No Doubt

I have asked the Sibyl at Delphi,

And consulted the heavenly signs;

The flight of birds and the drift of words

That lurk in the dregs of wine,

But no answer was forthcoming,

No answer that was mine:

And my question mark hung poised like a dart

Between now and the end of time.

I do not know if time will bring

Hell's fire or heaven's rout,

If the changing days of life's displays

Will end with a sigh or a shout:

But that I will love you perfectly

Til the fires of heaven go out;

That I will love you when all words have been spoken,

Of that I have no doubt,

Of that I have no doubt.

anti-postmodernismus (jargon)

Language is arbitrary but it has the great advantage that it is generally accepted; so in this sense words do retain their meaning.

At best a microscopic gazing at the interstices of language, at the spaces between words and their meanings (encapsulated in the double meaning of "differance") is interesting as a philosophical exercise; at worst it might result in a neurotic over-analysis of the text and a concomitant leaping to arbitrary conclusions. In both cases thoroughly "bourgeois" in spirit, but with an added element of irresponsibility.

Seems like a betrayal of the left and the sublimation of radical energies into playfulness and frivolity, no longer the radical play of the Situationists, which sought by its refusal of constraints to undermine power, but a merely diversionary play that, perhaps not accidentally, leaves power structures unchallenged and material facts unchanged. It is still possible to contend, in the manner of Boswell refuting Dr Berkeley, that production and exploitation still exist as material facts, and on this realization can still be founded a politics at this late stage. Deconstruction, if it retains any power, is recast as a game strictly for elites, and thus postmodernism loses its original radical impulse, and ends by bolstering up the status quo, ideological by default.

a prize (dream)

I am to win a prize or somesuch. Nominated for a medal. Medal is a medallion like a Roman coin as such held in paintings. Category or -isation. Hierarchy of an artist. Artist: Middle-aged. Eager. Hair cheveaux tousled.

(blank)

She is muffled and comes to my side. My secretary. Her slim back. Ease. Against the cold a scarf and saying nothing. Big blue eyes. Why so many posh people in Aberdeen? I suppose because of the oil money there. Says she, I represent the Scottish Philosophical Tradition. It was continental, like Scottish education. Caledonia is a cold corner where plants of learning thrive. They are hardy annuals. Home of a certain sophistication. How does it differ from the sophistication of the anglais? It is more demotic, and more sincere.

expresses itself in thought and image.

Not pure image but mediated in some way.

Or modified or en-thought-ulated, couched or clad in clouds of thought.

Out of slumber is born dreams, traumen.

Traum-atic. And out of dreams is born further slumber. The two are en-mixed with forgetfulness to make a sometimes banally winsome stew, insipid and about which not much can be said profitably.

June 15th

The alchemical insight was that the basest metals can be transformed into something like pure gold. Therefore hatred, destruction, the most ferocious vilification, are all vital components in any search for purity.

Remember that every contradiction contains tension from which comes huge amounts of energy. That's why paradoxes are so potent, so rich.

For example, think about the implications of the fact that it takes a kind of faith to renounce faith. The dialectic is open-ended, see? It can proceed from despair to hope but also back again. It reaches into heaven and down into hell; it's a beautiful thing really.

more of that selfish scene

"I wanted to tell her with my face and mouth and with my eyes, in this room, by her bed, that I do not know how to be normal. And I saw clearly that she understood, because her face was hesitant and expectant, looking for clues, or rather, for one big clue, almost as though a word could drop from my mouth and she would nod in acceptance.

She looked ill and tired, as though lately roused from sleep, and it was this too that contributed to the openness of her face, to that thing or state that I saw in it. What was it?

Human honesty, something close to acceptance: I recognised it solemnly, afterwards the thought of it moved me, because I had never seen it before.

And I wanted to say, "Since coming to this city I have been a lonely wretch and a fool. I have lied, but now I am speaking from the heart and my heart is bitter. Therefore I complain and never cease.

There was always something else to do... turn on the TV. The end of my life approaching swiftly and yet I feel no sadness. I feel young, I feel even a certain elation. Like I'm at the threshold. But I rejoice that I have survived intact. Even though not breaking out of my solitude.

Yes, love; I return to my old theme. People that after a while leave an impression behind for whatever reason.

And yes, once again, death; the end of the line, end of my line, and the guarantor of all joy. This is no mere poetry. I will always have a heart even if it is useless. Is it useless to love? For me? How can it be?"

Prologue to the Silent Movie 2

If there is no transcendence, no connection, then we are nothing but lumps of matter. And running on a short lease is meaningless. If this place is really a void, then what we feel, comprehend, the shifting subtleties and endless re-focusings of conscious thought, simply don't matter. The point is that there absolutely has to be something, some way out or some point, some something, some perspective that will hold and not fade, or else I could not stand to physically exist.

In my mind, I am "deprived of so much". But it occurs to me sometimes, at lucid intervals, that we are all deprived. So, concentrating on my deprived state, I allow myself to wander into the illusion that, these few desires having been met, everything will be ok. And this thought is only fuel to more bitter desire.

All such thought is muddled, obtuse, equivocal. I myself am nothing but a shard of shattered glass. The shattered glass of all the old certainties and values.

Our whole culture is made of shattered glass. And the shards mingle and glint and reflect one another. Nothing is more confusing than the rubble of our lives. We have so many choices that choice becomes meaningless. Choice is deadened.

Among this rubble I stumble blindly to find an identity. Among garbage I search for diamonds. The diamond is inside me, you might say. All it takes from me is some switch of perspective, a volte-face of conception, a change in attitude. Vulgar people call it "thinking positive", or even "self-assertion". That's all very well, but I could never make it last, I could never attain such an internal state except for very briefly. It would take an inhuman effort to sustain a positive attitude, what with the ever-present knowledge that such an attitude would basically be false, based on self-deception and perhaps public dishonesty. This is "positive thought", "self-assertion", or insidious self-hypnosis like affirmations and other enforced regimes of positivity. Self-deception I say, a placebo for the soul.

How much more useful, more honest, and more suited to the inherent state of the world is self-negation, habitual negativity of thought, the personality as void? At least it does not rest on a giant untruth. As I've always said, negation can be the foundation of new and beautiful creation. We have to clear the old weeds completely from the ground before something new can be planted. What do I mean by this? I mean obliterate our tired old culture and its choices, burn away its tendrils that have snaked into your mind and affected your actions. Be a mirror to the world. Do not resist and struggle against the void. Become it... and the third millennium is yours.

Prologue to the Silent Movie 1

Who will write the movie? For the movie starts grey.

In abandoned rooms the gramophone is playing. I'm in the old room with the plaster walls. And in my dream where I had expected to find flowers there are no flowers growing.

To have something is eventually to lose it. Therefore anything you currently possess, and love or cherish, will one day be lost to you, causing regret. Regret upon regret. This is a bitter truth, perhaps a banal one.

You will lose friends, good times, loves. Nothing quantifiable, perhaps an atmosphere. But you'll know when you've lost it. It will strike you with a dreadful suddenness, as you stand at night in some bathroom somewhere.

And with it, a pang of old, foul regret.

Death should be like a flower opening. If only death were as certain as one and one are two, like a button being pressed, a light being flicked off. Instead death is shifting and gradual, a long process. The process begins exactly when you realise a part of you has been obliterated and is lost. You are already beginning to rot when you realise: There is no possibility of connection. When that thought is engendered, death begins to creep in.

She put an arrow in my heart

She put an arrow in my heart/ tipped with poison lead

The dart, of obsidian/where I secretly bled, calling

Into darkness for a further loan/of time.

I plucked the arrow from my heart/and heard the sound

Of trumpets call from cities far.

She put a bullet in my head,

The scarlet blood that stained my bed

Conjoined in rivulets and, rushing, spread.

She put an arrow in my heart/and tore it out

I didn't even start.

ice of your mind

Penetrate the ice of your mind. Crack the pool. Allow the fear to well up. If the spirit were liquid then drink it. Reconciliation must come to pass. If the soul were a pool then bathe in it. If a sea, drown in it. Crack that old ice. Get down to fresh water.

Deep down there is pure water. Water the old men would weep for. Water to make the devil shrivel. To make your belly exalt, to put lightning in your veins.

Sometimes it is good to immerse your head in liquid.

"I dress in black my face a mask/money in the bank.

I nod at the words of men/I have never met.

(This is a parody). My tongue is full of lies,

Like swallowing bile. ... but I stand above the sea

And my eyes are open. And I see far into the day,

And I feel in my heart vague poundings/which suggest ideas

And reminiscences. My soul snatches at something,

And, on some instant, misses nothing.

I am only wise when rubber-stamping images of death.

Images: Beguiling and trapping me."

June 8th

A needlepoint would be good for flesh. A rambling mind. Someone's afterbirth. Taken care of. Self-obsessed. Re-integration. A marriage. Celibacy.

These are all mere ideas. Vampires secretly desire a stake pounded into their hearts. Lethal injection would be the best way to go. Acid in the veins. A skin-crawling orgasm makes you arch the neck. You can claim in the dock Manson created you. (That's Charles and no pretender).

These are ideas about flesh.

About the body manifest. The body's failings and resurgences, the body as useless clay, casing for an immortal soul. Ideal of the body turned in upon itself. The body as shadow. Flesh the ultimate image. Denial of sacrament.

The things that the hands can do. The hands can strangle and caress. The Saviour's hands, they tell us, bled. Delicate fingers pull triggers. Hands are wonderful implements for murder. Hands that seize and grasp and choke. This is why we have as our sacrament the body flaggelated and hung up. The sinewy arms outstretched. There is a strain of masochism in our old religion.