Hierophany

May 25, 2002

CAFÉ SOLE

[3:05 am]

Brook’s message today: tulips. A nice one. Went out to DJ Café Sole. Drank four rum & cokes in rapid fire succession rum en coke en ja! Der coke! Der rum & coke! Ya. Each was six euro. Plenty of cigarettes. Gasp! But all around a good time. So many beautiful people! Gorgeous. Mmm. Who needs rot lights?

Em danced. I got sweaty and took some breathers. A couple of people spoke to me, one guy one girl and all’s I said was ‘ja!’ What could I say? Ik speakst Engels. Ik nïet spreckt Dutch. Ah, hell. Music was OK. No better than a B- actually. Sax soloist at end was a good idea but off to a discordant rocky start and that’s when we left. There about two hours, 12-2 and enjoyed ourselves. I checked my sweater and thermal cause I was dripping. We started dancing when it hadn’t yet got going.

Come back & organized my clothes, collections. Tomorrow we take the train to Germany.

[3:13 am]


CENTRAAL

[12:56 pm]

Writings on bathroom stall in €.35 toilet (WC) in Amsterdam Centraal Station.

1—Nothing goes unseen.
2—Amsterdamnation
3—Amsterdam/ is so fucking/ false it’s/ embarassing/ to be here.
4—May the best/ of the past/ be the worst/ of the future.
5—It’s better to burn out than to fade away.
6—I wish I was a penguin.
7—Hi dear,/ Save yourself from dirty minds/ come back to nature/ your friend.
8—Are people with/ red hair angry that/ they have got red hair/ or is their hair red/
because they are angry?

[12:59 pm]


[1:10 pm]

ICE

One the train. It’s nicer than I thought it would be. Time to brush up on some German maybe. Going to Cologne.

Cows sheep farmland power lines other trains. Storms look alike no matter where you go.
The sheetmetal divider between train-track and town is all tagged up. Emily is clipping her finernails. Where are they going? Around. Ugh. I have to, they’re all uneven.

[2:04 pm]

[2:43 pm]

Grass, sometimes tall grass, sometimes people walking in it, with grey suits and grey hair. Ich möechte kaffee. Paths, long & smooth paths for walking. Windmills, new & spindly, old & squat. Steeples tall, cars compact. Wooden fences keeping fields apart, houses nice and low to the ground, horses eating leaves from the trees, Anhelm. To Düsseldorf, to Köln.

And again that feeling from…sometime ago, sometime to come? I just don’t know. Some familiarity which I cannot reference, attribute. In the flat houses, the windmills, the grass. From some existence other than what I’m conscious of, as if when I have forgotten my dreams I came to places like this but haven’t let me know about it. Not a cataloguing but an exploring. Cows laying down. Ponies short and shaggy.

Für sich auch, for you also? Ja, kaffee für mich. Cahokia mounds of tires. Em goes to the bathroom.

[2:58 pm]

Few people in this car smoking first class free kaffee. Paths walking paths, people with hats and papers in their hands. ICE 147 International. Amsterdam C—Utrecht C.—Anhelm—Düsseldorf Hbf—Köln Hbf.

Wesel. Doors chant open and close. Stop signs read STOP in red and white octagon, bridges run with water asunder. Em feels like they turned the heat on maybe. Does it feel warmer? Coffee. Chickens and buffaloes. I see the shape of a nuclear plant. Dinslaken, laken=sheet. Whatever that is. Horses brown black white. The green of the trees by the track comes to me like one long constant blur like the tracks underneath a compact disc, like Oberhausen, Stollberg, under bridges ourselves, trains moving along in opposite direction, going two times as fast as us. [3:07 pm]

Slowing down to stop at Oberhausen Hbf. www.bahn.de. Ausgang. Wagenstandanzeiger. Abfahrtdeparture. Old man tight gray hair with dog on a leash. Beautiful blue bridge with yellow arches, a cross in raised brick on the side of a brown brick building close to and facing the tracks. Duisburg Hbf. An ad for Smirnoff Ice. Eiskalt, ice cold, eiskalt. DBM, Bauhaus, Gewerber park, business park. An airport. In a tunnel, out of it now. Man came by to take away our coffee cup and swizzle stick trash. That dream I had last night, caught a whiff of it just then. Why? Don’t know content but this morning could recall how it felt.

In a few minutes, we will arrive in Düsseldorf, thank you! Freuen, Düsseldorf Hbf. [3:26 pm]

Alte leipziger, old man. Papier, recycling bin. Deutsche Bahn, DB, bahn=railroad. Restmüll, rest-garbage, left over garbage, recycling. Das ist OK. Ikea. Reisholz. Starting to put our stuff away. Hotel, Zamek, horse on a string running a lady around, heap of scrap wood, chimney w/ ivy. Train clock vs. my watch. Bayer, Bayer. 100 Jahre Aspirin. Not the über Koln, bahnhaf=train station, haf—yard; or farm. [3:42 pm]

Freaky-deaky. Well, when I look back & want to remember this train ride I’ll remember it. You’ll be like what the hell is that thing. Gardens in everybody’s yard, lots of gardens, some German flags, plastic flower wind toys, a pigeon, Brügelman.


DREAM

Something of the strangest dreaming I’ve ever had: Couldn’t tell in my dream if I was dreaming or not, new apt.? Breve Espresso with secret entrance, fight with round tummy guy, very weird.