Having my way with Ulysses

Delectatio Morosa

I was a lamb among the holy flock that Dominic leads on the path where one may fatten well if one does not stray off. 11:40 am

No, not morose as in gloomy or sullen.  Morose from moror, a delay in time.  Not up on your Latin?  Keep in mind that one of my usual attributes is that of angels beating people about the head with my books.  Study up, you don’t want a particularly large copy of Summa Theologica crashing down on your skull.  And those copies the angels use — they are illuminated!  Heavy.  So is pleasure subject to time?  This is what I was getting at and the answer is yes and no.  It is and it isn’t.  You see?  Because The Philosopher says delight is a kind of movement, and all movement is in time, pleasure is subject to time.  But he also says that no one takes pleasure in time, so it is not subject to time.  Both.  How can this be you ask?  Careful, the angels are hovering.  I see a particularly weak armed one too struggling with an oversized edition of The Summa Contra Gentiles.  Pleasure of itself is not in time, because it not a movement, but if this pleasure be subject to change, then it will be in time accidentally.  So what delights you?  That will be the thing to make the difference.  If it is a good obtained, it will not be in time, but if there is movement of the imperfect in your pleasure, then, well, it is subject to time.  And there we get into sin.  The more morose, the more mortal the sin.  Does that help?  Do you need a good whack in the head with a book?  Would you enjoy a whackin the head with a book?  Careful with your answer, the angels are listening.  Ay me.  I’m hungry.  You know, delectation denotes a movement of the appetitive power.  Could use a little wine too.  I am a touch purple now from wine, did you know that?  They boiled me in it to render my fat from my bones.  They had to, I was too corpulent to be moved, so they transformed me into a more portable form.  I hope they drank some wine themselves, after the job they had trying to get me down the stairs and then the more difficult job of dislodging me from the staircase.  Hard to accomplish that with proper dignity.  Ultimately they broke open a window and dropped me down.  Did no harm to my bones, my flesh was ample enough to break the fall.  I wonder what they did with my rendered fat?  Light a candle, will you, it’s dark in here.

Cycle down, hire some old crock

Then they forgathered, huddled in one throng, weping aloud along that wretched shore which waits for all who have no fear of God. 11:23 am

I’ll tell you all about it but first I have to sit down, empty the dirt and stones out of my boots.  Woof my dogs are barking!  Jesus fucking christ that was a long ass trip.  And what have you been doing while I’ve been gone?  Lazy ass.  Look at this dump.  Shuttered.  Tenantless.  Unweeded garden.  Whole place gone to hell.  Wow I’m jet lagged.  So I’m thinking of writing the whole thing up as a travel guide for tourists.  They’ll love reading about it.  And I can make a little money too and won’t have to spend my life subsisting on the bitter taste of other’s bread, how salt it is.  Do you know how hard a path it is for one who goes descending and ascending others’ stairs?  Here, listen to this:  My journey to the afterlife took me off the beaten track where wildlife abounded.  I met up with Beatrice, an old flame who hooked me up with her tour guide friend Virgil.  Discerning travelers would do well to enlist his guidance when exploring this picturesque land of contrasts.  We began with that hidden gem, Hell’s capital city of Dis, where we took a charming boat ride ferried by a quaint local who charged us a fraction of the price you’d pay at home.  His dock was bustling with friendly locals crowded on the spit of land and as we waited silent shapes appeared, colorful characters holding out calm hands and pointing.  The vibrant culture we found in Hell and its sleepy backwaters are an unspoiled holiday destination well on its way to becoming the next Tuscany.  For adrenalin junkies don’t miss the crawl up and then down Lucifer’s body.  Only then can you experience Hell’s best kept secret — the rustic road to Mount Purgatory.  At its end the reward for your adventures will be breathtaking vistas, and the golden beaches at your feet will wash away your cares.   Stay a while; you will feel quite refreshed.  Once you are rejuvenated by the tranquility of the pounding surf you will be more than ready to explore the bustling markets and lively nightlife that color the charming hamlets nestled along the slopes of Mount Purgatory.  At the top of your soul-cleansing climb up the mountain your reward is Edenic gardens and an exotic parade of folk life.  Next prepare yourself to be whisked onward and upward!  There’s something in this divine place for everyone, and for those of you who enjoy the comforts of air travel your next stop is a paradise rich in history and filled with friendly locals.  Enjoy the music of the spheres along the way! Your journey culminates with a must see destination, the experience of which will leave you saying to yourself how incomplete is speech, how weak, when set against my thought!  What.  I saw that look.  Tell me.  No good?  What’s wrong with it?  I suppose I should recommend a hotel or two, maybe some restaurants.  No?  Shit.  You sure?  Well, maybe it will make a good poem. 

These heavy sands are language tide and wind have silted here

Never has any thing produced by human reason been everlasting -- following the heavens, men seek the new, they shift their predilections. That man should speak at all is nature's act, but how you speak -- in this tongue or in that -- she leaves to you and to your preference.11:23 am

I am well out of it.  Wet but wet dries.  It was the wind of wild air of seeds of brightness that did it, I was thinking about those golden seeds windborne, impregnating mortals.  Harpies as fast as gusts.  Then I walked into the ocean.  Not for that reason, but why not?  My soul walks with me.  Take everything, keep it all.  I have my form of forms and whether I listen to Elsinore’s tempting flood and walk into the ocean (I turned back) or sit on a couch of sand makes little difference.  The flood is following me.  Lord will it attack me?  Enough.  Enough walking through memories.  I move and time and space conjoin.  Better to sit and kill time instead.  I’ve no loyalty there.  I’m not time’s bitch.  Think of that dead dog who sat with me, my loyal pointer Orthus.  There: decay.  Good dog.  Bloat and decay: evidence of time’s destruction.  It destroys us and we destroy it right back.  Kill it.  Blur it together with space, kill that too for all I care. Stone it to death and they collapse together. I no longer see distinctions. The running dog? Just a point. Hungry brother of Orthus. Peekaboo I see you. Not me. Or you. The dog.

Heteroousios Dinner Theatre Presents: Contransmagnificandjewbangtantiality Starring Arius the Illstarred Heresiarch!

Far worse than uselessly he leaves the shore more full of error than he was before, who fishes for the truth but lacks the art. Of this Parmenides, Melissus, Bryson are clear proofs to the world and many others who went their way but knew not where it went; so did Sabellius and Arius and other fools, like concave blades that mirror, who rendered crooked the straight face of Scriptures. So too let men not be too confident in judging, witness those who in the field would count the ears before the corn is ripe11:03 am

God:  Hello! God here.  Aleph, Alpha, no headset chatter please.  Jesus let me know when you have places.

Jesus:  Nobody can find Arius.

God:   What! Why?  Entrées are coming out of the kitchen already.  Just look!  Plate after plate of clotted hinderparts.  Where in my name is he?

Jesus:  Not, not one of us can find him.

God:  Oh Christ.

Jesus: [materializes in the booth]  I’m here.

God:  Holy Jesus Christ you scared the shit out of me!  What are you doing in the booth?  It’s as if you came from nowhere.

Jesus:  Sorry.  I thought we should keep this off the headsets.  Arius said some odd things before the show.  Something about how you are not really my dad and we are both part of the same thing.  And that I should be co-stage manager instead of ASM.  Also, he didn’t look very good.

God:  I know, he was terrible in the first act, coming down the steps flabbily, with splayed feet.

Jesus:  And he had the worst gas.  Smelled like he was about to have a violent relaxation of his bowels.  Those front row tables!  I wept for them.

God:  Is that what that was?  I smelled it in the booth!  Look, we can’t just sit here navel gazing, we’re out of time.  Have you checked the toilet?

Jesus:  I just had that same thought.  I’ll look there, but I have a bad feeling about it.

God:  I just thought that same thing!  It’s like we have one mind.  Oh and Jesus, we should look into replacing him.  How about Adam Kadmon?  He can play anything.  Where’s that review of Edenville?  Here.  Listen to this: “he was a man and a woman at the same time”  he can play all the roles!  And this: “quite pure in breeding.  He could give birth parthenogenically at will.”

Jesus:  We can have a cast of thousands!

God:  “and he had a body that could pass through trees and stones”  that might be hard to plan for.  Think our technical director is up for it?

Jesus:  Heva?  Come on, she’s a viper.

God:  Well, go see if Arius is stalled on the throne or somewhere.  And don’t forget we are meeting for drinks at The Ship at half twelve.  And by the way, go easy with your money like a good young imbecile.

Too full for words

How incomplete is speech, how weak, when set against my thought!10:09 am

What do you want, I’m eating.  I see you.  I see what you think.  You think that I am a dumb creature and I have no sense beyond this bag stuck to my face.  Damn all we might know or care about anything.  Keep us, drug us with feed.  Condemn us to a mine somewhere until we die, no hope of fresh air or natural light again.  No problem.  We only want our feedbag.  Is that it?  Look I may be no Incitatis with gold flakes in my oats and a high paid job, but I am more than you think.  I am real.  I don’t speak, no.  But not because of this bag, whatever you might say.  We see you.  You think we are gently champing our oats, regarding you silently.  We see you.  And I cannot speak for us all but what I see, what I’ve seen, freezes me to a solid and chills me to silence.  I’m filled with it.  Look at the things you have done.  Don’t you get it?  Look between my legs for a start.  What do you want me to say?  Incomprehensible idea.  If I were to verbalize something I would be placing myself into human rationality.  No thank you. You poor brutes.

Steeeeeeeeeeeephen

And note that they who will for exile say can for dog while them that won't leave ingle end says now for know.9:21 am

When you see the arrow coming it has a softer strike, and I can see one clearly aimed right between my eyes.  I can enfuture myself and hear him say it: give me the key it is mine, I paid the rent.  And what can I do?  I can’t afford this place on my salary.  I can’t afford any place on my salary.  I remember clearly that bitch who does payroll telling me, when her mistake lost me my funding, I should go live in a shelter.  Good thing I got a TA, or I’d be living under a staircase somewhere.  Well, with what I make that might as well be my next home.  No.  Instead I do what I do now; I go up and down other people’s staircases.  When I think of the scheming and the senselessness I put up with my mouth fills with a salty bitter taste.  I smell toast.  No.  I’ll keep my honor and keep to myself.  Exile.  Time is screaming toward me and I had better be prepared for the blow.