Having my way with Ulysses

The surface of a downward tending lutulent reality.

As the year ended omens of impending misfortune were widely rumored -- unprecedentedly frequent lightning; a comet (atoned for by Nero, as usual, by aristocratic blood); two-headed offspring of men and beasts, thrown into the streets or discovered among the offerings to those deities to whom pregnant victims are sacrificed.10:00 pm

Scene:  [In the Deshil Holles Eamus theatre.  The stage is lit by one bright quickening wombfruit hanging expectantly from the downstage grid.  God has canceled a rehearsal for his one deity show, and drifts in a southerly direction]

God:  It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it, Jesus, I just think that other circumstances being equal, the measure of how far forward humanity may have progressed has little to do with my command or promise or whatever you’d like to call it to Adam and Eve.

Jesus:  [Dancing clockwise around God]  Its’ just that, if we don’t include it, then we leave the second act undeveloped, and by the time you start act three if it be absent when fortunately present nevertheless, there would be no more odious offense at all not to can be!

God:  [Now dancing counterclockwise around Jesus]  Listen.  This is a sensitive topic for me.  I gave them eternity! They received eternity, they were God’s mortals, and what did they want?  Generation.  So fine.  Go forth.  Multiply.  Whatever.  And look what happened.  Barbarity.

Jesus:  [slowing] And hospitals.

God:  [quickening] More barbarity.

Jesus:  You really should do something to fix it, or at least address it.

God:  [Completing his ninth circumabigation of Jesus]  What can I do?  No.  If they don’t tremble lest what had been conceived in the past be parturient of an overly proliferant future; lest they not feel the pains of it have been begun already, then basta!  Enough!  They got themselves into trouble; they’re on their own.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

She prayed to God the Allruthful to have his dear soul in his undeathliness.

Now there is none alive to whom I dare express my heart openly. I know to be true that for a man it is a noble virtue to bind fast his soul's locker, to hold closed his treasure chamber, and think what he will. Nor may a weary mind resist what happens nor yet provide help for turbulent thoughts. For those desirous of favorable opinion are often dejected, bound fast in their breast chamber. So must I, my mindsoul often miserable, separated from home, far from my noble family, repressed and fettered since long ago my most precious friend was covered in the concealing darkness of earth. And I, abject, from there journeyed madly, in winter sorrow, over waves bound together into ice, seeking God's dreary home. Where I, far or near, might find my familiar mead-hall, or someone who would comfort my loneliness, entertain me with pleasures.10:01 pm

I died two and a half years ago and thank God too.  Nearly seven years with that woman after me and I don’t think I could have held her off much longer. Always fussing over me like I was hers. Brushing my coat. Dropping hints until I was worn out with it. Not my type at all, not even close. And I regret now that I never felt I could tell her why, openly. Besides, she was just too bitter. Too, what’s the word, irritated all the time.  Angry.  Easily pissed off.  Irate over every little thing, and the longer I put her off the worse she got. Thank god for stomach cancer. I reached that last end that was my death and hallelujah I’m better off.  And she should just answer an ad or something.  Find a man that way because her personality isn’t going to win her any prizes. I prefer them a little more accommodating, like that one married to the heavyset singer who was another woman after me around that same time. Let’s hope he pops off young, naked for to go as he came. He would comfort my loneliness and I would entertain him with pleasures. He’s more my type. Mildhearted, you understand, loth to irk.

2 Responses to She prayed to God the Allruthful to have his dear soul in his undeathliness.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Ruth red him, love led on with will to wander, loth to leave.

But the Saracens ne till not no vines, ne they drink no wine: for their books of their law, that Mahomet betoke them, which they clepe their AL KORAN, and some clepe it MESAPH, and in another language it is clept HARME, and the same book forbiddeth them to drink wine. For in that book, Mahomet cursed all those that drink wine and all them that sell it: for some men say, that he slew once an hermit in his drunkenness, that he loved full well; and therefore he cursed wine and them that drink it.10:03 pm

Surah 1132:  السردين، والخبز، والبيرة.

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious,
                             Most Merciful.
 
1.  Proclaim! 
     Eat ye and drink ye
     To your heart’s content: 
     For that ye worked
     (Righteousness).
 
2.  And among His Signs
     He shows you the lighting,
     By way both of fear
     And of hope.
 
3.  Enter houses
     Through the proper doors.
     And fear Allah:
     That ye may prosper.
 
4.  And Dixon shall bestow
     On him, of bread and sardines, 
     Anything he shall desire.
 
5.  And thy Lord taught the Bee
     To sting in men’s habitations.
 
6.  O ye who believe!
     Sayeth she,
     Approach not prayers
     with a mind befogged.
     Listen in silence
     So that you might be graced
     With God’s mercy.
 
7.  But they shall there exchange, 
     One poured into another,
     A (loving) cup
     Free of frivolity, 
     Free of all witness
     Of ill.
 
8.  And on the third day
     When the pains of childbirth
     Drove her to the trunk
     Of a palm tree: 
     She cried (in her anguish):
     Ah!  I expect each moment
     To be my next!
 
9.  And behold!
     Bloom’s hand, 
     Soft under a hen
 
10. But closer draws unto men
      Buck Mulligan: 
      And yet they remain
      Stubbornly heedless
      Of his approach.
     
11  And Stephen 
      With a mind
      The most befogged.

2 Responses to Ruth red him, love led on with will to wander, loth to leave.

  1. ٱلسَّلَامُ عَلَيْكُمْ وَرَحْمَةُ ٱللَّٰهِ وَبَرَكَاتُهُ

    I really love Ulysses and I love the Qur’an even more and I want to understand the line you’ve titled this piece. Could I get a bit more explicit a clue?

    • The title comes from a section of Oxen of the Sun styled after Morte d’Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory. The scene is a maternity hospital and a woman is about to give birth while a group of loud medical students, plus Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom, are getting drunk. A nurse has just begged them to stop drinking and be quiet. She does this in a passage just before the one which is styled after The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, which gives a pretty fantastical account of travels through the middle east and Asia. The reference they make to “Mahound” in this paragraph prompted me to write this piece in the voice of the Qur’an and quote it for the image caption. The title line for this piece comes fom the Morte d’Arthur paragraph which comes just after, and this sentence is saying that even though he’d like to leave, Leopold Bloom is sticking with Stephen Dedalus right now out of compassion because Stephen is blind stinking drunk and needs somebody to look after him.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

What of those Godpossibled souls that we nightly impossibilise?

Then̄e quene Igrayne waxid dayly gretter & gretter so it befel after within half a yere as kyng Vther lay by his quene he asked hir by the feith she ouȝt to hym whos was the child within her body. Thēne she sore abasshed to yeue ansuer.10:05 pm

Scene: [An impromptu meeting at the shrine of St. Foutinus.  A statue of St. Foutinus stands erect in an impressively sized bathtub allowing a variety of palmers and bedesmen to pour their wine offerings over his genitalia while those unable to be delivered of their spleen of lustihead leave wax images of their withered members in hopes a redress God grant.  Doesn’t hurt to try.]

Averroes: [Holding a small lump of wax]  What are you doing here?

Moses Maimonides: [The wounds on his face infected in places, pus oozing past stitches] I’m not speaking to you yet.  Hlo Lilith.  Are you allowed to swim in there?

Lilith: [Naked.  Floating on her back in St. Foutinus’ tub.]  Not really.  But Foutinus and I have a little understanding, don’t we darling.

St. Foutinus:  Screech owl!  Night hag!

Lilith:  He’s a little stiff at the moment.  What are you doing here.  Oh, I see.  Sorry.  Averroes, didn’t you have enough wax?

Averroes:  Never you mind! You should get out of there, you could get pregnant that way.

Lilith:  Oh honey, if that’s what you think no wonder you can’t get it up.

Moses Maimonides:  Idiot.

Averroes:  I though you weren’t speaking to me.  Besides it’s true.  St. Ultan bathes in cold water on windy days, just to avoid it.  He’s got enough mouths to feed.

Moses Maimonides:  You just told Lilith she could get pregnant.  Dumbass.  Don’t you know who she is?  She is the inception of termination.  She is the eraser of mistakes.  She is the darkness at the end of the tunnel, the reliever of stomach bloat and frequent urination, the great evacuator.  She’s what’s between a woman and her doctor.  She takes care of it.  She is the saver of the mother’s life!  Might as well tell her the wind will get her pregnant.

Lilith:  Oh is Zephyrus here?  He blows both ways you know.

Moses Maimonides:  [After a pregnant pause] Does he?

Averroes:  [Dissembling, as his wont was] My apologies Lilith, but what are you doing bathing in there?  That vinegar cures barrenness!

St Foutinus:  Vampire! I smell your reek of moonflower!

Lilith:  Just making my monthly contribution, drum up a little business.  Benefits everybody you know.  She who stealeth from the poor, lendeth to the Lord.

Averroes:  Who was it who said that?

So dark is destiny.

& there they layed his corps in the body of the quere & sange & redde many saulters & prayes ouer hym and aboute hym 10:06 pm

There was no stopping her.  He died on his eleventh day, dead of winter, and he was getting cold.  So tiny.  So small.  A week and a half old, just changed enough from his first moments to start to look like her and to start to look like me.  It was a start.  Eleventh day. Eleven.  Elf.  Elfin boy he’d have been now.  Sweet eleven.  She measured him and got out her best wool she had been saving.  Measured him around.  Circled his little body.  Cannot make a circle without eleven.  Measure a circle seven across and it will measure eleven halfway around.  Seven and eleven, a thread between square and circle.  Square the circle and maybe.  Maybe eternity.  Find him there.  She orbited around him as he cooled.  She is the moon and while she knit he was her whole world.  She orbited and he cooled in 3:11 ratios.  Moon:Earth, he took on enormous proportions but she would knit for him.  She had wool and time had stopped.  Oh the ground.  The Earth is cold in winter and his sweet little body was cooling.  Pull the moon to the earth.  Pull her close, the three to the eleven.  Now circle them.  I circled them. I circled them in radii of seven.  Our circumference was 44, the same as the perimeter of a square around Rudy, named for my self-murdered father, my whole world.  She knit, I circled for the length of his body cooling. She measured. She chose her needles and her best wool she had been saving.  Soft, no itch, 4 ply dk merino. And she swatched. She measured. She cast on 32 stitches and knit two rows.  Then she knit 2 * yfd k2tog, to end k1. Next row K.  The next row she k2 * and she made 1 in the next of each stitch to the last k3.  Next row K. Next row K3, P to last 3 then K.  He cooled, she knit in patterns:  K4 *k1B k1 to last 3 sts k3, next row k, k5 k1B *k1 k1b to last 5 sts k5, next row k and she continued for five inches.  Then she k6 k2 tog k1 to the last 5 sts k5.  I circled.  I squared.  She k3 P to last 3 K3.  I circled.  She K3 yfd K2 tog to last 2 sts K2.  I squared.  K3 P to last 3 K3.  He cooled. The perfect square lacks corners. She K2 tog, knit in pattern to the last 4 sts and she k 2tog twice.  Then a row of K she knit.  She knit for two more inches.  The wrong side facing, all wrong, k to the middle, k 2 tog twice, k to the end.  The next wrong row she did it again.  And the next wrong row she did it again.  One last row in pattern.  Last time.  Then our sweet, our little, our baby love.  We placed him inside.  We put in our kisses, warm to cold.  Weeny hands.  Smallest love.  Our sweet circle.  Our whole world.  Then the seam.  She grafted 32 stitches and snipped the yarn with her teeth.  Basta.  Enough.

One Response to So dark is destiny.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

(for all accounted him of real parts)

Thenne kynge Arthur and alle the Court made grete doole and had shame of the deth of the lady of the lake thenne the kyng buryed her rychely.10:08 pm

What is worse within your soul, guilt or shame?  Take a look now, will you?  Turn those avid shameclosing eyes inward and see what you think.  Our souls shamewounded by our sins cling to us yet more, the more the more.  Yes.  I see what it is for you.  For me, well obviously.  I feel it.  A failure of duty.  I am responsible, at least in part.  I feel it sometimes, troubled bits in there arising.  In my mind but where else really.  I deserve what I get, in part.  In part.  My boy, sweet boy gone.  And Stephen.  Is his guilt or is his shame?  I worry.  I feel for him a trouble arising in my mind.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

The happy demise of all unhappy marriages.

Certaine Lordes came downe into thẽ nether houſe, and expreſſely declared cauſes, The marriage betwixt the King and the Lady Anne of Cleue, adiuged vnlawfull. for the which, the mariage was not to be taken lawfull: and in concluſion, the matter was by the conocation cleerely determined, that the King might lawfully marrie where he would, and ſo mighte ſhe. And thus were they clearely diuorſed, and by the Parliament it was enacted, that ſhee ſhoulde bee taken no more for Q. but called the Ladye Anne of Cleue10:10 pm

Scene: [In the house that Jack built, you know the one, where comes the fire that burns up the staff, that beat up the dog, that bit the cat, that ate up the goat — the one my father bought for two zuzim, in the house that Jack built.  In the house that Jack built (Conference Room C, Holy Mother Public Relations Inc.) Eve, Mary, Peter Piscator, Joseph the Joiner, and William Haley celebrate the sudden – at – the – moment – though – from – lingering – illness –  often – previously – expectorated – divorce of Adam and Eve.]

William Haley:  [Filling cups, some decline but Mary is front and center.  No surprise there.] Friends, let us raise a glass to this occasion of Eve and Adam’s postcreation.  Here’s to Eve who is like a flame of many colors of precious jewels, to Adam

Eve: Do we have to toast to Adam?

William Haley: To the vicar of Rome and of Bray, and to all our deceased friends who are more really with us than when they were apparent to our mortal part.  And to

Mary: [Thirstily] Here here!

[All quaff from their mazers]

St Bernard:  The cake is delicious, Peter, did you make it yourself?

Peter Piscator:  No. No, no.  I got it for a song.  Just a penny pippin.

Joseph the Joiner:  Really?  It looks like it would have set you back at least $50.  Although I find it a bit subsubstantial.

Mary:  I find you a bit subsubstantial.

William Haley:  None of that Mary.  Tonight is for Eve’s happiness, which has wings and wheels.  Miseries are leaden legged and their whole employment is to clip the wings and to take off the wheels of our chariots.

Eve:  That’s beautiful, William.  Did you just come up with that now?

Peter Piscator:  No, no.  No.  That sounds like he stole it from what’s his name, that devoted rebel. You know, the enthusiastic hope-fostered visionary.

William Haley:  You are quite wrong sir, and you injure me in your so saying.  But I shall ignore you.  A blight never does good to a tree and if a blight kill not a tree but it still bear fruit let none say that the fruit was in consequence of the blight.

Mary:  Jeepers Chrysthanthemum.  Somebody cut that cake, will you.  Let’s get this party going.

Joseph the Joiner:  Let’s not Mary.  Last time you ended up in bed with a pigeon.

Mary:  That was a rumor started by Leo Taxil.  Please.  What’s it to you if I knew God or I didn’t know God or if I had a pregnancy without joy, a birth without pain, a body without blemish, a belly without bigness.  You want to know if I still have a hymen?  Come and look!

Joseph: With will will we withstand withsay.

Mary:  Oh for the love of Christmas somebody hand over the cake.

William Haley:  For as man liveth not by bread alone, Mary, I shall live although I should want bread.  Who is that hiding under that table?

St. Bernard:  Mary! Mary!  You are the mother of the word incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me

Mary:  St. Bernard.  He’s become the creature of my creature.

Eve:  Creepy.  Let’s get rid of him.

William Haley:  We can’t get rid of him.  Time’s ruins build eternity’s mansions.  He like us all is the word made flesh.  Get rid of the flesh and he’ll become word for all eternity connected to us all as by navelcord to navelcord entwining back to Eve.

Mary:  Well now I don’t want cake anymore.

Eve:  Who invited that guy?

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Thou, abortion, thou.

Shee therefore is not to bee accounted impious or hereticall as if shee acted contrary to Nature, but it is to be imputed to her imagination. For her imagination is alwaies the cause of it. And the imagination of a breeding woman is so powerful, that in conceiving the seed into her body, shee may change her infant divers wayes: because her inward starres are so strongly bent upon the infant that they beget an impression and influence upon it. Wherefore the infant in the Mothers wombe in its forming is put into the hand and will of its Mother.10:12 pm

If you do indeed find yourself put in a pod, and wish to remove the djinn from the bottle, focus your spagyric efforts within the first three months, keeping your work to the proper day of the week and planetary hour.  Solve et coagula, for a successful outcome so to speak. that is to say one must dissolve the fix and fix the volatile.  Begin with enough marjoram, gathered when just coming into flower.  Only 2% of the plant is volatile oil, so gather as much of it as you are able, in your condition.  Grind it up as finely as you can and steep it in warm brandy for two weeks, to bring out the essential oils.  Filter it. Keep the brandy and the macerated marjoram. Next, separate the essential and the subtle from the inessential and the gross.  Dry the remaining plant matter and burn it to ashes.  Mix the ashes in a pot with 20 times their volume of rain water.  Boil for 20 minutes then filter it.  Evaporate the remaining liquid until it calcinates in the pan.  Keep it in your pan at 500 degrees for several hours.  Cool it and dissolve it in filtered rainwater.  Repeat the calcination at least twice more until you are left with a chalky white substance in crystalline form, the Marjoram’s volatile salt.  You have now in your possession the bridge between plant and mineral, the essential component of your upcoming purge.  Wait for the waxing moon and spread it on plates.  leave the plates outside overnight, raised off the ground.  Go to bed and allow in your house rest to reign, as the time’s occasion is most sacred and most worthy to be most sacred.   At sunrise collect the liquid and whatever has not yet dissolved, avoiding contact of it with skin or metal.  This is the marjoram’s angel water.  Distill it until the salts are dry, and save in a dark glass jar.  Now you are ready to separate the false from the true.  Gather your angel water, the salts of marjoram, fresh marjoram, and the brandy infused with marjoram’s essential oils (good God you didn’t throw that away!).  Boil water and make an infusion with the fresh marjoram, allowing it to steep for at least 10 minutes.  While waiting, pour the brandy into a glass and mix into it the salts of marjoram.  Pour the angel water into a third glass.  Now in silence, hist! All three cups you must straightways now attack.  Staboo.  Stabella.  Feel her approach.  Lilith, those broad wings.  Listen, she is all eyes.  Swallow.  Drink.  Focus all your soul, every pit of every little apart of your self that ever wanted anything before wants now to want.  Your truth centers both your speech and your belief.  You are a circle whose center is everywhere and circumference is nowhere.  Come on baby girl, chug a lug.  There you go.  Take a breath.  That which never dies and that which dies are only the reflected light of that idea which love with love begets.  Keep sipping now.  Just nice sips.  And put all your everything you’ve got into your womb.  There now Staboo, Stabella’s here.  The closer of openings, yes, she makes possible the best of all possibilities.  Hello Lilith.  You feel it go now and look. Look under her feathers, see that? Right there. That. See it? The living light that pours out so from its bright source.  Notice that it does not dis-one itself from love or from the love that enthreed itself with them.  Ok baby, you ok?  Go clean up now, there you go.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

From what region of remoteness the whatness of our whoness hath fetched his whenceness

These in thir dark Nativitie the Deep Shall yield us pregnant with infernal flame, Which into hallow Engins long and round Thick-rammd, at th' other bore with touch of fire Dilated and infuriate shall send forth From far with thundring noise among our foes Such implements of mischief as shall dash To pieces, and orewhelm whatever stands Adverse, that they shall fear we have disarmd The Thunderer of his only dreaded bolt.10:15 pm

O Nobodaddy come and get me I am God!  And basta, I am done.  You’re not my daddy. You’re nobody’s daddy.  Enough!  Bring a stranger into our tower and now mine is the second best bed.  Strangers at my gates!  Sinning against my light.  I starve and he waxes fat.  Try and make me the slave of servants I am done, you hear me God!  I am God!  The son of a jalap merchant reeking of the land of milk and money.   I know that assurfaction minorates atrocities but I won’t let myself get comfortable.  I’m out!  The kiss of ashes on my breath and that’s that.  You hear me God?  You are dead!  You are beastly dead!  I am God!  I am tired of this shit.  Everything is hidden and not where it should be.  Life is a waxing and a waning and I am always and forever in the middle of the path of life no matter how fast or how slow or which direction or why.  Where else is there or when?  Birth me, bury me, the middle of the path is just as obsure as where we came from and whence we go.  And when and where.  God is running a short con and I’m the mark baby.  It’s a shell game and you want to know what’s what, I am God!  I’ll be making the meaning around here.  Misdirect me if you think you can God, I’ll be the one who decides.  I’m the daddy now baby I’m everybody’s daddy!

Ullhodturdenweirmudgaardgringnirurdrmolnirfenrirlukkilokkibaugimandodrrerinsurtkrinmgernrackinarockar!

Good Jesus Christ Mother of Fuck!  What did he say?  What did he say?  What did he say about me?

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

By no means would he though he must nor would he make more shows according as men do with wives which Phenomenon has commanded them to do by the book Law.

Then Mrs Light-mind added as followeth: Come put this kind of talk away. I was yesterday at Madam Wanton's, where we were as merry as the maids. For who do you think should be there, but I and Mrs Love-the-flesh, and some others. So there we had musick and dancing, and what else was meet to fill up the pleasure. And I dare say my Lady herself is an admirably well-bread Gentle-woman, and Mr Lechery is as pretty a fellow. 10:17 pm

Miss Forcible is a very virtuous young lady and the daughter of a virtuous woman and as it was getting on to that time in her life as it does for so many a maid she found within her heart a longing called Shit-or-Get-Off-the-Pot directing her nature toward desiring of a union with her favorite young man Mr. Equivocal.  Miss Forcible and Mr. Equivocal reside with greater and lessor degrees of comfort in the kingdom of Living Together also known in the land as Let’s See Where This is Going which suited Mr. Equivocal nicely and Miss Forcible thought so too, but always with her mind of relocating to The Next Step as one can put up with anything for the short term and within the breast of Mr. Equivocal resided a spike called Possible as he was heir to the family Grass is Greener and often wondered if perhaps the pretty whore called Bird-in-the-Hand might choose to take him to Two in the Bush which he had sometimes visited though not as recently as all that.  Mr. Equivocal’s perennial habit was to tell Miss Forcible he would like to ask of her a particular question if she would be so kind as to hear it, perhaps New Years Eve next, at which time he would tell Miss Forcible that she might prepare herself for a fine Saint Valentines to come.  But did he propose said question to Miss Forcible? Indeed he did not.  On the most recent feast of Saint Valentine, a day upon which Miss Forcible colored her body in hues of Expectancy but alas Mr Equivocal was color blinded that day for he had girted himself with Doubt tho tied with strings called Hope as he had gifted Miss Forcible with a red lace peek-a-boo bustier and crotchless thong as an offering called How About It?  And how about it? Miss Forcible understood it as a present called More For Him than For Me.  And where was the small box containing Sparkling?  Alas, Sparkling was nowhere to be seen. Clearly to obtain Sparkling Miss Forcible felt, she must journey through the land of Deceit over the mountains of Deception for her Mr. Equivocal was likely in the thrall of the Demon All Time whereas her guardian angel Time is Running Out knew far better.  Her first stop in her journey was along the stream Physic where she found a previously unknown allergy to the medicine Kill Child requiring Mr. Equivocal to get over his aversion to the device Preservative if he was to ever see her clothed in More For Him than For Me.  Then Miss Forcible gathered fruit from the tree Pincushion and with help of the angel Clandestine modified Preservative just enough to rechristen it Sieve.  She’ll have Sparkling by Christmas.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

And all this while poured with rain.

Sunday 3 July 1664: Then up and spent the evening walking with my wife talking and it thundering and lightning all the evening, and this yeare have had the most of thunder and lightning they say of any in man's memory, and so it is, it seems, in France and everywhere else. So to prayers and to bed.10:18 pm

Dear Diary,

I’m starting over. I’m going for the absolute purity of awareness, right, I want to have total awareness of all things I experience, all the minutiae of the detail of it all, while I’m living it. While I’m in it.  So tearing out the pages and this is day one.  Aleph Alpha nought nought one.  I think trying to write this thing in the third person made me sound like an asshole. He took a picture of Her. He said so long to his cousins and will see them again shortly.  Come on. Nobody ever anywhere will read these written words, I know that, but I still don’t want to sound like a total douche. Ok. So. Writing down my experience of appearances in the world.  Sensations.  Flow of time. Haircut. Good. The mundane.  Perfect.  So. Itchy skin on my neck. Sharp little bits of hair. Sharp little bits of hair poking inward while I. Well this is lame. I don’t want to write about itchy haircut hair. Ok, try again. It is raining. Infinite rain. Wet. Wetness. Wettening. Wetly.  Wet wetness wettens wetly wet. Wet wet wet.  Word lost meaning. Damn. That was going somewhere too. Ok think. Think think think.  Perceive my subjective point of view. There was one big stroke of lightning just now and lots of thunder. A phenomenon.  Phenomena have temporal features so. Am I still writing about my subjective experience?  The appearance of phenomena and thinking about the appearance of phenomena enone themselves.  Then they spread out a unity through time. Through. Well, whatever it is. So I’m still good. My temporal features are different from those of any single phenomenon because I can enfuture myself. Goals, some of which I can change.  Some of which require the exercise of my free will.  Some of which involve a certain young for her age, large for her age,  beefy girl.  Skittish.  Will take some persuading but probably not much. Ok. Sticking with present phenomena which automatically continue being what they have been.  A phenomenon has its own temporality. Infinite rain. See? Just look at it. And just one big stroke of lightning and lots of thunder with it. Wait. That off a bit. Seems off. Or is time a structure of the knowing mind? Then lightning and thunder as phenomena appearing in the world has no temporality of their own.  That’s not right.  Ok stick with my subjective point of view. My pure experience of my own lived experience as I experience it. My experience of experiencing experiences I experience. That’s it exactly. That’s what this is about. Sensations. The flow of time, that’s what counts.  Look there he is.  Wonder where he’s going.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Sometimes they are found in the right guess with their queerities no telling how.

September 2, 1666: And as it grew darker, appeared more and more, and in corners and upon steeples and between churches and houses, as far as we could see up the hill of the City, in a most horrid malicious bloody flame, not like the fine flame of an ordinary fire.

The journal of AE, Master Mystic, 10:20 pm but time makes no difference I am God.  I can do whatever the hell I want.  I’ve translated. Basta! Enough. Besides, who ever anywhere will read these written words?

Fire will come take us on to Edenville but it’s freezing hell getting there. Oh fire will come aslowly burning, I can see it from here, slow creeping burning up oh and down too poor body. This is the eighty seventh hour and I had a sweetheart of a dream.  The faces in the dark showed me kırmızı terlik ve altın kanatand. So there it is, clear as the rain: change is in the air and fire will come.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Mort aux vaches.

Cease cows! Life is short.10:22 pm

Article here about Foot and Mouth disease.  Countless cattle coming down with cow plague and multiplying. How many? Let’s see. Divide by color: white ones, black ones, yellow ones, and the ones with foot and mouth disease. The bulls, let’s separate them out too. The white bulls are equal to a half and a third of the black together with the whole of the yellow. The black are equal to one fourth of the ones with foot and mouth disease and a fifth, together with, the whole of the yellow. Have to take into account the proportions to get this right. Have to. So. The white are equal to the third part and a fourth of the whole herd of the black, while the black are equal to the fourth part of the ones with foot and mouth disease and with it a fifth part, when all, including the bulls are counted together. Keep in mind that the ones with foot and mouth disease are equal in number to a fifth part and a sixth of the yellow herd. And of course it goes without saying, I mean just look at them for Christs sake, the yellow are equal in number to a sixth part and a seventh of the white herd. That one is yellow, that one is white. Hard to tell in this light. And they all belong to Helios so they are a little washed out. Easy to mistake. So the number of the sun’s cattle with foot and mouth disease becomes quite clear at this point. Oh, will you separate out the number of the well-fed ones and the females according to color? Thanks. You look. Are you ok? Do you need a calculator? I’ll find one. Here, use my phone. I’ll make it easy for you to picture. Really there’s as good cattle in the field as ever came out of it.  Now. When the white ones line up together with the black they form a perfect square. It’s really quite marvelous to see. And the yellow ones mixed with the ones with foot and mouth disease (you really should separate them, you do know that don’t you) naturally group together into a perfect triangle. Oh those beautiful triangular numbers! Mooing and chewing their cud. Now who’s hungry for lunch? Sardines?

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

He discovered in himself a wonderful likeness to a bull.

Apply the tale, and you shall find, How just it suits with human kind. Some faults we own; but can you guess? --Why, virtue's carried to excess, Wherewith our vanity endows us, Though neither foe nor friend allows us.10:24 pm

My name is unpronounceable in your language.  And I would teach you mine but I can see from here you would stop at the first personal pronoun.  You would learn it by heart and carry it everywhere between your teeth and your cheek. You would root up the green grass and keep it only for yourself.  Well you would, there’s no mystery.  You think this is my first time at the rodeo? You would be no better off than yourself, but you will never see past your own self baptism to realize it.  You.  Can you be sure of understanding my language?  You are of one mind and I see no help for you.  You’ll be who you are and a bull’s a bull for a’ that.

3 Responses to He discovered in himself a wonderful likeness to a bull.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

There’s a belly that never bore a bastard.

This natural Impatience to look into Futurity, and to know what Accidents may happen to us hereafter, has given birth to many ridiculous Arts and Inventions. Some found their Prescience on the Lines of a Man's Hand, others on the Features of his Face; some on the Signatures which Nature has impressed on his Body, and others on his own Hand-Writing: Some read Men's Fortunes in the Stars, as others have searched after them in the Entrails of Beasts, or the Flights of Birds. Men of the best Sense have been touched, more or less, with these groundless Horrours and Presages of Futurity, upon surveying the most indifferent Works of Nature.10:27 pm

Public announcement [draft #1132]

Gentlemen, today it is my great pleasure to announce we have arrived at the future of science. [Short pause]. It is my great privilege to tell you fine men that today and forevermore, we have no future need of women. [Lengthy pause for applause]. Using in vitro fertilization techniques, we can induce an ectopic pregnancy by implanting an embryo and placenta harvested from any old trollop [speak these words quickly, don’t give the audience time] into the abdominal cavity, just under the peritoneum, after the subject has been prepped with sufficient oral doses of female hormones derived from cattle, to make him receptive to pregnancy.  There is risk of massive hemorrhage, but no more risk than any female breeder runs during pregnancy brought on via now obsolescent techniques.  Once implantation completes, the father-to-be may stop taking hormones as the embryo will secrete sufficient hormones to maintain his own development.  The pregnant man will experience an incipient ventripotence as the little stranger grows, but many of us have become accustomed to certain sub-diaphragmatic expansions as we age [pause for laughter].  The delivery will require open surgery to remove the baby and his placenta.  Because the placenta has been freed from having to grow in a womb, it will have made intimate vascular connections with surrounding organs, so expect massive hemorrhage.  Because implantation will have involved any number of abdominal structures, [speak quickly] parts of the bowel and certainly significant parts of more than a few other organs will need to be removed.  But think of the joy the new father will experience holding his newborn son!  [Smile warmly] He’ll not have a care in the slightest at what parts of his internal structure will be removed as he has just added significantly to his family and to his heart! He will have just begun that most important of all relationships between a father and his son.  Oh how your son will love you! And just think, dad-to-be, as you proudly attend your son’s future graduation, what will the little details of his birth matter? [Pause for applause.  Smile warmly, make eye contact].  Now, let’s talk financial particulars.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

A whole century of polite breeding had not achieved so nice a gesture.

Excuse me, Monsieur le Count, said I; - as for the nakedness of your land, if I saw it, I should cast my eyes over it with tears in them; - and for that of your women (blushing at the idea he had excited in me) I am so evangelical in this, and have such a fellow-feeling for whatever is weak about them, that I would cover it with a garment if I knew how to throw it on: - But I could wish, continued I, to spy the nakedness of their hearts, and through the different disguises of customs, climates, and religion, find out what is good in them to fashion my own by: - and therefore am I come.

10:29 pm

She was so wet and I had no condom.  I swear to God I could have killed myself a thousand times. Ok. That’s not true. I did have a condom. Shit. How did you pick up on that? I’m such a dumbass. There she was dripping wet. Young, just fat enough to be easy.  I had one hand each going down from top and up to bottom and then God damn it, never open a condom with your teeth. Shit. Never open a fucking condom with your God damn teeth. Well, what are you going to do?  I’d like to say you can’t miss what you don’t have.  Will be picking up condoms while I’m in town.  Get one like, made of armor or something.  Some God damn thing that means business.  Won’t break apart in a hurry.  You know if things go well I could train Milly to be more like Kitty, you know her?  She won’t use condoms.  She’s a great girl though it kind of sucks she’s a whore.

2 Responses to A whole century of polite breeding had not achieved so nice a gesture.

  1. Well I can’t say I’ve ever been there but I thought your stepping into his persona was very believable. I love using other people to speak through, they always seem to have so much more to say than I do,and a hell of a lot more interesting too.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

A monstrous fine bit of cowflesh!

By their fondness of sights, one would be apt to imagine, that instead of desiring to see things as they should be, they are rather solicitous of seeing them as they ought not to be.10:30 pm

Brang, the bell stopped the talking,
In Nurse Callan comes walking.
Her belly looks swelled
Shut your mouth sir! they yelled.
This woman you should not be mocking.
 
But I mock from familial duty,
Besides, just look at her booty!
Most nurses are whores
Like Kitty, Lynch adores.
So relax, boys, the point now is mooty.  

One Response to A monstrous fine bit of cowflesh!

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

The thousand vicissitudes of existence.

It was the protection of the vulture to the lamb, which covers while it devours its prey—which stretching its baleful pinions, and hovering in mid air, disperses the kites and lesser birds of prey, and saves the innocent and helpless victim from all talons but its own.10:31 pm

I really can’t take my eyes off of him.  That must be the mark of forceps on his head.    No.  Or was he punched too often or too well.  A boxer.  They do heal.  He must have been an accident of birth.   A doctor, like one of these, juvenile still. Drunk maybe. And his mother in labor for 88 hours.  Had to be.  A boy born with a pull and a tug.  The soft part of his head squeezed by instruments and inexperience, and that dent won’t bounce back.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

His own and his only enjoyer.

A writer, who builds his arguments upon facts such as these, is not easily to be confuted. He is not to be answered by general assertions, or general reproaches. He may want eloquence to amuse or persuade, but, speaking truth, he must always convince. 10:32 pm

Bloom, man, what are you doing?  Your house is made of glass, buddy, put down that stone.  Listen.  Listen, now, listen.  Who are you to?  You know? I mean, dude, take a good look at yourself.  You’re life’s on fire.  It’s burning down around you, come on.  You don’t see it?  Your shit don’t stink? You’re wearing a black shirt man, what’s that stuff that dried white all over it.  Come on dude, you just jacked off on a public beach over some random girl who could be your daughter.  Who does that? Look, tell these young guys to behave themselves, it’s your deal, but man don’t dish it if you can’t take it. You get it? It’s the Lex Talionis. Kill their dog you better guard your cat. Didn’t this get you in trouble once before, or am I the only one around here with a memory worth a damn?  And that other time you were going on about this phenomenon or that phenomenon, at Cuffe’s remember?  Pissed off the wrong redneck in front of el jefe.  So who are you to be so? You know? Who died and made you? Don’t you remember your housekeeper you tried to? I mean come on man. And now you’ve been having an affair in the virtual with the one while shutting your eyes to the state of the other in the, well I’d like to say real. And in your own bed too. Just look at the state of yourself. I’d tell you you’d better mind your business or, but what is prophecy but a narrative preceding the fact? Fine. Ignore me. Who am I to you?

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

One ear could hear what the other spoke.

[It] was of an oblong and concave figure, four feet in length, and two and a half in breadth, framed of a light wood, coverd with a bulls hide, and strongly guarded with plates of brass.10:36 pm

Well you know what I heard, I heard she commissioned a mechanical something that would turn her somehow into a cow.  Not that she needed a machine to do that, am I right?  Seriously though, I heard that she had this like plasmic memory, you know, she remembered everything ever in her head, but all at once.  It was like a noise or something like all her lives talking at the same time but sometimes she could hear the differences between the voices and one of them said moo. Moo! Just like that, she decided she was once a cow and obsessed about it. That’s why she’s always wearing that cowhide jacket and pants. Even in heat. I thought she was nuts. Turns out she is nuts! And you know what I heard, I heard that she heard this double moo in her head, like voices stuck together.  And the voices had one body like cows cleaved into the one and the two simultaneously.  I don’t know what that means, I mean come on.  Both one and two but not as in three. Whatever. She hears voices. I’m just telling you. I’m just saying.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

This is the appearance is on me.

 To heap shame on my own head is all the satisfaction I have left to offer to offended heaven. My story has drawn down these judgments: Let my confession atone—but, ah! what can atone for usurpation and a murdered child? a child murdered in a consecrated place? List, sirs, and may this bloody record be a warning to future tyrants!10:37 pm

I’m soft.  I’ve gone soft. Look, can you see me? It is so hard to see myself as others see me. Look closer, look at my head. Below I’m a mess, but my eyes are still here, ayin tachat ayin.  Oh I am punished. This must be hell. Now I know what hell is. Yes I expected some obliteration, but must I pay such a high price for it?  Is it such a crime resurrection?  Is translation so horrible?  So loathsome? It’s not like I murdered a child or something; I should think the living would have some fun with it. Surprise, I’m back! There’s so much potential, and for the benefit of all, properly executed.  Except it’s hard to see me. That’s a problem. And I understand I smell like something murdered, but I’ve never smelt it myself. I’m here, though, you can see me. I’m like looking at some sort of dark animal at night. Or at a spider: all head, web body.  It’s not so bad.  My hell is in this life but it’s not so bad.  And I don’t have it in me to cause my own re-death so here we are. I’ll have to make do. Besides Lizzie will have my head if I dare show my face amongst the dead. Think of the vendetta. Well, history is to blame for that, I refuse to feel guilty.  Or what’s that other world?  She’ll make dope her hope, but perhaps I’m being rather a sentimentalist there.  But really, I’ve incurred too immense a debtorship for my enjoyment.  Well, a thing done is a thing done.  I’ll camp out here. Distractions. Burn something. It is rather nice to be back in some of my old haunts. Eternity is fine but I admit feeling a bit nostalgic for the present.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

There as in a retrospective arrangement, a mirror within a mirror (hey presto!)

The relief was hinted to me from a superior power when I, poor slave, had not a hope but that I must wait another seven years with Jacob; and lo! the Rachel which I coveted is brought to me.10:39 pm

My father had a mirror, it was the most astonishing thing this mirror. My father had a mirror he kept behind a picture of my mother.  The picture made no sense because it was blurry and ordinary. Her mouth was open. She could never shut up long enough to smile for a picture. Anyway. it’s the kind of picture you’d delete or not develop or whatever it was they did.  Develop and leave in the envelope with the negatives.  Anyway, he had it in a thick frame but if you turned it over and pushed the little metal clips to one side and pop the back off, there was a little mirror in there. I didn’t get it.  What’s a mirror doing in there? He saw me see him messing with that picture and I knew something was up with it. I figured something was in there.  But I was hoping for money or a note or something. Treasure map. A woman’s phone number. Something. Made no sense.

Once when was sitting behind a chair, hiding and pretending to write in my notebook, he either forgot I was there or didn’t notice, and I saw him do it.  I saw him close up.  He was smoking that pipe of his and then he did it so fast.  Picked up the picture of my mother and popped the back off of it.  He pulled out something that fit in his hand I didn’t see.  And then and then he breathed smoke into his hand.  He exhaled into his hand.  And for an instant (fiat!) light filled the room.  Then that feeling, the vibe of it.  I’ll never forget it.  I’ll remember it forever.  It was like passing from life into eternity.  I can’t explain it.  But there behind my chair I knew within me the precise age of my soul so immense, but also I knew my soul to be something shriveled, something that dwindled to a tiny speck within the mist.  It was horrible.  Before all that murky bright could clear away, I got the hell out of there.  I was young, and I was utterly blown away.

So I tried it myself.  I said I was young.  By myself.  I got the pipe and my mother’s picture and I looked her straight in the mouth.  And then I lit up.  I took a lots of short fast puffs and held it in too long while I twisted the metal clips to the side.  Then, out it popped: a little mirror.  I didn’t pause.  Ok, yes I did pause.  I coughed up a lung.  But I wasn’t scared of anything apart from being caught.  So I stared myself in the mouth, and I took another hit.  Held it in, not so long this time.  Then I exhaled right into my mouth exhaling.  Hold.  Back.  I’m tripping balls.  Entwined in the nethermost brightness I was looking at mirrors within mirrors within mirrors and in one of them it was raining and I was with a girl in the rain pinned up to a wall.  And in another mirror I was holding a baby and the baby was still.  Still and cooling.  In another I was typing.  I was at a desk typing.  And there was my father holding a mirror looking at me, watching the letters appear as I typed them.  Under his nose as I type them.  He isn’t looking at me; he’s watching the screen.  He’s witnessing the letters appear one after the other, left to right and together he and I have a feeling. We have together an obscure feeling that some good has happened to us.

One Response to There as in a retrospective arrangement, a mirror within a mirror (hey presto!)

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

It floats, it flows about her starborn flesh.

The sense of space, and in the end the sense of time, were both powerfully affected. Buildings, landscapes, &c., were exhibited in proportions so vast as the bodily eye is not fitted to receive. Space swelled, and was amplified to an extent of unutterable infinity. This, however, did not disturb me so much as the vast expansion of time; I sometimes seemed to have lived for 70 or 100 years in one night—nay, sometimes had feelings representative of a millennium passed in that time, or, however, of a duration far beyond the limits of any human experience.10:41 pm

Scene: [In the house of Mary and Martha, Mary prepares for her wedding while Martha, ever the bridesmaid, ruminates under yards and yards of what do you call it gossamer veils bunched into the ideal form of a bridesmaid dress. O Martha, thou lost one, you’ll totally be able to wear it again (if you like looking like a fat red triangle!)]

Mary: I’m so so happy! I feel my soul soaring, wafting over regions of cycles of generations that have lived! Have you seen Lilith? She didn’t show up for her fitting.

Martha: [Muttering with the thunder of rebellion] That screech owl? She’s probably fucking Azazel in the bathroom. Wish I was with them.

Mary: O Martha! Martha Martha Martha! The wonder of it! The love I have for Jesus grows to heaven’s own what do you call it magnitude! I feel like I’m floating, flowing, simply swirling! Hey, do you think he’ll like these gold sandals with my dress?

Martha: Yeah. If he likes you to look like Hermes.

Mary: Oh Martha, everything will be so beautiful.  All the stars are aligned perfectly for us too!  He’s a Capricorn and I’m a Virgin.

Martha: [Moaning] Yeah right.

Mary: And I’m a Virgin, young dear and radiant, so we make such astrological sense together. We will have parallax minds and hearts!  Do you have to drink so much?  Such horrible gulpings, you’ll be drunk before the ceremony.  And I want everything to be perfect.  Together we will spin out our love into the infinite of space and of time! And just think Martha, our wedding will be the alpha and nothing, absolutely nothing will go wrong!

Martha: [Ominous, revengeful]  Nothing will go wrong. That’s a good idea, Mary.  For once you’re thinking with that horse’s head you’ve got wafting above all that simply swirling.  Nothing.  Nothing is everything, if done properly. Have you seen my phone?

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Any object, intensely regarded, may be a gate of access to the incorruptible eon of the gods.

And now, O Alcibiades, the divine thing having been performed, tell me, are the girls and the youths and the philosophers as fond of thee as ever?10:42 pm

Scene: [Around the ideal form of a table sit Glaucon, Alcibiades, Pistritus, and a mirror reflecting an even more ideal form of a table around which sit Glycera, Chloe, Phyllis and a mirror reflecting ooh look at that table, way more ideal, around which sit Anemone, Posie, Echo in a mirror, and a mirror reflecting ok now I like this one best, wait, can I see that first table again? reflecting Mars, Venus, and Juno and a mirror reflecting turtles all the way down.  On each ideal form of a table sits a container of plums. Some of the containers are coffins, some are eggs.]

Glaucon: [Brotherly, breathing on the mirror while the others stare hard at the plums] On behalf of Alcibiades, for the fulfillment of his one great goal, I call them to life across the waters of Lethe.

Juno: [Chewing a plum] You hear that?  Venus, get off of Mars, we have to troop to the call.

Anemone: Poor ghosts. I really anticipate disaster here.

Echo: Disaster here.

Posie: [Carving into the table with a blunt hornhandled ordinary knife reminiscent of Roman history]  e ar space ach e ar e period.

Alcibiades: Anything yet?

Anemone: He is so expectant!

Echo: expectant!

Posie: [Carving]   tea ay en tea exclamation point.

Glycera: [Wearing a frock of muslin and yellow shoes]  He wants me again.  Already.

Phyllis: Well don’t go.  That man would make his own mother an orphan.

Chloe: Isn’t his father the son of his own mother?

Anemone: He heard her say that.  Look his face is growing dark.

Echo: Growing dark.

Posie: eye en gee space dee ay ar kay period.

Pisistratus:  All is lost.  I’m leaving.

Glaucon: Stay, we have all the mirrors aligned in perfect harmonic proportions.  This will work.

Pisistratus: It will work if we bribe somebody.

Alcibiades: Glycera’s soul is far away.  What if she won’t assume her etheric double?

Juno: Ok, place your bets. Will she assume her etheric double?  I say yes.  A whore like that? Come on.

Mars: I say yes too. Last time she had her leg up over our left shoulder.  I could watch that again 16 times in a row.

Venus: Alcibiades’ left shoulder. She won’t.  He’ll beg until he’s black in the face but I’ll have to incarnate for her.  Where’s my ruby dress?

Phyllis: Huzzah! I think Venus will go for you. I wonder if she has a ride?  She can take Aristotle, he’s parked out back.

Juno: Venus your bet’s a throwaway.  Just listen to her heart beating! Can hear it two mirrors over.

Glycera: I guess I can go, but I won’t use a condom. I hate condoms. Well at least I had my period last week so there’s that.  He bites, though.  It’s off putting.

Chloe: You’re fertile!  Oh you’ll have a nice ripe egg for him.

Glycera: Oh fabulous, I’ll get pregnant.  Great.

Anemone: Will she?

Echo: She?

Posie:  capital ess ach e question mark.

Glycera: What do you think, ladies?

Phyllis: It’s a holocaust; you’ll get burned.

Chloe:  Yes she’ll burn. The young green shoots of new plumtrees require putrefaction first. End it now and go to him, it will be the beginning of something.  And the Gods are involved, so there will be mirror effects all over the place.  Lose yourself in it.  I mean, look at these plums.  They’re dying. They won’t be fully empowered until putrefied. The tomb of death is the womb of new life.

Glycera: Ok, here I go.

Juno: You hear that? Let’s get started.

Juno, Venus, and Mars: [Breathing on the mirror] We call them to life across the waters of Lethe.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

He accordingly took hold of the neck of the mediumsized glass recipient which contained the fluid sought after

But, as the habit of drinking to excess was general in the class to which he belonged, and as his fortune did not enable him to intoxicate large assemblies daily with claret or canary, strong beer was the ordinary beverage. The quantity of beer consumed in those days was indeed enormous. For beer then was to the middle and lower classes, not only all that beer is, but all that wine, tea, and ardent spirits now are. It was only at great houses, or on great occasions, that foreign drink was placed on the board. 10:43 pm

I’m watching. Don’t be impulsive now. It’s a standoff, not a game of chicken, so you still have to do it right. Wait for it. Wait for it. Think about what you have there. It was made with hard water so keep that in mind. That will effect the hydrophobicity of the oh there you go! Ok. Good. Nice. Holding that glass at a 45 degree angle, beer hitting the middle of the slope. Yes. And the bottle parallel to the table. Now you’re nearing halfway, what are you going to do? And yes! You waited just a bit. Because of the thunderstorm? Nice pour in the center. A little tall? Quarter inch. Half inch. Do you have room? Nice! One inch of foam exactly.  Just look at that head! And you weren’t afraid to pour hard, with a little force. That was aggressive, man, a bold move. But you had to release the aromatics. Stylish choice. So. Whose beer is it?

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

An omnivorous being which can masticate, deglute, digest and apparently pass through the ordinary channel with pluterperfect imperturbability.

And if any of the ecclesiastical persons to whom I have referred, object that they find it derogatory to the honour of the God whom they worship, to awaken the minds of the young to the infinite wonder and majesty of the works which they proclaim His, and to teach them those laws which must needs be His laws, and therefore of all things needful for man to know -- I can only recommend them to be let blood and put on low diet.10:45 pm

God: What’s for dinner, I’m starved!

Jesus:  The fire’s barely lit, you’ll have to wait for the coals to heat up.

God: Well hurry up before the meat goes bad.

Jesus: There’s plenty of time.  Let’s see.  Blood victims, blood victims. Let. Me. See. There’s a woman just gave birth.

God: Newly emaciated? I’ll pass.

Jesus: A corpulent professional gentleman.

God:  Too much cholesterol.  I’m supposed to be following a more Mediterranean diet.  Anybody from Sicily or thereabouts?

Jesus: A jaundiced politician and a chlorotic nun.  Oh wait, a nice baby about eleven days.

God: Veal?  Yummy, but isn’t that still a bit too controversial?

Jesus: No no, not at all. It’s much more humanely raised these days.  Besides, food is food.  It’s a beastly thing and nothing else. It simply doesn’t matter.

God: [With pluterperfect imperturbability] Well that sounds good then.  Have got to eat something to save my life.

Jesus: [In a moderate and measured tone]  At the risk of your life.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

The brave woman had manfully helped. She had.

Luster and odors, and blossoms and flowers, All that is richest in gardens and bowers, teach us morality, speak of mortality, whisper that life is a swift unreality.10:46 pm

Scene: [After a job quite happily and well done, those who have passed on, who have gone before are happy too as they gaze down and smile upon the touching scene.]

St. Anne: No matter how many times I see it, no matter how often I am summoned to the miracle that is birth, I can’t get past how disgusting it all is.

St. Margaret: Amen.  And this one was a bleeder.  Where’s the universal husband?

Father Cronion: I saw him just a bit ago.  Finishing up a meal of baby fingers it looked like.

St. Margaret:  Was he?  Lord I’m hungry.  We’ve been at this job for days.

St. Anne: Well isn’t it just like the Universal Husband to be absent just at the God! Oh God you’re here!

God: Did I miss it?

St. Anne: Not at all , not at all. Sir, to you my hand!  A fine job you did here, well done.

God: None of that, none of that.  It was down to the three of you the birth went off as well as it did.  Looks a mess though.

St. Anne:  We’ll send in a crew.  Clean it up.  Margaret?

St. Margaret: I’ll make a call. We’ve been a bit behind schedule

Father Cronion: Time did slip away from us. But we pulled it off in the end, didn’t we ladies.  With of course Your intervention.

God:  It was hard work all around, but my good and faithful servants, we soldiered it out and just look, we gave birth to a fine little mite!  But yes, send in a crew to clean her up.  And flowers.  Lets get her some flowers, give her something to think about.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Shrouded in the piteous vesture of the past

We are reminded of that difference between genuine memory, and mere haphazard recollection, noted by Plato in the story he tells so well of the invention of writing in ancient Egypt.— It might be doubted, he thinks, whether genuine memory was encouraged by that invention. The note on the margin by the inattentive reader to "remind himself," is, as we know, often his final good-bye to what it should remind him of.

10:47 pm

I’ve seen that look before.  Rememory.  I’m almosting it.  Must have been fifteen seventeen years ago.  He looked to be about five then, sweet little boy standing on the urn.  Held up with hands around the urn.  The urn filled with wetted ashes and the Dillon girls and Molly holding him up.  Eating cherries.  He knew he liked it. He knew his mother would not like him standing on that urn.  He looked at her watching, her mother eyes on him to call him down.  Reproachful mother eyes speaking him to come down with mute secret words.  Sweet boy looking at his silent mother remote with the pain that was not yet the pain of love.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Madam, when comes the stork bird for thee?

 Hardly, or not at all, able to bend his knees, the whole man moved like a stork.

10:48 pm

Oh come on.  You sit in here with this pack of fools pretending to care about a woman in there who’s giving birth for christsakes, asking me something like that.  None of your damn business and when the end comes after a sudden at the moment though lingering labor it’s all diet and quiet and on your merry way out the damn door with the rest of the screaming bastards.  And to look at me like that up and down like that and ask me a question like that like its your business.  Oh big man. Well go fill your unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run, you jackass, I hope you get struck by lightning. I have a letter to write.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Thou art all their daddies.

Thus, were it not miraculous, could I stretch forth my hand and clutch the Sun? Yet thou seest me daily stretch forth my hand and therewith clutch many a thing, and swing it hither and thither. Art thou a grown baby, then, to fancy that the Miracle lies in miles of distance, or in pounds avoirdupois of weight; and not to see that the true inexplicable God-revealing Miracle lies in this, that I can stretch forth my hand at all; that I have free Force to clutch aught therewith?10:49 pm

Congratulations, Theodore, job well done my man. You’ve shown them all, getting on in age and there’s no stopping your popping. Not with you, no way. How did old Zarathustra say it? I can’t remember.  What did he?  I can see him saying it too, like he’s looking right at us right now. It was like. I know. With you it’s its not like with many that would want to and would wait and never do but you did it, baby, you are all their daddies! And off that old woman of yours too. She might be a little calloused around the nipples, what with all the work they’ve done over the years am I right? Oh but you both have outflows in abundance and drink up now little baby, now is the time for drinking!  It’s good milk and sweet and fattening. So here’s to the goddesses of baby popping, and of cherry popping. Now daddy, let’s get ourselves to the bar, what?  As new life reaches for a warm bellyful, let us reach out hands for a cold one.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

The Apostates’ Creed

Vitam aeternam10:50 pm

I believe in Deus Pater, keeper of a watch on the clock, and in Jay, an easy make, drunken minister in old clothes, conceived of the maternity hospital, shoved out into the bleeding limelight, suffered to stand though proud possessor of damnall, declared misery, bet to the rope, nantee saltee, and had not a red. He hentruded on death and avanced five parasangs on foot to Henry Nevil’s. He proceeded to the nearest canteen and there annexed liquor stores, at the right hand of the Bishops boosebox; from thence He shall stop short, whether on the scaffold high, never to go again. I believe in the holy spirits, two whiskeys for the Ubermensch, 12th rib gone, and his friend abaft, five Bass number 1’s, ginger cordial (I oughtn’t to have got myself swept along with those medics) wheels within wheels, Absinthe for me, pissedon green.

Obligated.

Don’t mention it.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

There under starshiny coelum.

Checkmate. King to tower.10:56 pm

Thank you kindly, much obliged my man.  We have to all pull together, am I right, and these things can be damn expensive. When there’s a girl like that a ripe and a ready, a little venus of the people, and no man has yet gone before, then I want to be the man for the job, hey don’t spill on my new pants. We live but to die and there’s hair in your eye. I know it. I’ll never be a poet. I am a little sentimental about the girl, but the sentimentalist is he who would enjoy without incurring the immense debtorship for a thing done.  Much obliged to now where did he go?  Oh there, getting some wine.  Two guinness for me.  And two for yourself?  Ah yes, she’s a bold bad girl.  Who’s paying? Well sir, it’s who’s invited us! Whoa! That one’s passed out. You don’t say? Had the winner until you? Wasn’t such a dead cert then.  Who gave him the winner? Him? Him that gave me the condom for my photo girl? With the wife in the window? Have to see her to be believed. Pull the blind baby, somebody’s watching. Wait, Bloo? He’s the one she calls papli? Ok then, is that the time. Getting late. Just slide over here by the door, Mulligan, look alive, look at that there by the door. A round of  absinthe? Sure sure, green poison the devil take the hindmost. Don’t mind us just going to take a look at something out here. Just outside. See ya adios bye bye catch you later gotta go.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

Time all. There’s eleven of them.

Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus, Pater et Filius. O lust, our refuge and our strength. Through Yerd our Lord, Amen. And snares of the pox fiend. Thrust syphilis down to hell with him and those other licensed spirits who wander through the world. May Allah the excellent one your soul the night ever tremendously conserve.11:00 pm

Eleven.  Refresh.  Restart.  Resurrect.  I saw you at the place for the dead; I was walking Mackintosh of lonely graveyard. You saw me? What were you doing there, peeping? Looking for a fresh female to dig up you pervert? I’ve seen your type. You’ve been through hell you say? Well who hasn’t buddy. But it is eleven, time to rise. Time to walk these dusty roads and get the hell out of here.  Pull yourself up now.  It’s eleven and there’s a bit of rising to do before the next fall.  O felix culpa. The man in the brown mackintosh loves a lady who is dead.  Rise! Rise! Oh hell, I’ll see you round.

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.

You’ll have to rise precious early, you sinner there, if you want to diddle the Amighty God.

It was all very well to say 'Drink me,' but the wise little Alice was not going to do THAT in a hurry. 'No, I'll look first,' she said, 'and see whether it's marked "poison" or not'; for she had read several nice little histories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant things, all because they WOULD not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them: such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; and that if you cut your finger VERY deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked 'poison,' it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.11:07 pm

Oooooh I feel a fight coming on. I feel us a fight a coming on.  Lord there’s a something a coming on. You hear me jesus? Your hear me Jesus? Jesus Lord Christ anointed son of the fullness of God our Messiah anointed in the blood of the lamb I feel it a coming. It’s a coming. Call down Elijah for us O Jesus, bring us the holy ghost into our bodies there’s a gonna be a fight. You coming long Jesus? I see Brother Dick, I see Brother Davy and all you beautiful brothers and sisters in this here tabernacle.  You sir, the guy in black.  Have you sinned against the light Brother Black?  Are you ready to declare your sins and be washed in the bloo of the lamb, Brother Black? The day is at hand when he shall come to judge the word by fire.  Yes Jesus.  He will come to judge us that the scriptures might be fulfilled. Elijah is coming. Shout salvation in Jesus Christ! Come on brothers and sisters and follow my pitiful endeverance to explain to you good sinners that we are all of us living in the last day. All that’s done is all for the kingdom of God. Feel it now brothers and sisters. Feel the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. You will be made whole by the power of Jesus. Throwaway your sins and blaze on to Edenville for Elijah is coming! Come on now. Come on all you harddrinking gutpuking bloodspilling gasguzzling facebooking tweettwittering existences. Bring your afflictions for He’s got a cough mixture for you in His back pocket and we shall all drink the blood of the lamb!

Intercourse, eyeball to eyeball.