Having my way with Ulysses

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.

I just saw my own ghost

Begin by breaking all the mirrors in the house, let your arms fall to your size, gaze vacantly at the wall, forget yourself. Sing one single note listen to it from inside. If you hear (but this will happen much later) something like a landscape overwhelmed with dread, bonfires between the rocks with squatting halfnaked silhouettes, I think you'll be well on your way, and the same if you hear a river, boats painted yellow and black are coming down it, if you hear the smell of fresh bread, the shadow of a horse.9:09 am

It was a moment, like a recollection of things to come, walking between Haines and Buck when Buck turned to look at me and said nothing.  In that silence I saw my own image, looking shabby in dusty black (insincere?) between the two of them looking hip and expensive.  Is this how others see me? 

The man in black absorbs

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree: where Alph, the sacred river, ran through caverns measureless to man down to a sunless sea.8:15 am

Wearing black conducts reflects refracts heat.  Black more professional.  If it were possible to stay in front of the sun forever, never let it past, just travel ahead of it. Won’t get a day older, technically.  If the sun were slower or I could speed up.  If I could get in a plane and just move ahead of the earth as it spins away from the sun.  This is the real time travel.  Like astronauts going to the next star and then home to dead relatives.  If it moved more slowly I could wander in front of it on a plain.  It would seem as if all is stopped.  Could steal more time that way.  Or I could walk to the east, know the lands unknown.  I could find a gate there, and a sentry like Tweedy say, leaning on a long spear.  Wander Der voglenish meshumed.  Turbans, carpet shops, Görünmeyen Adam.  The hooka, sellers in streets, fennel water, sherbet.  Meet a robber?  Hello brother,  I am one like you.  What are you stealing?  Shall I help you? Sundown mosques casting shadows on pillars.  Another time even, another time again, another time more.  A damsel with a dulcimer playing to the shivering trees.   Mother calling children home.  Fading gold to violet garter sky.