[alternative edited version] 20 November 1979 Valhalla a shitty baby and a plane from england that I don't catch because of the baby   while I'm carrying back a pail from the pump, find myself seen from approaching on the drive, by a green pickup, helmer, who comes to sit in the kitchen     the beginning of the fire hasn't warm'd yet, we keep going don't alarm each other, offer little helps, I can look at his eye, it's replaced   fasting and from reading     sort a box, not much old paper left     outer memory josie and diana   going to walk on the lake think of j dying on the road given back to her family she imagines my father, dying, saying to her 'i'm your daughter' lake lake filligreed mud and weed, fine worked surface, frozen hard, pale yellow green felt more homogenous since the thaw, underfoot solid wrinkled fabric     further up the dirty circle goose or swan droppings 2 ducks frozen into the ice all but their lower outline eaten out     I think of j coming, she immediately does but doesn't see us I slide some of the way home clouds then color reflect on ice, as ezra, an interesting laminated white and blue long one     she's bright sings an alien thinking of paradiso and I love to see 21 the stove room with chests, seats, three rusted pipes   from the many things nijlands left when they moved to their new house, we wanted to gather many lacquered chests, things from the east, a cardboard barrel I fall with, but gently, turning I see in passing detail, like almost nothing but a bamboo (cage) desk small drawers (h james) pink fur-lined suede sleeveless coat social people saleswomen or customers, very dressed, in a crowded gathering to hear a negro woman singer   watching a girl negligently and an older woman over-carefully, folding clothes in a laundromat and silent in the fast - at first we could see the mountain, high and snowy, land slopes down between here and them seemingly from the beaverlodge road she hates grande prairie we have showers each time in g.p. a black cap mennonite girl, all so uncomely? look feeble   the warehouse, chainsaw, wire cables, tools of affluence     mud     semitrailer   [copy of signature: Elizabeth & Philip] 22 wrote solicitor about luke     and other letters     discontinued family allowance   clear waking in the dark, thoughts about something of imagination, my slow twin grabbed for the meaning, to take it into daily gabble, it was gone, but I remember the voice, even, dry, on a level, short phrases spaced by their lengths or more, information sentences, instruction   sleep again & miss the morning chainsaw in the blown down poplars at the lakeside am able to start it by dropping it down the arm's length   we are uncomfortable I find twenty dollars on the dash in valhalla see mary parking next to the car, she turns as if driving is still anxious I'm glad to say hello by eye through the co-op window     she's peaceful and friendly   listening to lascia qu'io piango the intense magic feel of that time, the cut of her edges brings me to tears     m can hear how much I want to sing   [Streisand from from Handel's Rinaldo on Classical Barbra, 1976 Columbia] - sore brain     don't know how to figure it out the bible made of scraps in books that are unbelievable in the rest of them     oh a beautiful vision     will the sense of setting into the right place -     bedlam just starts to sound in the back (room)     I silence it knowing about this place it's impossible to know     I'm unable to know     m said 'I can't know about motives'   glasshouse is created out of whatever's there must be first thought into being, anyone has to know the conditions to make it does it have to be held in being by conscious, no, unconscious, sense   materialization - learn the pattern of green silk duckdown quilt, a better apple or the shell could feed you the intelligent people would be floated and have no material worry     anyone could learn the learning would be made profit proof, sudden joblessness   the she'd     anything that can be remembered, slavery would be a sign of crime and the slave could escape everyone would be able to know how to make anything it wouldn't be in language, direct sensation learn back from senses things similar long held different     su geometra   world would be the same sensual studied   to technologize evil out of existence would have to know     balance making would be intermade with thought field, errors would (cost) there acceleration     can the mind move fast enough can it move something else fast enough shadow (anti-thing)   change from air to something slower (the unconscious that learns to do things language doesn't) into making     where is making made (in the bits)     in language     outside   only if been to heaven where there's no anxiety     freely curious could delight in any level of curiosity and change particular     general     law   not wanting to have an ending thanatos - to have it finished visualize the whole of a process killing and restating (when I want you back)   send 'awareness' out to a semisphere and harden the edges feel a precise distance from 'centre' and cause an energy shift there   acceleration said j: in metamorphosis, by desire and conflict     sang how in paradiso, she corrects his geometry     (record) joy for both of us   nothing is itself unless it's done right at the infinitesimal would have to be known differently than scientific the first time anything is made has to be worked very slowly     unless it's right it's impossible, nothing comes     exchanging recipes would need intimacy     people would have to feel into one another's flavour a song could be materialized as a surprise study by making copies     the jade plant go on growing     very difficult what would be the easiest thing     what one knew best or loved most you're never gone for long 23 morning wood making speed to council finishing letters excited for war solid words thinking superior to the weak one of last year   chainsaw at the edge of a clean field enter the pile     [in the windrow] know the balance of everything near     left foot feels itself     legs apart arms thinking of whether it will come sudden down press rock saw watching whether either side is slightly sprinting or falling levering up from underneath     dare falls down past     time to look at the next cut while it's in the middle bitter taste     poplar   white scarf blue teeshirt want to show valhalla the working body with sawdust and loose legs she sits on a cut round facing west     the light from under the ceiling the shadows are a funny color, turquoise laid onto the color of earth without light feeling of an edge     brush wall & then west to infinity, yellow open sea   speaking uncomfortable, laugh 24 she lies about what she was doing with cherri when I was angry with her   fasting dismay or hurt or what, she said she removed herself when I was rude we're both mean I shout that I'll go   and pack suitcase with papers to go to mary's and there lever saw through spruce in windrow the branches standing up on a big fallen tree, animal signs, veldt keep working see not much when the sun's low, bush lit at the top, standing up, underneath is shadow     a line, the upper zone has a few poplars standing above, it's like another layer of earth surface   the house's clean     resist     pamphlets how, in a house I saw into in la glace, a life is accumulated     plants, curtains, old man   mavis gallant in paris able to go on writing   go home to the better house this fast made me shriveled   at night we wake and talk about dread of the wet black gaping red, swollen mouth I dodged sleep lying back into bliss, dream she manages a factory, hired 7 ordinary men, a nice old man foreman we'll know for long 25 she calls estrangements all day bread     sunday happy we brought the touch stones   ardent stories of the progression of possession a woman gives in to the one she sees will love her best   fighting coolly     doesn't feel good but   succeeding at company by taking a victorious position in the old army shirt     woman says 'dismal, don't you think,' I say no I don't think so     man speechless with the kettle     old man carries out identity markers, noway - far far from far from far far from far from far far from far from far far from far from   live     sell sink open fuck black under black fright time in parts death near death near death near death near the camp open hole beast hole mud hole open camp     explode/explode take me down knock me down let me into the place let me into the place wet shines wet shines   locked out locked out   why I want to leave you you won't flow for me you're murderous to luke you want to feed our making to the thesis to please your father, to prove yourself   curiosity come again oh curiosity come again   no one no body but edge lurch the lurch open the arch the dark black wet and red gape   no one no body but edge lurch the lurch open the arch the dark black wet and red gape 26 dream of the yellow canyon road, forward and reversing each time more opaque muddy water on the road, the one in the car in front of me, we hear a water fall on the left, see through the opening into a shaded colonnade, where many people, as on a beach, are gathered waiting for the weather to change, beyond the columns large amphitheatre slope and I infer, wonder, the sea the party we speak to, one of the women says, she hopes it will soon be hotter bicycling on a pylon laid over to the new development, space, between girders getting larger, speed, how does the bicycle not fall through, go to the planning office   waking to talk, snow in wind chainsawing with red behind the west trees driving there, the burls in soft blue grey cloud     magpies' elegance   cry the beloved country, sold in south africa are there countries and events american television what work j and m on telephone - chain saw, gas, bad, smell, it shakes out over the edge of the round ringed hole, carefully watch the level rising, a shine inside? three lids screwed on, knowing where each of them is, turn the saw, red jelly sawdust around the hole, pour from the other, cleaner container, raspberry pink pours thick, careful, or swells over, screw the stopper down through the jelly oil, pull the chain around, feeling it, knowing the controls, sure of the machine, the movement by itself, had looked to be sure of space for the blade, familiar sounds, not located in it, gone out to the logs, ritual carefulnesses easily built, angle of the saw, it has to be a firm set, watch the tip's clearance, eyes check plane so I don't see down the cut, when it's set on the log, move it until it's sunk down, then toe in with the spurs and lever down, then it cuts right, when the chain stops, let up nearly all of this came without language, body felt what would work, the way I'm above it is that, being reminded of the procedures, going out briefly for talk with david man, him on the other side of the bush, fantasy a man - leschek - that blind charles - behind his desk, shaking his head, what I regret most is (sift)ing an upper room, luke and I, the oilman had come in as they went by, signals from the sliding windows, I was going to lock them     when the snow comes they won't be able to get in, tracks to the back door a little salesman conman, red shoes with bows, he offered his arms, and gave me a dance I didn't expect she? last night in bed saw her path, with gravel image to write from   this morning jove's face, nose shine on the plane under the eye, round beard     poseidon's look     elias calm brown bright and rosy     god of the sea and of horses   vampire rabies     a virus in last stages makes alert and bite   thinking by an emotional indication placing something     :     like an outer side hmm of doubt   what is it puffy in her voice reading     pretendious     as though she swells the inner nose singing, it's young, light 27 pleasure finding the back fields and around the edge, there's a lane, survey line sawing spruce she wants to go home right away     cranky raw carrots cut into soup   einstein book from bill   fun at stamms' talking about jesse's language     and to michael because he's friendly   eat and eat     make bread pudding 28 the frost plants thicker 'tension' not wanting to see (her)   tea eat eat   alone in the house sit with technicians of the sacred, notes from when I saw more were I could read     ? blank words   hatred growing   evening hunger to be madder, is it sex, lie beside her, she's sleeping, shake, watch, when I think 'it's like roy, I can't in any way rouse her, only wait'     and her so quiet crying doesn't reach me   stamp pound rage write primitive   she's doing dream diagrams 29 south west a yellow sky with brilliant single evening star   in bed 'til 3     story of her 5 years with anita     c t r sandy diana are standing there waving goodbye the ripple like a very fine single ripple over a body of water, whose fineness made you come     it made her happy as soon as we drove off we started to fight   it began when I had a brick of pure mute sadness after the dream one twin easily born and immediately taken away, I'm at the counter in childhood kitchen wondering how to birth the other, I feel it inside, the little head, a thin arm and the right hand, it isn't engaged, is it transverse, will it be breech or worse, I am bearing down, put the shit on the ashes heaped full the firebox, now its bottom seems unfeelable, it has engaged at grandpa epp's house, the two young men are planting seeds in the bed, single grains, at intervals putting soil under and on top, I keep you from sitting on it, if you disturb, the small roots will break off and the plants die two little children, patterns for their playsuits grass grown up long and green in their overalls the woman of the story sobbing I wake the head and doll-like body of the baby easily felt inside, will it be inside so long it will die   something of sunnyside tony's house and he left records, german cantata     oh gott, .. 30 transparent rings off first touches, she pinched a small tent, moved from the knees, a deep coal     (oh that one, it's very good for the beginning and for a second coming - I knew at the time, it was one you like too)     then, expecting to be a quaker girl, finding an out of speed, rough shaking, can I press it out of her fast, slow her to the talent I have tonight     it goes, we discuss what we know about the wild shaking, it's not far from willed, because it's so easily stopped     trust, she says, not being quite whole-hearted, her elated meeting with the master touch she knows how to use     a hungry breast on her arm begins to send ripples into her     she moves her arm, yawns, didn't know it was there     I take it all back and lie holding the fire yellow ring in my abdomen 'how are you?'         'I'm a swedish     tea-ring'   when she gets up to change beds, my teeth hurt   she makes fire because I'm the woodcutter martin's caution     I find what to do the nijlands' wonderful room, her blue eyes, white face. I tell her my dream and the sense of their kingdom and then she frightens me with the lord   helps liven the flattened, and food, she works hard on the natalie granger piece, goes to sleep early   outside candle on page     in dark rose or green clouds moon blankness   december 1   the woodcutter moving in her clothes     brutal machine, proud of her light walk in clothes   the bush deep paths in frozen moss   she helps but what is this face again   stein mischief   young whooping in buggies on the ice over our field moonlight   sad for a mind   father in pink jacket and sunglasses     I'm on the pile and the saw's mine to grab   able so able and deft, and where's something else     attention 2 saw it pink half made the horizon, blue indistinct, a moonscape   drunk with belligerence, cry because of how distant the real work, lessing's new book and chronicle! face looking out of maclean's   she chooses the moment to be vicious and I flare outside     stay looking at the arm's shadow across the door until the feeling scents a delusion and then it leaps in and uses the nastiest voice to wreck, like t's, scenting and egotism (courtesy) the voice goes on too long     save something for my work     you didn't say when you didn't understand something     you shouldn't trust a working person     I didn't want a courtesy, I wanted a truth   confused going to light my fire     'I like to make my own fire jam'   you don't want to feel me, I know you don't want to feel me 3 chopping wood before dawn 'you crazy woman'     holding two stars, sky lighter dead sleep   in the spruce well unsafely with the chainsaw   they bursting necessary telling about their old parents     we are obedient staying out of the way   peters   eating     dull   as if the period was an excuse and so forgiven 5 warm wind at night door open     roar from the poplar screen     the spruce violent   at dust sawing through caragana base to make a west window   sunset, south a yellow green, west red/yellow between the two doors, another was open to a clear blue, where a violet (white) cloud was in a curled hill above black spruce points   in bed, sleeping, door open moonlight, the window, wind   dream? diana's house, bulldozer's coming anytime, I'm taking what beautiful things you've left, when you went to a simpler house, love your sense of the white cloth tacked to the wall, a cane rocking chair, I look for the plates from another dream, one is there   mulvey's take them away a knife I defend myself with   churchyard, a sabotaged car, the lean old man car stops and asks for rudy, playing with me     3 frowsy lipstick women, I play cool and may have time to get to my car   6   light at head     different, snow on blocks of wood   revising joann script excited     to tell her what I thought I'd found     a comic script   during eating, animosity she'd been comparing it with what they do     their little black and white lives   cardamom custard in jars   joann and daphne, her hierarchy, a foothold in the kingdom     the logic is there   7   town it's exciting to be in beaverlodge looking at waitresses, people at the chainsaw building, an outrage hurt rebellion not knowing what to do she solidifies in hatred because I don't understand   I don't believe what she says but forgive her when we shop easily find a right hat   there's misery in going to town with a man   mary says are you finding what you're looking for, my surprise lands on her coat, what an interesting coat!     she blushes     was guest speaker about glory and could read her story, it brought things right back     pretty dress   thick snow, tension   8   she was sulking I leave early snow fog     brown on the white road   epps to mend and be with m he holds his head, his eyes hurt   andrew campbell-fowler     'he sat there and said god was only giving him a month to live unless he became better, but he had such terrible problems     I think of veronika as my wife'     'we were worried that he didn't come home but we thought he might have spent the night at one of the lakes     he said mother this is no life for me     on the devon road he wanted to help me weed     he'd pull two weeds and then he'd walk way down the field, then he'd come back, he didn't seem to know he'd been gone     I think god just took him home, transplanted him to somewhere he could be happy     maybe he lost his balance with drugs     he wanted his own family so much' 10 putting plastic on windows she was singing upstairs I thought I could solve all the difficulties and listed them and said I would like to stay here   11   looking at the ugly old face, her small head smiling in the back, both speaking ugly   bill's [volk] letters     his liveliness and search   car plowing through soft deep   digging her out   'by morning it'll be just the chimney's sticking out'   mrs peters   she doesn't want to talk, hate   write tony want to leave for someone with more life   12   look at the iced windows, it's cold     the ice has laid a deep image completely new edge to edge, different sorts of plants     takes a diamond light from the sun, imagine the arms seen moving   cold, invite her under, sad, I say I'm lonely and need somebody who's interested in more     'if my heart removes itself it will never come back'     tears     she says 'my heart has removed itself many times but it comes back'   what is it that removes itself and doesn't come back   I can't answer and know I'm indulging in going away to jove, I really floated away but when she asked I thought I could tell the sensation of having evaded   daylight     how to use it, there's having to go out for wood, picking a box of kindling twigs, chopping enough for a day, very cold   confused bread     working   it's been thirty-five, forty, below   13   see it isn't sun, snow a movement in the crack above frost, outside a place I didn't see, ordering inside, intense occupation with water and wood, fire, things left from yesterday     pans soaking, flour, cemented her chimney, chopped wood     carried in water     tried to empty frozen slop     washed dishes     washed floor     looked after two fires     collected twigs     carreid wood     carried more water     cooked meal     (read one chinese story fan village)     bathed     thought of her ways to make her body right     steaming face     exercises     thought to write it     ate     thought of her in town   morning affection, wanting to give presents and never complain, looked at list of things to solve, physical, tried to write two images from then     awrence one chapter richardson a bit   know nothing except the way the effort makes objects important     washed clothes and put up line upstairs     washed dishes again     carried out two buckets of dirty water     fed ezra     'working through'     panic about what do do     ordered pantry   14   still in bed, thought of frost's round crawl surfaces being like electron microscopy, sharp shapely made of vague   3rd night you're absent, chinese stories and your room   less work, clean soup and cookies   you're alright but will I know when to doubt, picture of two mounties at the door, hospital     lawrence's frozen gerald   at sundown I walked to the road to meet you, there was color again, tender pale blue, yellow, in the sky, rose behind the house with smoke another color, white white and white   tender means     a light press into   burnt cookies to ezra   shen - a black haired girl goes out into a garden with little bolt, at the end, near a wall, he throws down dates     a canal they know about but don't get to, where chess played under willows   camp attendant in a hospital, then two real cleaners, I'd set up the cart upside down, would I go back to the good matron and work, with my whole talent   15   a black woman wanting to give birth, I'm to help her, see if her attic will do for us, she's moving   red on the frost under heavy covers face stings colder than any   brilliance, eating cookies behind the fire reading lawrence, who's he   sit down to think, wander away in omni, nitrogen fixing, motor, the jeep plowing up, more people, is? one of them her, a small pale woman   work to order the house, unpack many things luke in portugal, I was knocked the microbiologist nitrogen fixing her many stories about meeting and struggling, it has been 35, 40 below   books, including j's   a high liner with two other women, one is annabel     they jump in through ship's rail, sideways back     swim easily     catch ship     I jump into shallow place, reef?     stay there ship leaves, go on   16   cold under the blankets   mevlevi book     the way sufi atmosphere has passages in it beautiful in a way I seem to recognize   Shams cried to god and fell to the ground. Mevlana dismounted, dropped to his knees, touched the head of Shams, and the two men embraced. They left the questioning students and returned to a retreat cell where they remained for 3 months occupied with the exploration of awakening, they emerged as one being, within each other the grace and presence of the essence of what each was looking for. For the first time each could reveal to another being the secret in his heart. Rumi was like a room filled with love. Shams saw this and opened the door.   Sema is to fight with oneself, to flutter.   on the night of December 17 in honor of Rumi's day of union with the beloved   the white treeplanter box 4 riondel dirk brinkman his strong baby   their new colors in portugal   evening suddenly warmer     windows clear   17   night into the birthdays, she's spooky and leads me into fright, where I'm telling and balanced, the fright of incoherence (is it hers?)     I tell about the scale, not knowing what to magnify, when I tell the story of rumi and shabriz she hears what I haven't told and she leaves the bed when my body begins to like her there     morning hysterics     irritation     dissentain endless     she dreams I've found peter again, and I have     I'm exhausted softspined lonely   soup and custard daylight work naipaul cross with india   write luke, the voice has to try again to find itself write jill easily knowing just where to address it   in bed notebook from dope year speculation, and when we spoke to each other in hope and fear   18   waking in the dark, lonely, go to lie with her, it's not right, but the room's warm, my lamp, the thoughts of another time, erasing, writing into one line notework, light, dawn the snow in footprints colored shadows, tried for filming smoke past trees, spruce tips, poplars in glitter, then wind direction changed     (nightfall straight north)   a confident traveler so you stand amid a constant vital commotion   drinking milk coffee when she gets up I hold a jeering distance seeing her stiffness and loneliness, roy's vindictive distance, they feel different, her seal's arms and drooping back, attracting haunch   in bed, seeing brown and exact shadows of water on the windowpane, with big sun circle showing full of circulations, and bluer running clouds in the rectangle hit the corner and go on along the next wall     lying in the sun's yellow heat, was in a time I was open sunlight: when?   sorting a journal from before luke and j spring     seth   21   solstice, fury   from not speaking, start to speak, yell tension so I can't work   la glace school christmas party classrooms with presents on the desks kindness confidence in which the kids come into the library   seems no reason to tell her anything   peters' boy plowing the yard, fury   up late reading lm montgomery     the misery of marriage, daughterhood, emily written during then     free thought, reading astronomy     she died early, aged between 33-36 grew stout in duty, reading her felt lock of duties     she wrote anything to sell, wanted to be a great, was massively popular   [triangle] she's jerky   22   it turns in the evening   from dreams, noted   'if you have the time, and the inclination' confidence of clear superiority he was always ugly, an abcessed front tooth 'never had the opportunity' looking so shifty, his language getting smarter as he spoke   lascivious images   ashen mardy     photographs of naked celebration   she's lonely   bodo story made friends cold night together   23   needing to tell my student waking together bodies for warmth she showed a grieved face     we've made it impossible for us ever to make love   black rose from middle then beginning she bathes     I come out to love the slippery body     in clean underwear     tell nellie, delight, and martha comes back     this morning the story of traveling with luke, nobody saw   I hide in books     I've been observing no, it's because I sometimes can't bear to be myself, it is too much   you aren't visible, and then you are   'she's     clear'   cathay   go to bed separately, am thinking when she calls, nearly in sleep     when body fattens out     doubtfully go along   24   under disorder pulling up covers, the rosy face with real eyes & such a smile, talking, rapture & lasciviousness, as if holding something in itself, holding on; open as if to the air of the room     and then later the extraordinary story of how that vision came, she said an indirection     I said I hold it right in front of me, she said you don't know what I mean     going by bus past a stucco apartment building, deciding to get off, a left room, and the air in it, I saw two windows south two west   turnkey/india     both allowing her mother and father     hong kong, burglars 'listening to you I'm conscious of a caution about ---'   has it been the natural christmas today in bed until sunset then feasting on fried rice with sausages, let's not do any cooking work today!     walking under stars     crunch     moon seeming to be visibly filling     crossing the lake to it, kicked snow singing on the crust, hum and tambourine     the large circle line - must: state of dangerous sexual frenzy esp of male elephants my heart heeled half-seas over for a moment a waxlight floating in a saucer 'produced or patterned' the way she puts shrunk hands on short arms, into her front pockets, like attaching them to something with power It is the hand itself which has slipped me through the barriers into the company of the real ones. [Durrell Clea] thinking of the poor little person whose designs I won't allow     remembering my mother's face     I'm with bruce in the bedroom rolling and hugging telling him I've understood something about you     that he's for men     in the bathroom adjacent my mother in her coat     she's speaking to im, I'm rolling up my green silk pyjamas, telling him I've had many friends who've taught me about railways, I think she's embarrassed, come out makke a warm introduction     she says, I'm very pleased to meet you, so absently, I say, mother what's wrong? she's frozen, shakes her head, distrait, I won't say     is someone hurt, is it luke, fear, her scatteredness is complete the waking thought, fear woke me, but the thought was calm, she's the little one, 'ego', whose speech I stop, luke with an older girl to california to be with neil and lucy grass     dry subsoil and seasonal moisture in upper layers the original grassland   it is the destiny of most animals to be eaten nothing is really consumed in nature, only borrowed driving toward separation, as if complaints are the formalities, contraction, I must be alone, we'd have been alright not forcing it, to force it is the way of hardening away. what you've never let me have, what you'll never loosen to. the way I'm getting uglier thickening and farting in the dark kitchen, morose refusing with people met, throwing glimpses outside as to something I don't believe is there. when I speak to you I wish I didn't have to hear the reply, no comprehension, duh. or the stiff child hopeless pretending. my always the same stink. we don't have to live together. the rhythm of undutiful impulse, child could be sent away. this one only closed out, meanness, guilt. sexual restlessness you'll never quiet. you won't believe what I know unless we go through this, then it'll be too late for the pleasure of seeing you come up the steps, looking at your face balancing on thrill. to turn it, only move out of, what is no good with you, working at chores, how could that be, pleased how quick and smart. this is howcome you don't know the principles, then doubting the use of any of your vision.     all this time you held onto important information.     don't even like the feel of the word in your mouth 'fat monks, infernal I thought it would be that for you too' trying to figure out what a person is made of being afraid to lose soul, taking the form of being afraid of the heavy bodies of middle-aged parents writing within the hologram already formed sense of looking to understand somewhere in the elements, when the confident tightrope dancers just work on off the end of accomplished range when she listened about turkey, I said it would have been rape but wasn't, I made a stagy distance     novelistic?     I said yes but it wasn't, a movement in the situation to say it wasn't my idea     though practically it must have been, the kurdish man and the conventions of face; they wrote down their names 25   thought of vowing only a book a week - I was in turkey, my car was parked, I took the bicycle to find the place I had directions to, a broad street, right, sw     walked the bike across an open paved part in front of a building, light steep brick about three storeys, around to the back     knock? someone's upstairs studio     there was a sense of shopping neighbourhood in the joining street     the house was as if a block of one building, or the block had only one building in its corner going back to my car broad avenues fast traffic which of these did I come on, three at slight angles all right sse to se     I see them from above having to choose fast, the northernst, do I recognize the white building on the left, I'm seeing street detail, buildings back some from the road, it seems I'm further than I came, but I continue, find the avenue running into the country over a bridge as a dirt road     turn back, think I'll just cross the city in the direction I think the bus depot must be, that's where I started, see some domes, one of them may be it, view of roofs through haze from a height     a mosque with a dome on the left, upstairs from a window or balcony an american girl, blond, like madeleine, shouting for her dog? I think I'll ask her, go upstairs to where I understand she lives, remember coming down with her, red stone at he dim entrance, foot of stairs, don't remember speaking to her though I remember being in her room looking out not long after I got out of the truck, I met the turkish boy who'd studied in america and spoke american     he would have spoken to me, I was wanting to know how to find a hotel, or I had hotel addresses to find     did he take me there? we were walking, he met some others I thought were his friends, a tall hawknosed man with eyes held to look fierce, some others I don't remember. I must have gone to his house for supper, the others came too, brought food and wine, a long table, I sat near the door into the hall, where a little bathroom, a kitchen, bedroom door at the end of the corridor. others could speak a few words of english. I ate and drank probably quite a lot, they sang. it was loud, I enjoyed the rowdiness, likely, although none of them were interesting, they told me what they were students in. I think for the fatter one it was law. I decided to go to bed early, would sleep in my sleeping bag on the hall floor. had a shower, washed my jeans, they were uncomfortable, hung them in the bathroom on a hanger. got into bed in a sweater and my bikini pants. Was dim and unsteady for drink. they were still noisy in the dining room but the door was shut. close to sleep. the little american came and whispered that I had better come into his room and pretend to be fucking with him, else the rest of them would come and have me. I went into the bedroom. It was awkward that my jeans were wet. I had a dress but didn't put it on. took my sleeping bag to his bed and hoped it would work. asked if I could go out the window. he said no there were only more men out there. he seemed to actually be feeling responsible for me but he was afraid of the others. there were five I think, all bigger than he. I didn't know what he'd said to them but he probably persuaded weakly. we were in the dark lying together. they were visible as outlines through the glass in the door, turning the knob. he was afraid of them, went out, came back, said I would have to let them. I had calculated whether I'd be likely to be pregnant, I think I was bleeding, I know I felt safe. then it was probably a sense of getting through something, or allowing something, forbidden, maybe a necessary price for my freedom to travel as I wanted. I knew it wasn't worth fighting. it was true a ruckus would bring more men probably more dangerous than these. I thought I had been stupid to wash my jeans and to drink carelessly. now, only find a posture that makes sure it does me no harm. contempt and distance. don't know who came in first. I was on a bed, I don't understand the space exactly, the bed ran along the right wall, had its foot toward the door into the hall where there was light from the dining room. did he take his pants off before he got into the room? the sight of his penis in the dim light. big. I held back the curtain and looked away from him. he begged me to be with him, I didn't speak. it was something I thought he should do. I held onto my plan. he was likeable. there was someone else at the door. I only remember the kurd, second? maybe. I said, you're an animal, because he was such a bandit. I, am an ani-mal? pulls his arm back pretending to be about to hit me. I face him out, say it again. satisfactory. when they've all been in, impression of similar bodies sitting at my knees, I remember feeling nothing sexual, they didn't touch my breasts. the kurd came back, I think I said no. I must have put on my dress and come out into the dining room where they were. I thought, should I take them to the police? asked them to write their names on a paper. they passed it around and wrote their names. I think it was before that, just when I came into the light, I came out feeling I must save my face by a violence, took the water pitcher from the table, poured the water on the floor, I think I was looking at the american turk. the others went home, it was dawn, I told him I must dry my jeans, he hung them by the heater, but it was feeble warmth. He came, said, ellie, since all the others have, won't you let me? I said no angrily. it seemed to be his fault. my jeans wouldn't dry, I went out awkwardly carrying the pack, in my dress, that slid up and showed my ugly leg. limped some distance and found a hotel. the desk clerk looked through my keyhole. later I saw a man in a blooming cherry tree looking into the window. men harassed me in the post office and on the street. I walked around the university ill and found the paperback steppenwolf with a klee cover. must have underlined what he said about going through degradation. the whining men on the street made me shout. otherwise I enjoyed looking at istanbul. bought cucumber soaked in salted water. changed my money for a good price on the black market and could stay three or four days. Saw the blond american with thick legs who'd been in the hostel in athens, walking with two american boys. I was alone the whole time I was there. one morning went to the santa sophia, had been in my medieval art course, it was ugly but from its yard I saw a mosque I went to sit in, the blue mosque, incomprehensible but lovely. at the docks the houses with wood shutters. I went on through bulgaria, yugoslavia, hungary, austria, germany, france. truck drivers and other travelers often fed me. I slept outside or in different sorts of shelter, or was invited into houses. I was angry when men were idiotic but knew how to save my skin. what worried me about the rape, as I called it, was that it seemed something I couldn't tell. jean-jacques saying of someone, she's the kind of girl who wouldn't mind. after a while I let bill read about it in my journal. he wasn't shocked and it seemed I could think of it differently. 26   making the fire alone, wanting to work, alone, letters - the book     drift at first thoughts to take out of it she comes back a quicker body I'm jealous she'll fly? she wants me to join the company and I do, seeing times that pointed to it I think I've just added a stroke to the future   hair up     chinook   in the book mary's underlines and her thinking about me and I think of her and why I hate him like a parent whose faults could get me   'the whole world'*reading deformity   tarot   27   mailed to luke, j-v, josie's letter   dancing at bernice's   love the slight friend   at night goes out   28   sanding table   clear room she protests   29   day given to fighting   I cry in helplessness about everything she thinks is wrong   tell her I won't supply her prurience about men any more   sad for luke and what-to-do   find duff hopefully - figuring is knowing something that belongs behind oh little percy you're not my type what do you think, I should be a wife who lets you know it's yours you can have it when you want it you paid for it look after his ego he'll be a better husband in the security of it wives and mothers gritting their teeth it's not the right time I can't follow your movement I'm not ready I wanted just to lie at your neck the peace will be spoiled, it's spoiled, you want to be mad at me, you're making a fool of me, men are like children, men have different needs, women have to ease them, they get very tense, it relieves them, they have such difficulties in the world it relaxes them         women's bodies are delicately triggered, a good man knows how to relax a woman, you don't make sudden movements, you gentle her into a trance so her body goes dark and she goes down into it, you just stroke her, warm strokes not ticklish, slightly, on the flank or ribs, head, slowly, so the connection can build and you can both sense it making, until the time when either her breasts or her mouth are dying for you, and from there she begins to sense what's coming and begins to be ready to fall; and you don't go near her until then, not long at the tease, and then it's rocking slow but solid, leave time for memory to finish the stroke, she has to be free to be completely still if she wants, when it goes right you're making in her an intense sense of love and gratitude that you've been able to lead her by the movements that know her timing, to where you both want to be often I don't desire you because you don't show that you're there, othertimes I desire you in the oblique way of not being free to feel what would ask for a first movement, by looking at your body interested, holding the sight of it     it has never been possible to see you, touch you a little, build you toward abandoning your outerness and taking me in with you     as it is possible for you with me     is it that we're missing half the times 'somebody who presented herself the way you did, a trivial pursuit that's all, it's a trivial pursuit and has to do with my early days, of having to listen to a lot of girls and not getting anything from them' he doesn't see what life and urgency there is in girl's talk, and so to listen to it isn't friendship it's the chore that might open the way 30   private rooms   betty jo but I'm not courteous   drink three quarters of a botte of wine and get rid of calendar papers, and figure out times of moon phases - in a working net closest to both night and day try for the road across the fields downwater looking for a place to sleep the goddess and members of the expedition diaphanous earth register of north-facing doors afraid that I'm being too much myself mistress of the beasts coming out of the city to where the road becomes a dirt road, goes on over the bridge ducks' wings    they're taking off, different flight postures    head reaches legs hang wings hold and press    flight sequence (air currents) (water) fields and currents   100' at various speeds, natural is in there undistinguished snow water air fast í slow accommodate length not the same it has to fluctuate fade out accelerated, a vision become apparent note of length of threshold white/black   like single frame fade-overs (enrich) film because light seems to come through back-project? money for luke, teeth, j, bills luke's well being generosity extracting an ideal the creation the snow run the audience the twilight bushes perceiving with a good machine the intimate form of what's being stated she offered her voice, making soft sounds, mostly vowels I felt myself immersed in love in a lovely flow of language draw atoms and molecules from the air to form your image it is the body of your experience the innocence of all feelings, for each of them will lead you back to the reality of love hold equally the vision of ideal self, and deviations from it not wanting to be right because then he will too she, not wanting to love the body, if I see it I'll be envious hermit gardener and orchardman saint warrior and artist    shame of the wrong place I thought of the soul as resembling a diamond or a very transparent crystal, and containing many rooms above, below, at the side, in the centre noticed I had been trying to get her to speak and then using her language to speak back 31 Slides of paintings. I'm near the back of the room, they're luminous soft colors, it's Kiyooka's class, Jake Jensen's paintings (didn't he seem an artist when he married a pretty woman). (He supports himself at bee-keeping, has made many paintings in this last time, something in his place seemed to be like the place in my last refugee dreams.) First school dream that's been art school, paintings I think are made to follow each other around the walls like windows made by headlights, at the corner an arm reaches out of one painting across another. A square in rose or white, instructor is saying it's a flower, I raise delight, it's a paeony, the one petal tight bound across the centre, Kiyooka doesn't know, I've understood how to see the paintings, lighted parts, something can be seen by emerging it. When I walk around closer to the paintings I see very worked detailed even relief edges in the image and wonder if the submersion came from poor eyes and distance. Sense that I'm going to be traveling somewhere, iron beds in the grass, a shit that's like a little pile of chocolate chips, bed in a religious house. Wanting to cut my hair back, the awful heavy look of hair and clothes, want clothes I like, haunted by J looking at me [as] ugly, the war's between that and the sense it's going back to glamour. Want things I like, it's the picture of saint, given up appearance, but I still have to be appearing and uncomfortable, I'm not looking like myself, alright I will, it's for some courage, dress. 2. Janeen the finer blond grain, I love her, she's studying a philosophy in some other country with her husband, this visit's near a school, she and her sister at a table, I'm on the straw pretending to do something else actually holding my panty aside and peeing. See them at the table, across from each other, smirking; I realize there's been no straw under me, my pee has visibly run down while I was pretending above it. Waking think of my shame when I love, her way of giving hers, I left her, to try for the road across the fields, thinking about why I'm a cowering half person again, whom no one would listen to. - Whole The order of a service, parts where you're woken, or work, roused They started with welcome song prayer meeting - personal - fright song announcements song sermon song benediction O! Anfang ohne ende - grassland subsoil x-rays? excavate rock archeology of the present   the salty nature around roots microscope diatomaceous earth smell keep movement over underspeech what's learned and then under 100' or multiples taking the lunar soils apart slides tryout 4 or 5 3 exposures dark, white stone marking centre for reexperience like tunneling, gets darker night and earth a star fading of stones coming of stars - Local plants plants in various lights made as catalogue (names) but also becoming catalog of lights winds terrain etc people giving local names [sketch] When I come out of the tent in the morning the strawberry leaves shine at me. Is my vision changing its spectrum again. Noises coming near, attention opens to them. Attention opens. Everything is clear. a sun space, a focus like a living hearth forces working into the gravitational field - clump leaf sounds at different magnification wind is an undersound take it apart Holland Park standing under the tree looking up at the flattening rise and then the lifting fall of the big leaves on thin stems following a branch riding a wind wrists of dancers narrow end of a wind - cloud denses - windlaid aeolian in it is wind shapes other eddies a counterspatial field Gegenraum - treading the void We move in all dimensions and whatever course we take, the mighty waters out of reverence for our virtue change shape accordingly. a realm in which to move about freely in thought struggling in pain, dissolving every thought knowing its frame to be wrong, finding oneself without language The fearful void discovered in this way is itself the inanimate and untroubled beauty of matter. - a dream of the broken room At the hotel I was moved from one room to another until I was at the end of the corridor near the sea. There was a sink overflowing but the water went across the floor into the meadow. The last rooms had only a few, or no, walls. a very brief segment where images behind the writing obscurely do, or not, what the words of a fast reader are telling make the two in bed hunger as an ache leaning toward one another and coming together with a tiny resolution like a click sudden movement like a resistance passed through slow and even and then the sudden finish / / / / each full fire and the last spread picture erotic light the study minute the song or weaving     volume 4 up north volume 3: 1979 october-december work & days: a lifetime journal project