[Original ] [214] January 18, 1955
I do not know anything about Art with a capital A. What I do know about is my art. Because it concerns me. I do not speak for others. So I do not speak for things which profess to speak for others. My art, however, speaks for me. It lights my way.
[Original ] April 17, 1955
Then are we inhabited by history?
[Original ] September 4, 1955
Light dawns and marble heads. What the hell does this mean?
[Original ] June 3, 1959
This terror that hunts.
[Typed ]
August 29, 1960 Captain Kittinger, you brought us an early fall this year.
[Typed ]
October 31, 1968
I have no words. The finest cenotaph.
[Typed]
November 1, 1968
(e) (»)
A sen to read the dark.
[Typed ]
November 2, 1968
Tirer comme des lapins. m
[Original] December 8, 1968
God grant me distraction.
[B]
March 14, 1969
Who has never killed an hour? Not casually or without thought, but carefully: a premeditated murder of minutes. The violence comes from a combination of giving up, not caring, and a resignation that getting past it is all you can hope to accomplish. So you kill the hour. You do not work, you do not read, you do not daydream. If you sleep it is not because you need to sleep. And when at last it is over, there is no evidence: no weapon, no blood, and no body. The only clue might be the shadows beneath your eyes or a terribly thin line near the comer of your mouth indicating something has been suffered, that in the privacy of your life you have lost something and the loss is too empty to share.
EC]
September 10, 1970
Nothing to share with.
[Typed]
September 21, 1970
Perhaps in the margins of darkness, I could create a son who is not missing; who lives beyond even my own imagination and invention; whose lusts, stupidities, and strengths carry him farther than even he or I can anticipate; who sees the world for what it is; and consequently bears the burden of everyone's tomorrow with unprecedented wisdom and honor because he is one of the very few who has successfully interrogated his own nature. His shields are instantly available though seldom used. And those who value him shall prosper while those who would destroy him shall perish. He will fulfill a promise I made years ago but failed to keep.
[Typed ]
December 15, 1974
As often as I have lingered on Hudson in his shallop, I have in the late hours turned my thoughts to Quesada and Molino's journey across those shallow waters, wondering aloud what they said, what they thought, what gods came to keep them or leave them, and what in those dark waves they finally saw of themselves? Perhaps because history has little to do with those minutes, the scene survives only in verse: The Song of Quesada and Molino by [XXXX], I include it here in its entirety.
[D]
April 29, 1975
Mother wants you to call home STOP It is 105 degrees and rising STOP White Christmas indeed!
Bada-Bing, Bada-Bang, Bada-Gone! Bing! Bang! Booooom!
[Typed]
February 11, 1984
Is it possible to love something so much, you imagine it wants to destroy you only because it has denied you?
[E]
August 4, 1985
I dream of vampires. I dream of god. I dream of no vampires. I dream of no god. I dream of nothing. And yet that too is still my dream.
[F]
May 2, 1988
The angel of his youth became the devil of his maturity. He went out with women when he was young, always holding something in reserve. There would always be a reason to break it off, which opened the door to a multitude of relationships. Heaven. Or so he thought. As age encroached upon his sensibilities and form, he longed for something with enough vitality to endure. But the covering cherub of his Lothario days had stayed with him and was no longer so angelic. It haunted him, guarded him, kept him from intimacy, promising the ash dry glory of so many toppling relationships, toppling like dominos, one after another, ad infinitum, or at least until he died.
[G]
August 30, 1988
"He wanted to go to bed with her immediately, pull the sheets around them, dig his toes into the mattress, her heals pushing against his calves, her fingers running rivers along his sides. But these days fantasies flourish and die like summer flies."
[Typed ] March 18, 1989
A maze. Amazing maze. A maze meant... What did it mean? A May zing perhaps. M.A.s in the bush or amidst the maize. Quite amazing huh? Not to worry I am not that impressed either but grant an old man a chance to play.
[H]
February 8, 1990
It stinks here. I know what stink is and it stinks here. Cat piss, rotting fruit, moldy bread. Something. I am certain that girl is at fault. She must not have taken the garbage out. She can read (I will
find out soon if she can transcribe) and she can flirt. But I wager she has failed to take the garbage out. I should get rid of her. I should take it out myself. I hate garbage. It stinks. I should throw it out myself. I should throw it all out.
M
October 11, 1990
Incomplete. Syllables to describe a life. Any life. I cannot even discuss Giinter Nitschke or Norberg-Schulz. I merely wanted Glas (Paris: Editions Galilee, 1974). That is all. But the bastards reply it is unavailable. Swine. All of them. Swine. Swine. Swine.
Mr. Leavey, Jr. and of course Mr. Rand will have to do.
[/]
April 22, 1991
An atrocity sinking into waters of darkness; without order or bars of earth; where light must mean shadow and reason dies in the hold:
((((((((((((Jonah in the belly of the beast))))))))))))
[/]
May 3, 1991
Stars to live by. Stars to steer by. Stars to die by.
[/]
May 26, 1991
Kutch Dekta? Kutch Nahin, Sahib.
[/]
May 30, 1991
Do not wake me from this slumber, but be assured that just as I have wept much, I have also wandered many roads with my thoughts.
Reminiscent of another film by my eye fell in. Aye. K
[J]
June 30,1991
Goddamn! Goddamn, Goddamn it! Goddamn! Goddamn! God Damn! Yes, of course write it down! Write all of it down! Everything I say! Every goddamn word! Goddamn! Capital G!
Goddamn it all! All of it, every last word. Goddamn her wrong!
[•/]
July 27, 1991
Make no mistake, those who write long books have nothing to say. Of course those who write short books have even less to say.
[K]
August 7, 1992
How did I end up here? I know of course. I am referring to the itinerary I followed. But that hardly helps me understand the whys any better. I still walk out into that dusty courtyard and stand amazed, amazed that I should have ended up stuck in such a shithole, then I think to myself "Not only did you end up here, you are going to die here too!" Of course Hollywood is the land of the blind with churches for the blind so in my case it makes a certain sense. You think I am bitter about being here, yes? You think I am bitter about this grave I live in and that bed of weeds I scratch around in? You think I am bitter about dying? What do you know? You know nothing about bitterness because you know nothing about love. Get out. Get out! No, stay. Please stay. Let us read something. Forget everything I just said. It is not so bad. I am just old and you know a good deal about love and I would like to think I know something more because of my age. Let us read something.
[M]
April 3, 1992
Walls black like black waters when they are heavy and seem to belong to other seas.
[M]
December 3, 1992
Why can I sleep no more?
[N]
May 7, 1993
The house is history and history is uninhabited.
[O]
June 19,1994
Prometheus, thief of light, giver of light, bound by the gods, must have been a book.
[O]
November 11, 1994
Defend a stray's hun? Never used the word. Never will.
[P: Written in the margin of the December 15, 1974 entry.} April 3, 1995
"Forgive me please for including this. An old man's mind is just as likely to wander as a young man's, hut where a young man will forgive the stray, an old man will cut it out. Youth always tries to till