The April issue of Brooklyn Rail has an excerpt from the recent book Homage to Leroi Jones & Other Early Works, a collection of “exercises” or “prose-poem-word-plays” from Kathy Acker’s dream journals. The journal spans the years 1971–74 and capture, as Acker stated, "my attempt to map at that time my total present consciousness”:
myself forgetting each time have to follow it back careful not to let it go Lenny leaves good I spend two hours masturbating but books no longer excite me only licking my own nipple. the way Paul falls asleep I promise myself to act as I feel like the fuck with who I’m with for the last 6 months at times scared I’m dying won’t mention it fuck others today I have cramps again probably should see the doctor but so little money lately I prefer to amuse myself when it ha ha magically appears the goddamn sex show the boss actually the sub-boss Bob growing more evil Kali tells me that as she was dancing then pretending to use a dildo Bob was in the back saying come on come on more get that cunt up there come on get it into it sweating trembling Josie said Bob told her to cut out the talking and get on with the fuck Bob tells me when I call him about the dancing job he’s got a new sign out front baby pink I kiss Lizard “Live Sex” it’s the only show in New York that has it that should get them in they now time our show god forbid we stop a minute earlier signs all over the projection room saying that Bob is pissed oV blah blah talking to others in the show two days ago helps a group of freaks instead of isolated freaks we can all go to heaven together one of the guys is gay which also helps
they (Bob and the other shit horrors) start a 12:30 show don’t want to pay extra we’re expected to work a 14 hour day no union for angels the projectionists get $2.50 an hour as opposed to the union rate for dirty movies $8. per hours and there’s the damn depression whatever’s literally true the reality I have to show my cunt I have to stay alive I could get too crazy to know when to kill myself the bosses decide they’re not making enough profit so the extra shows Kali’s sex so on I think now that I sold out to work in the show it might have been better to get a shitty 8-hour-a-day robot specialty who knows I’d probably still do the same since money ahs the same fucking attraction given this society I don’t know how else to keep myself going for all that Lenny and I have said in the last three days the future the imagination I don’t know if we’ll stick two new people now unwilling to kill each other the prime requirement for love here we’ve lost track of everything we face the blank page and have no life to put down no one knows why we write because for centuries we’ve been lost a maze of academic shits all words but those concerning money no longer have value what tracks we have to find repeat follow back into the Old days these angels descend my ears these hearts of our sex
Image of Kathy Acker via npg.org.uk.