h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

........is a funny whisper .. like the ghost of a memory ..... not substantial enough to be a story .......yet not transparent enough to be a non-story ................ .............

I love these funny whispers .............they just came to me ......even though its twenty to three .......in the morning ........ .............

and somewhere between the non-story and the story ...........



Last night in hazy moonlight
I heard a distant bell ..................
It brought to mind a story
That a friend of mine did tell.................

He spoke about a chapel
Upon a rocky coast ....................
And the faithful few who pray there
Do hear the strangest ghost!....................

So then my friend decided
To go in search of truth ...........
By light of dawn he journeyed
With the zeal of hopeful youth .............

Yet twilight was around him
When he reached the chapel door................
He sat upon the step awhile
The ocean waves did roar.................

And then he swears he heard it!
It brought him to his feet................
That eerie bell was ringing
His heart did miss a beat! ...............

For in that ancient chapel
Upon that rocky coast..........
The faithful few who pray there
Do hear the strangest ghost...............

And what creates this haunting?
No-one can really tell ....................
Where does this ringing come from?
For this chapel has no bell! ..............

hmm

are you out of writer gaol yet mister DG? I can't bring you now because its 2.40 am ..... so you will have to write throughout the night instead.... hah! ... ...

off to remember some more whispers ..........owls! I need owls! well... maybe one owl ... I need to write a non-story about an owl ....

goodnight peoples

Still in writer gaol.

Too much work tonight, just saw this...your fault, Elektra went out and bought the Woodstock CD set...

Even though we weren't there, because our parents would never have let us out...still in high school...

Love the poem.

Ring that bell.

hah! so that's my owl spirit! ... hoo-too! ... yay ... hmm ... of course ... ....lured by hoo-too! ... .. so I can't fly away then? into the dark and hazy night? .... nope .. OK ..



Woodstock CD set! Nice one Elektra .. can I come to your place please to listen to your CDs and watch DVDs and drink coffee ..wah .. I wish .. I wonder will Ariel approve of your purchase? ...



Woodstock ... amazing ... is there any music-moment more iconic than that Hendrix moment? .... (heads out to order Woordstock CD pack ) ...



the power of music .... Glasto was so celebratory this year! .. more so than ever ... about 160 thousand people ... all celebrating wild wondrous everythings .. something for all generations .. all cultures .. under the summer sky .. and it hardly rained at all ..



Neil Young on the main stage .... thousands of people with flags and crazy costumes and crazy hope .. all singing over and over .... whoah ...



uh oh ..... I appear to have visited this Cafe at 2.40 am this morning .... ..... what??? .... heheheheheheh .. extraordinary tenses in that nocturnal offering ... .. does it take place in the past ...present ...future ...or something entirely other ? .. it all looks so different in the white light of day ... I blame it on the early hour .. that strange zone between dark and dawn ....its been ages since I've written by night ... I used to do my finest works when working night shift ..(in the tea break of course .. ahem) ... uh oh .. hmm .. not sure about this ... .. I'm too old to lose sleep ... ..

......

interesting though .... almost ... not .... .... I realise that .. for me ... the script of a story (or in my case an almost-story) ... is written to be read aloud .... storytelling as a vocal communication .....



so ...... how does one adapt a script for the page? ..... to indicate the word emphasis ... so that the eye can interpret .. as well as the voice ...... hmm



I think Gerard Manley Hopkins included his own type of written accents in his poems .... a visual representation of meter and word emphasis and rhythm .. or did he use existing accents ...or squiggly things .. that are part of a poetic tradition that I can't remember anything about ... ... ... have to check .....refresh the old brain cells ... school was a long time ago .. hmm



.. not that I am comparing myself to Hopkins ... but just interested ....

for example .... the last verse of my nocturnal rambling ,,,when read aloud .. sounds like this ....

And what creates this haunting ...
No-*one* (emphasis on one) can really tell ..
Where *does* this ringing come from .... (breath)
This chapel has no bell! ....

yet for the page I would have to change it to .. for an easier written emphasis ... sort of thing ... like ...

I suppose this is where punctuation comes in handy ... hmm .. I must balance these dots .................... more exclamation marks !!!!!!!! ... and dashes ----- .... and comma comma comma ,,,,, full stop ......colon ::: ... semi colon :;;;;;; ::::

I need coffee .... ... ....

I intend to write some more whispers ... uh oh ... somewhere between the non story and the story .... may the question mark ????????? forever protect me from certainty .... .....

....

if you don't get out of gaol today my friend .. I shall visit you in the guise of a slightly bemused owl in search of semi-colons ;;;;;;

...you really can't.

(Hopkins makes me laugh.)

Browning makes me laugh. Poor guy didn't know many swear words, he was like me.

So, he thought that line, 'and owls and bats and cowls and....' meant, well, a nun's headdress.

It didn't.

Still in gaol, although apparently...

...I have ben twittered.

Twittered. I don't even own one of those things.

.... I just checked that Browning line ... ...never knew that poem .. no kidding .. serious? ... would get yikesed? ... ... hmm .. ah well ... cor honestly .. the rigours .... and the responsibility ... of the word ... ... even when used innocently ....and playfully ..

but I suppose the filter doesn't know the difference between playful exploration and tarnished intent ... it has to check it all out .. so that's alright then ...

cor honestly .. art art ... the rigours of art (clutches brow)

(heads off to confines of playskool notebook and electric piano ... )

(comes back in again ...)



yesterday I met an artistic friend who has given up the rigours of the word for the rigours of the paintbrush ... I told her I had a fear of indelible ink but that I was in love with question marks.... .... and that I had just written this one-minute piece involving piano chords that are supposed to filter mystically and mysteriously through the spaces between words and moments ... and that the title of this piece is ....



and we both fell about laughing .... ... which helps with the rigours ...



I will be absent from this hopeful Cafe now for a day or two .. because I am once again running late with my e-mails .. as my friends will be noticing .. .... and I am not computer adept enough to do e-mails and hoo-tooo on the same day ...

byeeeeeeee ...for a day or two ... and see you on e-mail ....

I wish I knew more about poetry, so I could analyze exactly what you are doing.

You seem to be channeling my favorite poetess, Emily Dickinson in rhyme and meter.

When I was in charge of the network, I always gave the peeps a blast of Emily at login time in the morning.

Hey Emily, Meet Catcuscafe, the new Boss.

There's a rocky coast in Oregon where I want my soul to rest. My friends have agreed to rent a mule and wagon pack me in salt in a tarp for the journey.

A TRAIN went through a burial gate,
A bird broke forth and sang,
And trilled, and quivered, and shook his throat
Till all the churchyard rang;

And then adjusted his little notes, 5
And bowed and sang again.
Doubtless, he thought it meet of him
To say good-by to men.

PS

... I remember everything! .. too late! too late! .. .

... the lighthouse! the rocky Oregon coast! .... you are the friend .. in my dream ....

so what is the chapel? and the ghostly bell .. hmm

dear Emily ... may your spirit ever protect me from the absurdity of my pen .... and please help me to write a proper story ....

so that I don't get twittered ... unless that's a good thing .. in which case I'll stay .... ...

heheheheheheh .. laters ...

ah yes .... yes .. yes ...

I would say more .... .. but right now I seem to just significantly staring into the quiver and shiver in the atmosphere made by the wine-red peonies ..... with their momentary flutter of velvet petal and greencurl leaf and crown of diamond raindrops and .... ah yes yes yes .... ...

uh oh .. I think its going to a week of arty textures ... ..expect arty textures ... ...

ah yes ... yes .. what is poetry .. to me ... I ask myself the same question ... oh Mr Phredster of the Highway .. .. rhythm ... meter ... the inner-mantra .... that strange heartbeat ... the mantra of that curious highway ... that runs like a vein through my head ...

incredibly arty textures to be continued ... ...

Hey hey hey, Cactuscafe. Do you know that peonies are so tightly folded into their buds that they require to open up?
Symbiosis at its best. Fun factoid for the day for my beauty cactuscafe!

hullo sweetie Elektra luv .. that's an amazing fact! ... what a myriad of miracle wonder facts is the poem of this life! ...

thankyou for that ....

yes ... facts like that really are poems aren't they .... be good to try to collect hundreds of miracle magic facts ... then put them to a rhythm ...and a rhyme ... then that would be a poem story .. sort of ....

symbiosis ... symbiosis ... ah yes yes yes .... beauty word beauty word ...............



laters ......

but then the bird did eat it
lest it speak another word ..

I had this fevered half-dream last night about a speaking spider type entity that got eaten by a bird ... ...

it was kind of a strange bird .. it was a good bird .. it was a giant sparrow ... about forty foot high ... it had a quillpen tucked under its wing ... ...

and I was the spider entity ... .... .. with eight legs and doing a daft tangly spangly dance ... ... except I didn't really get eaten .. kind of funny ... ... I just resided inside the sparrow .... and as far as I know I'm still in there ... kind of like Jonah .. not ... ..

... analysis .... ... I think the giant sparrow might be the Spirit of Poetry having a trickster laugh .... .. sent to twitter me .... .... hahahahahah .. although I still don't know what that means ... ... I like my new sparrow home .. hope it doesn't spit me out just yet .. or ever ..... ......

Momeee I'm not ready to be an evolving maturing poet-spider-entity ..... .....

hmm ...

what?? I was just contemplating a couple of further h2 challenges .. then seems I just ran back to sparrow mom ... ... except I think I am about to be spat out .... ...

what???

time again ... ... uh oh ....



laters ....

symbiosis ... symbiosis .. ah ... so much to think about ...

.....

what a funny world is the dreamworld ... ... the Spirit of Poetry ...in the guise of a giant sparrow ... must have spat me out .. glad it spat not .... .. hahahahahahaha ..anyway ... and I am no longer a questing spider entity ... ... this means I am facing all my challenges and being incredibly grown up and interesting .... hmm .... .. in my dreams ... hahahahahaha ....



.. just a wandering word-painter ... eating cupcakes in a roadstop pinic area beside the MiddleWay .. thinking about symbiosis and feeding crumbs to the crows ... (and the sparrows .. but not the giant ones ..) ... ...

into the music of the spheres I go ...





hmm .. not sure if the music of the spheres involves cupcakes ...

I would love to hear the music of the spheres ...

....as a kid I used to think I was hearing it ... kind of operatic and mysterious ... .. but it turned out to be my brother playing Lily Pons on scratchy 78s on the old gramophone in the attic ...



ah Lily Pons ... where are you now ... with your operatic arias and your fragile photographic beauty ... I don't know much about you ... but thankyou for your celestial atmosphere ....



just time for a couple of almost-relevant arty textures ... ... then

... and somewhere between waterfalls of sparklelight and the jangle tangle of nerves ...I hear the melody that I lost all those years ago in a haze and a maze of questions .....and somewhere between the miracle of you and the tremble of transience ... I think about spaces and faces and neon signs advertising pizza and paradise ... and those translucent moments when even pencils fail ... when words flicker and surrender to that music I heard all those years ago in a haze and a maze of wonder ... ....

and ..........

whose wild eyes? ..... ahhh ....

hmm ... I just remembered something ...the music of the spheres isn't exactly music ...like ... its something entirely other .... now I have to remember what it is I just remembered ... and who told me about what I just remembered and who told me they heard this music ... even though they didn't exactly hear it ...and it isn't really music ...

but it is very beautiful .....



for this train of thought I need cupcakes ...

and a long long journey through labyrinthine mysteries ......

despite recent excursions into the AWW .. I must admit I do feel most awakened and invigorated .... is this me? normally I would be dead .... ....

perhaps I am dead .... a mere phantomcactus .... ....



ah yes yes yes .... I have found my vocation though .. now I am so in love with being a journal artist that I think I might marry my myself .. which is probably easier than marrying someone else .. although I did that also ... .. ... ....




somewhere between visions of absurd paradise .. and the after-effects of all this tinsel and trouble and tragedy and truth .. I think about seven thousand music shapes fluttering around a star ......



and somewhere between these footprints that run around in spirals .. searching for rhyme and time and toffees .. and honey and money and something funny ....I remember the ache of your exquisite smile .....

and ....

what?? ....

I'm on a roll here ... ....

and all these days and nights on these endless roads that lead to endless roads that lead to mosaic pathways of kaleidoscopic thought-fragments snaking crazily to the stars ....

and all these scars of our wild surrender .. which we wear so proudly under our jackets ... while we sit in the corner drinking wine .... pretending to be actors or photographers ... writing absurd poems on torn train tickets and along the lines of our hands .. hoping someone will wonder who we are .... except even the joketeller left years ago ... aeons have passed .. and suddenly we get it .. and our laughter echoes through this strange hotel .....

and this is my poem ... this is my offering ... this is the dust that I scatter on the shrine ... this is the ash of my deep deep hunger ..

and .....................



what?

....

and .......................... ......

and what??? ....

..... ....and once I knew a man who said to me .....

......



but before I could say .. he had vanished ... leaving me a black leather bookmark and a tiny silver crucifix and a timetable of buses that run to the coast ....



....no-one knows for sure where he went .....soneone thought they saw him in a bakery cafe ... someone else thought they saw him buying a map and some postcards of a place with a blue sky ... in one of those giftshops where you can buy everything except for what you really need ...



and ........................

and what is happening here? I appear to have left the harbour .. am I lost in the loop? ... out on the open sea?.. writing what I would call my masterwork?... ah yes ...it appears to be in the form of a fragmented stream of consciousness prose poem .... which might continue for the rest of myne lyfe ... lost in the loop??.. oh no not at all! .. exclamation mark! ... circa 1880! ...

marvellous days these are .... at last! at last! .. trust me! I have absolutely no idea what I am talking about ...... ..... never trust a phantomcactus who knows what she is talking about .... .....



my recent risky venture into the AWW was most productive .. and has led to all this .... I found it to be a most exhilirating and creative experience ... thanks to the creative souls who work there ... who run the workshop ... who can meet you and match you and offer you ideas and wisdoms ...and drive you gloriously crazy ..... ... no point doing a workshop if one emerges unchanged ...that's what I say ... go in there .. and lay it down .. spontaneously .. like it is ...like live theatre ... and then the can change into the .... and make a space for new things to happen ... new ways to go ... a re-invention ... it is a workshop after all.. and should at best be an evolutionary experience ...



I feel I have found that place .. in myself .. where art therapy and erm .. art .. do unite ....



write it down .. for mental survival ... but be also able to share the fruits thereof ... in various contexts .... and leave it all behind for my grandchildren to read .. except I have no children ...and therefore no grandchildren ... and anyway they would tease me for being so like 19th century ...

OK so I will leave it for the cat ....

however .... (and this might drive certain friends crazy ... ...... ) this fragmented journal format remains my vocation ... I offer only fragments ..this is my expression ....this is my poem .. right now .... I am easy with these fragments .. I love these fragments ... they tell me things ... I have no idea who they are or why they smile at me in this way ...



who knows .. one day I might create a Guide Entry Not For Review .. entitled Box of Fragments To Be Left for my Cat ....and then I can add to it over the years .. and then I can share it every now and then with my fellow hootoooers .. the owl people .. and everyone can tell me that I appear to have a lot of dots ......................

or invite people in here to add fragments of their own .. or emigrate to a place far from here .... where I will eat only cupcakes and write postcards from crumbling hotels in abandoned coastal resorts .. .. hmm ...

......

so ... on I go .....

let me write .. into the night ... this is my delight .. alright .....

... and what about the pattern-crushers? those masked figures who lurk on the borderlines of consciousness .. with knives concealed under a cloak of artistic purity ....

hah! they are but dream ... they are but dream ..

who says you cannot feel that pattern? .. and why shouldn't the fragrance of wild honeysuckle be wrapped in a silken orchestral symphony? ... and remind you of the black and white squares of a chessboard? who says these connections are mixed up? I love these mixed up senses! ... so hey ...they might not be art but they warm my heart .... ...

and suddenly I see a figure .. no ... three figures .. two men .. one woman ... there is a garden .. the fragrance of wild honeysuckle ... summer light ... a game of chess is happening at a garden table .. who are these people? are they memory? are they dream? .... there is music .... is it an orchestral soundtrack ... is it a radio? is this a film? .. or is it the music of the spheres ... or something entirely other ...



and all the while the alphabet angels hover over these flawed and aching hungry word textures .... ...... keep close to me alphabet angels! ... never let me stray ... I love you ...let me be a servant of beauty and hope ... and if I should become lost in mental darkness or uncertainty ... help me to find the poetry of that darkness so that I can write it down and therefore transcend it .. or work with it ... or understand it .....or live with it .....or feed it cupcakes ... .. in a way that harms no-one .... and therefore sets me free to bring delight or inspiration or kindness or coffee .... ... to those in my life .. or to strangers .. or to the cat .. .... ....



and now I have to be offline for a day or so or more ............ but my notebook will tell the tale .....ah yes yes yes .....




and ...................... laters ...............

????????????????????????