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Journal Entry
Alan Moore & Mitch Jenkins
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On the eleventh of the month he scrupulously makes his journal
Entry for that evening, noting length of time that meditations were
Sustained throughout the day with details of results, remarking
Casually in passing that apparently some hijacked planes have been
Flown into buildings in New York. His only comment is the observation
That even apparently rock-solid mass-consensual reality can flip
Into a new, unprecedented state as easily as can the shifting flow
Of situations in a dream or nightmare, just like that. He finishes
The entry, stands and crosses to the window, blinking at the urban
Nebula suspended floating on the dark outside as he removes his
Spectacles and cleans them, wipes away the city that s reflected
In each lens. Replacing them, he stands and listens to the silent
Bedroom for a moment, then he nods and chuckles in reply
Downstairs, the woman next door s hall clock sounds the quarter hour
September ends, and with it the retreat. His brother returns with a
Suitcase full of rare African monsters and becomes the Cactus Club
S new treasurer, takes over from the previous incumbent, now
Incarcerated. Life at Jim and Mary s 1930s dream home soon gets back
To normal, but with a Greek goddess lodging there in the back
Bedroom. He cuts down the drinking drastically and keeps up the
Selenic ritual practices in one form or another, even now his
Hermitry has ended. His relationship with her becomes domestic
Comfortable, as his relationship with his imagination similarly
Sees improvements, unsurprisingly when that s the faculty in him
She represents. He s cut back on the madrigals and the Elizabethan
Authors to immerse himself within an absinthe haze of decadence
Theophile Gautier and Ernest Dowson and Richard Le Gallienne with
That inspiring bifurcated Afro-doux. He s crafting some of his best
Work, revising Somnium to weed out any self-indulgent soppiness
And meanwhile making a return to US comic books with Johnny Future
Elegantly purging all the too-rich scientific romance and delicious
Planet-saurus cheesecake from his system in an unselfconscious
Paean to imaginative fantasy. He feels the goddess with him. He
Believes in her, of course he does, but he trained as a chemist
He s a Gemini, the lovers, Solvay or analysis, and he can t let
Himself off the rationalist hook that easily. A King of Swords, he
Knows about the cutting edge of the discriminating intellect, knows
About Occam and his razor. The most simple explanation for what s
Happening to him is obviously madness, the hypothesis
Requiring least elaborate unlikelihood or extra-
Mathematical dimensions: he s a lonely old man on a
Hilltop who has lost his love, his bearings and his mind
A psychological denouement. No more sheltering in Todorov s convenient
Semantic stutter, no more hesitation. Only one way he can play it
Now, and that s Tibet Rules. Only one way he can tell if she s a
Supernatural manifestation or the symptom of some brain disease
A tulpa or a tumour, and that s if someone else can see her too
He takes the sullen, bad-complexioned Silverlink train up from
Euston to Northampton, hails a cab from Castle station, and this
Whole account swerves unavoidably towards its Blackwood ending
Stands revealed as a John Silence story all along: a secret worship
Ancient sorceries, but in a different idiom, a different century
The coy narrator makes another entrance, pads his part, prepares to
Wrap things up with a traditional voice-over finish: When the hackney
Carriage brought a much-loved colleague of almost four decades to
My doorstep on that evening, I could not anticipate the philosophical
Experiment in which I should be forced to act my part, nor yet the
Terrible and marvellous event to which I should be made a witness
So he s sitting upright on my sofa, leaned against its back
His arms hung limp down by his sides, and he asks if I m
Ready to begin and like a twat I say yes and he shuts his eyes
Oh, Kyree Selene
Oh, Kyree Selene
Oh, Kyree Selene
Oh no. Oh yes. Oh fuck she s blue, electric ultraviolet blue on her
Illuminated contours, see-through in the shadows like a special
Effects hologram, she s riding him, she s straddling his lap, her
Narrow back is turned towards me and she s nothing like her
Picture, nothing like the way he sees her and describes her
Skinny as a rake she looks about fifteen, looks Turkish naked
Not even a moon crown, a stephanie, there s just a narrow
Band around her forehead holding back her long hair that s
Blue-black not auburn, and there at the front a solitary
Peacock feather sticking up but curling to a crescent at its tip
Oh, Kyree Selene
Oh, Kyree Selene
Oh, Kyree SeleneThere s a confusion where their arms are, he s got
Four: the two still limp there at his sides and the translucent pair
Raised up and circling her waist, ghostly ring-heavy fingers resting
At the small of her thin back. Her arms are likewise wrapped around
Him, tucked beneath his raised up phantom limbs and passing through
The real ones. Her head rests on his right breast, cranes round to
Look back over her left shoulder at me, sitting here and gaping
And her eyes, her eyes, her eyes are the one thing I recognise from
The framed image that he keeps beside his bed, takes with him if
He s visiting. The gaze, so full of sex and invitation and vitality
That it s like stepping on a third rail, clenching both hands on
A cattle fence, you can t let go, you can t let go. These are the
Violet eyes of beautiful Bohemia. This is the radiant face of Jazz
Herself, and her perfume is Gaudi, is Magritte, is Baudelaire and
Satie, new gates burning in the corners of her smile, and we ve
All had her. There s no man or woman that I know who hasn t spent
An hour, a night between her thighs, lapping the moonfoam, drowning
In her, worshipping, but not like him, not like this. She s theology
In flames, her perfect archetypal arse a noon blue apple shifting
Restless in his lap as she attempts to twist her torso round
Fluorescence pooling in its hollows, tries to look at me across her
Shoulder, O Kyrie Selene, O Kyrie Selene, O Kyrie Selene, and then
He moves, he sits up on the sofa, opening his eyes, and she s
Dispersed, the signal breaks up in a
Luminous mauve talcum, and we lose her
This is no good. She keeps telling me she wants to change position
I could see her. She was straddling your lap, and you d got
Four arms, one pair up around her back and circling her
Waist. She d got her head on your right shoulder. She was
Trying to turn it round and look back over her left shoulder
At me. That was fucking unbelievable, man. Fucking awesome
Yeah, that s just how we were sitting, but she wouldn t keep
Still, she was twisting round and looking at you. She says
That she wants to get down off my lap so that she can sit
Facing you. Let me just put my glasses on and get sorted
The remainder of the evening passes in convivial, illuminating
Dialogue, or sometimes trialogue, with funny and disarmingly frank
Interjections that he relays from the empty space beside him at one
End of the settee. Come one o clock and they make their apologies
Go off to bed while I sit up and have another joint before retiring
Give the singing violet fire a chance to drain out from my nerve
Ends. In the morning they go back to London, slyly travelling on a
Single ticket, and I ve missed my opportunity for a dramatic
Blackwood/Machen/Lovecraft/Hodgson ending to the piece: Reader
I shot him. No such luck. He s back on Shooters Hill, completing his
Cellini study with a slew of comics projects looming up on the
Horizon, working his way through a fourth and maybe final draft of
Somnium. Huge milky fragments of the buried hilltop citadel continue
To be dug out in his dreams, hauled up from trenches by departed
Uncles, faecal muck wiped from the cryptic, perfect bas-reliefs. He
Ll soon have enough pieces to completely reconstruct the lunar
Palace, to impose it with his will upon the summit, a magnesium
Ribbon whiteness flaring over Eltham, lighting up the progress estate
That the Lawrence killers came from in all likelihood, where once
Were housed Canaries, female First World War munitions workers down
From Woolwich Arsenal who d been turned a brilliant yellow by the
Chemicals they handled. The eternal halls of Diana Regina reinstated
Thus, he ll walk beneath a grand triumphal archway where the
Relocated Bull now stands into a shining cloister, lose himself
Forever in the whispering ballrooms, in the library of imaginary
Books, and that s the last that anyone will see of him. Thin air s a
Possibility. His brother Chris will end up being fingered for his
Disappearance, what with all the homicidal Cactus Club connections
And the sinister glass eye: an open and shut case. He s happy. Yes
He s living in a dream, but that s the deal, those are the rules
The only way that he can be with her. Re-reading Keats original
Endymion, he notices the poet s curious additions to the myth
A woman that the virginal Endymion has an affair with, who is
Somehow necessary to prepare him for his union with the goddess
This brief love interest referred to only as the Indian . He thinks
Of his Brazilian beauty at her qigong study centre, and he wonders
What to make of everything. There never was a shepherd called
Endymion, no dream oracle in bygone Caria known by that name. These
Things, they only happen once. Once in a blue moon. Latmos was a
Metaphor to represent the traffic flume of Shooters Hill, its oracle
Cave s rough draft premonitions of his bedroom with its double-
Glazed mouth looking out across the ancient sparkling city. He s
Endymion. That s what the 4am voice meant, October 2nd 1976. It wasn
T giving him a hint. It was identifying him. Keats work was prophesy
A future legend channelled down the sightline linking Shooters Hill
With Box Hill to the south. He s woken up to moonlight while the rest
Of us are still asleep, still tangled moaning in the clammy sheets of
History and with vain phantoms keeping our unprofitable strife. It s
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