Studying Hunger Journals, page 39
May 7
Matching
Some men and women are so attaching
And big as if acting
The schizophrenic batching
Making a big mess of things
Catching looks as if he were catching
Colds which he could never catch
Good, better, best in a cold scheme latching
Onto any semblance of a scheme
Itself a firm detaching
From any good to better to least best
Not a scheme but scratching
Desperate, any way we can
Around for love then snatching
Something out from you for me and
Then it away from you, so, patching
Is not reweaving or thatching
Nevertheless there is an end.
May 8
Dogs want to go out, I don’t at all. I want everything to come to me like a headache or expensive fish. And letters, many letters and books in the mail. There’s a package for me at the post and I intend to pick it up, as, what’s on t.v., what’s interesting, black holes, the presidential tapes, no gossip and the talk of the town, the mother and the whore, my 29th birthday, your age, my age, like ads on t.v. and poetry in public places, first hot then cold, then explosion of a public childhood perhaps, all memories with illustrations. A stance a perfect stance, one leg poised and at the side, arms akimbo and legs or body graced. How to read. You are intact. You are private. You are selfish. You are writing a love poem again, everyone is. And the water is flowing, green water, etc. She, the dog, will get it, she’ll attack him or it, attack it, a vision of a show, the forgetting of proper names (Boston Globe, Big Sky, Anorexia, Sherlock Holmes, a dream for each), a show of women masturbating or, being forced to, or, forcing you to do it for them, another explosion of ancient public memories, intense enough, suffer. An old hat. The water too is masturbating. The mother in this weather may be reversible, and yet another explosion of wet public (memories), “I’m on top of that.” The air is cold. The air is cold for May, I like the bottle, it has no moral at all, suck, sucking public memories, an impressing or impression is below the waist of all the public memories, an impressing or impression is below the waist of all the public (even memory) all ways. You started it, peace. Trip or tripping, an avalanche of it. My mother said and then my father said, etc. And buried are not corpses nor should they be poetry. A note: don’t speak, don’t even write, don’t dare to move, some more design, love, the air is cold for May.
The air is cold for May even the breeze is cold, Memory. Pictures mentioned, even the trees are breeze is cold, you can’t sit in it, I mean, the sun is cold, is another person and the absence of one at a time, air, sun, breeze, person, the month of May, chronicled. Don’t overdo it, Spider! Spider Ray, the spider crab, the monkey, spider fish, spider’s web, spiderwort, the spidery infestation, you do ski like a spider, big spider. Air, sun, breeze, person, absence, the month of May, settles, finding its settles, look at a calendar. Dense, isn’t it? When you can’t find something, say reach or don’t say reach, I don’t find that good. The same person who told me this said, “The worst thing that can happen is you can have a heart attack.” Ha, I have a way of getting persons to be out of order, so, they don’t get anything done, meanwhile my head hurts. And these are the people I saw one day: Stevie Wonder, Paul Douglas, Alger Hiss, Alwin Nikolais, Johnny Carson, Steve Allen, Milton Berle, John Cassavetes, Peter Falk, John Wayne, Donna Reed, Stevie Wonder again, John Blondell, Bette Davis, Omar Shariff, Jeff Chandler, Fess Parker, Clint Walker, Rosalind Russell, Paul Douglas again, Julius Erving, D.H. Lawrence, Jane Fonda, Glenn Ford, Dick Van Dyke, Danny Thomas, Mary Tyler Moore, Lucille Ball, Rebecca Brown, Simon Schuchat, Jackson Mac Low, Perry Mason, Carl Betz, Stevie Wonder again, Stefania Sandrelli, Alger Hiss again.
Where’s the dictionary? Eidetic epigone. One only (be) to the point—private property. Dialogue, the tapes, Burroughs. There are so many great books already, etc. A man who goes to his psychoanalyst and asks, every day, for the elixir of life which is in the cabinet. The analyst finds it, years go by, and gives it to his wife for safekeeping. Watch, warden wearing a watch. Wearing a Kafka watch.
Just now, I am asexual, I have no sex. My sex is between my legs, as Godard’s. My sex is just a duty, written small, myself is denser. Just try and make friends with me, I will throw you, I will even fuck you. I am animal or cannibal-like. People can live like that, without talking. I am throwing you now, you will never recover. I never did, talk about benefits to mankind, ending wars. Don’t talk, see your lovers on your lids. Make an appointment, I am hidden and well secret. I will always remain so, I hate you all loves. You never merge with me, take my advice. I won’t take yours. Journeys out of the body, secrets stay in place. My eyebrows are finely shaped, my body comes from another planet. Not Indian. My face is like any other face, in shadow. A child’s face. I would rather be gaunt. I burn my hair often, with cigarettes. I wake up incontinent, pills, I take pills. And medicines to cure me, and you. I take you, away from yourself. Never get back, who, eyes dark, cares.
I used to have, I used to wish to have lighter hair. If I fell and tripped on a ball, I would first ring the buzzer thinking someone was trying to get in at that moment, then unlock the door, maybe lie in the hallway or try to get to the phone. Then I would be hospitalized with a concussion for a week and not be able to move, meanwhile they’re giving me shots so I don’t need beer. I am just prone now.
May 10
“The woman (women) always brings out the CSC’s in you.” Conscious states of consciousness, this relates to the spider.
Acting in a theater badly with no director, closer and closer to the opening, we never memorized our lines, Pierre (director) never shows, but, all of a sudden here is beautiful lighting and a stage set in silver with a many-colored sky, yet no lines.
“Don’t write a short story.” I think I will.
Dream taking care of grandfather, dressing him up in a suit and tie, etc. Malanga in furs and the steep climb from the el station where black lady stole a $695 money order. That’s the end of that.
May 17
I move out. I go to live, temporarily, in a room in the house of the mother of Fern.
I did this on May__. The dates must be exact, the dates were not exact on the tombstone or lowland stone. I made a fist. First let me tell you that I could not walk, I could not move around at all, I could not fall asleep alone, I could not make it down the cloudy block. Something was missing, like a man who without knowing why, may perceive that he finds difficulty in discharging his ordinary…one day…and from then on it needs a struggle with himself before he can cross a street… In other words, there are people who cannot leave their houses. Others who cannot move. There are four fears: you know what they are…I left two men in a row and they are ecstatically happy, it gives them reason to believe, reason to believe my heart belongs to Daddy…I am going to proselytize you, I am a Catholic, I am going to prostitute myself. There’s so much to tell, what a gigantic penis, Jesus! The priest’s penis was enormous but first I was born. And that is all there is of that. I did this on May 11th, the dates are exact. Visited the lowland stone. The next day I got food poisoning and a kid said Hi to me, then I left home, or what was home for a little while. Someone doesn’t know what’s happening to me. The dream of the train on an el, climb down the stairs, long way to, to get off, there’s the money order, $695, there’s the black lady on the bus, she picked (not so many more for) it up. I shook (not while gotten or been) her up in a funny (does this or it has done) way, SOME ARE AS ONE. Lone way down on the be-all el, steep steps to ground. I means I means I mean it. And were it yet done yet, you the what say kinds. Those either. I lost my friends, still ones, they were on the other side of town, still one, they might. I do as you say, I repeat. Malanga in furs. How do we end up. Was this as one does. My notes on the cemetery: cemetery, Rico, Teresa, Lowland Stone, food poisoning, reason to believe, Hi!, not overload, it’s holding back or hiding, the name of the game, blossoms in the dust, Joseph Conrad, laughing Annie, Giant, world the flesh and the devil, night must fall, where’s the t.v.? This or is it bolted. Cemetery. Both then and. This “I” thing. And this “you” thing. This vegetarian food, all offered, all offered up, by ma-maternal mother—does it stay, like among both still. How is a while going. In parts, like some, them, or some-them. The whole family is a while. The whole family should be intact, at least as what as it still’s one. What takes time? Bolts, as bolts of families. Bolts for families, bolts within families. Parts open from the insides like my dream of walking down the really treacherous steep steps of stairs, down, down, very down from the bus, or was it a train. As here, you might fall and break your own head. Seeming.
Will I get my mobility back, now that I know they’re dead, that I’ve seen the grave-site. Rico says you must make a fool of yourself. Now that I’ve orphaned myself twice, between men, in them. Walk again, says the graph. Be strong, says Fern. Take it easy, says peripatetic twin. And the school just says school and the school says I can’t watch you, there’s nobody here. I laugh at it. Ought will both does and as one it did. They laugh now. You laugh now. Laugh… I’ll wait a minute. Always it says of seas attend. As those meanies, like my sister, who is not dead, whose name is not on the tombstone, those meanies are up a stairs attending A Art Lecture. Much whence did. Clark Coolidge is my father. His Polaroid is his child. We do, do not share children. Some too seem as to do so. As Hugh Kenner said, “Hemingwayese and its parent Steinese.” All backwards. That’s how it all. He said he was out to destroy the I. I said he was out to destory it—it’s all been seen, said, stop. Big period.
There are only little whens. But buried the bottle, hidden it. Little no one. Must write to this, and or and so. What is seen? On the lowland stone. Tide’s in…dirt’s out. On a field, sable, and so on. No, let me give you the whole story: And after many years a new grave was delved, near an old and sunken one, in that burial-ground beside which King’s Chapel has since been built. It was near that old and sunken grave, yet with a space between, as if the dust of the two sleepers had no right to mingle. Yet one tombstone served for both. All around, there were monuments carved with armorial bearings and on this simple slab of slate—as the curious investigator may still discern, and perplex himself with the purport—there appeared the semblance of an engraved escutcheon. It bore a device, a herald’s wording of which might serve for a motto and brief description of our now concluded legend; so somber is it, and relieved only by one ever-glowing point of light gloomier than the shadow:—“ON A FIELD, SABLE, THE LETTER A, GULES.”
At least there’s some freedom at last. Shakespeare and I make Clark. Shakespeare and Clark make I. Clark and I make Shakespeare. Shakespeare makes me and Clark.
I’m still afraid of sleeping but everybody sleeps. Is it magic? Will a meaning last all as at, at funeral, and the will. We are plenty near to the grave site, but we cannot find it. A twin may well find it for us. Stealing flowers, others having fewer means and a lesser body. As a result of this visit to the grave site-cemetery, I am chaste of men and women—we all survive. We light a match, even, maybe with disdain. All the names are all the names. Like Rico. Rico lives there, no there, he lives there, yes, that’s right where he lives. When he wrote leaving he decided to write living. I eat sparsely, like a bird. I could tell you the story of blossoms in the dust with Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon, I could tell you the story of laughing Annie with Marie Lockwood and Joseph Conrad, I could tell you the story of Giant, with Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean and Rock Hudson, I could tell you the story of the world the flesh and the devil with Harry Belafonte and Inger Stevens and Mel Ferrer, I could tell you the story of night must fall with Rosalind Russell and Robert Montgomery.
And so David and I got lost in Middle Village and I said we should go to Neiderstein’s but when we got to Metropolitan Avenue we didn’t know which way we should turn, and just as we turned, we saw Neiderstein’s, where I was supposed to have my wedding reception. Now what happened was I slept with my fiancée’s best friend and then I called off the wedding, dress and all and the next day Neiderstein’s burned down, wooden fans and all. But the wooden fans were still there and David had two vodka gibsons which means they have pickled onions in them, which he made me eat one each of, and I had two Heineken’s in frozen glasses and what did we watch but a wedding and talked about queers that we knew and people in show business. Now David’s frozen glasses were different from mine, you have to understand. And the wedding people were also frozen and we were frozen in time, like black holes, and so on. On the ergosphere, if you know what I mean by that, the event horizon of a collapsed star. No we didn’t talk about structuralism this time but we are in love. So I left home for the second time. And David predicted in the middle of mid-vil in Neiderstein’s that the man across the bar was a politician and that he would kiss the baby. So the man kissed the baby and all life was subsequently renewed, except that I had been staring, but we did not kiss, oh yes we did, but that is another story. And I felt then that I wanted no one, no planning for the world. Are you all women? All the names are all the names. They match, at least once, at least one time. Such will as that. We pass right by it unattended. Josephine, Andrew, Andrew (missing), Theodore M./Marie M. (childs). Those are childs, childs room for us, with crayons in it. He wouldn’t give me any of his money so I left—strong, a sane one, a survivor. Section 5, No. B-40. You are addressing you to me. I am addressing you to you. Too seldom a point of opening. Private Space! Opening Private, Opening Space. I can’t deal with the lost or last section. Not aside either. The joke: you know people are dying to get in there; the joke: Rico lives there, no there, no here, at least wherever he lives he survives. What am I up to, I am very adaptable, what am I up to? It’s actually Vito not Rico. Vital, vital force, vitalism, vitalistic, vitality, vitalization, vitalize, vitallium, vital principle, vital statistics, vitamin (a whole section on vitamins), vitaminic, vitascope, I rip up anything to prove a point and Vito stamped his name in the dictionary. He lives he survives. In the childs room, in the nursery. This is my new mother, say, 10 volts of her, matter least of and her standing will.
Whaddayou want? To let most be least past, but let most be most past, at least, standing still and seeing you. I’m starved. It could be, and that’s past or that’s this. A twister—you’re lost. I lost one, or two or three or four more, lost four in a row, lost some in the rosebush, no film of this. Nothing and nothing a film. Sneakers. You can’t hear me. Few have I parted with and still. Few have a single place like the place I lost. I am the scapist, the stalker, the shafter, I wear a scapular. I am the queer and the whore, at least sitting behind glass windows playing with stage prop glass balls. But she, she is different, she keeps the same phone number so as to always be accessible—like the you get wills, to those beyond, beyond? Somehow, the grave. Some matter. Changing and moving, likes weakness, I don’t. So I do. So I do all the work, moving and changing like a twin of weakness lost.
May 21
No openings, poetry is all sex, her book, her going away, her mother, a mother’s mother keeping track of where she goes, women and children first, people sleeping.
Live people, maybe you run and grow up and marry mamma some day, wait for me, I’ll wait for you says Andrew, stay home, go out, don’t stay with Stanislaus, someone dream. Lost all, all gone, smell of moth balls, write Clark. Gibberish, cat crawls, notes, as handwritten, continuous writing, there’s some movement, here and there. There’s someone living, so, I’m alive, choice, he says. I’m quiet. Someone, with his wife and family, bespeak Belial. Far away, studying hunger, studying revealing, just about to read my handwriting, who cares I mean why. Two soups, if I’m not upset he will be, I guess that makes sense, chaste, ignore Steve, chaste four months, kept the keys, keys down, list, walking, a person walking, this is the second one, up the stairs, live together, George Segal, goes to the bathroom, separate and then alone, separate or alone, right away, what do they eat, Stanislaus is gone, Thursday or Friday, my protection, my invention, organized Fern, who’s at home, noise. What fantasies can I have, eating, dogs eating, Hi F_____, he’ll never know, depth perception, anti-christian, Shakespeare’s shrine, the end of that, little ego, strange solitude, what next, nowhere to go to plan, and who comes with me and who adores and which friends do I lose, S says of M and B: “They have something going,” I say, “I don’t know what you mean perhaps they’re in love;” is the mother at home, home yet, some independence, used up a pen, is Florence at home, good handwriting, move movement, what do you do, every day, ordinary man, did you want me to be your wife, my sister’s living alone, her man eating or hating, I wish wash now, there is talking, I will go alone and wash now and eat crackers, you will never know, normal food, normal thought, trained dogs, intense persons, serious persons and everything going on around seems odd or unfeeling and you grow for a moment to hate the world a little so I suppose I will have to teach someone how to make love, two soups and some crackers. The boy functions, the body functions, visions of Kerouac, short terms. As long as suffering is only warming up what can happen, reread Leaves of Grass, sleep on the mountain, douse the mountain with leaves, bring pills in case you can’t sleep on the mountain, no advice taken or given, live with people, don’t black out, don’t see the doctor especially the fallen angel, don’t not move, see someone, the top floor is Holland the bottom Japan or Greece today, I never want to go there, image of Teresa’s face, the doorman, the back door man, a house full of women converts alcohol to formaldehyde, as if you were poisoned, I don’t have to ever make love again, now isn’t that choice, a choice. Delight your family with consommé printanier, volau-vents with strawberries and chocolate bavarois, finger biscuits.
