Journal Entries
Writing into Fact
Posted Oct 6, 2005
This, for once, is fact. I would like to talk to writers about Writing into Fact.
Recently, I have had this thing going, called Writing into Dream. Just yesterday, this lady I know in my hometown was asking me if I ever Wrote into Fact - she reckoned that Fact is not only stranger than Fiction, but stranger than Dream.
She was also suggesting that if I Wrote into Fact for a while, I would free myself (and others around me) from ridiculous things like suicidal crows, and other images of uncertain origin.
We made a deal. I decided this morning to Write into Fact for one whole day. So early this morning I called into the coffee bar for my espresso, as I do every morning, and wrote in my notebook:
"I see leopard-print everywhere, not just on leopards."
I sat with this Fact for an hour, until it was time for me to leave the coffee bar. Unfortunately, on this day, nothing in the outside world would back me up. On any other day, someone would have come into the coffee bar with a leopard-print carrier bag, or a lady would have arrived wearing a leopard-print skirt - or something, just something, to redeem my situation. I felt upset. Dream, where are you? I was homesick.
So I started to cycle home, feeling upset.
In the town where we live there is an art school. Some of the students are very beautiful - all pierced and tattooed and pink-haired and fire-eating (no - not a Dream dragon - that's a fact). Anyway, I was waiting at the black and white zebra-like crossing (fact) for a line of humans (plus a three-legged lurcher) (fact) to cross over - and one of these humans was an incredible woman, wearing a pink coat, blue 'doc martin' boots - and her hair was very very creamy yellow - almost shaved, with brown leopard spots printed into it.
Fact, fact, fact. I see leopard-print everywhere, not just on leopards.
Sweet poetic world. Fact is stranger than Fiction, for sure. Fact is also stranger than Dream?
Helen
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Latest reply: Oct 6, 2005
The Story of Purple Crow
Posted Oct 4, 2005
This is the story of Purple Crow. I wrote it, this day of 4th October, 2005, for absolutely no reason whatsover. Its a fact/fiction/dream creation. In my younger days, i.e. about two weeks ago, I would have submitted it as a Guide Entry, but Dream has re-arranged my brain to such an extent that I've gone all sensitive.
The Story of Purple Crow
At 7.26 this morning, Purple Crow flew at high speed into the side of the Museum - turning himself into a splattered mess of feathers, bones and claws. His mysterious death was recorded on the CCTV.
The People of Crow Kingdom have been talking about it all day.
I often sit with the People of Crow Kingdom - in the cafe at the railway station. The People of Crow Kingdom is just my name for them. They are a group of crow-watchers. The station is their daytime home. They keep notebooks of crow facts and crow drawings.
There are many crows at the railway station. They lurk on the side of the platform, waiting for scraps of burger and chips - or carrion, on those lucky days.
Purple Crow was one of these. We all called him Purple Crow. His feathers had a purple sheen in certain light. He would turn one way - shiny black. He would turn the other way - shiny purple. Purple, black, purple, black, there beside the railway track.
Once I went to the Museum with one of the People from Crow Kingdom.
We were in search of the bird-man for some crow facts. The bird-man works in the bird-room. He sits all day behind glass cases of bird skeletons.
Last night I dreamed about the bird-man. He was in the bird-room as usual, only he was wearing a black silk shirt. It was a strange shirt. It had a purple sheen in certain light. He would turn one way - shiny black. He would turn the other way - shiny purple.
In the dream, the bird-man looked up at me - rather urgent and anguished - as if he wanted to whisper a secret.
Just as I leaned forward to interpret his whisper, I awoke. 7.26 a.m. - four minutes ahead of my alarm.
I have felt nervous all day.
Helen
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Latest reply: Oct 4, 2005
Just one of these days (in dreamland)
Posted Sep 25, 2005
September 05
Its just one of these days (in dreamland).
A fiction-mouse has chewed through my birthday cards.
I am feeling factory grey in the lurching day.
Sky-horses gallop across indigo starscapes.
I breathe deeply into momentary mistrust, while energy snakes devour my ankles.
I walk through a graveyard, and all the headstones are crooked, like the skeletons are pushing up, and I see an inscription which reads "kaput are my investigations into Truth, kaput are my letters to my Aunty Rosemary, kaput is everything, even breakfast..."
the TV static is flickering black and white shapes over a lime green plastic cactus. One shape turns into my grandmother's dog. It is eating chips and meatbones, and it barks at me five times before it remembers it is just shadowplay.
I am playing "Snakes and Ladders" on the palm of my hand. The sky is criss-crossed with the flight lines of jets and gulls.
When all this is over, I shall turn my knowledge into paper lambs and watch them trot into the centre of a primrose.
"I am not a dreamer for nothing" said Mrs. C. with her hair tied up in green silk dream-threads. "I am trying to access the Great Holy Infinite. I scrape at surfaces and drape myself in greens, I peer into hallways writing rhymes and tragic scenes. Just now the Great Holy Infinite sent me a text saying It is busy for now but It'll send It's best friend Rudi."
Someone gave me a silver coin and an entrance ticket to the House of Reptiles. I bought a dinosaur keyring.
It's just one of these days (in dreamland)
Helen (re: writing into Dream)
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Latest reply: Sep 25, 2005
Brion Gysin
Posted Sep 8, 2005
Brion Gysin (1916 - 1986)
"painter, writer, sound poet, lyricist, performance artist -
his enormous range of radical ideas would become a source of inspiration for artists of the Beat Generation, as well as for their successors ... among them David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Keith Haring and Laurie Anderson."
from the cover notes of "Brion Gysin - Tuning into the Multimedia Age (Thames and Hudson)
"Poets are supposed to liberate the words - not to chain them in phrases. Who told poets they were supposed to think? Poets are meant to sing and make words sing. Poets have no words of their very own. Writers don't own their words." Brion Gysin
that's a good quote I think - well, I like it anyway - BG kind of inspires me, even though I think he was a bit of a wide-boy. May he R.I.P and how do you tell dead people that you appreciate what they did with their lives? Helen
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Latest reply: Sep 8, 2005
I saw my mother's ghost ... etc
Posted Sep 3, 2005
I saw my mother's ghost in the folds of phantom skin that wrap around my night-time eye
I saw my mother's ghost in the speck of saliva glistening on the pile of her secret letters
I saw my mother's ghost in the strand of blood beneath my shirt, that I can never ever wash away
... Was that a shadow-flutter I saw on my paper? Just the butterfly effect of changing light? ......Am I feversick? .... The essence of ghost lives in the spaces between words ... said who .... said you? ....
Helen September 05
I need coffee. I need yellow lines stretching into a symphonic mysterious red velvet sky. I need peanuts to eat with ginger nectar and I need some kind of roadmap. When I was five I looked into the mandala-centre of a tulip and whispered WHAT?
end of notebook page ....
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Latest reply: Sep 3, 2005
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