Having my way with Ulysses

Where’s the great light?

• Circe

Satan astonished, and with power above his own controll compell'd the Gnomes to curb the horses, & to throw banks of sand around the fiery flaming Harrow in labyrinthine forms. And brooks between to intersect the meadows in their course. The Harrow cast thick flames: Jehovah thunderd above: Chaos & ancient night fled from beneath the fiery Harrow: The Harrow cast thick flames & orb'd us round in concave fires A hell of our own making. see, its flames still gird me round.11:32 pm

Who? Who? Are you blue? Oh its you, my little gnome. I should have expected you, darling, here between evil and deliverance. No no, come back here. I see you, come out. Lurking around your lair. Peering from your warren. Adorable. Don’t want to be seen here do you? Too many danger signals? Oh sweetheart, come dance with me, with all of us. Just a minute I have to take this.  Si? Espera, mi amor, y yo estaré contigo. Alrededor detrás del establo. Sorry about that. You waited! Oh my love, dance with me. What’s that? Oh sweetheart, don’t you see I can’t hear you? Please, my soft soul of flowers, don’t be mislead by appearances, my eyes are larger than my ears! Let’s dance together ’till we’re dead or cured. Doesn’t matter which, gnomey, same difference really. Ah but what’s real here you want to know? This is the dance of delusion, my onliest, my lovey, my luring bird of Eden.  We’ll tango through miserileading doors, and side with fuguist appearances. So how’d you get here?  Must have been Elijah’s horses. Here, hold my pen. Let’s unhitch them, shall we? They’ll dance with us, they dance too you know, then my eagle will bring us a leg of a duck and we can insert it directly into our bodies. You’ll be delicious my diminutive one, my pigmy, my  sweet smiling pestilence, my swan.  We’ll bathe in my cauldron (mind that bubbling lead!) and emerge nice and clean and refreshed and as beautiful as a many colored bow and oh I see, you’re a bit stunted. Well, I’ll hold you up. Not a problem. And then and then

God: Ok, hold.  Vitus, you’re far off script, and did you just take a call?

St. Vitus: [adjusting his peaked cap 180°]  and then we’ll grind our teeth growl howl owl and growling and grinding and teeth ghahute, go first my plunder, go my prey, salute the west gone to rest, ghaghaest, go my guest, my stranger, my destitute, my sterile my wanting, you go my dear ghost, my soul, my demon or my angel, whichever, and then and then

God: Vitus. Vitus!

Jesus: Salute him with your left hand, that’s the password in his language.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Shattering light over the world.

• Circe

For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to leave his guard at the tree of life, and when he does, the whole creation will be consumed, and appear infinite, and holy whereas it now appears finite & corrupt.11:34 pm

Hey turn that light on, will you?  No, not that one.  Over here.  Closer.  Don’t be scared, I won’t bite. Hard. You’re shivering. Come warm up. Now about that light.  There, that’s the one. Let’s get you from all that potentiality into something a little more actual. That’s better. Now hush, I need to listen to your body, your movements.  No don’t speak, don’t speak. Just do a little dance or something. I want to know you. Not what you can tell me with your tongue, but on that subject, show me your tongue.  Go ahead. Stick it out. Ah. Aaaah. There. Like a gift. Now I see you. Spin around. For me? Give us a twirl. There you go. Nice structural rhythm, I see your whole form now, in all your entelechaotic glory. Stretch out your hands. What’s that you’re saying, you hungry?  Thirsty? A jug of bread maybe, no? You held your hands in intersecting planes, so I thought I’d ask. Must have been your head tilting back. Move a little closer. Near the mirror, I want to see your structural rhythms. No not that one, the convex. That’s it. Diverging, you are. All that light outwardly reflected. And that imaginary focal point, well done there. Good. Good to get a bit of distance on the subject. Don’t worry about the distortion, we’re all distorted. You know that, don’t you. Don’t have to tell you. Walk closer to it, approach the sorcerer’s eye, ah, not so fast! There now. Now you are looming over yourself properly. Difficult to do in company, but you seem to have the hang of it. Good. Now move very slowly, slowly I said! toward the concave. That’s it. See that? Go back a bit and do it again. There stop! Focus. See, you’ve inverted. Nice, no? Wait, where did you go? Oh there you are! Well what do you know, light camoflauges you. Look at you! Very interesting. You appear to define your boundaries by motion. Makes a nice contrast between yourself and your background. I do like that in a, well, whatever it is you call yourself.  What are you anyway? A flasher? Searchlight? I know, aurora borealis! No? Too chilly? But you’re shivering. Oh no. I see you now. Can’t be. The stagnant fumes arising. That glow. No. Go. Go now get out. Go. Ga Giest! Firen! Fyr! Fyr!

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Bueñas noches, Señorita Blanca.

• Circe

Whoso therefore knows how to conjoin the principles, or direct the work, to impregnate, to mortify, to putrify, to generate, to quicken the species, to make white, cleanse the vulture from his blackness and darkness so he is purged by the fire and tinged, and purified from all his spots, shall be possessor of a treasure so great, that even kings themselves shall venerate him.11:36 pm

Careful that whore riding the dragon. Password. This way to the lower world, three turns to the right then you’ll find your divine spirit in the depths of matter. Don’t believe me? Doesn’t matter. Not important. You’re in, you figure it out. A hint, friend. The more you putrefy the more likely you’ll purify. Understand? Have you no soul? You have hope, you say. Hope. you think that’s enough? Please. Pandora, you know her? Cheap whore that one but a nice kid. She let all the evils out of her jar for the world’s grief and left hope inside. Smart girl.  Oye tell me, yeah, if you’re so smart, if you know everything about sin then what’s hope? What was hope doing in the jar with all the other baddies? Lucky it stayed in there. Right. So. See there my vulture’s shadow? Follow it. Now go. Estúpido. Quién no tiene fuerza para matar la realidad no es lo suficientemente fuerte como para crearlo. Hablar conmigo de esperanza. Estoy grandeza tres veces. Estoy palabras en acción. Te ves en todos los estratos del ser y es mi cara que ves. Soy el mago que creó magia! Estoy sentido inagotable. Hice el culo sólo pensar en ello. Hablar conmigo de esperanza.  You still here?  I said go.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Sixtyseven is a bitch.

• Circe

MORERIS: The camels looked familiar? CIRCE: I will tell you. Of the men who lay hidden under her, purity means little. But it was all to their liking to appreciate the polluted. Let those who are wise remember the childlike, the kind nasty, infected, and dirty men prefer to receive, or to offer. And now they are preferring as a camel to go drink the whole at once, enjoying, excepting when the water is troubled by the trampling of their own feet. 11:38 pm

Oooh. Come here little fascinatrix. What? Don’t murmur, speak up. You’re quivering. Here, borrow my bat shawl. There now, what’s wrong? Did your mother take a strap to you at your bed post? Sweet little hussy like you, I’ll bet you loved her for doing that to you. Come in. Careful! Don’t trip now, it’s bad luck. Impolite too. There now, let’s see the secrets of your bottom drawers. Oh a little blood there.  I’ll bet you show that to all the men, show them all your worldly goods. There now wise child, I can sell you for a virgin, fresh thing like you. Never touched. I’ll start with $50; maybe $45. Oh honey, don’t be a stick in the mud. We’re all undervalued. Mustn’t have cold feet about that, no no, not the least little bit. We’ll go for quantity. Maidenhead for sale, enough for all takers. Remember be a child with them. Invite the next one who wants to slap your haunch to play a little leap frog. Here have a mango. There you go. That’s better. Let’s get some clothes on you. Turkish costume? Yes, you’ll look a dream. Your stomach looks different; I notice some change. Try not to show. Be for them a light rising and try to smell like something clean, makes more of a contrast for them, yeah? The dirty married men like that in a virgin.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Would you like me perhaps to embrace you just for a fraction of a second?

• Circe

For our beginnings are a barred and palpable body, the mean of a fugitive spirit and watery gold without conversion, from which our masters have accepted their own lives, the end however is permanent.11:40 pm

You slumming here!  You ought to see yourself. Tell me, do you remember the night we, when there was, when we were so inclined to? We had such a nice little mix up of the marital, is it beyond recall? Can we again, maybe, oh how time flies, hark back in a retrospective arrangement to the housewarming party remember? Blindfolded feeling for partners (oh you had such soft corners!) and you and I by the teapot talking about what it means, what it meant to me. You. And you now. Lady and the Unicorn (what were you thinking?) but we can’t change that now. Or maybe we can, eh? Want me to kiss the spot? Could you? I have a little present for you, if you’ll ever forgive me for it.  If you are so inclined. Just for a moment. A second. A half second, really, just a small. Just a little. Won’t count really, just a little fraction of a fraction. Mathematically insignificant. What is time, really? Just a pin prick of it, just a little something, shall we, won’t in the grand scheme of, don’t you see, I know somebody won’t like it but the ears can’t see what the lips won’t hear, if you understand my dear, my faun, my hart. How graceful are your feet in those gold sandals. You are so elusive in them. My fugitive. Your breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle. Whatever do you think of me? Do you remember what I whispered in your ear that night? I bit your ear and sent you a secret valentine and said

One Response to Would you like me perhaps to embrace you just for a fraction of a second?

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

I am not on pleasure bent. I am in a grave predicament.

• Circe

If you would operate by means of our bodies, take a fierce grey wolf, which, though on account of its name it be subject to the sway of warlike Mars, is by birth the offspring of ancient Saturn, and is found in the valleys and mountains of the world, where he roams about savage with hunger. Cast to him the body of the King, and when he has devoured it, burn him entirely to ashes in a great fire. By this process the King will be liberated; and when it has been performed thrice the Lion has overcome the wolf, and will find nothing more to devour in him. Thus our Body has been rendered fit for the first stage of our work.11:42 pm

Well would you look at that. You asked once if I ever heard or read or knew or came across a woman pissing like a man, yes? Yes. And look at him, three hats pinned on his head dancing drunk in the street.  Listen, I’ve got a real fashion emergency here, and you can’t tell anybody, not even Molly. I have my reasons. Don’t attract attention, I hate stupid crowds, just walk with me, yes? Do you remember that outfit you looked amazing with the thing, and the neckline? Yes? You looked much better than Molly, eating what’s her name Gallaher’s sandwich. You know, the one who was with the one dancing in the street with the one with the three hats, yes? Is that your dog? Cute, just don’t let him devour me.  Maybe you could put him in your purse or something. Is that a poodle or a terrier? All dogs look the same in here. Anyway I never liked her style, she was too. Oh God I’m fading. Am I soft? I wonder if he has any pills in that bag, yes?

2 Responses to I am not on pleasure bent. I am in a grave predicament.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

What am I following him for?

• Circe

Small witless helpless and thin breath. But bend and hear: a voice. A sparrow under the wheels of Juggernaut, shaking shaker of the earth. Please mister God, big mister God! Goodbye, big world! . . . . . . . Aber das ist eine Schweinerei!11:44 pm

Don’t look, I’m not yet finished.  What, do you want me with no legs and only stumps for arms? Makes no difference to me, understand, the stream of life is always passing.  I’ll pass right over you regardless.  If you like, pull me, make my wheels turn, and if you touch me you might get close enough to look me in the eye.  And then! And then!  Then I will deliver you from all your sins.  Or throw yourself under my wheels and then see what I can do for you. Lifetimes worth of absolution. I can’t always save you understand, you’ll have to meet me at least halfway with presence of body and absence of mind.  Stop that! That’s my bucket of porter what the hell are you doing?  Good God now it’s all pig sticky! Have you no pride? Come closer and I’ll trample it for you.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

I am doing good to others.

• Circe

Good boy11:47 pm

Come here.  Come here.  Come on now.  Here you go.  You want this? I bet you do. I’ll bet you do.  Come on now.  Come here. Oooh this looks good.  I know you want it.  I know you. Ew. No. No. Don’t do that. Roll back over boy.  Go on now.  Get. Ew. Here. Here. Take it. Take this one too. Whatever. Just take it.  Now go.

5 Responses to I am doing good to others.

  1. It’s funny, I went to save this picture in my files because I had a dog of 15 pass last year that this reminded me of and the name of the photo came up ‘circe-dog1’ and tjhat’s what her name was. Of course I don’t have much of any merit to comment on your blog. I wish I did, at times I find them so interesting, even if your object is to be obtuse as something to humor yourself with. But I will continue to read them. Quite frankjly of all those that I fllow yours tend to be the more interesting. KB

    PS: I don’t ever hear back from you. I wonder if you read anything I write eitjher as commentary or on my blog ?

    Reply

    • Oh hell, darling, if you can type with fingers toes teeth whatever then you have merit to comment on anything here. Don’t worry about that ever. And that goes for the rest of you too. You know who you are. If I don’t reply it is because I set for myself this ridiculous ill-conceived god forsaken and likely deity despised task of writing a daily piece riffing on this infernal book Ulysses god help me. I spend hours reading, researching, writing, searching for just the right image, often photographing said image, then tweaking said image and captioning said image until I am haunted at night by the faces of them all in the dark. The blessed relief of being done comes but then the world spins, the next day comes and here I am again. Onward. Until New Years Day. Sick, I’m writing. Family vacation, I’m writing. Birthday, writing. Head injury, writing. For free. And life keeps happening as I knew it would. This is what happens when you say what would happen if. I dedicated a year, my family with me, and the year itself is filled with itself. I have children, two small ones. They have needs ever flowing onward. But I made a commitment to do this and I haven’t missed a day yet. I have come to brinks of edges of beetling over the base of. But I keep going. Who the hell knows why. I read everything you say and others too, but if I don’t respond it is because somebody has poopy pants and food needs to be made and somebody fell down and this one needs and that one can’t find and that one wants and this and then that and then and then.

      Why? I don’t have time to remember why. Not to be obtuse. I never wanted that. I do humor myself. I don’t see my readers. I don’t know who you are. I talk to you ever day, but I’m alone in here. And I’m having a blast. I giggle to myself every day writing. I love every god damned second of it. It’s Joyce. He’s hysterical. And I like playing with his humor and adding my own. I always think you don’t have to read Joyce to get what I’m doing, but maybe you do. I have no idea. I’m in my head and the usual criticism of my work is that I forget my reader is not in my head. I have a bewildering number of people reading me god bless them every one. A deeply eccentric and quixotic group of glorious misunderstoods I imagine. You are all welcome in my head and write to me because I like peeking into yours.

      Why? I remember why. I wanted to write and I wanted to be happy at the same time. I was teaching literature and theory and writing, and then I became a mother. Paused it all. I waited. My littlest found his legs, my oldest isn’t in school full time yet. I saw a sweet spot where maybe I could what if I did might I? So what would I like to spend a year doing? How about making it a daily event. A performance art even. Put something out there every day, unfussed over. See what it will be. If I didn’t have a daily deadline I would futz and mess and backspace and stare at the blinking cursor and endless nothing. What has happened is naked and there. There are themes. There are threads. Some of it is beautiful. Some of it is shit. All of it is. I am on pleasure bent. I am in a grave predicament. And I’m not stopping until polly and paulie temporal have their say at the end. And then, and then. The enormity of the burden demands I stop. The enormity of the pleasure demands I keep going. Though going forward I’ll take breaks. Good god yes.

      So yeah, if I don’t write back, although often I do, it is not because I don’t want to. As it is, it is 7:45 am and I am already behind where I should be today.

      Reply

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

You ought to be thoroughly well ashamed of yourself.

• Circe

Mr. Neverout: What! You have found a mare's nest and laugh at the eggs. Miss Notable: Pray, keep your breath to cool your porridge.11:49 pm

Oh would you look at this. A specimen of my maturer work disfigured by the hallmark of the beast. You ought to be ashamed. You ought to have your throat cut across, your tongue torn out by its roots, and your body buried in the rough sands of the sea at low water mark, where the tide ebbs and flows twice in twenty-four hours. Violator. Have you no pride? I’ll tell my brother on you. Are you drunk or something? Don’t come back to me crying scapegoat, saying you are misunderstood. Just look at the shitbroleeth you’ve made here. You ought to have your left breast torn open, your heart plucked out, and given to the wild beasts of the field and the fowls of the air. Don’t’ tell me I don’t see it and that’s all. You think this is something that is an entirely new departure. That’s a damnable foul lie, plagiarist, masquerading as a litterateur. You ought to have your body cut in two, your bowels removed and burned to ashes which are then to be scattered to the four winds of heaven. It is perfectly obvious that with the most inherant baseness you have cribbed some of my bestselling copy, really gorgeous stuff, a perfect gem, the love passages in which are beneath suspicion. O Lord, my God, is there no help for the Widow’s Son? If your so called literature were printed on paper I wouldn’t wipe my ass with it.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

As God is looking down on me this night if ever I laid a hand to them oylsters!

• Circe

Don't be savage, man. After all, why should any woman -- Mrs. Smith or even Mrs. ____ herself -- be better than she should be?11:51 pm

I loved that scouring brush. I truly did. I had dreams of running away, making a better life for myself. And I was gonna take my brush with me I was. I would scrub, wearing my emerald garters which made me no better than I should be, but I would scrub and say brush, only you brushy know my secrets. My real soul. I had respect for that brush. His bristles were stuck out in all different directions and I could twist my wrist just right to get the tippy tips of them right in any crack and dig and dig with it and watch in that crucial moment the soap turning brown and all the dirt coming out but not completely. Rather a mess it could make too! Flicking brown bubbles this way and that. Always missing the bucket with it, a large bucket too. I tell you I loved that scouring brush. I would have taken him with me too, but that would have been stealing and I thought more of myself poor as I am.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Tan his breech well, the upstart! Write the stars and stripes on it!

• Circe

Three Most Excellent Masters you Must have been, or thus far you could not have come; but farther you cannot go without my words, sign, and word of exhortation. My words are Shem, Japhet, and Adoniram; my sign is this: (thrusting his hand in his bosom); it is in imitation of one given by God to Moses, when He commanded him to thrust his hand into his bosom, and, taking it out, it became as leprous as snow. 11:53 pm

He came after me, his hand hidden but I could see quite clearly it was at its own game.  He spoke with his bloody mouth like some high priest and I’m supposed to kneel before him. And he revealed himself to me! But I didn’t listen to him. My blood will not be wooed by the grace of language and gesture, muchibus thankibus no! I am not to be soul transfigured no matter how soul transfiguring he might pretend to be. I deserve to live, deserve to live! He’s horny and terrible and does not deserve the benefit of the doubt. I say chastise him, spank him, geld him, and ride him! He ought to have his head couped at the neck.  He’s a pigdog and always was.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

He exhales a putrid carcasefed breath.

• Circe

Married! And you a professed anarchist, too! What is this confounded nonsense? But I suppose it’s merely a manner of speaking. Anarchists don’t marry. It’s well known. They can’t. It would be apostasy.11:55 pm

Ooh. Pardon. That buttermilk didn’t agree with me. Bad idea anyway. I traveled all the way from Exile, you know the place? City called We Put God There. Anyway, came pretty far to help out here as I see Bloom’s traveling south at about thirty two feet per second per second. So listen. Listen. Oh come on now, listen up. How’s my wife? Keep her off the booze, could you? And yeah don’t mind Bloom, he’s with me. Or was with me; he was at my funeral. He’s not some unibomber type, he’s all right. You know why? I could give you eighteen thousand reasons why. He’s married, for a start. But look it, I have to keep moving or the rats, you understand. Missing a few features of my face already. Just, you know, pray for my soul or whatever if you’re into that. You can do it with more or less care than is good. Anyway, I’ll see you, an soon from what I hear. When you get to We Put God There look me up.  I’m in field 14 + 24, row 101.

One Response to He exhales a putrid carcasefed breath.

  1. Well, I appreciated your hurried note of the other day. Even your mundane is not mundane, which doesn’t mean to say there’s nothing to it. At all!. You may be arrested for making me have thoughts-Have thought? God forbid! But likes to likes I might have to steal me some copied foolscap of U;lysses, for trhe damn book’s to thick to fit down my pants and I’ll not spend a copper on the boundeer–by tjhe by, did you know ol’ JJ used to use coco for his eye pain. His physician’s name was Dr. La Nazzi (true story-I think I told you I retyped the correspondence between JJ and ?Sylvia over the publication of ‘that book’-treated her not well he does.) Have a moo-cow day! KB

    Reply

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Do you know what thought did?

• Circe

My voice dying in the echoes of its words, dies like the wisdom-wearied voice of the Eternal calling on Abraham through echoing hills. She leans back agains the pillowed wall: odalisque-featured in the luxurious obscurity. Her eyes have drunk my thoughts: and into the moist warm yielding welcoming darkness of her womanhood my soul, itself dissolving, has streamed and poured and flooded a liquid and abundant seed . . . . . . Take her now who will! 11:57 pm

Well hello there kisses, how’re they hanging? You dress right. Is left a bit lacking there? Well, not everybody’s symmetrical. Hello! what the hell is this, a what is this? Potato? What do you do with it? Want to show me, come in inside. No, that’s not church music. Well, maybe it is, I don’t know. Some guy in there playing the piano, a parson or something. He your kid? Wanna be my daddy? I thought maybe but ok. Come on honey, lend me your ear a little, hey mousey. Let me have a little bite.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

That’s the music of the future.

• Circe

From her immortal head a heaven-sent glow envelops the earth and great beauty arises under its radiance.12:00 am

Who the hell is she? Get her out of here could you, she’s limiting my radiance. Got a light? So, which one am I marrying, you? Him. Him? For the honor of God, is that Bloom? He barely looks 31!  Did he hear me? He looks 43 at least. Me? Am I on? Right. Good evening ladies, gentlemen, deities, the deceased. As we stand at the base of this, good god would you look at what that looks like, at the base of this pillar of cloud at the start of this year one of the reign of our new what are we calling him? Emperor? President? King? Chairman? To honor my new husband is this the ring? A ruby? hardly a stone of destiny Uh. We have prepared for you a majestic phallopyrotechnic firework display, designed to outshine the splendor of night! Hey. Who wrote the cue cards? Listen. Nothing outshines me, look at the contract. Where’s the lawyers? Where? Behind the millwrights and the newspaper canvassers? Those are the masseurs, aren’t they? Oh in front of them! I swear on my testicles I’m not marring this guy, so may the creator deal with me.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

A new era is about to dawn.

• Circe

Awake! Awake Jerusalem! O lovely Emanation of Albion Awake and overspread all Nations as in Ancient Time for lo! the Night of Death is past and the Eternal Day Appears upon our Hills: Awake Jerusalem, and come away.12:02 am

It can’t be done. I won’t do it. You’ll need another architect, I can’t do this shit. What do you take me for? I’m no magician. Ok. Ok. listen. Just look at your plan here, 40,000 rooms and only 12 doors.  In what universe does this make any sense: 40,000 rooms arranged in a perfect square, excuse me, cube. It will be hideous. No architect will touch it.  A big ugly cube — it will look like a Wallmart. You want your new Bloomusalem to be a Wallmart? I mean, maybe we can do 200 x 200 rooms with tall ceilings, which might be our only shot at symmetry under the cemetery wall, but look how tall the damn rooms would have to be. The ceilings will have their own weather! Otherwise we can stack 34 or 35 but we won’t get anywhere near your perfect 40,000. Maybe we can get there with an octahedron, and make the sides 44 of whatever measure you like, in length. Close enough to 40,000. We can include an annex for the rest. But that brings us to another problem, how big is this place? Your plan uses stadia and furlongs. And cubits! Who measures anything with cubits? None of your numbers make sense. Seriously. What are we using to measure this thing? It’s a beast! You want cubits, fine. It’s your deal. But you have here each side of the cube measures 12,000 stadia. That’s four million nine hundred thirty three thousand thirty three cubits.  So a cubit being 1/1000 the distance the earth rotates at the equator during one second of time, we are talking about the length of about an hour and twenty minutes of Earth’s rotation. What planet are you on man? Do you know how big that is? By the time I even get the foundations laid (12 foundations? Dude!) the Earth’s rotation will have slowed down enough that we’ll have to redefine the length of the cubit. And then what, we start over? And with what work force? Who is building this thing? Where are they going to live eat shit? Schools for their kids? Hospitals? Food? We’ll have to build a new Bloomusalem just to house the people who will build the new Bloomusalem, which will require Bloomusalems for those builders recursive to no end point. I’ll take the lake of fire. Really. I’d rather have a good eternal swim in the lake of fire. I don’t want any part of this. Find another contractor, I’m out.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

You call it a festivity. I call it a sacrament.

• Circe

IX. Do not write under the empire of emotion. Let it die, then invoke it later. If you are able then to revive it as it was, you have arrived in art, in the middle of the road. 12:07 am

Scene: [As McIntosh begins his return descent through the trap door, decreasing luminosity of ruby light burns inwardly.  The muses enter en masse from the grid.]

God [On the god mic]  And now, the 9 new muses present the 10 new commandments!

The Muse of Commerce:  [Stabbing herself through the heart] You shall have no other gods before me.

The Muse of Operatic Music: [Chained inside a water tank]  Create no images of any thing that is above, on, or beneath the earth. And nothing underwater.

The Muse of Amor:  [Drinking prussic acid]  If you do make images, you shall not worship them or buy them. You love only me. I get jealous and I’ll come after you, your children, your grandchildren, and their kids.

The Muse of Publicity: [Sucking on a pastille of aconite] My name is under copyright protection. Don’t invoke me.

The Muse of Manufacture: [Snorting arsenic] Only one day of rest, people, not two.

The Muse of Liberty of Speech: [Opening her veins]  Don’t talk back to your parents.

The Muse of Gastronomy: [Refusing food]  Don’t kill.

The Muse of Plural Voting:  [Casting herself under Jagannath]  If you’re married, don’t sleep around.

The Muse of Private Hygiene:  [Casting herself from the top of the Space Needle]  No five finger discounts.

The Muse of Seaside Concert Entertainments:  [Casting herself into a wine vat]  Don’t talk about people behind their backs.

The Muse of Painless Obstetrics:  [Asphyxiating herself in a gas oven]  Don’t lust after married people.

The Muse of Astronomy for the People:  [Hanging herself with stylish violet garters]  Just don’t even look at what other people have.

The Veiled Sibyl: [Leaping from Windows]  And don’t read fiction published on the internet; there’s no future in it.

2 Responses to You call it a festivity. I call it a sacrament.

  1. This was really great reading, several times over. Your sarcasm is even sarcastic. I’m going to cut and paste this and print it out to put on my cork board–which isn’t necessarilly a place of honor but if I file it I won’t remember where it’s gone to. KB

    Reply

    • Thank you darling. I spent an enormous amount of time translating Horacio Quiroga’s Declogo del Perfecto Cuentista for this piece, then only used a small bit of it. I’ll include it in the comments if you are interested.

      Reply

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

You’ll soon be over it.

• Circe

Whereat samething is rivisible by nighttim, may be involted into the zeroic couplet palls pell inhis heaventh glike noughty times ∞, find, if you are not literally cooefficient, how minney combinaisies and permutandies can be played on the international surd!

12:14 am

They’re not cute. Just look at them. They say all babies are beautiful, but these — woof! Maybe it’s because there were eight of them all crammed into one manwomb? Might be that. That and the metallic faces, that’s just weird. But they’re all alive and here so who’s complaining. Still, what octomom is going to want a home birth for eight babies at the same time? If I didn’t charge by the baby I’d have said oh god the liability, no. No way. No thank you. As it is I don’t think I was insured for this many simultaneous deliveries. But done is done. We ought to write their names on them so we can tell them apart. No not on their diapers! What is the use of that? Within two hours the whole system will go to shit. Oh fuck it. What do I care, put their names anywhere you want. I’m halfway out the door. It’s up to their momdad now. Poor kids, their stars are fixed. They’ll be mid-level managers of failing banks. At best. Poor ugly babies. I’ll say a prayer for them before I go. I call upon the watery, the dark, the invisible, and the kings of infinite space. Come primordial pairs swing your partners into a double quaternity then lay them down and hear my plea, for these, what are we calling them babies were born to a man who so wanted to be a mother. He is a simple and lovable person, a young soul clearly unfamiliar with metempsychosis. A dear person, kind of nuts really, wears a hair shirt for godsakes. Somehow somebody has made him forget the memory of his past but I believe him to be more sinned against than sinning. Embrace these babies tight, dear, and provide for them an abundance of scholarships because he’ll never afford tuition for them all.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Talk away till you’re black in the face.

• Circe

When the matter has stood for the space of forty days in a moderate heat, there will begin to appear above, a blacknesse like to pitch, which is the Caput Corvi of the Philosophers, and the wise men’s Mercury. Blacknesse once seen, thou mayst be sure a True Conjunction of the principles is made.12:17 am

Scene: [An owl and a heavily made up goat argue while tending an enormous fire.  Over the flames hangs a stork vessel containing a phoenix.  They have begun their reversal of the great work.]

Azazel: [Circling the fire] I have sinned.

Lilith: [Circling the fire the opposite direction] I have suffered.

Together: Putrefaction, pray for us. Dissolution, pray for us. Coagulation, pray for us. Mortifacation, pray for us. Stench of graves, pray for us. Black of the blackest black, pray for us.

Azazel: See that?

Lilith: You scorched your eyelashes.

Azazel: Not that, that!

Lilith: White feathers! Not much of a swan. Just once I’d like to get to peacock.

Azazel: Focus, Lilith, just concentrate on returning it to crow. Carbonation, pray for us. Calcification, pray for us.

Lilith: Nothing. It is always much easier to illumination than to obscure. Why is that? Is nothing so difficult?

Azazel: [Pawing the ground] Nothing is not nothing, Lilith, focus. There can be no corruption without regeneration, ok, so can we concentrate please?  If you see Kay, pray for us. See you in tea, pray for us.

Lilith: What did you say?

Azazel: See you in tea pray for us?

Lilith: No. The other thing you said. You can’t have corruption without regeneration. Do you realize what you were saying?

Azazel: What was I saying? I don’t know. I was just saying stuff to get your head back in it.  I meant nothing.  Come on.

Lilith: Nothing. Exactly. I think we’re missing something.

Azazel: We’re missing something? I’m missing something.

Lilith: We’re missing nothing. We need nothing. We need something better than a phoenix if we want to achieve purity of absence. We keep getting the invisible trace of something not there but we want what do you call it void. D’ye see? We don’t want just ordinary death.  We want the quintessence of death.

Azazel: Oh Christ Lilith, the problem’s not in our materials, it is in us. The phoenix is fine. You know how hard it is to source a phoenix? We need to focus. You need to focus. We already got to swan and.

Lilith: Looks more like a tailor’s goose.

Azazel: It’s a swan and look, it’s turning a bit blue around the edges already. We’ll get to crow if we concentrate.

Lilith: I say we get a reincarnated human.

Azazel: Jesus Christ.

Llith: AE

Azazel: A what?

Lilith: [Reversing her direction around the fire] AE. We’ll use him. Trust me, this is the direction we should go. Can I use your mirror?

Azazel: Lilith wants me to trust her. Fine, use it. There’s no talking you out of this. Weep for me O daughters of Erin.

Lilith: [Breathing on the mirror]  We call them to life across the waters of Lethe.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Let everything rip

• Circe

Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. 12:21 am

Well would you look at us.  Meeting again, are we? One traveler weary as hell from daily travels and besmeared with sulfur dung of lion reek of every last bit of shit along the slog. But well hey, what the eye can’t see the heart can’t grieve for. And then the other wants to play musemathematics with time. And so here we are a cork and a bottle.  What shall we talk about? insanity? Patriotism? Sorrow for the dead? No need for that. Death is the highest form of life. The future of the race then? Music? I thought so. Guarenteed to lull one of us and stimulate the other.  The rite is the poet’s rest. Well now, after you is good manners.  Well, what about the octave, a traveler like us. How like us? The octave moves in a simultaneity of departure and return. Oh octave, sweet sweet octave, you never know if you are coming or going do you? It’s both and, darling, you’re coming and going at the same time.  Whichever direction you go, ascending and descending other people’s staircases, you find yourself at both ends.  If you go forth tonight it is to your own steps you will tend.  It must be tedious always meeting oneself whichever direction you tend. Stop. What’s that noise? An exhale and a click; what a distracting sound.  Can you stop that please, we were just getting somewhere.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Along an infinite invisible tightrope taut from zenith to nadir the end of the world.

• Circe

In the stories I have mentioned the ascetic and the king symbolize nothing and plentitude, zero and infinity. More extreme symbols of that contrast would be a god and a dead man, and their fusion would be more economical: a god that dies.

12:25 am

Are you a god too? You don’t say much do you. Wanna play dice? No? Do you know what i’m asking of you? Some other time, yes? Or maybe you don’t speak my language. How about this: 3.5 = A time, times and half a time. Yes? A little reaction. Now we’re sensing a little of the cosmic force. How about 77? 2+3+5+7+11+13+17+19? Oh did I offend you? Forgive my crudeness. I’ll rephrase that. My darling, I sort of believe strong in you. Would you join me in a little 4² + 5² + 6²? It’s up to you. You don’t have cold feet about the cosmos do you? Careful! Watch that infinite tightrope. It’s invisible, but that doesn’t mean it’s not sealed in here with us. That thing goes both ways, don’t you know, from zenith to vacuum, and we are damn close to vacuum now. Look at the clouds forming. My, it’s warm. It’s getting so hot in here; it must be the heat. We may be but a pair of squares, but seeings that we are all in a cauldron and everything, how about a 69 before we ? We can get all turned around and place our bets if we are coming or going.  Journey up looks the same as the journey down and the start and the end is the same point. Shall we put out heads between our knees and look around? Come on, before we evaporate to nothingness, let’s find out more about each other than we have forgotten.

One Response to Along an infinite invisible tightrope taut from zenith to nadir the end of the world.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

It was in consequence of a portwine beverage on top of Hennessy’s three star.

• Circe

Blackness is the beginning of whiteness, and a sign of putrefaction and alteration, and that the body is now penetrated and mortified. From the putrefaction therefore in this water, there first appears blackness, like unto broth wherein some bloody thing is boiled. Secondly, the black earth by continual digestion is whitened, because the soul of the two bodies swims above upon the water, like white cream; and in this only whiteness, all the spirits are so united, that they can never fly one from another.12:26 am

Scene: [In an alchemists laboratory, an exhausted owl and a disheveled goat move in opposing arcs around a stork-shaped alembic suspended over an enormous fire. A nebulous obscurity that looks like what do you call it gossamer occupying space within the alembic is communicating with the assembled company, which includes Cassandra, Lizzie Twigg, and St. Agatha.]

Lilith: [Obviously missing some feathers] But what you don’t understand, AE, is that you have not reincarnated and you are most certainly not deathless.  Just look at yourself!

Cassandra: Or smell yourself for that matter, isn’t that thing supposed to be hermetically sealed?

Azazel: [Mascera running down his face, lipstick on his teeth, dead roses slipping off of his horns, in obvious need of a mirror] AE, can you hear me? AE, pay attention! You are manifest without rebirth, that’s it. You are nothing. You accomplished your nothingness badly too and for what?

AE: [with a voice of waves] I’m not leaving here until I deliver my message to the world.  Death is the highest form of life. And the highest form of life is me. I am death!

Cassandra: What a narcisist. He’s going to talk about himself until he’s black in the face.  Lilith, can we get on with the re-death without AE’s cooperation?  We have fire, the bicycle pump for air, and what is that thing?

Lizzie Twig: A lobster?

Lilith: A crayfish.  We couldn’t source a real lobster. [Scowls at Azazel].

Cassandra: A crayfish then, for water.  We need something earthy.

Lilith: Something sexually titilating for him, perhaps a pair of breasts? Agatha?

St. Agatha:  I left them at the convent.

Lilith: Lizzie, tell us about your first time with AE.

St. Agatha: She’s a bride of Christ! She can’t be confessing her every little past indiscretion.  What will he think?

Lizzie Twigg: No that’s ok, Agatha. I want to do this; I need closure. I remember I had just answered an ad to aid AE in literary work, but typing skills weren’t required. In a weak moment I let him larrup it into me for the fun of it. I had been drinking Bass, and absinthe, or was it burgundy and absinthe. I remember the absinthe, but what else was it?

Lilith: Doesn’t matter. He’s listening.  Look.

Azazel: AE, seek thou the light!

AE: I won’t have my leg pulled!

Cassandra: Good idea. Lilith, reach in there and let’s fish him out.

Lilith: Yes. Azazel, stoke that fire.  We’ll need the cream to rise to the top so we can reach him.

Lizzie:  Fire? Is he a holocaust? Oh don’t hurt him!

Lilith: Honey, you can’t make butter without a lot of flogging.  Do you want him back or don’t you?

Lizzie: I don’t know. In the beginning for us was the word. I suppose it makes sense for us to end it in the world without end. Bring him back, but I think I really fit in with the guys at the convent, it’s my home now, so I’m going back there with Agatha.  AE is nothing to me.

Lilith: Oh honey, he’s nothing to us too.  Trust me.

Azazel: Nothing, pray for us.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.

• Circe

Swiftly she set out, with joy. But he gave her, stealthily, the honey-sweet berry of the pomegranate to eat, peering around him. He did not want her to stay for all time over there, at the side of her honorable mother, the one with the dark robe.12:28 am

Think back. Remember. I am almosting it. I spent those summer months, the first ones after, with circles and squares. As one would. It’s natural. Look at that circle there. You see it? A reflection of your eye looking at me.  I’ll reflect mine back to you in case you need, no? Fine then. So beautiful your circle. A circle is a circle because it is not a square.  A square is a square because it is not a circle.  The perfect square lacks corners, but I get ahead of myself. But I can’t get ahead of myself, that’s my predicament. Nor can I get behind myself either, damn it. But let’s return to the roundness, the fullness of your circle. All points of your circumference are equal from your center. Such pretty, such sublime perfection. Such infinity. Such simultaneity of number. Ba! Look at that square, now, ugly thing. In front of you, see it? Around where you stare. You should blink more, this is very bad for your eyes holding them open like that. Blink. Now see that ugly square binding your reflection. My reflection back. Corners. Angles. Limited. Linear. Like me. Ba, this has been an unusually fatiguing day. And this day, like any other day is this day now. Here. Now. Endlessly now. Nothing but now, only now forever and always now. I know for you it is different. I see it is different from here. Good Christ you can see it from space, but for me, when I look at myself I see only this and no other then. When? I exist between before and after in a durationless instant, and I unite them. Before and after exist because of me. You exist because of me. But I heard once of a way, a secret way. Closer, I’ll tell you. If the square married the circle, yes? You see it? Forgive the allegorical language but this is top secret understand. If the square married the circle they would mate, yes, and be united. Unified. If the perfect square lacked corners and if the circle had rationality. Think of the implications! Imagine what it could mean! The eternal and the temporal entwining. Infinity plunging into linearity. We can do it. So gently, so carefully. This is virgin territory. The past that was can be caressed into the now. And the future that beckons, we shall be the ones saying come hither sweet little thing you are. Aren’t you curious? Nobody’s looking baby love, we can do it. The cause is sacred. Stop. You don’t agree, do you. You think I’m wasting time. But the quadrature of the circle is all I have left, don’t you see? I live in temporal succession and this compounds my grief. You think it’s so easy to? You. Your center is everywhere and your circumference is nowhere. Ba. When have you ever needed to resurrect anything? Simultaneity. You are nothing. Leave me. Sorrow lives only in linearity; what do you know of my troubles? Now go.

One Response to From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.

  1. This was very good. I particularly like ‘the past that can be caressed into the now.’ Great line which I will have no compunctine to steal if I can get it to ryhme with ‘tree-house invertebrate.’ Have a good one, KB

    Reply

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

I am going to scream.

• Circe

Alchymist: Tell me therefore who that Mercury is? Nature: Know that I have but one such Sonne, and he is one of seven, and he is the first; and he is all things who was but one; he is nothing, and his number is entire; in him are the four Elements, and yet himself is no Element; he is a spirit, and yet hath a body; he is a man, and yet acts the part of a woman; he is a child, and yet bears the armes of a man; he is a beast, and yet hath the wings of a bird; he is poison, yet cureth the leprosie; he is life, yet he kills all things; he is a King, yet another possesseth his Kingdome, he flyeth from the fire, yet fire is made of him; he is water, yet wets not; he is earth, yet he is sowed; he is air, yet lives in water.12:21 am

Long ago I was a king. I was a king. I was a king drawn by my prick to destruction. Listen. It’s good to be the king. I had them all. They were my nourishment. The beautiful, the pretty pretty, the flexible. But they, each and every, become so much the same when judged by sight and touch. Tedious, really. I sampled the other senses. Auditory: I culled the ones with melodious voices. Then just the ones I could stand the sound of. Smell: now this was something worth exploring. I liked the vegans for a while; they smelled like grasses and wheat. But even then my nose tended downward toward the more interestingly oderiferous, the pungent, the rank and the reeking. Such variety. Taste. Ah, well, the nuances of flavor.  The rare nightbird flavored with honey, but mostly the sweet nuttiness of bivalve oysters old fish in bed. My movements were automatic. Instinct rules the world in life, in death. I was a king, and I spent my brief existence in reiterated coition. Now I am as you see me, drawn as others like me to my appropriate sun.

One Response to I am going to scream.

  1. Well that was pretty ‘up front’ of you. A little Ozymandius blows away with time-I liked the phrase ‘reiterated coition.’ I have always enjoyed using personae when writing-there is so much more shit you can get away with and if someone complains you can tell them to blame it on the other guy. KB

    Reply

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Reduplication of personality.

• Circe

THE DEVIL: ... You remember how he sang? [He begins to sing in a nasal operatic baritone, tremulous from an eternity of misuse in the French manner] Vivan le femmine! Viva il buon vino! THE STATUE: [taking up the tune an octave higher in his counter tenor] Sostegno e gloria D'umanita. THE DEVIL: Precisely. Well, he never sings for us now. DON JUAN: Do you complain of that? Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the brandy of the damned. May not one lost soul be permitted to abstain?12:29 am

There is a flower that bloometh
I’ll arise and go to my roometh?
Each moment I expect
to be but the next
Oh fuck

There is a flower that bloometh
As the gulls soar and zoometh
loves old song is sweet
he has sparrows for feet?
Christ this needs some perfumeth

Dear Mr. Deasy.
Hello,
Hlo,
Hey Mr. Deasy,
Deasy,

I just wanted to tell you that
Following up on
I feel close to you, as a friend, as a
Reflecting on our conversation discussion chat it, if feel I might ruin every
Great catching up with you, you gave me much to reflect aaaaaaaaaaanh.

Oh Jesus H God
9th rate coward

I’m a little drunk still maybe. Right. Spent what. Where’ve I been? I paid my way. Pay pay paid. Each octave is twice or half the pitch of the next. I am myself and I am not myself. Life I love you, go to hell.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

And a prettier, a daintier head of winsome curls was never seen on a whore’s shoulders.

• Circe

My matchless lamb that may atone for all, said she, glorified my destiny, chose me for his equal, although unequal our coupling once seemed. When I went from your wet world he called me to his graciousness. Come hither to me, my lover sweet, for neither mote nor spot is in you. He gave me power and also beauty. In his blood he washed my pledge and place and crowned me clean in virginity and adorned me in flawless pearls.12:32 am

Scene: [Some time after midnight in the offices of Holy Mother Public Relations Martha and Mary are having a stitch and bitch.]

Martha: So you weren’t always a virgin. What was your life like before?

Mary: Before? God. Things were different, I mean I started working at fourteen, you know? I started young. Here’s a picture. [A photograph of a teenaged Mary appears in Martha’s hand; she almost drops her wine.]

Martha: You were cute, look at your hair!

Mary: I had two right feet.

Martha: So tell me about the first one.

Mary: [laughing] Jesum chrysanthamums, that was so long ago! And I was so stupid; I mean I knew absolutely nothing about men. Nothing. My first one was a Libyan eunuch and I was such a neophyte, I had no idea!

Martha: [choking on her wine a little] Mary! Jeez

Mary: Oye! Careful!

Martha: Jeez and crackers would be great with this wine.

Mary: Nice save. And yeah, I could eat something. [Mary widens her eyes just perceptibly and a deliquescing bleu cheese appears with sesame crackers] You like bleu?

Martha: Sweet. Yes. Thank you. So didn’t you realize that he had nothing going on downstairs?

Mary: I’m fourteen. What do I know at fourteen? He looked like a Ken doll, nothing alarming there. But I’ll tell you who was alarming, this guy I knew, what was his name? Pen something, Pendenis. Panther! Holy mama.

Martha: Ha!

Mary: Lord I knew I was going to be in trouble, and he had it all out there too. I mean, he was packed into these tight pants on a stage just about dick level with the crowd. I got whacked in the head with that thing! It must have taken some serious divine intervention to get him into those pants. Anyway, he’s the one who burst my tympanum. Hey, where’s your sister?

Martha: Speaking of getting dickslapped. I don’t know. I don’t care. She’s probably off with J being a cocktease.

Mary: Seriously?

Martha: She won’t do him until he puts a ring on it, so they’ve been doing everything but. I tried to tell her

Mary: I thought they were married? Or at least engaged, didn’t they just have the wedding?

Martha: They called it off. It’s on, it’s off. He’s been cheating on her with a ton of potential Mrs. Je

Mary: Watch it!

Martha: eepers. Sorry.

Mary: You want him popping in here?  Jeezum Crow!  So she’s still technically a virgin?

Martha: Yeah, but come on.

Mary: I know, right.

Martha: So.

Mary: Yeah. The thing about virginity. Who cares? You know? I mean really, look at who cares, it’s never the virgin. And whatever she’s telling herself, I highly doubt she can get off on a technicality.

Martha: Or much else.

One Response to And a prettier, a daintier head of winsome curls was never seen on a whore’s shoulders.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Though they stink yet they sting.

• Circe

Look and see if anything is as great as this.12:34 am

Everything’s a temporary dream. Look at the great pyramid, my creation of longest duration.  A fat triangle in the desert, eh? You think they call me thrice great for nothing? I’m still dripping with the music of mathematics from since I played at dividing flowers and sweeties. I mean listen to it and work it out like a good young idiot. You people couldn’t do the half. Are you divided from your own organs? Listen to the harmonies of proportion and ratio; what composer tell me ever moved number so well. All is lost. You think I left it looking like that fat heap it is now, squat and spreading. But do you do anything about it, no. Nothing. Renovate it. Go ahead, it needs it. You have my permission, if not my help. Put some people on the job. Choose your most, your beautiful, your delicious, and your delightfuls, force them to say coactus volui and give them my pyramid so it might sing again. Paint upon it a diabolic rictus of black luminosity. Give it phosphorescent scorpion tongues. Paint its shafts like coal black throats and shine lights through them so out of itself it would make itself a lamp. Let the shafts open their windpipes to the outside all bloodred and sing. Add a few octaves. Here and or there. I’d hum along to that. Cover it. Take the original and jazz it up. What did I do when it was mine? I divided myself with the potentiality of it. Then I made a choice and left the rest unchosen. I covered it with white limestone and polished it to a mirror. And the sides: they were two in one and one in two. You think you see a triangle there? Look again. There are eight sides and though they sink yet they sing when the sun hits dead on. On the solstice the mirrors’ split face would absorb refract no reflect a divided sun like what do you call it gossamer. Is it a dream to think there’s nothing new under the sun?

2 Responses to Though they stink yet they sting.

    • Yes. I was thinking of it as Pei’s cover of the Great Pyramid. Was listening to Dulces Suenos by Rita Indiana and thinking about somebody telling me Sly Uses is like a cover song. I’m too close to taxonimize it with any clarity.

      Reply

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

The devil is in that door.

• Circe

But first the notion that man has a body distinct from his soul, is to be expunged this I shall do, by printing in the infernal method, by corrosives which in Hell are salutary and medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the infinite which was hid. If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.12:36 am

I wonder if they have chocolates, I should have brought chocolates. Right. Ok. I’ll say, um. Hell. Somebody in there doesn’t want me here, I feel it. Check the hair, good, nice forelock. Stance. Left foot a little forward. That’s ok. No effect on posture. Kind of Egyptian. The light’s so confusing, I can’t remember. What was it that? I just had it in my head too. Damn it to hell. Ok, go ahead and knock. Or just go right in, it’s a party.  I’m very fond of what I like and I love a party. I Shouldn’t have worn black; black makes me sad. Ok look, this is insane. I’ll just go in, make a swift pass and they’ll look at me with piercing eagle glances, won’t they? And they’ll say go, go, go, whoever you are. Should I go? I’ll go.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Nes. Yo.

• Circe

Orca Bellona! Heavencry at earthcall, etnat athos?12:36 am

In the beginning was the world, in the end the word without end. Oh my heart, am I my mother? Fantasy. Just anima’s fantasy. Here’s how it goes; you’ve heard it I’m sure: there’s nothing naked under the clothing moon. But first, I’m all of a mucksweat. The day ins and outs of it born from a heart and nine months hard labor, but then coming forth of darkness and Orc’s away now! Nice, no? Every phenomenon has natural cause, even revolutions in the word. First, cause. Then I’ll be thy mouth given unto me! Fly as the hawk’s right eye! Free will! But watch out for the 32 feet per second per second. Oh that. What goes down must come. It goes the other way too. As below, so above. Rock becomes root becomes worm becomes serpent in the garden. Beryl was there, and the other rainbow girls. How’s that for gloomery glamory? Shall I be the toad on your shoulder? Come here, my Athos and warm me up.  I’ll whisper little somethings right where the camel went through the needle. I’ll obey your every. I’ll be slave to your chic, Dave to your dick, and we’ll root in the fat of the land. I’m willing, now force me. Good dog.

One Response to Nes. Yo.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

We are observed.

• Circe

The face was like the face of a just man, so benign was the appearance of the skin; and all the trunk was the body of a serpent; it had two paws hairy up to the armpits; the back and the breasts and both sides had been painted with knots and wheels. 12:37 am

Do you feel my basilisk stare? I’ve been trying to have a sniff for a while, so off with your shoe why not indulge just a little. Go on. How about just your heal, let it dangle on you row a little. Gimme something. Just a little bit of a real sweat smell. Good god I can’t decide if I want to dominate you or be dominated by you. What do you think? On which side do you tie your knot? Like I’m expecting an asnswer. I can’t cipher you. So many and so many and so many much and so silent. Jesus Christ say something, could you? You’re willing, you want me to force you?

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

The sins of the past are rising against you. Many. Hundreds.

• Circe

The thing pleased him andt, and andt, He larved ond he larved on he merd such a nauses The Gracehoper feared he would mixplace his fauces. I forgive you, gorndt Ondt, said the Gracehoper, weeping, For their sukes of the sakes you are safe in whose keeping. 12:39 am

Thousands. They are raindrops rolling across a window, and you can see allpast right through them. Lets get up close. Magnification of where, distortion of how, inversion of what time, and with how many fluxes in octaves between convex and concave. Polytemporality wouldn’t know anything about that, strictly speaking, from here it’s ants all the way down. I dreamed something different perhaps maybe once if rememory serves. I disguised myself and walked, a dark visaged man, trailing hair, creamfruit smell.  I was dreaming and the dream was me. Like you. But you appear to be drowning just a bit. Partially drowning, like you misplaced your what’s that? Well, that’s your opinion, I’m just saying what I see from nowhen. Men like to ondts.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Your epitaph is written.

• Circe

John hated butterflies.12:40 am

Changed, eh? Death will do that to a person. And then? Oh how sad, etc., and all the grief and crying and the sackcloth and the ashes. You’re gone and gone forever and so on and who? Oh yeah you. Never heard of you. You want to be remembered? Sign a will and leave money. Gather together as much money as you can and we’ll love you for it for as long as it lasts. We’ll remember your generosity. Your giving spirit. Your support of all your dearest. And your belongings. We’ll remember them too, as fast as we can. We’ll see who gets there first. We will defile them, crawl all over everything like ants. Then we’ll have a sale, invite in the strangers to trample the carpets and purchase your best whatever for a dollar. We’ll drag the leavings to the street free to take. And after all the mourning and the sad, couple of days tops, look at me see how sad I am, see me mourn, then what of us? You really want to know? Oh honey, come back and find out for yourself. I’m not your Christmas ghost.

One Response to Your epitaph is written.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

The last straw.

• Circe

Friends, I have forgotten two things. I wish all to know that I do not propose to sell any part of my country, nor will I have the whites cutting our timber along the rivers, more especially the oak. I am particularly fond of the little groves of oak trees. I love to look at them, and feel a reverence for them, because they endure the wintry storms and summer's heat, and not unlike ourselves seem to thrive and flourish by them. One thing more: those forts filled with white soldiers must be abandoned, there is no greater source of trouble and grievance to my people.

12:44 am

Scene: [Tranquilla convent, infirmary. Lizzie Twigg is unconscious and lying on a tinseled oak bed. The shading she has painted with loving pencil on her eyes, bosom, and shame is badly smeared. Sister Mary Peter lifts her from the secondbest bed while St. Agatha straightens the warm impress of her warm form.]

St. Agatha: Don’t jostle her like that.

Sister Mary Peter: I should drop her for what she’s done. She has sinned. We have suffered!

St. Agatha: Sister. Our Sister. Shh! Just look at her. Classic curves: a thing of beauty. Here, put her down on her stomach, we can take the powderpuff to the spot where her back changes name.

Sister Mary Peter:  No, please I beg you. What must my eyes look down on. [Nearly drops Lizzie Twigg but catches her with her leg.]

St. Agatha: Nekum! Remember your wounded knee! Come on, let’s see if she has hair there.

[Sister Mary Peter returns Lizzie Twigg to the bed, facing up.]

Lizzie Twigg: [Talking in her sleep] Where dreamy creamy gull waves o’er the waters dull.

Sister Mary Peter: Oh that’s it. [Gives Lizzie Twigg a hard shove with both hands. She rolls a dummymummy in the sheet off of the bed and onto the floor.

St. Agatha: Mary Peter!

Lizzie Twigg: Bbbbblllllblblblblobschb! What’s happening? I feel like I fell from a cliff!

St. Agatha: You fell out of bed. Sister Mary Peter help her up! [St Agatha rushes to kiss Lizzie Twigg in four places as she crawls jellily forward from under the bed, with dignity].

Lizzie Twigg: [Returning to bed] I’m fine. What happened? Mnemo? I don’t think I’m in full possession of my faculties. I feel like I’ve been run over.

Sister Mary Peter: You were run over, and me too trying to save you. I think I have a concussion.

St. Agatha: Ssh! She is right, our sister. Don’t you remember, dear? You tried to perform a solo ghost dance and then you threw yourself under Jagannath.

Lizzie Twigg: [Covers her face with her hands looking through parting fingers] Oh God. Where’s AE?

Sister Mary Peter: Where’s AE? Sacrilege! Who cares about AE? He’s nothing! What are you doing trying to re-kill yourself over a man? Your crucifix not thick enough? What do you lack within our barbed wire?

St. Agatha: Ssh! Lizzie, you can’t kill yourself again. We immortals have no word for that in our dictionary. I know AE’s return was difficult for you.

Sister Mary Peter: Difficult!

St. Agatha: Ssh, sister yes, it was difficult. Lizzie, you fell 32 feet per second per second for him all over again. But here at Tranquilla we are brides of Christ. You must have no more desire. We are only the ethereal.

Lizzie Twigg: Only ethereal! Then how do you account for that large moist stain on Mary Peter’s robe? And Mother Agatha, I can smell the cloud of stench escaping from your crack.

St. Agatha: [A button pops off of her sackcloth habit; she’s lost a charm] Listen sister, we know where we’d all be if we were only ethereal, but we won’t turn your strength into our weakness. Where do you think you were going to end up, after Jagannath squashed you? Where? Where was that ghost dance going to take you? To Sitting Bull floating in the ether? Rise up all you want, go ahead, but you’ll come back down. You think you were going to ghost dance yourself up to some cloudy waiting lounge, then sit around wondering when the vorex will open under AE’s feet? Circumstances alter cases, have you learned nothing from your time here? Don’t you understand anything? Our convent is built on buffalo holocausts. The skull mountains: we’ve shaped them into cathedrals. You think we don’t bleed? We are the sisters of the last straw and Grandfather Tatanka Iyotanka is our patron saint. [Looking toward Standing Rock] Father I come! Father give us back our arrows! [Looks at Lizzie Twigg with features hardening] You say you are done with AE then you try this? Fool someone else sister, not me.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

One Response to To have or not to have that is the question.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Continue. Lie. Hold me. Caress.

• Circe

It seems that you can see, if I hear rightly, beforehand that which time brings with it, but in the present you have another view. "We see, like those who have bad vision, those things," he said, "which are far remote; the Highest Lord shines on us just so much. When they draw near, or are, all our intellect is in vain; if no one brings it to us, we would know nothing of your human state."12:46 am

Let me see your hand. Come on then, hand it over. You worried I’ll see something you don’t want me to know? Oh sweetheart, we all wear our interiors on our surfaces. Honey it’s the same damn thing. Just look at what you show with your eyes.  I see your fate there. You’ll meet with a, well, I’d better not say.  Would do more harm than good perhaps.  But I see it in your eye; I see it in the corner of your eye.  Go look in the mirror honey, you’ll see it too. Don’t you want to? Go look.  Look at your eyes like you are seeing somebody else.  Stare hard.  Look until all you see is eyes and the rest slips away. You’ll see what you are.  You’ll see what I see, baby, you worried? You should be. Now go.

5 Responses to Continue. Lie. Hold me. Caress.

  1. Tell me, is reading Ulysess what it is cracked up to be. I mean I’ve read Moby Dick, The Confidence Man, Pierre or the ambiguities, as well as all of Ian GFleming’s books, expevcially what for me then were the dirty parts–will I gain in girth what I lack if syrupy mirth by reading such a book. Or is it a club to beat my hewad in with? I mean should I do it before I die, like on my way to the hospital? KB

    Reply

      • Well I have been doing much writing and pinterest of late-more writing and very little reading and have two umberto eco books as well as a cormac mccarhty book (2) I guess one more in the quay woudl’t over load it. I take it ytou might answer any dispositions I find need annotating, within reason of course. I don’t expect of even think you would explain it to me-isn’t that what you are doing -explaining it to yourself in a round about way? I’ll let you know when I get a copy-I’m sure a Norton annotated edition would be helpful-yes? KB

        Reply

        • It does help to use annotations, particularly for period music references and the sorts of things a contemporary reader from Dublin would recognize but we might not. I’m happy to answer questions as you go. As for my purposes, I’ve read it many times, written about it many times, I taught it at the University of Washington, and I feature it in a chapter of my dissertation. I have an interest in infinite texts and I wondered what Ulysses would be if I stretched it into a year. Daily, I analyze a small piece of it, research it, work with it, then with all that in my head I write something. I have been doing this every day since last December and I will end it on New Years Eve. Not to explain it to myself, but to get closer. See what else is there. See what this kind of dedication to a project would do for me as a writer and artist. And the answer is so much more than I ever knew. This is my experience with it and I am astonished daily to find so many people who have come along for the ride. My next project will be different, but likely will use the web as a medium. I won’t write every day for a year next year. Well, I probably will, but I won’t publish every day for a year. Do I recommend Ulysses? I’m not the one to ask, I’m too close. But yes. I’ve never seen why not. Read Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist first. Ulysses continues after Stephen returns from Paris.

          Reply

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Weda seca whokilla farst.

• Circe

It shall be so: madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.12:48 am

Prepare the funeral pyre, he’s nearing death.  Well, not death exactly. But he is wasting invisible. It will be a small fire. Just a match. You see it? Of course you don’t.  What you do not see is a man slowly shrinking into irrelevancy.  No? Too, something? How about gradually gaining in irrelevancy. Better? Good. I don’t mean to, you know. I’m merely holding the mirror, can I help that it is pointing toward nature? But while we’re here, let us gaze and see just how lapses are condoned, and what might not have flown as an ugly duckling is now spreading swan wings and beating the air. This is how one goes from respectability to a bloody awful farce. You want to change it, do you? Then get in on the joke.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Dreams go by contraries.

• Circe

For a Spectre has no Emanation but what he imbibes from deceiving A Victim! Then he becomes her Priest & she his Tabernacle. And his Oak Grove, till the Victim rend the woven Veil. 12:50 am

Follow me. Come on, follow. Follow follow follow. You know me, yes? Remember? Almost it.  There you go, you saw me in your dream.  I held up a watermelon for you to smell.  Now follow, come away from that badger hole, nothing buried dead buried in there. Now. Is it guilt or shame today? What do you regret, action or inaction? I know that answer. They both have a face and you will see who. Look. I say, look. Lapwing you are. As am I. So a lapwing be. Let us bury your agenbite of inwit in a nice deep grave and lead each other away.  I’ll teach you. I’ll show you how my sweet buzzard scavenger darling, you’ll fly and your foes will be beneath you as they every shall be. Word without end. Listen now. Don’t be Polonius standing behind a curtain, everybody can see your feet sticking out the bottom. You do remember what happened to him, don’t you? You think that bit of rag hanging over your conscience will protect you? Don’t you know anything about hiding? Listen. You’ve done things. We all know it. We see your clay feet. Your actions we all witnessed birthed reactions and those reactions reproduced.  You bury the grandmother deeds all you like, and lead us all away. Hop hop away, little bird, follow me this way. Pay no attention to that world behind the curtain. But the things you didn’t do. Came to a whole lot of nothing, no? Well mark my words babylove, that nothing will be the something that buries you.

One Response to Dreams go by contraries.

  1. I love the last line. Well Jamie is on his way. I’ve supplemented it with two books of notes and commentary because all I could find by wway of annotated versions was a book of just annotations which was a lot of money. Also, I am going to make a pirated copy of the library’s disk recording-unabridged because some people like to watch-I do also-but some like to listen. So that’s my update. Thank for your offer of help when called upon I hope I won’t have to abuse you. Best KB

    Reply

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Stars all around suns turn roundabout. Bright midges dance on walls.

• Circe

Not because more than one unmingled semblance was in the living light on which I looked, for it is always what it was before; But through the sight, that fortified itself in me by looking, one appearance only to me was ever changing as I changed. Within the deep and luminous subsistence of the high light appeared to me three circles, of threefold colour and of one dimension, and by the second seemed the first reflected as Iris is by Iris, and the third seemed fire that equally from both is breathed. 12:50 am

Come on you nasty little devils, I know you’re dripping for a couple of rounds of it, yes? No? Oh yes so here we go. And one two three two two three three two three spin. Yes, now that’s the spirits. Let’s keep it going round round, square dance in circles, the best square lacks corners, and three two three four. Anybody here for there? Wheel whirl twirl simply swirl. And the room wants to cut in. Please, twirl right round baby. Room wind this way we’ll twine that. We’ll do a May pole dance right down the middles three four and turn and one two three. come on in snakes, your turn, and spin your partners right up that pole and fandango. Go for baroque babies, may I touch you? You may touch my, O but lightly! And three two three four and one two three two two two by two three four.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Time’s livid final flame leaps and, in the following darkness, ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry.

• Circe

This was his first and never-forgotten image of the city; those massive buildings that seemed to say We are here forever.12:52 am

What made time? This is the western world I’m swimming in; within these waters I know deep in my gills that time was made. I open my eyes and see fish; perhaps you open yours and see flow. Maybe your temporality isn’t something that can be said to have begun. What the hell do I know about that, I’m breathing water here. Your geographical location will tell your gills other truths. Maybe your temporality has no need of a beginning. So. What made time? This time, yeah? A god? A god made time? Nice work dumbass, you made something that breaks too easily. Your temporality is too fragile. It smashes whenever we make something formed from what is that word everybody knows? What’s the point (ah the point!) of a temporality that breaks whenever we corrode sublimate smash something into nothing. Break it down boys. We can clear this place out in no time flat. Make quick work. Sudden, sometimes. But look at the materials: creatio ex nihilo, so what do you expect? Shows what you get when you make something from nothing. Must not have been much of a primary void. You want void? You want nothing? We have nothing. We have plenty of nothing right here. In this country. Right here. Go look at the sky just above our greatest city. That particular nothing ranks with some of our greatest and most terrible nothings ever to cleave time, and we’ve had some enormous nothings on our record. Millions of leaping final flames. Tear stained trails of them. When a world watches with hearts in mouths while receiving a nightmare’s bad kick, what is the more grievous sight? The buildings falling? The dust clouds and smoke rising spreading filling smothering settling? No. It’s the oh my god the towers aren’t there. That. It was that. Remember that? That ripple of obvious entwined with inconceivable? It was visceral, that moment. That’s the sight that cleaved time. There’s what rent temporality. That monumental nothing. We look into that nothing. That hole in our sky. That hole in our temporality.  And we look into that nothing and name everything on that side “before” and on this side “after.” Why have we yet to build something to fill nothing? Our monument of nothing is too compacted, too dense; it won’t just drift off with the tide just like that. You want something not nothing? Good luck to you. Put what you like there, go ahead, put it all there. Make it everything, that nothing’s not going anywhere.

5 Responses to Time’s livid final flame leaps and, in the following darkness, ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry.

  1. i always enjoy whatyou write. I look forward to making the time or having that I want to read it which is why I sometimes don’t read your posts for a day or two. Then there are those frequent times when you write something tha makes me just smile reading it. But then there are those also more frequent than not when you write something that not only makes me smile, but belly laugh and makes me want to go write poetry. Yhis definitely one of those times. It is fuckingf brilliant. Artistically conceived and brilliantly executed. Thanlk you! Thank you! ? Thank you? Best–KB

    Reply

  2. Reblogged this on The Mirror Obscura and commented:
    I read this blog everyday. I am somewhat educated so don’t always understand the illusions, allusions amd infusions this writer weave’s into her work. But is you love language a least bit you should read her postings, if only to hear what good writing sounds of. KB

    Reply

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Noble art of selfpretence.

• Circe

A fox invites a stork to dinner. After some entertainment, the fox gives the stork broth in a wide marble bowl, which the hungry stork could not taste with his long beak. The stork invited the fox to dinner and provided broth in narrow flagons. The stork could insert his beak and be very satisfied, but his guest vainly licked the neck of the flask and went hungry. The bird spoke: our own examples we should contentedly suffer.
12:54 am

Now? What, now? You want to talk now? Ok fine then, but I’m in a hurry, you understand, unless you want to shelter me a bit? No? Then run with me. Come on, keep up. You want me to end up wrapped around somebody’s neck? A lucky foot maybe? Go on then, ask your question. What’s that?  I’m running from bloodhounds and whodoyoucallhim strangeface sawhimbefore and this is what you ask? Who are you again? Who invited you? I didn’t catch your? What is this exactly? Fine. Wash ashore. There’s your answer. I’ll bury my mother but don’t let me be caught dead in the water.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

My methods are new and are causing surprise; to make the blind see I throw dust in their eyes.

• Circe

What is Above is Within, for every-thing in Eternity is translucent: The Circumference is Within: Without, is formed the Selfish Center And the Circumference still expands going forward to Eternity. And the center has Eternal States! these States we now explore.12:57 am

Creation from nothing and then arbitrate?
If that’s what this is, to the party I’m late.
But nothing’s not nothing, of this I well ken
It’s in here I must kill the now and the then.

All, not at all, or the Vala between?
Damn death, Luvah life! (Or you’d think me obscene.)
Before gravity’s center gets all displaced,
Let’s kiss and atone and then pardon disgrace.

For truely and bluely and justly and such,
I’ll speak to your eyes, though I do talk too much!
Kiss Biddy the Clap, and tell sweet Cunty Kate,
To tell what’s true plainly I must obfuscate.

2 Responses to My methods are new and are causing surprise; to make the blind see I throw dust in their eyes.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

You are the link between nations and generations. Speak, woman, sacred lifegiver!

• Circe

In fact, under the closed eyes of the inspectors the traits featuring the chiaroscuro coalesce, their contrarieties eliminated. 12:57 am

[St. Barbara and St. Juliana, their heads coalescing, speak explosively.]

St. Barbara: My own father cut off my head!

St. Juliana: Cut off my head!

St: Barbara: For want of more light I made him see red!

St. Juliana: Made him see red!

St. Barbara: Not marry Jesus? I’d rather be dead!

St. Juliana: Rather be dead!

St. Barbara: (But that was before he took me to bed!)

St. Juliana: (He took me to bed!)

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

(Wonderstruck, calls inaudibly)

• Circe

O! father & mother, if buds are nip’d And blossoms blown away, And if the tender plants are strip’d Of their joy in the springing day, By sorrow and care’s dismay, How shall the summer arise in joy, Or the summer fruits appear? Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy, Or bless the mellowing year, When the blasts of winter appear?1:00 am

Eleven. Elf. Sweet eleven. The perfect square lacks corners and look, even the wool came back. Her best merino. So soft, no itch. It is cold in the ground. She knit, I circled, he was our whole world. So dark is destiny. But here, here is something. Not what I tried, but a gift still. Still a gift. No dark ground so cold. He is well, and breathing. Somewhere. Here. Peaceful. Resurrected, though not returned. I see him. I saw him. Curly, dark hair, I saw his face. I saw his face. She knit and I circled. My boy, my boy.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.