Having my way with Ulysses

From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.

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.

Could hear them all at it

Irise, Osirises! Be thy mouth given unto thee! For why do you lack a link of luck to poise a pont of perfect peace? On the vignetto is a ragingoos. The overseer of the house of the oversire of the seas, Nu-Men, triumphant, sayeth: Fly as the hawk, cry as the corncake, Ani Latch of the postern is thy name; shout! 8:56 pm

 

Wait, what?

 

Shush.  Hear that?  Oh sorry, did I startle you?  Didn’t mean to make you jump; you must be more frightened by noise than light.  Or is it you thought you were alone on this beach?  Oh my darling, no no.  I’m right here.  Here in the tree.  Haven’t you ever listened to a tree?  I’m waiting for them to turn me into a pillar so Isis can find me.  You know her?  She knows you.  We’ve been listening to you, haven’t you heard us?  Listen around you.  All the world is listening.  Shh.  Better sit still. Use your eyes if you must but it’s only getting darker so you might as well listen up.  There.  You hear me?  That’s my Ba flying about. Listen.

 

My Ba.  My face, my bat body.  Like a little man in a cloak I am with tiny hands.  Teeth instead of a beak.  Bells have scared my Ba out of me, well that and my death played a part.  Don’t look so startled, my Ba will come back once Isis tears me out of this tree.  I’ll live again, metempsychosis you understand, repetition.  You hear that repetition?  Patterns it is,  numbers too if you care to hear them.  Self similarity of sound, clustering like bats in a belfry.  You hear that?  Repetitions are forming relationships.  There.  Proportion.  Now we have something.  Consonance and dissonance and assonance and resonance.  All in fluxing proportions.  Bells, and Ba, and waves, and what is that?  Oh that’s you!  Breathing, yes I miss that already.  And that other sound?  What is that? Can’t hear with the waters of. The chittering waters of. Flittering bats, fieldmice bawk talk. Ho! Are you not gone a home? Can’t hear with bawk of bats.

He gets the plums, and I the plumstones.

It may be that universal history is the history of the different intonations given a handful of metaphors.

8:54 pm

But I suppose a plumstone is a seed, so it can return a plum.  History repeats itself.  The year returns.  Plumstone becomes tree becomes plum.  Don’t swallow the stone, it will tear your guts out.  But the new plum, is it the same plum?  Plum metempsychosis perhaps.  O sweet little, you don’t know how nice you tasted.  Yum yum.  See you next time around.  The new I want but: nothing new under the sun.  Self similar but not the same.  Only once it comes.  Returning: not the same.  Plum, plumstone, tree, plum.  Depends on where will it land.  Sand, nothing grows.  Fall at 32 feet per second per second, then rise little tree.  Resurrection.  Are you not happy in your ground plumstone?  Ba.