| up north 2 part 5 - 1979 august-october | work & days: a lifetime journal project |
larry and betty-jo on bicycles and fixing ours, she rushing to talk supper and he jumps the battery 'thank you for doing the dishes' evening she was calling confirmed knew by love and draw 13 she came with milk sarah luke to epps a call and the blue skirt for supper at epps judy about the steak dinner the strong-featured baby who asked to come onto my knee to see out -
mornings at her table a white marble windowsill there to her left, the distance is important, it's a clean room with nothing in it but her table, the window she glances left, throws across a well between table and broad sill, where the sun burns down into the stone, irradiates the edge of the diagonal, at the end of the room another window with green and blue the windows have no glass and are on the second floor next to her chair on the floor a jug of water what she's doing is writing
watching myself allow the bad clown to say whatever comes, with j and m, akash and luke, using eyes curiously or incuriously, one was excited by my ear, skirmishes, coincidences: sarah's letter, the necessity to go to dinner at mary's, and to wear the blue skirt, why's this - was it for nilands, or for sieberts his eyes on some part of me, ankles, dancing offensive leg, mine dispatch him, say I know what you think but you can't stop me decoration for michael who tells good tales and played with the baby, whose brown and strong expressions allowing first dislikes judy telling how she and paul would walk home from school together, he courted her with nonsense, on the street in grande prairie twisted into a cripple, she still laughs familiar skillful off centre, they like me opened mary's book idly, she was talking, to 'the pressure of ellie's expectations,' closed it luke in bed, net curtain cream pink evening and a quarter of the bush, some insects, maybe mosquitoes, butting it from this side, a moth from outside, luke's fight with tommy tregenza, 'with your best friends you fight till you get it to the best level, like kit and me' I'd like to remember phrases, didn't I use to 'did you fight with kit?' 'only once, then he knew I could take it and I knew he could take it. he was older than I was but he didn't mind' last night is this meteor shower time woke to see the half moon moved west it was straight down the path when I woke in luke's bed and came out, in the morning it was above the poplars I was touching myself, began to swirl as if the chest lay still on the pillow and the pelvis rotated right to left I thought to allow it and then chanced the touch to less regular have wondered where instructions come from
14 swimming pool. afternoon dislike distrust babette angry to take luke there m to the field home table at bed light the lamp set it on verandah rail typing parts of eckhart grumbling to you before sleep realizing horizontal to space - grass, nettle, the color of gas lantern light, no it's the grass, brick, stone, with the black clear behind it, it's the black of no thing the one young tree I've been young today moths rapid the top of the tree in shadow and moving more inner wall webs breath steams a line of web was shining between me and the lamp moth doing something on the raspberry leaf wings blurring the spider went up between two stars on the dipper's handle there's ezra, toenail clicks, shook herself and went in luke, my bun's in his oven, he's metaphorical 'what's the voice you talk to yourself in' 'it's just ordin ry' 'what does it say' 'what's he saying that for, what's he doing that for, when's he going to stop this stupid nonsense' lying in the dark looking at the milky way I saw outer space realized the galaxy was something I could see so that's night when the distance opens with luke looking through the camera 'i'm going to crash then could the eye see telephoto how and then: yes, interpolation, induction? computer could do it but only information it already has, it couldn't see what telescope would, only the scale, with sparser then: seeing into the galaxy not constellations, bearings oh magpie white black through blue the tail's round procession follows it's a pale sky, they're in and out of the willow, it's china in the saskatoon bush
praise eckhardt, nothing so fine as what they say about him, he paul and augustine, praising the father and the son, the soul leaves the lap of the mother and smiles upon the heavenly father, becomes a son who by being a son is a father dorothy in church enraged by the unsound premises
- 'I thought it was going to be my kind of day, and then at the last moment' 'he came along' 'and it was almost completely his kind of day, or, well, I did one thing for me' how is it, rebellion, you don' know what you had, I'll take it away forever I'll miss you, things to tell you summary of a thought in no one's voice, mary does that, other women here, it makes a mask speak, as if to show their own hold it forward they speak as if from a face held 18" in front of theirs speaking to diana, confusion, heard myself laughing nervously, who's this, 'jam's not here, she's fled away to edmonton' explaining my defeat, planning how to name it: 'she wanted someone else' 'we didn't take root' 'we were finished' 'it was completed' 'we wanted different things' 'she had hay fever' 'there was somebody she wanted to try,' suggestively, to t I was telling diana daphne t and c and r, refusing josie the details, sandy and esther were hearing about it to sarah it was 'there are some funny problems' 'I want her for my sword mate' lying on my back under the stars roof corner and edge and then the distance fouiller dans le detail I understood that night is a different horizontal, and was upright looking outward toward the edge of the galaxy gravity was sideways through the length of the body humans glued to the big sphere also it was daylight, not in shadow
15 w/o luke hot sun lethargy until 1 touch myself and that makes movement upstairs to see whether I have something about seeing the galaxy from a traveling sphere, ie making the stars stand still a divination, august, they're pressing on me, and that they can be together sooner than I can, and in hot child red banner riding my coloured pleasures and strengths are the familiar ones, solitary, no thrilling friends and you again only after a while m says j phoned last night in distress about sheila [watson - thesis supervisor] and darwin 'attacked' 16 morning at tony tiller's holst unheard luke comics penthouse forum 'tired, in my warm blankets, with mummy next to me, talking' 'do you know what I wish for more than anything in the world?' not listening carefully 'I wish you and roy would live together, with me' he wouldn't have married sara - room in vancouver second floor woodstove big space empty long room without rent autumn
It tells how the angels marvel at a soul being in a body. They say we want the soul to be god's mother and his brother. We must be god's brothers, seeing we stepped out of the same exemplar and taking each other by the hand presently shall step back and be make up again to one. body book from
having come in at a certain time, my generation, the children 17
- this baby roy sara and luke I have this little baby recently born, begin to like it when I go in, see it sitting erect with its hand in its diaper eating shit, has good balance the women's office downstairs, I'd had to pass the rank of women photographers, well dressed, to the toilet at the back, the baby is a girl, I was telling someone she had already spoken clearly, now she sees the sign and says studio not only can she talk, she can read! I call to the one upstairs change her diaper before taking her home, in the washroom kneeling in front of the toilet bowl washing the shit out of my mouth, it takes a long washing, I'm thinking the jewish women have a purifying ritual after childbirth, I've begun to be glad and think of the child, there are some of the little clothes still put away but when I wiped it, I remembered awake, it had a penis, that was when I'd regretted waking in the night, head toward kitchen door, outside lightning white instant, what I can see in it, once long enough to see the bleached poppies, said you should examine something, work, no everything in work, resistance any idea for filming or taking sound, I forget or refuse, as if in a sulk, in hope imagine that work is still underneath, what do I do lately and always the despair patterned into the reading, holding back in all exchanges, restless disliking, 'thinking' referring to the open time, is that the dot in the nature of time, getting ready to swirl again where it's open alive terrifying and I wish for the voice to write sentences believing they know where they are you is cheryly and what do you want talking to you worst is that you feel your birthday and in competition want my score maybe the august's pulling what would anniversary be, the real anniversaries remember themselves I want everything changed, and to know where I am in it was it conversion to a way, for according as anything is more like something else, it pursues it more and more and it is swifter and its course is sweeter and more joyful and the further away it goes from itself, the more unlike itself it becomes working in the bedroom building, sense of the acid clearness of interesting time, was close; fearless right speed j the mix my saint disciplines seemed foolish to her, and she could be at centre without them not helplessness again! protesting to her dreaming of repentance, revival, father asking to be forgiven, light in our souls, by obedience and then thinking of that helplessness that must be wrong for human that can balance some other part of the dream, a fat couple? a stewardess? it nudged and didn't doesn't
in the elations of them I thought moments were understood, which weren't and then I was silenced by disappointment and didn't fight but what there is now is, still, wanting exactness to make a stronger memory and incident 18
- moment with judy saying we'd read abut the animals able to make jokes, remember, then at the creek I could feel the marveling one going carefully, seeing, along the creek, thought I must know the creek again, but this house - with its level and I've seen no marvels around it, there the life on the ground, what happens here, hanging in the house, where has all this time been, 'working' because she does, without the energy to see and think I wanted to strengthen the slight time I was there, couldn't stay, for restlessness, anger, mosquitoes I could see the owl's feet and markings of feathers, owls, just to see you, not catch only strain after hold after your glance out of your curiosity and mine, curiosity, and what sort of organization of important time is that, everything met, without prejudice, yes, if it's right and I'm not hungering for the you that will be me, it has to come to that, reading lessing in the afternoon naked water running down my chest oblivious, thinking can I make in myself what I wanted you for, both you, and be done with longing and have occupation, there's sorrow and anger in it, what are you good for if you won't be in me with me, and then it could be anyone and myself talking to myself, animals who'll only be seen by those who know how to greet and find them technology for not panicking while steadily moving into new
the coyotes a red light and a drone crossing the grand green band a red light and a song traveling together that way beautifully are as sheet clouds
I began to love you because I was going to love you what does that mean I don't know that it was set up this'll be the one all the wrongs that didn't put me off
you've often been amiable
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20 the sky early is in clots still ezra comes for a bare greeting suddenly a colder wind this is a day for working marking lessing for people who don't know the background washing the car putting all the eagerness into pleasure of cleaning but with a double sense and noticing it for and out, and then there - so was it for the cleaning? 'having to' make moves without seeing either, or else holding still refusing no there was no either moving fast banging story of the poison, mice revulsion and dream said poison she was alarmed and wanted to know the cost a person offering a person, this and that, I could move it around, trusting my preoccupations to be interesting what does michael do differently I'm not right, location is familiar but when I refer to it why do I feel I'm lying coming around the corner into the driveway from seeing betty-jo sad, was it there to stop? wondered if it were like old heretics feeling this can't be so, or partly feeling it not being there in those happenings, but yes, there, not as a person although some person got me there, saw evening, your face disintegrating, luke left alone but coming to sit, luke under the table and you joining him when I made bread and the others went somewhere away skirt - defiant, tato story, a wind from all directions lifted them 'til they slept - paradise and the mouse poison thought if you put out poison are you giving up paradise entrenched, what's this entrenched, its rationalizations are simple obviously foolish and when I set them away the stubbornness is still there and I seem to accept as if it is instinctively accurate though all its reasons aren't and yet don't trust it, the turn, I wondered if there's a 2 year turn, it's like then and as then falsely hard but what holds the hard reasonability that strong lying defense but what the tarot forecast I said I was willing but now I'd like to make a winning and not a losing wondered what letting out the refuser would tell me about what I haven't been angry about it isn't any of what I speculate bitter my goodness doesn't turn you on? right, you'll like this better, and then it will be done (is that where it's wrong? no that's where it waits)
speaking to each other so formally 'do you always talk to each other like that?' doin well / makes everything indifferent consciousness is not a stream / it holds still
21 with esther there outside cooking sustaining a someone talking about cars, looking meanwhile at the face and body dianna comes down in red silk shorts they and esther go swimming we talk about our thoughts in the meantime, 'foucault,' work, pleased, and at the window touch like new lovers helmer comes, 'or maybe it's miss,' but I sleep outside both 2nd part of tato story not inspired 22 esther going looking for love takes them to the pool we get them after an afternoon talking, in luke's bed, about what's next, space and time hamburger at seven lakes, ezra finds a bone evening to valhalla for the mail I take pictures of him talking to kit, he and d in shorts looking in the window the light is fine we make a bed on the porch because of rain 23 on the porch, rain at feet persistant wake from a dream of roller skating rain, breakfast in the kitchen, fire, I play the sexy tape for mischief and energy luke is playing with the alarm clock, j is turned on we go to hythe, treasury branch, tire shop, grocery store they come home with gum and comics set the tape recorder in with them in the next room evening j reads cadmus actaeon and narcissus, luke likes it, I like it and am thrilled several times in the day by the sight of you luke cries wanting to sleep with mummy it's set up upstairs I stroke his head and then hold you until we nearly sleep, feel the little bones dream densely, assurbanipal can't remember david and marilyn [cox] older, formal greeting exhausted at night make lemon merangue pie and plum pie and potato salad 24 waking all, it's bright, we are kissing and squirming, they go wild, especially luke dianna cooks breakfast I take them to mary, they run behind the swather, I don't bother talking to m, j talks about the children, I ask if she wants to make the film, she says she'll take a risk, she says she's been full of love since edmonton when I come in hard pushing past the cut-off, poke poke I have dreams of her - saw miss tahiti, played bolder, 'let's do something kinky, pretend you're a girl and I'll put it into you and you'll like it.' she felt a current, or said so out of spook then when I said 'when I came with trudy it was like that' atop, shock, 'you lied to me' I didn't back to the defender and the complainer she says 'I want you to think about ...' I start to eat and read lessing, drink coffee she goes for the kids makes me write olivia, suspending her and whatever it was they come home with a duck's head and wing on kitchen paper towel paper j reads phaeton, and then atalanta without our current of love it doesn't work d complains of luke he pushes me and it seems she's rivalling him and looking for a way to use it with us 30 [We drive to Vancouver in the Lark.] beginning when it was dim, part of a red sun, rapid packing to dawson creek the mist beautiful, hay forms breakfast we're high. I change from last night's dirty clothes out of town high singing her wartime romance songs and oklahoma, south pacific, dancing cheek to cheek her lovely small voice she's willing willing to sing d's elvis songs don't work car up gradients, listening anxiously ugliness of d pushing luke sexually they talk dirty when we put them to bed together, doubts, hysterics luke brown girl / in the rain / tra la la la la la she looks like the sugar in a plum distress and accurate action make the chicken, potatoes, beets, fast, cheerfully they are read to by candle on our sleeping quilts in the rain shelter hermaphrodite ezra and j about the taken chicken [Boney M 1978 Brown girl in the ring] 31 began at the campground tired she made breakfast ezra called me to it unwilling to speak when it was time to [visiting Jean Waite in Williams Lake] coming down to the two log houses, looking into their shine and order, nasturtiums in the garden, thrilling preeminent tea swimming learning to arch the back up supper's beautiful good food philemon and baucis. [Jean] 'my inspiration, when I was about seven I thought I would try the second volume I remember sitting out on the swing in the afternoon that was the first story as if I'd been waiting for it' 1 september woke in the car a hard night luke and d silent in front of cartoons jean and I struggle on, j silent when she drives she rocks, I'm in agony of nerves, can't stand it and am grouchy, eat apart, blame her for being the silent presence and letting me work she's fascinated by house and marriage, I'm nowhere except for the freedom to be bad then I drive but badly - came out about coming along to 'help' me mood turns, into fast accurate movement. night after eating next to the closed restaurant, dark and raining, trying the road, turning back, fright, I reconnoiter and find, in the old way, a good night's shelter, mature trees when we're in bed she tries to solften me by hurting me with the picture of d staring at a deformed person the cricket continuously, the surprizing intensity of light and sound when a train came on the hillside 2 morning hear the car, wakes me, the thin old man frightened of us, I'm not of him, in charge the hill's there in daylight we talk about she needed this for her childhood, pleased the second man's sympathy we see them in breakfast luke sits apart they are brilliant with the tape recorder (we got slimy about esther's designs for j and dianna) and I drove well beautiful buff, sand, rust, of hills sun came, through the canyon, through clearbrook george not knowing how to be, cool with the cousins, find myself in senior wife and she in young woman grandpa's littleness when I came bending head sideways toward him she gave us each a dishtowel the difficulty of sunday traffic and rain, windshield wipers not clearing turning into 6th at the moment I left, a beautiful young woman came out of the house she stood on the porch watching us leave a pain was it of parting, we hadn't been in love since ... or something I knew about the garden better height of leaning sunflowers paul's changed age and solid luke walking with luke from the laundromat dark, slick, wet, realizing with joy it was toward our first location [Powell Rooms] how he looked in sweater and rubber boots 3 on monday she demanded to be brought ezra's brush luke had an appointment with kit at 10:30 in the park I showed paul some writing he got bored and went to take pictures of the elevator j was in the white jacket lost in the back garden held off, brought it to the deadlock to leave separated directly to cheryl's house parking on the shore in front of her building the stairs looking to see whether she still lives there, saying I'll tell her I'm here and leave her thin arm pulls me in and corridor and kitchen next to, heart knocks can't take off boots because of smell get to the questions fast when phone rings I'm trying to say the middle one: same old question, whether it's necessary to see it the way other people do or whether ... 'isn't she dead accurate?' lightly. she [Trudy]'s pale politeness knowledge wrestle, sometimes a directed, chance it in company they want to know how it is domestically I keep it off 'you're not saying it' 'no I'm not' make it direct 'insecurity long enough is security' house/future I heard religious but maybe it was from other times the way of looking at her as if with her in a tunnel - hardened from, although in the jeans and white jacket, your worn ezra wants to stay in the car, how will you know your feelings without her is it that you think it's another form of self-injury reminding of what you call the deadlock you say I must track it (but you want somebody else - but you want - but you remind me who doesn't know what you're doing in it the difficulty she had getting it out she didn't see love that it's such an issue for you makes me not want to track it you backed off it and I let you: so you aren't ready c reading bergan who said a woman found out she was made of parts of other people and things she could follow her intuition and let the centre of the universe draw her to its own marvels or she could go back into being her name 'were you talking to me a few weeks ago?' 'don't say that it scares me' doors going to be opened when I've put my hand up toward the paper yellow, not well, her hand quickly to draw me in, fast embrace without waiting, you're different, there was a fast smile but, corridor, sits down, I'm scared, large and solid, alright, can keep moving, waiting for when it slows down and I can reach back to find the quality, looking carefully, loose hair grey mixed look fastens to voice is too fast as if she is in trouble 'I'm such a baby, trying to grow up, scared of every day that comes' giving details, parents, 'I finally told them the story of my life' on the sofa side by nervous why do you have your knee by me so slight body folded not magnetizing keeping light next to on the couch telling the vision into space fast*watching to see if it's careful or careless, notice the slight entertainments, slight entertainment things about luke, phone 'isn't she dead accurate' 'are you working?' 'piles nobody has seen' 'are you studying' I wasn't expecting but not surprised floating on top listening for whether I'd say anything to her I didn't know then t jumping on c's description c: 'you can't stand any kind of weakness can you' t says she says it's always one way c says she says it's a way that feels real 'he was inert' what's inert 'for a year' description of the patient who cracked up the psychiatrist telling her parents 'it felt liberated' the 90 year old grandmother 'is jam going back up with you?' shrug slice fraction of a glance 'you - ?' go ahead 'domesticated' 'insecurity' 'is jam in with you' 'she's not in with me but she's here' 'in and out like always' 'yes' 'how have your dreams been' 'only music. at first I wasn't paying attention very well. cello' laugh 'was it practicing?' 'no it was the real thing. how are yours?' pregnant, here's one to tell, then last night's looking in garbage and finding: a suede suitcase, beautiful objects as if an old woman's estate, enamelled plates, I kept finding one after another, they were this size shaped like seashells, each one as it came different than the last, a completely different design one covered with a dark blue flower others smaller and more colors (today boxes in chinese import) there were wood things? I felt a collection for a different household of objects than I'd had before whether to trust love, to live with objects jean 'the objects I'd got used to seeing around' c 'it feels like it's got to the end of objects so that if I want something I have to sell something' to t: 'so you think you don't have to get rid of things to have other things, now?' old woman artist remembering the pleasure of stocking vancouver's house pleasure at andy's seeing former objects 4
- she liked the dream but in everything was removed and a little acting jean 'on the outside collected but inside in pieces' at ronny and lucy's cloisonne I felt or saw the room I'd have with them carmichael in the other unrecorded dream jumping at my back singing excited talking about symphony meaning he was glad to see me but didn't want to hear
6 sick in the aft at keefer st chaotic I want someone to know what it means when I say I'm beginning not to believe the idea of 'life' they are false about it do I see or is it a splitting away from where 'they are all together' -
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9 luke goes with kit and mark to the radio station [Co-op Radio CFRO], I take them, he's taken to lunch at nellie's can't work, read an omni through raging at home alone after the rain, pent, pressure, mozart, i dominei [Idomeneo?], acute to read morning of mag, out of the window with luke's binoculars, the round close-up frame, a rapture, light in corridor, intense love, I call you at r and lucy's, wanting to love somebody, you're working and not - luke and I eat vegetables with butter
- porch paul luke's angry I'm stretched yearning restless I go down the steps luke comes I send him back for his sweater and my money stand, walk in the alley while he's in the house look at it as if it's a strange house kitchen wood, bathroom lace in the afternoon mozart, the orange light, opera glasses round pictures of roof, plant, wire, cloud a woman in black with short dark hair, who walked beautifully a young girl in flared coat and sandals, her gestures, black hair, watching her in the round frame light through plant on the wall, shadow and then hard in intense alive colour looking at myself in the mirror the morning of the magician familiar ecstasy began when luke saw the red glider low over the city city city when we walked we came to the housing project playground in the streetlights bleached trees he ran to the climbing frame and swings, I found him beautiful, all the children, a boy on a bike, a girl on a bike, the way they moved, gary and I in mesa trailer park then luke when he braked with his feet came off the swing ran up the grass hill I moved to meet him beautiful body boy sweater tied around your waist, want suede polish for your shoes looked at bills for chinese movies last night in your nylon jacket with your mouth open next to me, others, mothers, with their mouths open, the speed of the fight dance, then men in long hair and skirts, spring, move in any direction on the way home his feet hurt, he stopped I went on home he followed, I listened was he following he went ahead I limped home on hastings a plump girl, 'you're like a turtle' to the other, she looked a turtle hotel picture windows coming around to pender, red light circling across front of the building then the ambulance then luke leaning on the corner of the building then he sees me and disappears he's angry and says he'll go away next week the orders: reverie, experience, reflection/writing wayne's very small good voice read us his poem on the telephone, we had our ears pressed together is everyone possessed by the angel of the good light at an afternoon like this one, I'm possessed by a terrible restlessness, paul said diana's music, the sharpness of music oh very young and tied to early happiest (virgin) self tense 10
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12 sleeping again while luke was painting in angels, showing me, glad I was there ignoring paul. he loves architectural digest fantasy unanxious beautiful. in diana's room piano hindemith instruction book: music, unknown nellie's, free hot sun, heat direct into the car. posts along the side of the house: four and then I'll get the slides a moment knees bent scraping with the spade I felt my body immobile except the arms, it seemed a competence good body, good method, that is conscious without worrying and leaves some of the plans underneath then it comes out right, posts and rails are easily upright and parallel, the job was designed so a later part of it sets the earlier, as the fence positions its own poles, I was able to fill postholes one post behind rail it grew up the man from upstairs with his tender face comes by to say a few words children, a boy I was suddenly patient to because he had chinese in his face, pale brown hair 'are you a boy or a girl?' 'what do you think?' luke's slides and mine of grass and wheat luke's of the black dog nellie's friend a strange soul luke liked the chop and milk vocation fright below 13
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- 'zone fusion' there's a way of manipulating matter and energy so as to produce a field of force, which puts the observer in a privileged position with access to what's hidden by time space matter and energy 'the great work' I'm curled in trudy's arms, is it our birthday? I'm curled like an embryo, she slides her fingers on my breast, I say don't, she stops cheryl is therw later j when she comes in says I might be a little jealous, turning her face slightly away then her face down into the bed she's crying scarred or acne face brown hair t had said 'i'd had you planned for rhoda' 'you think I'd have been ---- classier, with rhoda?' laughing, 'yes' what is it repeating: not wanting to be in history, deliberately, by wearing something, living somewhere, having certain friends, a career suspect: it's not liking the material enough other times: delight at the turns I'm acquiring, I can be this one, with this story dimly: it's not right anymore to live that way, in 'identity' but: the photograph of crooked woman badly cut dry hair, disappointed face shame, the fashionable sees and leans away someone sees her not getting purer, abandoning herself the young one said: you must do your best with me sontag's interview, she believes in the solidity and knows she can be important there explanation causally, 'my nervous system has changed, it learned to relax' [interview with Eleanor Wachtel on Writers and company on CBC]
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- - coming from the beach - I feel a nasty tension - it's here between the eyes - it's my mother - know why I'm jangled, I haven't eaten walk fast to eat, we smelled the ocean and saw yellow weeds tugged toward shore, one woman's brown legs - at the street - look who it is - she and zoe - looking at you you haven't seen - I step forward, you throw up your arm in front - did you think I would step into traffic to get to you - how are you doin - I'm doing fine - roughly - don't - she switches - how're you doing - I was very tired last night - you were a long way back - back from yourself, sleekly - I'm thinking does she mean back in or back away from - come in rough - the first instant I was staring at her whiskers, when she's withered, her pointed chin - luke's been saying he wants to come see the two of you, is that going to be possible? - a polite smile without an invitation and daphne - a click of hostility that also notices her swollen breasts and runs
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is this the day josie's at the fence talking to diana, it's love standing next to her liking her long head and val at makara is plump [Children's skipping song: The wind, the wind, the wind blows higher / Blows for (name) across the sky / She is pretty, she is handsome / she is the girl of the highland city / She goes courting 1-2-3 / Won't you tell us who is she] - jangled: with judy you're pretty and I know you're there, shy because not bold I'm interested in you because you thought you were crazy I could talk to you so you'd want to hear more I won't do that why not I'd be a letcherous older woman, it's because I want your body, what does it mean think carefully not that I want to touch it sexually although I tasted attraction looking at your hands holding boards it's your body I like and you - how're you related to it - you have a gentle persistence - you stand there wellmade long from shoulder to the ground what's attraction I'd have to carry through and know how to make love to everything there? lonely everything I know would have to because I couldn't think - ashamed and you is there another way to think dismay, do I have to feel myself in the old way, vulnerable to not being chosen in secret have been saying oh please love me so I'll be firm and right lying down on the bed what'm I being let into by this first refusing and then reappearing but I want to be flooding
Is it true that telling it all would clear it have to say it your hand down the chest made me cry out is the cry to show you how it was, a reply do you have it from your house ('she's hot and wants a lot') 20 paul's angry and I agree we go to find luke at the toyshop because j wants him to look happy again, it doesn't work, ten dollars isn't enough, we take him to britannia to meet brad thursday, the laundry, walking to koji's, two, tired, sake looking at the others in japan sometimes I like you and sometimes not evelyn's clean rooms uncomfortable you show sandy's your back hurts, you sleep on the other bed (come in the morning ardent red mouth) 21
22 then dry waking after good sleep, to see her no longer my sweet known luke watches the little television we hear and listen while lying in bed she smells blood while luke is outside (in the park) with ezra I test for patterns but feel he's alright we have delicious breakfast and go to an unknown part of southeast, where we stop accidentally at the address we want walk back past blackberries to a front garden sale, luke buys a battleship and I a pipe and j a grinder the houses I feel colonial, from the manner of a child on a step: they are the hari krishna people, gas for outdoor cooking, a devotee shows me the temple another shows her an ugly van we stop at a shopping mall, luke in the toys, we rest in a dark restaurant and it goes bad again smells to coquitlam luke is hungry and complains we feed him he sings we eat steak in another dark place she's obsessed and angry a beautiful twilight road along the inlet, crowds at the PNE, a darkness on the sidewalk 23 he packs privately I do a laundry among US navy folding carefully 'I have to hurry, my kid is catching a plane' we're remote I shout in the morning his calm calms me fast drive, packed things in the back seat, to the daycare, he looks in the windows, we find the firehall gone to get her, we're early, sun in stanley park roller skaters we eat hotdogs and share an o henry airport in his blue suede shoes, cap, blue nylon jacket, going back american, tired pale and unlit, sits on the floor reading a comic I stand nearly an hour getting his ticket, and then he's taken by a man who doesn't know to give us a moment j says aren't you going to hug him I take a few steps touch his arm he waves his fingers 'bye mummy and then drive home and she says she's going to give me tea and a friend for an english ailment happiness of being among vegetables 24
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amalgam we will no longer be our original selves - but we will not be possessed -
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[I watch video shot earlier at Video In on Powell St] 1 october
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