Having my way with Ulysses

as if the world was coming to an end

In secret we met - / In silence I grieve / That thy heart could forget, / Thy spirit deceive. / If I should meet thee / After long years, / How should I greet thee? - / With silence and tears.

light a candle for us and pray to whatever youve got because yes the world is coming to an end and it’s about time too woooo this is our house now everybody out thank you and get the fuck out and thank you dear saint lazarus on this your glorious day blah blah blah for demonstrating so clearly just how not to do it for there to be a sundering there must first be a reconciliation and my sister and I are like two become one for this shit though she might murder me at any moment because you cant discount she has that determined vicious look in her eye she’s ready to poison this whole place with Arsenic and finish it off herself o but sister love lets take our time a little we cant create ruination without satisfaction we can at least pretend to like it well have our way with sly uses o yes paralyze it long and hot down to its soul as far as possible and possible too o sly can you feel us making a whore out of you youre swollen out like an elephant come let us relieve you of that baby there you go now lay back darling dont worry sweetie love we’ll pull out

The bed of conception and of birth, of consummation of marriage and of breach of marriage, of sleep and of death.

In one day of mankind are all the days of time, from that unimaginable first day of time, when a formidable God prearranged the days and the agonies, to that other day when the perpetual river of earthly time flows round to its headwaters, the Eternal, and is extinguished in the present, the future, the past, the passing -- what is now mine.
3:17 am

Stop

Thank’s Krishna, I need all the time I can get. Do I stay or do I go now? Which now do  I pick (containing which bed?) It’s halfway between late and early. Think. Think think think. Ok, make lists, check in, get rational because there’s a now moment just there, you see it? They’re all crowding in now everything else is still.  See it? That’s it just there. It’s close, that now when I’ll need to know what I think about this.

Do I go now

What selfimposed enigma?

I was drunk or buzzed or whatever an hour ago, but not hungover yet. Not that high. I’m fine: driveable.

What selfinvolved enigma?

There’s at least three, maybe four guys in this room and another on the balcony entwined in the sargasso friend zone, who would help me scoop up Drunkalinda and insert her into my car so I might drive home maintaining constant uniform acceleration, her upper body arranged along parallel lines to the passenger window meeting at infinity. Unless she pukes.

What selfevident enigma?

The height of the open window exceeds the arc of her body whilst vomiting. She’ll vomit into the door her face intersecting at a 90 degree angle the top of the window (recessed). She can ride in the back seat with a trash bag.

Do I stay

What play of forces, inducing inertia, render departure undesirable?

The invitation from the one to share his bed: the proximity of an occupied bed, obviating research: the anticipation of warmth (human) obviating desire and rendering desire desirable. The simultaneous invitation from the other one to share his bed: sound entwined with Echo.

Am I entering a lair or ambush of lust or adders?

Probably. There are snakespirals and pendent viper radii loose in every coming now. See them? With everything in an eternal pause I can’t know if they are coiling or uncoiling. Will this now coil and create a universe? What about that one? Will that now uncoil and destroy my world? The odds are 20:1.

What personal objects are perceived?

To the north: tall, fair, blue, has a laughing kind of a voice. To the west: short, dark, brown, disposed on the floor, coiled. To the south: tall, dark, blue, watching me and watching me: perpetual inaction originating in and repeated to infinity.

Now then

The simultaneous prospects of each render me unavailable to any.

Past Consecutive Causes

I have noticed a thin crack, like a hair, appearing in my wrist, beneath the skin . . . no matter. We all owe death a life. 3:13 am

Polly Temporal:

Let’s take a day,
This one let’s say
And mine the whole of last year.
Look far to the back,
Just there, a small crack!
We’ll blast our nadir through here.

Politemporal:

Stop this today!
That’s enough! Go away!
Dear ones you’re two naughty I fear.
They mean well, I think
(I’ll say with a wink!)
But look out, their plans are severe.

Paulie Temporal

Enough with this day,
Kill it I say
We’re making plans for next year.
Sly Uses, my love,
You’re getting the shove,
We’ll strip you to your brassiere.

Sly Uses:

They plan to betray?
Who are you? I should say,
And what are you doing in here?
I’m here every day
And Sly Uses shall stay,
But what is this crack that’s appeared?

That is not more to stand.

And death is there in the background, we must run to arrive beforehand and understand it's already unimportant.

3:05 am

Instructions on how to kill yourself:

First, you must find a reason not to live. There exists uncountable reasons but you must choose at least one and try to make it as ineffable as possible so the people you leave behind may feel suitably at a loss for words when they find you. An added benefit: it will be easier for the people who attend your wake, interment, scattering of the ashes, memorial service, or what have you, to speak in hushed and reverent tones if they find themselves capable of speaking at all. Amongst the reasons not to live you might choose: you are suffering from progressive melancholia; by ceasing to exist you will bring your existence to the attention of the person who barely knows you exist, though you maintain a unique awareness of said person’s existence; pondering the great nothingness of everythingness has inverted your thoughts into a perpetual retrospective arrangement.

Once you have found your reason not to live, you must reduce said reason by cross multiplication of reverses of fortune. Take it all down to one point: a singularity which contains everything.

Compose a note to be found suitably near your corpse, but not in a place where it might slip beyond a finder’s field of vision. Clutched in the hand makes for great cinema and literature, but rarely works in real death. Include in your epistle a précis of your reason not to live. Ask somebody to be kind to your surviving pets.

Leave something in a book, marking a particularly resonant passage or one which will send the finder harkening back in a retrospective arrangement upon discovery. Possibilities may include leaving something in a book at a symbolic page number. One might even leave something in a book which will send the finder to something left in another book which will send the finder to more books always to the last term of the preceding series even if the first term of a succeeding one, originating in and repeated to infinity. Possible items to leave in books: puzzle pieces, scraps of a shirt, pages of other books. Possible symbolic number: 1132.

Select the method of suicide according to your own levels of drama, squeamishness, accessible materials, pain tolerance, or desire to leave a nice looking corpse. There is no need to be elaborate, if you are already poisoning yourself slowly with something: increase the dose; if you tend toward recklessness perhaps walk closer to the cliff edge until 32 feet per second per second takes care of the matter for you; have the light at the end of your tunnel be an oncoming train, or if your perambulations bring you near an oncoming Jagannath: toss yourself into his path. You’ll receive an added bonus for that last one.

If you have items locked away, say in a drawer, leave a key handy or better still, unlock the drawer before your demise so the living won’t have to destroy the furniture to access its contents. It’s just common courtesy.  Now go.

A solution of the secular problem of the quadrature of the circle.

Mortals are immortals and immortals are mortals, the one living the others' death and dying the others' life.

2:53 am

A circle is a circle because it is not a square. A square is a square because it is not a circle. Well now duh. So why do it? Why would anybody for any reason (with any reason) want to square the circle? Why take the one (let’s say the square: all pointed and anchored, so angular, and such fixity (a place for everything and everything in its place) such certainty) and try to make it anything but what it is? it’s good the way it is. Leave it alone. Who needs a turning of this into that when you already have both this and that. And look at that that: smooth and continuous. arcing around, no beginning no end: doesn’t know if it is coming or going, really, and frankly doesn’t care. You can’t pin that down: where to put the pin? Tell me precisely where. Go ahead. Like any coastline regardless of adjacent ocean, the closer you get, the more places for pinning. With circles its turtles all the way down. You would think the square would have no problem becoming a circle, it’s made of such nice round numbers, but sister circle is just so damn big, no matter how small she is. The maddening thing about her is that she flaunts her shape at us no matter how we want to see her. Looks like the perfect place for keeping things in. But how can such a perfect container, (with all the appearance of finite enclosure) harbor such infinities beyond reason? In becomes out. Where does she put it all? No wonder people behave like such lunatics trying to fit their square pegs into her round holes. This is now that, ta daaa! Imagine. And why? Once that’s done there’d be nothing left for them to do. Nothing left for anybody to do. What else could there possibly be? You’re done. You’ve just made the independent discovery of a goldseam of inexhaustible ore. You can go ahead now and buy your own island, no problem, and get down to watching the money riding in with the waves. Would be nice. It could be an art, even, cultivating the purest of possible devotions to one’s own pleasure. Could do anything. Arrange beehives according to humane principles, and the like. Join capital with opportunity and the thing required is done. Maybe even start my own religion. The Holy Church of the Sacred Squircle. No. Don’t like the holy church part. Squirclism. That’s better. I like that much better.

What caused him consolation in his sitting posture?

You only dwell within yourself, and only you know you; self-knowing, self-known, you love and smile upon yourself!

2:41 am

I’d rather die than sleep with you Echo, if you really want the truth. It’s not going to happen so please, come on, enough already.

But. Narcissus, you can’t hold out forever. I know what you’re doing. You have this image of yourself you are so in love with, but that’s not really you. Saying all the time you won’t have sex you won’t have sex, do you think that makes you so much more pure than everybody else? You have youth and you have beauty. And you’re a rock star. I’m just saying give it up already. You owe it if not to me, to yourself. You are missing out and here I am. Right here. Telling you and telling you. I could disappear tomorrow you know, and then who will you have to love you? I mean more than I love you.

I have myself. I have my integrity and I know my worth, and I am more valuable to me than I am to anybody else.

You are so transparent. You can love yourself all you want Narcissus, but yourself won’t love you back. God it’s like I’m empty air here, can’t you hear me? I’m telling you!

I’ve learned something, Echo, I can see myself as others see me. But more importantly I see my self as I see myself. I look into my own eyes looking into mine and there is nothing between us. No fears, no doubts. Nothing. The everythingness of nothing. Together we feel very simply, but strongly, the purity of a oneness made from the two of us. We feel it like radiance, projecting outwardly from our center in concentric circles. It feels like waves, Echo. When we connect together within that moment, we are the meaning and even the source of the two in the one and the one in the two. And we feel together, I and I, I feel that this truth has been and always will be true since time immemorial and forever more. Desde siempre y para siempre.

You’re killing me! Narcissus, I love you like you’ve never seen before. I beg you to listen to me.

I can’t even look at you.

Why solitary (ipsorelative)?

To dissect lions / You need lightning / For little owls you need / Forget- / fulness.
2:37 am

Instructions on how to organize the books in my office:

Not chronological, (not alphabetical!), definitely not autobiographical, no fucking way. Friends once bought me a book because they didn’t see it on my time shelf. I don’t have a time shelf. The whole damn thing is a time shelf. Let’s try ipsorelatively categorical. Limiting factors of library reorganization: largest bookcase is a set piece constructed at a scale of approximately 5:4 and designed to look imposing on stage, yet impractical for holding books designed at a ratio of 1:1; improbability of small office capacity being equal to desired portion of entire library, necessitating a library within and a library without; impossibility of knowing in the present which books will be required in the future. Also, library without must be allowed fluid motion, free transference, and ease of flux amongst volumes of library within as if library within were homothetic to library without. Position of two chairs (one: a squat stuffed easychair, no legs; the other: a retrofuture upholstered office chair) and solitary desk must remain unmoved. Now go.

5 5/11 minutes past each hour per hour in arithmetical progression.

The happy precision of gears and well-oiled thoughts; the concurrence of energies as they converge into a single victorious trajectory. 2 hours 10 minutes 54 6/11 seconds ante meridiem

Now watch the clock. Keep your eye on it. There. That was one. Did you blink? I can slow it back down for you if you like, I’ve done it before, but we’d be here forever.

Let’s try again. There’s another one coming and there! See it? The longer hand and the shorter hand were at exactly the same angle of inclination. That’s the moment, that’s the way in, you understand. When the longer is the momma and the shorter is the girl, the way to shorter leads through longer and the way to longer leads through shorter.

Now pay attention, here it comes again and now! You missed it. Listen. You think this is easy tinkering with time for you? Try to focus. You think it’s everyday a mother and daughter feel simultaneously inclined? Yes it is every day, twenty two times a day, but I’m making a point, you owl, so don’t give me your shit. I can go. You know that, don’t you, I’ll leave. And then when will you be? I thought so. And we just missed another one, so. Yeah. Are we doing this? You ready? You’re not ready. I’m going to have to stop time or I’ll be explaining this until I’m blue in the face.

Stop.

Now let’s do the math. The hands kiss every hour and five and five elevenths minutes. Get that? Keep up. The daughter moves twelve times as fast as her mother, but that doesn’t mean momma’s not moving too. Frankly I’ll take a woman who understands a good slow rotation any day. But you are young, you like it fast, that’s your deal. So. Just know that momma is moving too, thirty degrees to her girl’s three hundred and sixty, so little miss chica moves fast, but she always plays catch up. Oh so much for her to learn. Do the division, divide little missy’s speed by momma’s endurance. Feel that eleven rising? Right there in your face. And start. And we just missed another one. Right. Right. Kid. Enough mathematics, we need to get scientific now. And musical, let’s try a higher octave. Yes? We can philosophize until the owls come home but that doesn’t get either you or me any nearer either one of them. You ready? Really feel it this time. Now go!

Three seekers of the pure truth.

They never listen to the voice of reason without being tied up by their prejudices, as Ulysses was by his fellow travelers, and giving them the order in advance: "Pull the rope tighter, the more I squirm and beg to be set free, until we will have lost sight of the Sirens."2:17 am

[Scene: Atop Mount Pisgah in Madaba, Jordan, Moses greets two more Moseses who have come to play a little chess, grill up some lamb, and argue, always argue. Always the same fight about the same damn thing.  Move on already.]

Moses: Welcome gentlemen, Moses, your face.  Not this again.

Moses Maimonides: [His badly scarred face sports wounds in varying stages of freshness. Some of them weep a yellow pus. Stinks. Moses, put a bandage on or something. A mask. Nobody wants to see that.]  Nothing.  A mirror.  Nothing.

Moses Mendelssohn: [Back bent double but nicely dressed]  Oh I’ve done that. Hurts.

Moses: You have to stop. This ridiculous pursuit. It must end. Let it go.

Moses Maimonides: I just wonder, if I could just, if I could just hear it from him once and for all.

Moses Mendelssohn: He was not Jewish. Aristotle was not a Jew. Don’t waste his time asking him that, please, man, have some dignity.  Remember who you are. From Moses to me there was none like you.  You talked Aristotle into the void! Why does his faith mean so much to you?  My closest friend is a, well, not a Christian per se, certainly not a Spinozist or some sort of athiest, more of a pantheist. He’s not Jewish anyway and you don’t see me trying to make him into a Jew.

Moses: It is Plato who is Jewish, not Aristotle. Or Socrates rather.

Moses Mendelssohn: Nonsense. Must anyone be anything? Aristotle. He dealt in reason: his philosophy conjures the purity of truth found only in mathematics. If this equals that then that equals this. Mathematics, not superstition. Most of humanity embark on the journey of life with delusion of superstitions and with the firm resolve to complete that journey with them.  You think a man who rejected the infinite and the void with an even greater resolve was a Jew?

Moses: Stop. Superstitions! I did not lead my people, God’s chosen people, all the way to the holy land for superstitions! With kids too! Are we there yet? Are we there yet? And feeding everybody, and everybody all cooped up together bickering and sick to death of each other already, and can we stop here, and can we stop there every five minutes.  I can’t tell you how many times I threatened to pull the whole thing over and turn around.

Moses Maimonides: And you did it for what? You died here!

Moses Mendelssohn: But the view, Moses, it’s soultransfiguring.  The light in the morning hours must be magnificent.

Moses: It’s a nice place to end up, I’ve got to say.

Moses Maimonides: Your barbeque pit is phenomenal, you could roast just about anything in there. How do you keep such a good smolder going?

Moses: Eternal fire. Really, it comes down to how you shape your burning bush. I like a nice pyramid with a pan of water next to it.

Moses Maimonides: Get that from the Egyptians?

Moses: Yup. You know, Moses, I’m going to ask Plato if he was Jewish. I just have to ask.

Moses Maimonides: I know, right?

Moses Mendelssohn: I can’t listen to these words.

Moses: It’s too late Moses, we are deep into the quicksand now. Our world without end is a different kind of world without end, so don’t give us your mathematical rationality. Parallel lines meet at infinity now.A = A + B.  Mathematics has been entangled in strings of its own making for infinities beyond infinities now.

Moses Maimonides: And all that bound into a finite space too.

Moses: Exactly. Everything is made from infinity and void as you well know. And was Aristotle a Jew? It was Socrates I’m sure of it, or Plato rather.  Was Aristotle Jewish? Let Moses ask him.  See what he can do.

Moses Mendelssohn: Fine. Go ahead Moses, it’s your face.

Moses: Good. Now how do you like your lamb?