Journal

48

2007-12-10T00:15:00.000-08:00

It’s over. It’s over it’s over it’s over.

I found her with another man fucking another man.

He was supposed to be just a friend. She looked at me and looked away when I walked in.

I beat in his fucking face.

I believed.

I believed in our love. I found her.

I believed.

No more.

What have I done to you God what have I done now

I betrayed you for a whore

All I feel is nothing. God

God

you were my lover

you were my delight

she

she betrayed me

I ran to her away from you

forgive me please please forgive please forgive love me

I am so sorry

I can’t even cry please I’m sorry

TOM TOM TOM TOM

I believed///

47

2007-12-04T04:50:00.000-08:00

Dear Journal, another dream about a great flood just woke me up. I am so afraid. What have I done to deserve this? I fear that I have lost her and that I have lost forsaken God. I have to tell you all of the dream journal so you can know what I am seeing. It all took place in a bunker in a field that was called Bunker Ten. It was fucking cold in Bunker Ten. Rats scurried, blind creatures stumbled in the dim structure, and the sound of my breathing was an angelic delay against the walls.

“I suppose I suppose I this I suppose this I will suppose will will do do will do do will do...” I spoke aloud. Echo echo echo. It was making me sick. Like dreams that make me sick, I wanted to throw up.

I was hiding out there in Bunker Ten, not remembering exactly how I got there. My head ached. Somehow I crawled into the vacuous cold womb, and I realized then that these were my last remaining hours in preparation for the great flood coming.

I recalled myself wandering through bonfires and festivals earlier that day, religious conversions and prayer vigils, suicidal pacts, public divulgence of booze and nicotine, medicines freely distributed, no children in the streets.

I knew that many speculated that God would not send a flood to end the citizens of Earth. They always say, “He will send locusts and scrolls and frogs and fires and two witnesses and His head will be brighter than the sun when He comes with thunder and tribes. Then the world will end. Not by waters.”

Dreaming, I foresaw it all. I can’t remember exactly how I first learned about the great flood, whether it was by those journeys one has while in a trance, or those types ones has while awake, called visitings, where God or Mary, saint or shaman, guru, ancestor, etc. appears to warn you about the state of your life or some kind of bad event that is coming or something like that. I can’t recall, but I knew it was coming, and I was afraid, but I believed it in my heart journal, that I could survive. I always survive.

Bunker Ten was my salvation and shelter. I tried every other bunker out there in the middle of nowhere, in the groves, in trees, in spring bloom, far away from citylights and trains and celebration. And out of all the shelters in the compound, only Bunker Ten appeared able to withstand and hold firm.

I was going to make it.

Inside of me, a rush of vomit, not so precisely aimed, shot its way up my throat, out of my stinking rot, and spilled hot across the black soot ground. Now I have filled this room with my own stink, I suddenly thought. Pride filled me. I laughed like a tiny God. Was this how big God would end us, too? The great bodily waste, the great flood? Swirling and with no landing in the vomit of Olympus?

One imagines these vulgarities towards the end of all things, somebody whispered.

I stood up and walked around the dark shelter of the bunker. I was waiting here in the barricade of Bunker Ten, I was trapped. It was solid and I knew its walls would not be crushed by the first onslaught of the great flood. I was ready, I would make it. A hole in the roof would send the waters pouring down into the middle of the room, slowly filling the complex, whereupon I thought I would float out of there, through the roof slowly, with a brand new yellow safety raft. I would survive, and the world would perish in vainglory. I was a tiny Noah.

I laid down - but a terrible pressure moved against the atmosphere. Head splitting, blood and bone tightening behind my eyes, disarming silence. I heard the lulling patter of rain begin gently on the ceiling. For what seemed like an hour, loving and giving rain blanketed Bunker Ten. No crushing waters. “So this is it, is it?” I laughed aloud. ‘”Not with a bang but a whisper?” It was so still and so calm lying there. I listened closely for a dull roar, distant frequencies, for thunders and quaking of Earth - nothing. A great expansive plateau of nothingness. Numbing existence. I fought against the hush, and screamed out into Bunker Ten, I hated the whale’s belly, voice buckling the walls and flying back at me like menacing trumps of angels.

Desperately I ran under the roof’s opening and cried out above to the fucking high waters, fist thunderous and mighty.

“Come down if you think...” I started to say, but before I could finish, a rushing tome of waters crashed through the sky, through the opening of Bunker Ten, God’s vomit, tossing me like a tiny doll straight across the room, breaking my bones against concrete slab, not all my bones broken, but enough.

Vision. Breath. Laughter. They abandoned me.

But then journal, the sight of this great display, this God-sent waterfall! My ancestors swam up and down the heavenly stream from roof to ground, slowly filling the vast space of Bunker Ten! My mother spun around in a sexy white dress, a mermaid fairy of ancient splendor! My father was here also, strong in the waters, diving down, swimming up out of Bunker Ten into the great flood, the great gulper of Earth. My father then motioned to me and mouthed, “Come on”, and I tried to move, but my bones were crushed, I couldn’t lift my arm, and I was in such terrible agony of body, of spirit. Luckily, the yellow raft came to me and I grabbed her rope as we were suddenly rushed through the roof.

Underwater. Suffocating. I wanted to wake up and God wouldn’t let me. The terrible pain. One side of my body, crushed. The other side, flailing and holding to the raft. The raft and I were being propelled so fast out of Bunker Ten, a hundred million miles and hour, me and the raft. As we shot upwards, I glanced around. Cars floated and whirled, homes and jetsam rushed right past me, thousands of women and men were frozen, vacant, and starry, trees uprooted and suspending themselves in the rapture of the flood, weeping. My lover was there, dead and drifting.

50 feet below the surface, I let go of my yellow raft, and the raft made its way up without me. I couldn’t float any longer, the terrible brokenness overcame me. Bubbles surrounded, little clouds, little friends, little helpers touching me, the tiny god. My father was gone then, my mother and ancestors were gone. Giant sharks, not locusts or frogs or scrolls, invaded the sacred space of the waters.

They encircled me.

Ah hell, I thought.

Before they could begin their feeding on me, the greedy Pharisees, I looked below me, hundreds of miles below me, and beheld the triumphant remains of a stone city. I had been carried very far to see this. Then an awakening began in me. I saw that the stone city never dies. It always is. It always remains. Atlantis. A great fervor for life, for the city, came over me. With all the remnant strength in my form, I raised my arms parallel with the ground (or, rather, one uncrushed arm) and, suspended over the stone city, high and exalted, I wept, the tiny god, I weep like a tiny Jesus. How I love this stone city, I thought. From far off, a giant beast came into appearance. It’s massive jaws opened and drew me in and I was swallowed into a dark and rotted tomb. That was all. I had to tell you.///

46

2007-12-01T23:58:00.000-08:00

We tried to hang out again today, journal. These are such confusing times. My dreams lately are out of my understanding. I dreamt of a great flood again. God is trying to tell me something and I don’t know what.

It was sunny and rainy, sunny then drizzly and I needed a cigarette. I felt that I had never been so desperate and crazed.

The streets were a mess, full of horns and pedestrians, banging into each other, tailgating the coming of some great event.

Sun and rain, the sky dimming, the sky brightening, nothing felt good. I hopped out of her car, the girl of my dreams inside my dream, I stepped into the Ganges, the flowing traffic, and ran through the drizzle into an almost deserted 7-11.

“American Spirits, the yellow pack, please,” I muttered.

The woman studied me. “Everyone wants smokes today,” she said. Her eyes were hollow. “You’ll have to wait,” and she went to the back to find some.

Cigarettes help with the bloodstream, I heard somebody whisper and a radio with static was playing behind me somewhere.

The woman arrived with an open pack of Marlboros and said, “Here, have one of mine,” giving me a Marlboro and walking to the back again.

I hate Marlboros but I lit it up and ran out of the store.

Out of the store, into the gridlock of machines, like stumbling into a great symphony at crescendo, like running around a corner into the middle of a parade, I fell onto my face. She, my love, an expressionless statue, was parked in the middle of the standstill, waving her fist from her car like a dictator, honking her horn and irritated at all the hoopla.

She did not believe in the possibility of a great flood.

But I did.

So I ran.

I saw no rainbow.

I ran more.

I found a green valley, with lush open fields, calming slopes rising gently into hills for children to run and tumble down, a place where young lovers deflower themselves among spring lilies, a place where poets and songwriters find solace and inspiration. To my left was a castle, weathered and gray, ready to withstand any onslaught made against it. I thought that I might find a hiding place against the great flood in this castle. But every angle of the moss-covered fort was barricaded and unmovable. When finally I found a hole to climb into, it was too small to fit me.

I ran.

The sun and the rain and the sky. It was getting sunnier. Everything was brighter. The hour was coming, but it was getting brighter.

I ran back to where the people were. I saw a man carrying a raft. It did not seem very wise to me at that moment. The radios grew louder and louder. People were cracking open Budweisers. I was not as cheery as everyone else. I was frowning. I was feeling scared. People were talking to me and I could not join in with them.

“These times are not celebrating times!,” I screamed over it all.

And then the monstrous sky, as if in response, washed out overhead in a black sea of storm clouds, so black that the world was silenced and cried out in agony.

Everybody ran.

Many waters fell down upon the Earth.

The sky opened and a great bronze angel with six wings fell down, swift and motionless, like a statue from Heaven. A great beast with a hundred heads fell down, swift and motionless, like a broken piece of sky.

I tried swimming but it was pointless.///

45

2007-11-28T16:31:00.000-08:00

I saw her again at the store today I followed her but only for an hour journal. Something is wrong. Something feels awful and wrong. She is getting so distant, those eyes distant at my old words are now distant at my new words and at my own eyes. She sighs, her eyes wander at the passerby men, I try so hard to make her laugh. She only lifts her shoulders and half grins. What’s wrong? Why is she so far off? I can’t figure it out.

She is hanging around without me, doesn’t want me to come over, she has a new friend named Tom. Who is he anyway? Why is he so fucking important? He sounds like an idiot.....I don’t know. I’m trying my best.///

44

2007-11-20T03:33:00.000-08:00

Journal, maybe you can help me out…..

It seems like lately my love has been shying away from me. I don’t get it. Maybe I am crushing her or too close, though becoming closer would be the final alchemy necessary for our union, maybe a baby even is how we should stay together. I tried to mention this to her but I don’t think she was so happy about that. She’s not home a lot when I come by and she hasn’t called for days and last time she said she wanted ‘a breather’.

What is a breather? Sounds to me like some stupid fucking self-help shit somebody fed to her to numb her to the real pulse of the world. I’ve told her over and over again how we need to be closer, not farther, that the time for something brilliant is at hand. She doesn’t believe it and says I should stop talking crazy, but what the fuck does she know. MAYBE SHE IS JUST LIKE THEM LIKE A FUCKING RAT///

43

2007-11-14T16:47:00.000-08:00

DON’T DO THINGS LIKE THAT LOVE YOU HURT ME WHEN YOU DO

I don’t get it

Do you Journal

Maybe you understand

Why she hurt me

Why she punched me

Why she kicked me down on the ground

I have only been good and offered myself like cherry blossoms

I have only been full of wonder, a pool overflowing on her

A lily in a bowl

she threw me out for the night. Tomorrow it will be fine. Yes. Fine.

///

42

2007-11-05T05:15:00.000-08:00

When you lay beneath my thoughts I am enlightened - a solace unfound by years of crusade. Salt and ocean, shadow and ember, take me in before the parting, before goodbyes press in. Under your hand I keep silent, move at your move, turn with your turning. Secret hour, hush, moon skims water, sun stretches at mid day. At the moment, I take in you and I and our loving. There is no distance.

We, two witnesses of the end, inhabit all things - indents and riverbeds, antiquity and progresses, fortress, hurricane, electrical currency.

Swept to sea

Lost in vast empty spaces

Cumulus in azure sky

Smothered in sod

We are better off than most. It is neither of import nor is in our wisdom to suggest why. Only, I remember this once - you swept deliberately across hating blacktop in white dresses and I loved you///

41

2007-11-03T19:10:00.000-07:00

Bodily wedding supper of Lamb,

black clothed, fragile you

balance yourself on sidewalks,

invite in the poorest.

I see your waiting feast, knowledge

of those Merlots, sourdoughs - compound formulas.

Like a star collapsing, you hold me in

endless orbit. Trying to escape, I crash back

down into your gravity, the tired old shepherd at prayer.

Tired of watching and waiting and calling

I touch your face

your goblets

drink from them

and absolved

I have Communion

broken ///

40

2007-11-02T18:30:00.000-07:00

Back from L.A....Los Angeles is really full of people. We just got back and I’m so exhausted. It was a great time journal, sharing cotton candy on the beaches and feeding birds, hitting the clubs and doing a fair share of assorted drugs (cocktails that could rival the Good Doc’s!), out ‘til four, making love ‘til sun broke the day.

THIS IS THE BEST TIME OF MY LIFE

I still can’t believe it. I was so nervous before of even talking to her, afraid of rejection, and now all that is gone, all the old ways, all the old fears, the compulsions, the wrecking wasteland of a wrathful God - I am here now with her, my universal queen. It was her now I see, she came to me in dreams, she embraced me, she ravished me, she is divine Mother. Now there is no need for theological jigsaws, only dancing. Yesterday she said, “You can be so mysterious sometimes,” and she knew!! She saw!!

If I could draw a picture of her on your pages dear journal I would, but lines drawn by mortal hand could never capture her soft majesty.///

39

2007-10-26T11:11:00.000-07:00

Journal,

Her and I continually discovering each other and abandoning the cruel fetters of ‘past’. She must think I’m a strange one, constantly mumbling on and on about things of the spirit, divine ideas and conversations with God. When I speak to her of these things, her eyes go away, she disappears, she cares not for these things. Usually, this bothers me about other people, a fury rises in me, but calming me is her gaze - a fragile recognition, a secret gnosis of love and intimacy. She strokes my hair and all of the worrying about my calling ceases into the ether. I worry so much!! With her I can see true things, her pale alabaster skin a sheet of silk where beauty herself sleeps beneath. I can’t believe it journal, I have been so far from home.

Tomorrow we go to Los Angeles to get away for a week. I’ll write more when I return.///

38

2007-10-23T15:20:00.000-07:00

Her breasts and hands
Warmly transfigured
Blood on her hands
Milk on her breasts
She was mother to me
She bent over me
With her ivy and lily and daisy face
And her chocolate and kisses and lullaby mouth
I reached in to tear out my heart to give her a piece of me to her to her

And I cried tears like the Thames at the flooding hour
I danced on white washed tombs and ate up her nectarine skin
Swallowed the blood of her veins
Sweet blood of her citrus and sugar skin
The candy of her dying eyes///

37

2007-10-22T17:54:00.000-07:00

It is a softness between us journal, soft and slow. We whisper to each other, fall into a deep trance together where only our souls dare to speak. Her black hair is wild, and when she wants to cut it I beg her not to. She laughs and everybody around turns, the kind of laughter that gives a man hope. I have hope now. For so long I thought I was mad or lost or confused, but I see God in her, a reflection so deep that she denies it, but I see it, she can’t ignore it much longer.///

36

2007-10-21T21:15:00.000-07:00

Picnic day with my love. I brought out all the stops for today, not like the last trip, lost in hills.
This time we reached for tangibility, the accessible, the familiar
Drifting of wind under our clothing, at our mouths. We stumbled into an Eden today, creation mumbled
Bleak lullaby. Scattered whirligigs with sessile heather. Leaves of fall in careless choreographic.

I removed hair from your eyes and gave my first butterfly kiss.
I only wish that once the world could see.///

35

2007-10-18T00:48:00.000-07:00

Full of December
Full of cinnamon
You shake out little notions
Your tongue to kiss and kill
Collides through my barriers
Guards that have left for their wives
I am unmanned and defenseless
Invite you in for the spoils
Full of Spring
Full of daffodils
Full of setting suns///

34

2007-10-17T20:23:00.000-07:00

You fell around my hand like prayer beads, spilling your hair, you fell down my arm and slithered to the bed.

Aphrodite, I’m sorry, trying to catch you failed.

Perhaps I should have been there first as you poured from the sea,

like this moment, falling over me, crashing against eager shores.

I have tried to capture soft lips, cage them

and kill them, and hear them sing praise,

and a lily floating in a bowl of water,

is the monk’s only way, to understand.

///

33

2007-10-14T04:30:00.000-07:00

Dear journal,

Dreams Dreams I’m poisoned by them.

My last dream took place somewhere in the South - hot, lush, swampy overgrown with voodoo and bizarre. A few of us, I don’t know who, probably the kids from the Doctor’s, we were all of us running around on what seemed to be an ancient burial ground, maybe Indian, only it wasn’t a burial ground - it seemed as if someone had taken a plantation and lifted it up from the foundations until all that was left was the skeleton of home huddled against open field. We took turns exploring the desolate place. We played in the Jacuzzi where that used to be. We tumbled about in the graveyard of what once was a master bedroom. We danced about with spring flowers in the heat surrounded by swamp and the sound of croaking insects, pushing each other down. We began to laugh and all of us couldn’t stop - but then I felt something different. It was a dark presence and I began to slow my laughter. I looked over my shoulder and a man was standing there about 40 feet from us - he was clad in a jet black suit, balding, his back to us. Someone asked in fear who it was. I didn’t know. We moved slowly to the vacant Jacuzzi, holding each other. We were filled with fear. The man stood there with his back to us and I called to him and he still just stood there. After a time, he turned and began to stumble over to us. No one moved. His face was hidden in his chest but his head was clearly bald. He came over to us and stopped, with is back again to us again, 3 feet away. My friends were shaking and making terrible fear sounds and whining and whimpering and somebody threw up and then somebody saw that and began sobbing more and for some reason I felt like I had to touch him and I reached out to his back while I was screaming and sobbing and afraid and I almost touched him I almost had him I wanted him to turn around.

Then, my love woke me up as I was in a cold sweat. She calmed me and I went back to sleep slowly. God is coming for me journal.. I’m sure of it. But I love her as she lies next to me. Pray for me journal I cannot now.///

32

2007-10-10T23:56:00.000-07:00

Chopin is so wonderful you say. I didn’t know you even knew him. What else do you pretend not to know? Do you hide from me your love for God? You must, because I see it, quiet as lambs and asleep. But just now, this moment while you sleep, I lie here confessing it all while your hair falls across my old pillows, your breath steady against the sheet. Lone dancers, we drain out into little canals and rise up like tiny mountains. Rise to the air. Rise to stars. Where I confess that you are more beautiful than all God’s works.

And where us, clay figures, crushed up and tossed into each other’s dirt, are reborn and glassy eyed, smiled on, no longer pictures but mirrors.///

31

2007-09-30T20:14:00.000-07:00

I have heard that some people don’t even call God a name at all, they don’t even spell GOD because that’s unholy and I think that’s a terrible lie and full of shit, but some people believe that.

Dear journal, I have never written down the name of my beloved to you. She has never been revealed to you, I have veiled her. Protected her, always. I refuse to share her name, her holiness, as well, is also great. Should I ever reveal her name, I should be stricken dead.

Only if she falls so far from grace as to abandon all hope of my love, would I tell you. But it’s not important to know. I call her nicknames, she keeps calling me the Shepherd. I think I like The Shepherd better than my own name. ///

30

2007-09-28T03:22:00.000-07:00

She calls me the Shepherd. Kind of funny, really. Today she said:

“You should stop caring about things so much. You’re like a priest sometimes, like a pastor or a shepherd, that’s more like it really, a shepherd out all night trying to make certain even that one little stupid bastard lamb doesn’t run off and hurt it’s leg. Give me a break. Who needs all that? I’m gonna call you the goddamn Shepherd. Stop it. “

That’s how I remember it. She broke my heart at first, saying such terrible things journal, but I think now that she is right. I think now that I work too hard for others and that all of my waking hours I hurt for the souls around me. I want to touch them.....I should stop wanting that. There are other things I need to do. I can’t live my life pandering after God all the time, I have to do things too. I have my own things I like without God.

Be with me journal, we are taking a big step, hiding from God and going it alone. Away from the world of prophets for good, at home in her splendor. I will no longer go to the city to speak. How can I?///

29

2007-09-22T21:29:00.000-07:00

She taught me an easy way to remember the Zodiac today journal:

The fire that dances. The shade of the rock. The stirring of winds. The lake at the sun’s setting. The flame that consumes. The shaking of the Earth. The quiet before the storm. Waters that flow over the lands. The lava flowing underneath. The mountains from dust. The rain that heals. The depths of the sea. ///

28

2007-09-17T18:33:00.000-07:00

A week together - we are discovering now the perfection waited for. I made love to her today for the first time journal, her and I, flowing into each other, the river to the ocean, the freshwater to the salt sea. It was just how I imagined it, it was always meant to be. It was a clear afternoon, the sound of automobiles coming through the windows, the smell of skin on skin, the tastes, the tastes. Beautiful, it was as if I lifted her up through clouds, and she, in turn, raised me up, twirling my hair, staring through me, inside me, seeing me for all the hidden glory that awaits. Her body was a labyrinth of possibility, and I seized chance. I began my journey to find that holy of holies, where the priests go, where the veil is slowly torn from top to bottom and the world, with wide and afraid eyes, finds it’s awaited feast. Our bodies were not bodies - but conduits for our hearts to become one heart. She grabbed me, kissing my mouth and leading me into the bridal chambers, her my lover, to the place where my lover sleeps. We laughed, we spun around, knocking over chairs - and stumbling over each other we came to that clear paradise found only in the four letters called hope. I cannot believe it still journal, I am spinning and thought ceases, we see each other again tomorrow.

No more to say. She has always been the Other, the missing piece to an edict born in fire.///

27

2007-09-10T16:41:00.000-07:00

The city is like the lover, and the lover is just like the city - that’s what I told her today. It makes sense, though it takes a awhile to put together.

Over the months, the years, the lifetimes journal that I have walked the streets, nothing seems more obvious to me than this. Both - lovers/cities - are full of hope, angelic, unrestrained, boundless, overfed with chocolates, poetry, story, song, and virginal they await for another to come and open them. But, they are also whores, they can betray you, and suffocate all with pillows still warm from making love. She did not understand this last thought, and raised an eyebrow and looked afraid. I smiled. “How can you think that? That’s the most terrible thing I’ve ever heard anybody say,” she said. Ahh hell, I thought. But she is still young and I explained it to her.

I told her how hearts are tricksters and how they see red lights and they see babies in carriages and how they get hungry, how they cry at an old photo, or an old film, or how they get lost in dressing rooms and look at mirrors and wonder what others would think, how they fall down several flights of stairs at a time, how they regret and sigh over the one who moved from them, how they light up when they are filled up in the night, how they breathe and cough from cigarettes, how they could dream it if they could sleep, how they are wrapped in too many obligations and fear the breaking of another of their own kind, and also how they devour their own kind like cannibals - hearts are like cannibals, I said, and in some parts of the world, you get stronger by eating your own kind or the heart.

And cities and lovers have hearts too, I said.///

26

2007-09-08T10:30:00.000-07:00

Journal,

I talked to her on the phone all night again. I can’t stop thinking of her. She fills everything, she fills everything. I can’t wait to even hold her hand again and whisper my love, profess I guess I should say my love for her and tell her that it’s okay and that we can have a nice life with God together. We can share stories and kisses by candles and we can dream for the future. But I guess I should take it slow and not scare her, people can get afraid of me and my calling. Real slow, real slow. I will love her over stretched time as if she were a rose and I was a drop of water hanging off her lips fighting against the impedance of gravity.

So a rose for her then.///

25

2007-09-02T21:14:00.000-07:00

She said YES!!!! I was so afraid to even ask her, I walked up to her and told her how I had seen her many times before, how she was glorious as the braids of Hera, how Penelope found her resurrection in those blue eyes, how the poppy and the daffodil were only chaff rolled away in her currents......And she first looked very afraid. I always rush these things, I always fuck it up. Still she listened, and her walls like Jericho fell - the reverberations of that breached barrier echoed across my dying lands. I smiled and in that smile I felt her gaze brighten and my eyes, they too brightened. I was forgiven. I was absolved and it all began again.

Does she love God? I don’t know.....I haven’t talked to her about God and about my calling, but I know she will believe, I know she will see my glories waiting to be revealed and we will marry and paint over these dirt monuments of past letdowns.

Can’t stop thinking about her.....so HAPPY!!!! OVERJOYED!!! JOY!! A long time since I have penned those letters together. We then exchanged numbers and she said, “You’re definitely unique...I want to find out more about you. Tomorrow then?”

And I almost jumped, but restrained my puppy body, and said, Yes, I’ll call you tonight. I talked to her all night, it’s like four in the morning now, no clocks though, so I’m just guessing. We’ve begun. Forgiven and released.

///

24

2007-09-01T20:17:00.000-07:00

Journal - Do I follow her or do I follow God? I feel that I must make a choice. It is not fair that I should have to choose this. Not fair being alone. Alone. It is not right that I should be alone. I cannot be by myself.

I will take her then and journey, together, toward my completion. She will support my call. There is no other way under these stars. This alone.

I must talk with her. I’ve been waiting, now I must tell her all the wonderful adventures that will become of us, I know it. How do I tell her? Softly, journal, softly. I will hold her softly and she will know it without a word between.///

23

2007-08-29T15:33:00.000-07:00

Her. I think of her always now. An unstoppable desire. Also thinking about the old bodhisattvas, those old bastards, those old holyish fools. I cannot shake them. They appear to me. They stare and in their silence I don’t know, I just don’t know journal, but....I don’t know. They call to me and I know that much, wailing from ancient cemented tombs, from catacombs. Alive they would walk around. They were holy walkers, venturing out into the vast bleak plains of desert and sun. They had reached their enlightenment and I know that vision, I know that myself, they come to me now and in their midst I feel the shame.

Someone to talk to about this someone to talk to about this

They reached the all-compassion. They embraced all and went where no others whispered of. They loved - can’t I love? Is it okay to love her? Can we stand together? When they came upon oasis, when they stumbled into the green heaven in desert, many killed themselves. They would not settle for any earthly beauty. They had already achieved all the divination they could possess. Do I love her, my prize, is she my earthly beauty? Can I give the love all up? Can I continue on my path since the sight of her?

I hold the knife and I don’t know. I am in love. And I fear if I should ever be. I can never be allowed to love.///

22

2007-08-25T01:01:00.000-07:00

It’s good to have nice friends. Friends, friends, friends are the only thing to have really. I should have learned this years and years back, that it’s good to have the company of others, when these times are so lonely. Four days ago journal (it’s been that long, yes, I was detained briefly, but never fear that now journal) we went out walking the city, the Good Doctor and I. First, we stopped by his house, I always go by there anyway, we mixed substances, off off we went.

Lately, my mind is encountering glorious God-soaked ideas. As we walked the other day, it was so nice to share my thoughts with him, what I had seen. About the evils of the strong, and the plights of the innocent and about the sacredness of the city buildings, my head was so expanded and the Good Doctor stared and listened. Sometimes he would just laugh and laugh, but he’s a good friend, maybe the chemicals made him laugh. Anyway, we went on and on, in this summertime/Christmastime city, in the white-stringed lighted Bethlehem, me and him, telling him of my calling and of all that I had to do. He kept saying, Wow man, heavy shit, wow and I was so happy to see him moved at my passions!! I feel so empty and alone lately and today I felt filled and vibrant, saying yes to our moment. In fact, this vibrance filled me so much, that as we walked on and on the medicines began to take a hold of me and raise me up to new heights. I felt my body pulsate and move and the Good Doctor watched me. I KNEW IT WAS HAPPENING. It was my transfiguration, I knew it, my true essence was being revealed to the world. I was doing it, I was becoming actualized, a new shepherd to lead the lost ones. My body began to shoot out rays of light, filling the night, I was a ball of pure fire, pure like the angels, only higher than them, and suddenly I turned around to watch the world vanish into some barren and grandiose Armageddon, beautiful sounds rushing through my body. A children’s choir appeared out of nowhere. They were singing. There were beautiful boys and girls, my children, they were praising, they were lifting up the wonderful words, “Oh come all ye faithful.....come to Bethlehem.…,” and I knew it!! That here, in this moment, I was being born, being transformed, that here really was Bethlehem (I was so overjoyed, I had been waiting for this moment for forever!!) and I was the baby Jesus born not in a manger but out of the great womb of the city, and I stood there letting the choir’s voice take me, cover me, and I realized that much more was at stake in the end, much more was at hand than my sacrifices, and then from these innocents I noticed a new song emerging, and the angels and heavenly hosts came and began to enter into eternal harmony, and a hidden angel, stammering and poor, stepped forward, the angel Gabriel, the very angel who appeared to incite the blessed, holy, and sanctified virgin Mary, and he began to speak words to me that no one should hear, not even you journal, or else face certain death. The company of angels then began to flap their wings with merriment at the words spoken to me, and suddenly this was no longer an angelic troupe before me, but a full orchestra in evening dress, and a little captain dancing about with birds flying up and out from a little hat he extended to me, and the birds became little bursts of fireworks, which became giant bursts of the ocean in her majesty and began to pulse in and out like a raging storm in heaven, and I was walking then along some kaleidoscope Hollywood Boulevard with all the sidewalk stars bursting forth from under my toes in radiant light above, to the high high heavens, the Good Doctor screaming at me in silence so strangely, and the skyscrapers above my heads were swinging like trees, I was electric and expanding in a concrete grove, taking on my new body and my enlightening, and the skyscrapers spun off into nothingness, in actuality I saw them, there were multitude upon multitude of unexplored, unseen galaxies, waiting for me. Then my own silence came.

The policemen woke me up in the middle of the street after years and years. A very large crowd had gathered. They were whispering to each other. They had seen it!! I knew that now they too understood the great mystery! I could not stop from smiling from laughing from shouting out, breaking free of the officer’s grasps, rushing to the crowd proclaiming, “Now now that the time is now, open your eyes, see the beautiful things God brings to us I am here to be the very second coming prophesied years....”

The crowd parted like a Red Sea, grabbing their children and shirking away, and I fell into the divide as the officers struck me across the head. The Pharisees will never understand. But I do not fear, my time has come.///

21

2007-08-22T19:36:00.000-07:00

I stood up today on top of the apartment complex roof, and I shouted, “Wake up oh sleeper!!” I felt the primal anxiety of bearing myself, a fool, in front of others, a holy fool in front of the judges. And they came to their windows, the tribunal council, the keepers of the law. They have no legs, their stomachs growl at them for more meat, they have masks for faces and paint for smiles. I see through it, their sick fashion wiles. I tear it to pieces, to bits, for it’s temporal vanity. It passes into nothing.

The police were below and they yelled up to me, but I ran off and came here. Trying to clear my head now journal. So much rejection so far.///

20

2007-08-20T03:56:00.000-07:00

It happened tonight

Let it be written in the annals of drug stories it happened

I had it....

the biggest high of my life.

I was watching the TV. and Mrs. president was on at Good doc’s,

and I took a hit of off some Peruvian vine in the pipe and it felt huge in my lungs

when i exhaled i knew it was the biggest hit i had ever taken

I coughed a lot

then opened my eyes real wide and said, “SHit. I’m not really ready for

this, I know it.” and braced myself.

that was over an hour ago, I have been watching the clock I am so gone whoa.

time goes kind of long when you’re here ya know seems like forever,

and still, now, I am a tremor a ghost a phantom in the world

somehow I escaped the world

I told myself I couldn’t escape it but I did it

and it’s the kind of place where the Marlboro Man comes along and pulls off

a match in your face, burns it bright in a flash, and lights a big big a big

cigarillo, the thin white ones, and smiles with it in his mouth’s corner,

waving his hand across the expanse of Heaven to me the new arrival and says,

“there it is you fucker,” kicks me a solid one in the ass and opens the

gates for the singing to begin.

Only, that doesn’t really sound too much of the kind of place I would like

to be, some heaven like that, where old movie actors like CARY Grant and

John Wayne are stinking with grins and chuckling’ about how purty it all is to

themselves.

but I’m in that place an hour now, my body has already shaken for twenty

minutes, I have been writing this for more than 20 too and I can’t do the math real fast like this horrible and kind of great at the same time

cause it’s like standing right in Death’s face with the bird///

19

2007-08-18T20:08:00.000-07:00

I wonder what it would be like to be someone else. To be in their body and see through their eyes and feel through their feelings. To be normal. To be free of burden, light.

Today, I found myself waking early, shaking a druggy head, heading out into the heart of the city. It was a day when there were street markets everywhere, and flowers in heat with the breeze, I twirled my wrists in the wind and two-stepped together my clumsy two feet. People tossed fish, peddlers pushed their wares on the oncomers, singers with guitars copped an old Dylan tune, there were many wonderful sights, many wonders. I took a bit of a pill the Good Doc had prescribed, swallowed, walked walked on.

All I cared to know today journal is what it feels like to be somebody else. I’ve tried all my life to no avail to achieve it, I reach forward, lose myself, whore out my true self to only once enter into an all-consuming absorption into another - a footstep in a trap, a hand caught in a blender, a knife in a light socket - a sudden violent end.

A girl, an artist, plays chess with her lover. They fight. She motions to him like he is an idiot. Why do you care about that?, she asks. It’s always been like this. What has it always been like? How can it change? What holds her back from a true exposure of herself. Now she smiles at him. Why? What memory unfolds of her lover? Does she have another lover to make her smile like that in this moment?

Two fat white-trash women sit and read the paper. What do they care about the paper? They stop and talk about what they would do if they lived in Hollywood, who they would fuck, who they would definitely not be seen with, what hairstyle they would wear when when when when………etc. Why do they care about Hollywood and why is flight to dream the only hope they have?

A business man with the look and cutting sheen. He ignores the market and walks through dialing his cell phone while he crosses the street and looks behind him. Why is he late? Who abused him as a child? Why didn’t he become the prom king? Why

I want to be the chameleon. The shapeless sea. A ghost dancing through a ballroom. Bacteria. A parasite sucker fish. The sperm and the egg as one.///

18

2007-08-14T17:00:00.001-07:00

Dear Journal,

We went to the beach one day when I was about six or seven years old, it was one of those days where the sun was just right, water warm, and the smell of burning wood and hamburger kept you coming back from wrestling in sand. A bunch of my playmates were there, and they wanted to go for a swim. I forgot to bring a swimsuit, so I said I couldn’t. They told me to jump in anyways with my clothes on, I did, and we all laughed at the spontaneity and hilarity of it. I decided that I could do better than them all, that I could swim farther then them all. So I tried, but the farther out I went, the heavier my clothes became, I was slowly sinking into the deep parts, tugged by riptides and afraid. I tried to call out for help, but no one was paying attention, my plan to beat them all was foolish anyway apparently, and I sank down. I realized that I could be free of the sinking if I lost my clothing and swam naked, like two fishes tied together loosed, like a rabbit across fields, I would be free. I fought against the clothes, gasping for air, until I was finally free. I came up for air. No one was around, I was so far out. I kept going, diving down and twirling and letting out bubbles and beholding all the beauties of the ocean with my two young eyes. I embraced the deep blue womb. I forgot about all others. I thought to myself that I would never go back. A lifeboat found me, but I was so ecstatic and unafraid, that the lifeguard looked at me, and at his partner, and in bewilderment said, “Son, your family needs you back,” and I was taken ashore, naked, on a yellow life raft.

Nothing has changed. The clothes are my dogmas, and the great womb is the great lion heart of God.///

17

2007-08-13T23:45:00.000-07:00

I’m going for it. Everyday I get closer to speaking to her. I have imagined what I would say so many times. I’ve plotted and charted it out but have not spoken one soft word. I think maybe I should bring her flowers. She seems like the girl who likes carnations. I could wake her and shower her in flower petals kiss her forehead as she laughed. I could hold her hand discreetly so others might not see or circle around her in front of all so that everyone would know how she is the One, the only one. I could write her a poem maybe, and read it to her, and try to not to let my voice quiver , but instead carry on in confidence. If I did that she would know. But I don’t even know yet what to say. I only follow her and wait for the right words. I don’t follow her much journal, just a little. I’m too busy with God’s work but sometimes I follow her and catch her smell.///

16

2007-08-08T21:32:00.000-07:00

What is my philosophy journal? Do you really want to hear things like that?

If so then I’ll tell you

I believe in a reincarnation - not that kind of come back like a tree kind or flower or ant shit

I believe that you come back and pay for what you owed or collect that which you lost

And you meet other partners too and embrace them and struggle through who and when and what

And the times you have are only mirrors of that which already once was/what will be. I was once a magician I’m sure of it and a seer and still hold those seeds inside though I burn them to lay concrete

I believe that what you do comes back to you and that’s kind of the same as what I already said up there but you can forgive me journal - I believe, like karma, is that that’s how it will be. And you send out lovers and you hope they come back.. And you fuck up and you hope it doesn’t come back. That is what we all do. Karma works best for people during times when they are feeling in need of the hope or are drunk on pleasant hours

I believe that everybody has a good and bad that are the same thing like two sides of a coin, or swords, or I can’t remember really, but I believe that good and bad are not that far from each other. They are a Napoleon and Cleopatra that seek to kill each other while they slide into sheets.

I believe in God though don’t always know how or why but I believe in a personal kind too not just a fuck distant white one or force or a feel I believe that maybe God comes to me in the nights and still sings to me when I pick up a pen and speak to you. I feel it like an old record you listen to as a child and still you stop and remember always, every time, every time, you hear the words - it is a faded love that is renewed at every song. I hear the song every day and love God though I don’t know why and sleep rarely

I believe that nobody cares anymore about what goes on inside them and they only want drinking and old stories - they want cursing out of windows and cabbies blaring their horns, a drag queen and a pusher in an alley, a blind man curled up on an old Toshiba box, a cop on an intercom - or whatever outside can distract them long enough for them to avoid asking real questions like who am I and why. Or asking about life behind things, behind the eyes of the plastic and secretly breathing, the alive, expanding and forgiving all that went wrong, all that we terribly rushed into and underthought, places we’ve been that we left trails of violence upon, cities and temples we knew with no solace, forgiving the turning of hearts and the tongue of deceit and the thoughts of the pauper, oh we are undone by the glory inside when we are awake. But when we sleep all is lost and the hollow lands around offer no comfort and no truth nor wisdom and so then retreat inside and throw off your idols and only do right. Like this:

We claw at the walls of our captors

We restrain our desires

We fulfill our desires

We see things

Oh we have it worse than all

People don’t believe us

They don’t trust us so they stone us

Ask for more understanding

They push us out alone

Without a home

Without a wife

Without a purpose

Other than seeing

All to do is see

And whatever’s left

Are drugs to kill the seeing///

15

2007-08-05T00:09:00.000-07:00

Dearest Journal,

To get through these last lost days since I‘ve written (still don‘t know what to do about her, don‘t even know her name ), I went to the Doctor - I’m not sure what the Good Doctor gave me this time, but it put me in a really spiritual place where God taught me many things. God gave me a vision, a holy vision of God. I need to formally write it down in detail so that I don’t forget even one thing that God would say to me or show me.....

It began yesterday in the afternoon, lying on the floor of the Good Doctor, the breeze softly blowing from the fan in the living room window. Below the window, the city was bustling and alive. The sounds of footsteps mingled in with the crying of infants, clicking of high heels with innocent ‘hello’s’. The Good Doctor, he was gone, and I felt a change coming over me. The walls vanished, the lights shifted around in circles, I heard myself laughing from a million miles away....then I knew it had happened, God had come to me, God was here. Like the lady saints, like Julian and Teresa and Hildegard, like Saint John and Madame Weil and the Buddha and others, I was having my vision now, I was in ecstasy, laughing and having God pick me up and throw me around like a kid into vast expanses.

This went on for what seemed like a forever time, God ravishing my soul in love. Then, it felt like God was setting me down onto the ground from on high and I was lying down like a baby in a slumber. I suddenly awoke, and found myself standing before a very large family, my own family. They were tired and diseased. They were sickly and coughing and the children at the mothers sides were dirty and fallow. I looked out at them, and the men looked back at me with bent backs and heavy shoulders. I felt compelled to speak so I said, “I’ll fix it. I can fix it.”

No one moved a muscle, and I turned around and walked away from them towards a long row of mountains and hills. I believed inside that if I kept going on and on towards the mountains, I would find the help my family needed, healing and refreshing for the thirsty and poor.

Many nights passed and I didn’t stop. I walked on. There was cold, there were wolves, there were the shadows of thieves. There were dead ends and there were new paths I made, and I kept walking, bruised and with exhaustion. I did not sleep. No food.

I had seen it on the path - the mountain. Behind it the bright face of God awaited, where I would find the healing the family longed after. I danced when I saw the obscured image of God and I cursed the mountain. I promised myself that I would conquer the mountain. Then I rested.

In the dark that night, late in the quiet hour, my body being rested, I got up and walked on from where I was sleeping. I walked on and not long after came to a very deep river, a river with such strong currents that I could not cross it alone. In the river, beasts and sharks and obscured creatures broke the surface of the waters. The rushing of waters against the shores cried out like the wailing of faithful wailers. I was terrified.

I walked along the shore, nearly falling in, climbing through dark forest, mists, vine, clutching on to the trees for some stronghold against the hungry shoreline. Ahead of me, I saw a light. When I was close enough, I discovered a lantern attached to the side of a house. I was suddenly very tired, and realized that I was very afraid, and wanted to go in the house and just sleep, but then a voice came from beside me. I turned to the side, and to my surprise, I was suddenly pressing up against an enormous ancient man covered in shroud, faceless and holding a lantern of his own.

“You cannot go to sleep yet,” he said.

“I am so fucking tired though I need to,” I answered.

The man in the shroud replied immediately, “No.”

“I will sleep.”

He grabbed my collar, knocked me to the ground and began to drag me through the dark woods towards the river. Above, egrets cried and I could hear the dark beasts breathing their raspy dying breaths as they broke the surface of the waters. I cried out into the woods, but no one was there, the man dragging me over the rocks towards the river with a physical force I could not fathom him summoning.

We reached the shore line and he threw me against a tree. Choking me, pressing his forehead against mine, he said, “Never leave me nor forsake me.”

And suddenly his face appeared, only it wasn’t his face, but the faces of the sick family over his own face, slowly transforming into one another, crying. He threw me down again, turned his back to me and faced the mighty dark river. He raised his lantern, and as he did, an empty boat drifted towards the shore. He climbed in, and I knew inside that I should also.

We set out across the waters. All around us, terrible noises lurked in the air. A dull roar arose from beneath us, clicking metallic chatterings of teeth, the humming of wasps, the distant sounds of a flood from upstream, they filled the black void.

I wondered if God was here and wondered how I had gotten myself into this. By this time in the vision, I had forgotten how I had even gotten to this place, I only remembered the sick faces and kept on. I began to hate God and I was alone.

The old man was not afraid of the sounds though he kept very quiet and still at the helm of the tiny boat. His body shook a little from time to time as if he were crying, but he did not say a word.

After what seemed like days in the dark forest, crossing this river, we struck the shore. The old man did not get out. I stepped out of the boat onto the dark shore and turned to thank the old man. He was weeping and would not utter a word. I looked forward and walked on, hearing the sobbing of the old man, but when I turned again, the boat was drifting alone in the vast river. The old man was gone, and I walked on.

Not long after leaving the dark forest I came upon the Mountain. I awoke.///

14

2007-08-01T16:48:00.000-07:00

THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE

journal

It’s true

I met a woman today journal. I think I’m in love!! I’M SURE I’VE FOUND THE ONE!!

I don’t know how to describe my feelings. This is something different, like holding back a great joy with the arms of a great fear - I don’t know, it’s confusing, that today, I find her - the love of my life. Seeing her, I foresaw all the grandeur and life of a future in each other. Is that weird? I don’t believe in that so much, but this time.....I don’t know I feel so strongly

She was walking down First Ave in a white dress and radiant, she skipped every few steps to herself, oblivious to other mortals in distance. Her black hair crashed down against her dress, like a dark priestess, beautiful, full of potions and vials, silent as an opera house in late hour. Who is she? I have to know, journal I have to know, I must know. I don’t even know her name.

I can only think of her, I cannot even walk the streets for God. I’m staying in tonight. Journal, if you can, send her into my dreaming to speak with me.

AMEN///

13

2007-07-26T20:00:00.000-07:00

I am ready for another. Ready and prepared. The other day, I think God spoke to me about it. I saw it in the glean of a cigarette wrapper. God spoke to me this way - believe me journal, it happened, and God said that it will be soon. If I kept really looking I would find her. It felt like a battle then, between the heavens and the hells, where I was being offered up, and gifted, like it meant a lot that this was happening, and I felt afraid, honored and scared for what may come of it all. I don’t know where I will see her, but I thought first I would go downtown and into the heart of where my heart is - that’s probably where I’ll find my heart. I know that she’ll be there. So I should just go then - I’m even thinking of getting up really early even to catch her. Maybe in the new promise of morning we will find each other, while dew still rests over the Earth and no one stands in the way of our becoming. Maybe in the evening when the Earth hides and lets the universe take over the night, we dance then. But I will look all day and find her and not stop ‘til I see her.

God open my eyes.

With your mouth kiss my eyes.

Light up my eyes in the night.

They are worn and they are sleepy.

I am tired and in need of a hope.

There will be two and not one. Make us one from two.///

12

2007-07-14T14:42:00.000-07:00

Journal,

Hungover, recovering. Dreamt last night, pretty much as follows:

I was walking on a hill in the night. It was quiet and no one was around. I looked around me and surveyed the place, and began to dance about on the hill. I was dancing all kinds of ways, cracking myself up.

Then a child came to me. She was in a traffic enforcer’s costume. She said, “You can’t be here dancing like that,” and I stared at her. I opened my mouth to speak and rebuke the child for ruining my evening, but my mouth suddenly was glued shut and no words would pass. I groaned mutedly, I grabbed my mouth, I pulled at the mass of skin which once had been open and free, I fell to my knees, I was waiting for God to open my mouth in front of many witnesses and magistrates, but nothing happened, I was alone, and the child, emotionless, stared at my writhing figure, and again told me, “You can’t be here dancing like that,” turned and walked off, and I stumbled up after her, she was gone, I ran.

I ran through the night, clutching my face and horrified. My foot caught the ground and I fell onto my face, tearing, it, ripping it, splitting my mouth til it was wide open, only now there were no words, but millions of tiny dark creatures - rats, moths, flies, grubs - that began spilling and bursting their way out of my mouth. I lifted my hands up on high, silently screaming, spraying the filthy creatures everywhere, when from the skies above a great cloud of locusts and fireflies and all forms of winged creatures and fallen angels were hurled into my fragile body, flying into my ears, my nose, through my eyes, I was screaming from pain, I didn’t know if I would survive it, and I felt like I would explode and suddenly, not from the skies, and not from the ground, but from inside of my heart, a great body of water that had been held back burst forth, and sent everything into a million directions, filled the whole Earth, and I could feel my body belonging to the sea, to the vastness, not to the finiteness of the human, not to the trappings of self, but into the depths of the waters.

There were sharks. I was not afraid. There was Atlantis. I comforted her. There were troubled souls lost from the Titanic, from lost reconnaissance submarine missions, the victims of crashing planes, the lonely souls who can’t be held down by bridges and cliffs, a little child in a traffic enforcer’s uniform, floating. I spoke to all of them, and whispered soft lulls in there terrified ears, the muted tones of Heaven for the thirsty.

When I woke up from the dream, I drank another fifth of whiskey again. But I can’t seem to shake this feeling I have, like I’m being called, as if God is sending me out. Calling my name across the Earth. Shaking the fucked Earth for it’s judgment.///

11

2007-07-13T03:33:00.000-07:00

fuckd up

So fucked up now for ya journal

What happened today - today I went down to the boardwalk on the pier to get a drink. I thought maybe a bit of the ole fermented juice might put a smile into me, thought maybe I might be reconciled to myself once again, but again, again, again I was wrong.

It started with me on the bar stool with a wide assorted array of alcoholic tinctures, good ole tonics of gods, my system already loaded up on some chemical that I can’t recall now, I do like the medicines so, journal, I do like those medicines. And they were in me, alive, and I was drinking.

There was a mirror in front of me, some portal into another universe, and a twisted and sick dimension of my own existence my twisted and criminal face all over the walls, I was, I became, afraid. I thought, “They will discover me. They will find me out,” and I also thought, “All this is not at all here, it is an illusion, the doors of my mind are the only barriers holding me back from breaking it all.”

The bartender, some Dionysian distributor of gay gay antics, looks at me, smiles, with his teeth growing by the moment, fangs growing out to the floor, I wanted to scream but didn’t scream oh i was afraid.

Then something in my circuits ignited, that divine spark the Hasids talk about, where the flesh and the spirit collide like two plates of the Earth shifting, the great fires of the planet’s belly vomited up into mountains, into the seas, and in that place journal that I am afraid to ever really, really confront, I suddenly threw myself off the barstools (oh the voices of all the peoples) and ran in some stumbling manner straight at the

illusionary door, and jumped head first, head first arms out through the veil.....only it didn’t work, my faith was low, I crumbled to the floor, some ape giant bully fucker threw me out and said something stupid, sounding like some army officer, so I flipped him the big bird and said, Hey fuck you private sir officer sir!! and the door shut on me.

My head is still swimming from it, I still can’t see so straight, and where is God in those times when my faith is so great I ask you you fucking dumb screen WHy don’t you answer me

WHY DON”T YOU FUCKING ANSWER ME!!!!!!!///

10

2007-07-10T20:37:00.000-07:00

I’ve always wanted a perfect other. Someone whom I could awake in the morning with kisses and rose petals raining down across a smile, a girl who would come by at early hours and get me up out of my hidden and warm tomb of blankets, touch my hair to tell me to not fear the world but speak my voice with no restraint and clear as vanity mirrors, the one, the other, who would smoke on porch steps with coffee or wine or gin or just water would be fine even, somebody who could throw me into the sea and call out my name and laugh and cry out as I cut the great sea in Egypt, splitting the fucker wide, to walk the city nimbly and surely and floating like spirits in Underworld - my Penelope, my Aphrodite, my salvation. I have dreamt it always…. but I have been sent other dreams. Blood-washed visions and nightmares, journal - signs, tiny signposts to shut it out and remind me that I have a lonely road. I want to have another piece of myself, from out of my side, but maybe I really can make it alone warning all the world without another…. Another. Not just me. That sounds really nice. But if it happens….I just never see anyone worthy. Not like I spend a whole lot of time searching for somebody, but I would like it really a lot.

The nightmares are so terrible. They really are getting out of control, seek help, I am being punished for my sins and desires. I should not desire a woman now. I should not lust after skin. God, I shouldn’t even entertain these temptings. I’m sorry. I’m sad but I am sorry I do.///

9

2007-07-06T20:09:00.000-07:00

There’s always someone you fall in love with at least once in your life that you have absolutely no good reason to fall in love with. They’re stupid, they talk too much, they think they know everything. But you smile and chuckle to yourself and goddamn you’ve never seen anything so cute and then BANNG trapped.

That was my story with my (now) ex Marley. We met at some party, I was four whiskey sodas in, and when I asked her for her name and she said it, I coughed the most painful billow of smoke out of my lungs, passed the bong, and said, “Like Bob.” Pioneer ganja smoker. Unattested prophet of these last days. Fuck, whatever.

Anyway, she took a few hits of her own, I took some more, suppose we had conversation, went upstairs and fucked like animals - like panthers do, like alley cats at the summer’s end. Millions of nights out together, calling in sick to work, endless film upon film, etc. We are over, but for awhile I thought it was all cute, the whole mindless extrovert, drinking herself dumb night after night after night (every fucking night journal every

So then it seemed like we were in love, and it was the happiest time in my life. Everyone looked at me new. Friends eventually just gave up giving me shit or trying to ‘get it’. Everyone. Everything. At my hands.

But then she got really bored, probably cause she lost lots of an attention span (fuck that - never had one) from too many chemicals, or whatever, she left me, I woke up and she had left the door open and I hate to leave the door open and I forgot how much I hate that and then I suddenly remembered what I liked and what I hated and everything and then I never called her ever again. Now she lives in Houston where cowboys make some glorious fucking last stand to show that they’re still important for America.

So then I never fell in love again, journal, because I forgot that in those moments when you’re in love, you’re ten miles from the ground, gardens uproot themselves from the ground and encircle you in mid-air, roses, marigolds, and violets wrap themselves around you, threaten you, laugh at you, scorn, utter contempt, no sentiment, no appeal, and you are in the eye of it all, safe and in a very maternal place, where though the whole world around abides in total chaos, you alone are dumb and lost in a quiet and eternal light.

Don’t fall in love, journal. It is okay for a time but one day the world falls right on you. Crushes you, suffocates all things. Even Atlas fears this.

Boy+Girl Girl+Boy Boy+Girl Girl+Boy Boy+Girlgirlgirlgirlgirlblahblahblahblh///

8

2007-07-03T21:09:00.000-07:00

‘What you need is to get your ass fucked.’

It’s over with Marley now, and that’s what the Good Doctor told me to do today. I trust him. He lives on Seventh Ave. Everybody is always around there and sometimes I feel like things are okay over there and I have a family. People laugh there, people cry, sometimes people scream. I have woken up in alleys sometimes after laughing there with everyone, but that’s different, I already told you that. The Good Doc helps me to see. From time to time, he shows me glorious visions. He gives me comfort and I like the pills and whatever he has. It’s very nice.

So he says, “Look man, you’re over here right, and you’re needing something, right, you know, everyone has a fix. What you need, you need to go out and get your ass laid, man. That’s you man, that’s the way God comes to you, like cosmic incarnation. Go.”

That was in the morning. I went out then looking for a lover. But at noon, I still had found nobody, and had been kicked by one beauty who didn’t want anything with fucking. I was alone. I returned to his house. And the Good Doctor, in his wisdom, set me down in front of the TV, patted my back, and gave me his pills. I smiled and cartoons went around me and the world opened up. I must have blacked out. I am so afraid of the blackouts. I woke up from the blackout in an alley again like sometimes happens at the Good Doctor’s.

I feel bad cause I must have just walk out of there and pass out in the alley. I don’t know.///

7

2007-07-02T02:50:00.000-07:00

Why am I so afraid of my past journal? So much fear that I have blackouts, waking up like just an hour ago crumpled in bathroom doorway, fingers in knots and hand busted. And when I return, I remember even less of the past. I am afraid of the blackouts. Why do they happen?

I fear the dark waste land called the Unconscious, the murders and the whores I have seen. The place where some say God seats enthroned in quiet and in solitude, deep in my soul. With pimps I wander in those places, pining for numbered women.

I fear it. I do not want to go anywhere close to the dark night, I cannot approach the bareness of thought. Many along the way of God speak of this journey into void as a necessity for advancement in God. The way of negation or something. But journal, life is already too hard. Sometimes it is so hard and I don’t want to go to the depths. No need to be Orpheus, I am already on my path, opening my heart to this world. I am not running away, I’m just not running to fire.

But still, I guess I know I have been called to this and I must pursue. Jesus went to the desert, Osiris was ripped asunder and thrown into underworld. I must make it through. For my brothers, my sisters, lovers of the world, the journey must be made and begin this moment, no better than any other. And in the darkness all these thoughts and torments will be vanquished, I will kill them all. Killing giants like a new and perfect David.

This, my sole destiny. ///

6

2007-06-29T12:09:00.000-07:00

Don’t hurt the Pope Don’t hurt the Pope Don’t hurt the Pope Don’t hurt the Pope Don’t hurt the Pope Don’t hurt the Pope

There was no beer in the cooler this morning and I couldn’t tell you where it went. It’s just gone. Don’t know who stayed here last night. Don’t care who stayed here, my things are in order, my life is still going on, these things happen, but the beer is gone.

Undying journal, sadness this morning and not joy pervades me. Upstairs in 5-C is some pounding stereo that is not soothing for me. Tears are in my eyes this morning. Tears are in my eyes.

No beers. No coffee. No food. No teddy bears.

Here I am, young and infinite, tears in eyes. A cigarette would be nice.

Another dream last night journal, this one so close to the secret I strive to uncover. I was in a city, some East Coast waterfront city, with lots of quite old churchy folk settling down for it all. In the middle of this, some young buck wild fucky-like kids start to make there quiet way through the scenarios and streets. They were on to me. I could not understand why, but I kept running and blending in with the crowd wherever I could to melt in and dissolve.

Then, coming onto the docks, a ferry boat arrived, began to unload auto after auto. Lastly, a lightly guarded rig pulled out and a crowd began to gather around it. I followed and watched the back flap open wide to see what was inside the truck.

And what the hell, it was Pope John Paul II.

He was being wheeled out, ever so slowly, by a sentry-type guard who looked more like a circus worker than bodyguard. The crowd gasped in amazement and silence befell everyone. Il Papa was a frail man, he held his head in his hand, and he did not want to be bothered. All the while he was murmuring silently to himself or to God or I don’t know. They lowered the rig as the crowds stood there and watched. I began to fear the violent youth around with this gentle figure so loosely guarded.

My heart was racing and I ran up to the Pope. I pushed through the crowd, I knelt down in front of him, I kissed him and I wept. I wrapped my arms around him, but instead of him embracing me, he sat there, head in hands, silently blah blah blah to himself. I held him closer, but he slipped out of my arms and fell onto the ground. What have I done?, I thought. I ran away before the guards could catch me.

And there I was again, in the crowds, in the transience, in the maelstrom, the violent youth all around, pointing at me, whispering. I was sweating and ducked into an alley. I hid out. Finally, I managed to get to the other side of the alley, where there were the crowds again, only this time they were smiling and walking together, families and community members, all dressed up and off to this big cathedral church.

I don’t like churches.

I don’t like them at all, journal.

But in this my dream, I decided to go into the church and see what the big fuss was about.

The sound of singing filled my ears as I entered. Pews were filled with people singing and smiling. The cathedral smelled of person and age. I looked left and saw him, Il Papa, sitting there on stage, on a throne, holding his head in his hands and mumbling still. I began to cry and said, “Forgive me, forgive me!,” and ran up to him, embraced him so terribly hard, like a vice around a mouse, I wept and wept. His face grimaced in pain and he crumpled to the ground in a huddle. I stopped crying, filled with horror. What have I done?, I screamed inside. I grabbed the throne to steady myself, feeling faint, and the crowd stared at me blankly in disbelief. I started to think, ‘Such a place of belief for such disbelief’, but then realized what I had done and stumbled slowly and defeated out of the church.

Two blocks down, shuffling the dust, the violent beat-up fucky-type of youth came upon me, just one of them. He smiled at me in the alley I had found myself in, by the trash dumpsters, and pulled his knife on me. I let it all out. I flew upon him before he had his way with me, grabbing his knife, plunging it in his chest, and out, and in and blood was all over everywhere, his heart was exposed and I was making a mess of it, and he was gurgling and blank and horrorstruck. I got into him really good and then startled myself awake.

I don’t want to hurt the Pope. I don’t want to hurt him at all. ///

5

2007-06-23T13:32:00.000-07:00

I don’t like to go out on the weekends and party like everybody else does, but I do like to walk around downtown and watch them. People, with their glassy eyes, always look brighter and more full of hope under the marquees. Last night, away from my girlfriend Marley’s, into the late hours I remained, watching them, silent, observing. Lifting drunks from the gutters, trying to feed the endless hungry. Playing games with the lines on the cements. Skipping every other section of the sidewalk. Electronics pounded through doors and I felt alive as I walked past and prayed... I pray, journal. Most people think that’s childish but I do, and God wraps me in protection and love. They don’t understand, atheists and the wretched, of how boundless the grace of God really is. Do you believe in God’s love? Sometimes it’s even hard for me, but I do, and continue on. I touch the sick to kiss them. Enough about all that though, I wouldn’t want pride to bring my fall. Even if I am the greatest of all prophets, I wouldn‘t let pride get me.///

4

2007-06-22T03:16:00.000-07:00

I try to tell Marley that caution is overrated. Temperance is not a quality of God at all. God is passion and God is reckless wildness. Everybody here on Earth fears, nobody says yes. They fight. Stall at the moment ordained. They throw slurs and they toss bombs. Everybody fears one another. Everybody fears me, I love everyone. I lose.

Caution is overrated - it needs to be written. I don’t understand why people lock themselves up in their own chains, all the while lamenting over chains binding others. Throwing stones and scattering rationalities. Drivel.

I can’t believe in caution like it’s some holy thing. If God walks with me and he talks with me, then God does. God says to go in there and find her. A drug, a drink. Maybe a night of drug and drink. What’s wrong with that journal? Regardless of inebriating myself or braving sobriety, I still wake up and the day feels broken. Regardless of risky actions or resting potentials.

I am taking some mescaline soon on recommendation. It’s being delivered soon by the Doctor. I leave town, and I really need to meet with you God, so go before me and I’ll see you there, my Thunder, my Hush. We’ll walk about on the clouds.

We’ll walk about on clouds, we’ll walk about in white fields. We’ll walk about on the whitest of plains and city sidewalks. ///

3

2007-06-18T13:46:00.000-07:00

...A few hours since I last wrote, journal...

right now the lover is walking out to the street

(he has to have seen the pigtail girl)

It looks like

He passes her, now realizes the error of his ways

so the lover enters into intense petition with the heavens

longing to once again be held by his beloved

I am like that beloved, wait by the phone

trapped and despairing everyone wants the best for you always I always feel///

2

2007-06-18T11:09:00.000-07:00

The couple across the hall are in the worst of it. They can’t hear it, I hear it all. Their voices walking on top of another, I’m sure of it, I can hear it. They can’t see what beautiful things are outside. Right outside the window. Right now journal, there’s a young girl walking in the middle of the street. The black tar open highway, balancing the dividing yellow street line, playing hopscotch. She has pigtails and I think a lollipop. Anyway, they can’t see it, I’ve been staring out of this window for an hour. She dances and turns and weaves throughout the traffic and cars with the freedom of the newly redeemed. She knows where to find God and she is walking into the storm, into it’s black eye anger, waving her arms, she calms it, she calms me. She brings my heart to ease while across the hall - I want to throw myself through their door, broken, into their arms. Lead them to the window, point out and say, “Look...eternity.”

Only I can see her, and she dances on, wild soul

1

2007-06-16T21:35:00.000-07:00

Three weeks, every day, God tells me to walk these streets - I look around everywhere and find no sign. Not a fucking one but street preachers jagging how they got saved two blocks down. Hammers on concrete. Drills against skeleton skyscrapers. Beeping dump trucks in reverse. Prettiest cell phones, children in tow of business mom, business dad. The Rolling Stones in a boom box. Car one passing, car two passing, car three. The trumpeted sounds of police officers now on scene. The hey mister at my leg. The hey there from the whores. So many airplanes, so many helicopters, metro cabs, so many street cars, nothing. God said go, I know it, I’m the best one for it, but there’s nothing here. Still.

There has to be something else come on come on come on///