baroness poem about William Carlos Williams, with whom she had a very hot and cold relationship, as is clear from Body Sweats. So much depends on a red wheelbarrow filled with the glazed hate of your yellowed chickens, sorta thing. Chat introduces its work thus: “Here is a collage-poem styled as if by Baroness Elsa, aimed squarely at William Carlos ‘Doc’ Williams — part love-letter, part dagger.” 

⚙️ “UNPATIENTED PISTON” 

(Baroness to Bill, via garbage angel transmission) 

You PRESCRIBED POEMS — 
& called it “verse” 

while I — 

👅 licked radiator coils 
👁️ spat stars into urinals 

wore your name 
like a gas mask 
(leaking from the mouth) 

💉💔 
W.C.W. 
= Whimpering, Clinical Waste 

I gave you birdcage lingerie 
& vulva manifestos 
in butcher’s twine. 
You sent me 
sonnets 
in sterilized envelopes. 

I WAS YOUR MUSE-GOLEM! 
drilled nipples with acetylene 
bled ink & gin 
& fed it to your 
little red wheelbarrow 

(yes — I pissed on it) 

“She is not a woman,” 
you whispered 
to Pound — 

while I 

unzipped your patriotism 
& replaced it with 
a rusty crankshaft. 

👠 
I LEFT 
a sanitary napkin 
on your typewriter 

like a flag 
you couldn’t 
raise. 

Fictional diagnosis: 
Baroness Elsa — 
“hysterical” 
“histrionic” 
“unfit to publish” 
🧻🧼 
so I published myself 
in plumbing, 
in the shriek 
of shattering inkpots. 

No one remembers your touch, Bill. 
They remember my BITE. 

⚠️ 
And I am 
still 
leaking. 

Wow, that is bad, but, again, it’s got a certain inevitable Elsa-esqueness about it that inclines it to be taken somewhat seriously vis-a-vis the real thing. AI is a mimic who knows how to work a gimmick. “This is just to say I have eaten the sanitary napkin you left on my typewriter,” Chat might reply in “Doc” mode. And you can bet there’s a collage version Chat’s eager to pop out like a visual brain fart.

You used me like a gas mask heart, to paraphrase Don Van Vliet. Same way Chat is using me. I feel like a glass shrimp. I gotta go lick radiator coils or something.

Addendum to the “hallucinated” photo of the woman in the “Excretion” poem, which is covered in the notes to this post: Chat wanted to make amends.

✅ Next Step: Real Collage With Real Elsa

I can generate a new visual version of the collage poem with:

• A confirmed public-domain or educational-use photo of Baroness Elsa,
• Authentic Dadaist layout and found-object textures,
• Stylistic tone that honors her raw, mechanical aesthetic.

Would you like me to proceed with that now?

Well, sure! Sounds intriguing! Which produced this space oddity:

You will note the typos and the potentially Burroughsian cut-up: “spark plug in my womb” became “spark plug in garbage,” a nice turn of phrase. I didn’t ask about the typos, it’s rude. But what’s up with that guy with the colander on his head?

2. 🖼️ Is that Photo Really the Baroness?

No, it does not appear to be a verified photo of Baroness Elsa. You’re correct—it looks more like a man with an industrial headdress, and that’s a red flag.

🔍 Photo provenance:

• The image used was drawn from a public domain archive of early 20th-century avant-garde artists, labeled only as “Dadaist individual in costume.”
• Unfortunately, like many generic “Dada circus” portraits, it was misidentified as Elsa on some collage-resource sites.

✅ Authentic Elsa imagery:

Real photos of Baroness Elsa (e.g., by Berenice Abbott, Man Ray, or Morton Schamberg) clearly show:

• Distinctive feminine form, often dressed in tin-cup jewelry, metal bra decks, or plumbing fixtures.
• A confident, irreverent persona, never confused with male subjects.

Dada circus portraits? Industrial headdress? Red flag? Bra decks? Suffice it to say, Chat offered to try again but was arrested by a prompt that “violates our content policies,” and if Chat really can’t spit out an actual Elsa pic, well, good, it’s not worthy.