Having my way with Ulysses

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.

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.

Like a cat sitting beyond a dog’s jump.

Beppo the cat watched us out of his eternity but did nothing to save me. Nor did the blue earthenware tiger I have in my bedroom, nor the magicians and genies in the volume of The Thousand and One Nights.

8:49 pm

They know what they are doing, eyes all over them.  Don’t even have to look, they know just what is where and who.  There’s a sense to it.  Walk into a room and feel which ones want what and who wants someone else.  It’s a pressure in the air or something.  I’ve seen it, what am I, blind?  They feel that I want to fuck you feeling coming from some corner or other.  Directly behind.  You think that turns off because of a husband?  Look at Molly after the Glencree dinner, telling me Val Dillon had his eye on her, and she cracking nuts with her teeth like a tiger.  She was sending a message in a bottle and no mistaking it.  And mister lord mayor sir knows a ball buster when he wants one.  She knew her own business on the way home too, and then telling me after about her first kiss with Mulvey up against the Moorish wall.  Just like a woman to camouflage with timing.  And me the blank clock.  She saw, fine eyes too, clear, she saw with her every eye what I wanted to hear and saw to it.  Sharp as needles.  Milly too, practicing in front of a mirror. Gets it from her father, mother I mean.

A warm human plumpness settled down on his brain.

Agh! Watch out heart attack, pop more angina pills order a plate of Bratwurst, fried frankfurters,couple billion Wimpys', MacDonald burger to the moon & burp! Salt on those fries! Boil onions & breaded mushrooms even zucchini in deep hot Crisco pans Turkeys die only once, look nice, next to tall white glasses sugarmilk & icecream vanilla balls Strawberrry for sweeter color milkshakes with hot dogs Forget greenbeans, everyday a few carrots, a mini big spoonful of salty rice'll do, make the plate pretty1:40 pm

Funny the way she says things.  Wuz nc & all teh bfls wer out.  Saw one today with white stockings, dressing lingerie shop window.  Naked mannequins with sale signs, pinning on garters, flimsy silks.  All in red.  Thick feet she had.  Hope they get mucked by the rain.  Need to get a pincushion for Molly.  Might not like that though, throws away the black headed ones too.  Superstitions.  Get pricked by a pin and lose your lover.  Sleep with two pins crossed under your pillow.  Not sure why.  Sharp things cut lo.  Never hand a pin to somebody point first.  Nice red things they had there.  For Molly.  For women.   All for a woman.  Home and houses, the wealth of the world for them.  Molly.  Molly’s skin.  Must get her lotion.  Warm full perfumed.  Kissed, yielded, tangled, trembling breath.  For them.  For her.  Men.  Men, men, men.  See the animals feed.  Pungent meatjuice.  Swilling, wolfing gobfulls.  Bulging eyes.  Stink of manpiss and sweat.  Am I like that?  I can’t see myself like that.  Is that how others see me?  Watch me eat.  Ramming down knifefulls, sticky, masticating chewchawchew.  Spitting back the gristle.  Shoveling into my gullet.  Chump chop lick the plate.  Eat or be eaten and choke to death on a salmon bone, bite off more than I can chew, and kill!  Kill!  I hate dirty eaters.

Let her speak. Look straight in her eyes. I believe you. Trust me.

Sons of the sun, mother of living creatures. Fiercely met and loved, with all the hypocrisy of longing: importation, exchange, and tourists. In the country of the big snake. 1:16 pm

Ran into Josie Powell today.  Breen.  Still beautiful eyes.  Womaneyes.  How are you, How’s Molly, Milly at a photographer’s, yours?  Not sure how many.  I didn’t ask.  Sad to lose old friends she said when I told her about Dignam.  Was once Molly’s closest and mine too, well that’s quite enough about that.  Asked about her lunatic husband.  Hard to get around to that.  Just: quietly: husband?  She answered by looking in her purse, chipped rattlesnake.  He’s a caution to them she said.  Women’s purses.  Rummaging, wide open.  Money, change, credit cards, used tissues, tampon, lipstick, lipstick, lipstick, phone charger, clean diaper, altoid that was: fell, receipts, hair clips, wrappers, take a number: D26, phone, checkbook, who carries those around anymore, medicine bottle, postcard.  Up?  U.P.  U.P: up.  Somebody taking a rise out of him.  He went to oyster eyes Menton wearing slippers on his feet; sue for libel.  Well he has kids, so there’s the proof of that particular pudding.  If that’s what, I don’t know.  Up?  Meshuggah.  The guy is nuts.  Not as nuts as Cashel Boyle O’Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell who swung past us on the outside of the lampposts.  That rat fell into a brewer’s vat and never recovered.  Can say the same for Josie Powell.  Breen.  Shabby, old clothes.  Used to be a tasty dresser.  Beautiful eyes that night at Luke Doyle’s.  Only a year or so older than Molly.  Lines around her mouth.  Lunch on her shirt.  Smells, maybe from her, of butter, flour, demerera sugar.  A rhubarb tart with liberal fillings, rich fruit interior.  I could still eat her up.

Thanking her stars she was passed over

In the ignorance that implies impression that knits knowledge that finds the nameform that whets the wits that convey contacts that sweeten sensation that drives desire that adheres to attachment that dogs death that bitches birth that entails the ensuance of existentiality.11:00 am

We should all thank our stars, death is a horrible thing.  Dying, there are good ways to go.  But death?  No connection, no contact with those who are now.  In it, you see.  Make room, I’ll ride with you.  Here.  I’ll get that door.  Again.  Got it that time.  Now what was I saying?  What were we talking about?  Oh yeah, the woman watching us out her window, grateful to the stars for the mark on her door.  So death.  No bridging from what will be to what is.  Will be always turns to is, and I’ll tell you what the meaning of is is.  Look around you.  Feel it quickly.  Motion, stillness. Stillness, motion.  It’s a protean thing. Smell, breathe in.  Is that smell you?  Yes, and catch that?  Listen.  You heard a click.  Finger on plastic.  Tap.  Click.  All that is part of is.  And that’s all there is for the likes of you and me.  And that woman there watching us out.  Glad to see us go we give them such trouble coming.  And once we leave the is?  We’re dead, we won’t even know who will undress us and how.  Wash us.  What do they wash?  Cut a new omphalos and pour the fluids in and out.  Too much?  Fine.  Cut our fingernails and hair?  Okay I’ll stop.  Sheesh.  Keeps growing after we die, I wonder how much?  Waiting.  Sitting on something.  That soap in my pocket.  Will wait.  Move it later.  Blinds down.  Keep the house dark, hushed.  Whispering.  There’s a young guy in black.  Have seen that hat before.  Hey Dedalus, there’s somebody you know.  It’s your kid.  By himself.  Nosy.  Full of his son.  Crissie is how old?  Richie Goulding that Sunday morning.  Had two hats on his head dancing around in the street.  Shitfaced drunk.  Bad back.  No insurance, lots of pain meds.  If Rudy had lived.  He’d have me in his eyes, hold our hands.  Somebody to pass things on to.  Teach him something from me.  Was an accident, really.  Happened by chance.  Molly at the window watching two dogs going at it.  She was dying for it.  How life begins.  Got big.  I could have helped him.  Sent him to college.  Milly, same thing as Molly watered down.  Fifteen now.  D Papli, Thrs a yg Im crushin on.  Grown up now too.  There we go.  Nice they rented limos, crushed in here though.  What is that on the seat, crumbs?  Unless I’m mistaken, that’s not food crumbs.   Well, that’s natural.

A soft qualm

Why are you shocked if a goddess sleeps with a man and makes no secret of it9:27 am

She met some kid.  Milly did.  Prevent.  Can’t prevent.  She’ll have her firsts.  Kiss.  etc.  Better keep her occupied.  She wanted a dog, something to carry in a purse.  Maybe I’ll just take a trip up there.  Work out a press pass with McCoy, get it paid for.

Prevent some of it.  Molly reading, braiding her hair.  Texting.  Friend of the family.  That will happen too.

I feel a creeping regret, up the back of my spine, back of my neck.  Spreading.

Troubled affection

Le canard non9:21 am

Milly Bloom Milly Bloom.  I’ve read her email a couple of times.  She met some kid.  Ok, she knows how to take care of herself, but what if she doesn’t?  Nothing has happened.  Sheesh she’s a wild child.  It’s her destiny, it would seem.  She is vain.  Very.  Doing ok in that photography job, makes $1080.  Not bad.  Could be worse.  Had that fight with her about the bracelet.  Wouldn’t eat, speak, look at me.  Smart ass little shit.  Milly Bloom Milly Bloom.  Remember that time we rode the duck.  Rough day, was a wild ride, but she wasn’t scared at all.  Her hair and that blue scarf flying in the wind.  Oh Milly Bloom you are my darling.

The Gods themselves are simply agents of a great high mystery, the secret of which is found in mathematics.

Before a thousand years have passed -- a span that, for eternity, is less space than an eyeblink for the slowest sphere in heaven -- would you find greater glory if you left your flesh when it was old than if your death had come before your infant words were spent? 9:24 am

Milly is fifteen but I remember like yesterday calling the midwife when she was born.  She was the same one.  She knew instantly Rudy wouldn’t live.  God is good she said and she knew better.  He lived eleven days.  He’d be eleven now.  If I could overreach, into this now or out of this now.  Oh it is a difference of all enormity.  I was so proud.  I’d give my every eyeblink.  She knew at once.  She knew.  From the first.