10:25 pm
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. Alec Bannon took a picture of Milly Bloom. Alec Bannon 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’s Malachi Mulligan. Wonder where he’s going.
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.2:13 pm
I recommend resurrection wholeheartedly to those who are whole of heart and whose hearts fill most wholly the whirling holes ringing roundabout us between the astral levels engulfing souls, hesouls, shesouls, shoals of souls, she sells shesouls by the sheshole. Trips off the tongue. Yes. This will be how I will preface the collection of the most promising young poets. I have them all. The important ones. Nobody overlooked. I remember it now, my work I left when I died. But I am back and it is through logos I shall become important. My story, my return from death, embroidered with poetry, will become our missing national epic. I’ll gather my followers. Malachi Mulligan of course and he will bring in Haines, who else? Who else? I will overlook nobody. My head is whirling, my thoughts are simply swirling! Oh yes and I mustn’t forget the letter the kid gave me to publish. Foot and mouth? Well if it is important it will go in. Now, I must take care of my smell before I gather genius and talent to my service. My astral body was much more pleasant than my physical. But I exist! I exist! Why do I feel so nauseous?
12:30 am
11:50 am
Better get this job over quick. Side by side with the serpent plants and milkoozing fruits. Pain is far. And no more turn aside and brood. Brood on my boots. His boots. I am a Buck’s castoff. Brother soul, Wilde’s love that dare not speak its name. His arm, Cranley’s arm. He will leave me. אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה. I will be what I will be. All or not at all. I shall wait. No. Chafing against the low rocks. Swirling. Passing. Listen: vehement breath. Wavespeech of waters. Seesoo, amid seasnakes. Hrss rearing horses. Rsseeiss rocks. Ooos. In cups of rocks it slops. Flop slop slap. Bounded in barrels. Slopped and churned. The bungholes sprang open and a huge dull flood leaked out, flowing together, winding through mudflats all over the level land, a lazy pooling swirl bearing along wideleaved flowers of its froth.
Whispering weeds: Shhh. Lift your skirts, we are flooded. Let fall. Ahhh we are weary. Lift. Shhh. Flooded. We await fullness. Day by day and night by night. Shhh. Pray to St Ambrose for us. He loves virgins. Shhh. He knows how to hide. Lift. Shhh. Let fall. He will hide us. Shhh. Gather up forthflowing. We are flooded. Shhh. Wending back. We are weary. Help us St. Ambrose. Shhh. Help us.
11:30 am
Haines, the dog of my enemy, and I just stood pale, silent, bayed about. What do I want from these pretenders then or now. Live their lives. His life to be his and mine to be mine. For this I am pining? He is not fortune, he is fortune’s primrose knave. Smiling at my fear. Mocking me in their house of death. Enough. Nobody wants my medieval abstrusiosities. Tell the truth. He saves men from drowning and I shake at a dog’s bark. Would I save somebody? I’m not a strong swimmer. The water is cold, soft. But spit it out, yes, I would want to. I would try. It’s his eyes, though, a drowning man’s eyes scream the horror of his death. I would drown with him. Together. I could not save her. Lost.
11:00 am
The world is real and eternal. Don’t take my word for it, think through your eyes. Look at the idealists, they knew how to use a good work around. Take Berkeley for example.
Berkeley: There is not existence without the mind. Objects cannot exist without a mind perceiving them.
So to perceive is to be. Oh yeah, then when I leave the room does it disappear? Come on.
Berkeley: Objects continue because God sees them.
And there you are. A likely story. Convenient to invent a universal perceiver so all things can be seen and thus be real. Even Schopenhauer, who had a bit more sense than the other idealists, speaks this treason.
Schopenhauer: The world is my idea.
Please, what about that sun up there behind those clouds? And this beach, these shells I crunch under my feet and this sand washing through my fingers?
Schopenhauer: It is not a sun and an earth, but only an eye that sees a sun and a hand that feels the earth.
But what about time? Close your eyes. Think of a very short space of time. You aren’t closing your eyes. You think I can’t see you? I can’t see you and you are real. Now close them. Nothing will disappear. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Ok, close your eyes later and think of very short times of space. And listen. Rhythms, the nearing tide, the crunch under your feet. Close your eyes and look through the opacity of your eyelids. Is it is all still there? World without end? All the time, and all time? You did not need to see to believe. All still here. Me too. Look, there are my feet. Buck’s shoes. I’m wearing his pants too. And Jim’s hat. But whether one thing comes after another or they stand nicely side by side, the world is not the idea of a creator. There is no Los, that fallen earth owner creating material reality in his forge, or holding his diaphanous orb of fire as he walks into the crypt of eternity wearing Blake’s hat. Nor are there ghosts within. Listen. That’s a ghost talking, Hamlet’s father. Howsomever thou pursuest this act, taint not thy mind nor let thy soul contrive against thy mother. Now look what you’ve done. I should never have spoken to you. Your fault! My mother, ghost with ashes on her breath, is walking here. No. Jesus! I will not fall over that cliff that beetle’s o’er his base. Oh Christ look now, look with your thoughts. There I go.
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?
9:06 am
Buck still leading Haines on about my Hamlet theory, although so far I am not tempted to break my silence. I’ll tell it when I tell it, it can wait. Whatever. To him it won’t be worth more than the price of a pin. He told Haines I prove by algebra that Hamlet’s grandson is Shakespeare’s grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his own father. Haines probably thinks I am my father’s ghost. He also thinks Seattle is much like Elsinore (I don’t see it). With the full weight of ownership of his rightful property that can only come from an Englishman who hasn’t read it, Haines called Hamlet a wonderful tale. How delightful. Isn’t that special.