A cross section of what I was reading in the 1980s

my nephew Jordan, The Destructive Character

It could happen to someone looking back over his life that he realized that almost all the deeper obligations he had endured in it's course originated in people whose "destructive character" every one was agreed. He would stumble upon this fact one day, perhaps by chance, and the heavier blow it deals him, the better are his chances of picturing the destructive character.

The destructive character knows only one watchword; make room; only one activity; clearing away. His need for fresh air and open space is stronger than any hatred.

The destructive character is young and cheerful. For destroying rejuvenates in clearing away the traces of our own age; it cheers because everything cleared away means to the destroyer a complete reduction, indeed eradication of his own condition. But what contributes most of all to this Apollonian image of the destroyer is the realization of how immensely the world is simplified when tested for it's worthiness for destruction. This is the great bond embracing and unifying all that exists. It is the sight that affords the destructive character the spectacle of deepest harmony.

The destructive character is always blithely at work. It is nature that dictates his tempo, indirectly at least, for he must forestall her. Otherwise she will take over the destruction herself.

No vision inspires the destructive character. He has few needs, and the least of them is to know what will replace what has been destroyed. First of all, for a moment at least, empty space, the place where the thing stood or the victim lived. Someone is sure to be found who needs this space without it's being filled.

The dstructive character does his work, the only work he avoids is being creative. Just as the creator seeks solitude, the destroyer must be surrounded by people, witnisses to his efficacy.

The destuctive character is a signal. Just as a trigonometric sign is exposed on all sides to the wind, so is he to rumor. To protect him from it is pointless.

The destructive character has no interest in being understood. Attempts in this direction he regards as superficial. Being misunderstood cannot harm him. On the contrary he provokes it, just as oracles, those destructive institutions of the state, provoked it. The most petit bourgeois of all phenomena, gossip, comes about because people do not wish to be misunderstood. The destructive character tolerates misunderstandind, he does not promote gossip.

The destructive character is the enemy of the etui man. the etui man looks for comfort, and the case is it's quintessence. The inside of the case is the velvet lined track that he has imprinted on the world. The destructive man obliterates even the traces of destruction.

The destructive character stands in the front line of traditionalists.

Walter Benjamin-The Destructive Character

 I am dead because I lack desire.

 I lack desire because I think I possess.

 I think I possess because I do not try to give.

 In trying to give you see that you have nothing.

 Seeing you have nothing, you try to give of yourself.

 Trying to give of yourself, you see that you are nothing.

 Seeing that you are nothing, you desire to become.

 In desiring to become, you begin to live. 

 Rene Daumal 

 He flooded his memory with such sorrow as to undermine his reason.  

 Pierre Klossowski--The Baphomet 

Traveler, when you pass near, do not, I beg you, offer me the slightest word of consolation: You would undermine my spirit. Let me rekindle my resolve at the flame of voluntary martyrdom. Be off!...lest I inspire pity in you. Hate is stronger than you think; it's workings are inexplicable, like the look of a stick thrust into water. Even as you see me now I can still make forays to the very walls of heaven, heading a legion of assassins, and return to resume this posture and meditate anew on lofty plans of vengeance. Farewell--I shall detain you no longer, and that you may train and protect yourself, ponder the fatal destiny which drove me to revolt, though, perhaps, I was born good!

  Tell your son what you have seen and, taking his hand, set him wondering at the beauty of the stars and the marvels of the universe, at the robin's nest and the temples of the Lord. You will be amazed to see him so amenable to your parental advise, and will reward him with a smile. But look at him when he is unaware of being watched and you'll see him hawk spittle at virtue. He has deceived you--he who is descended from the human race--yet he shall deceive you no more; henceforth you shall know what happens to him. O hapless father, be ready for these escorts of your senile tread--the irreversible scaffold that is to lop off a precocious criminal's head, and sorrow that will show you the way leading to the grave.  Lautremont--Maldoror

 I was sent forth from the power,

  and I have come to those who reflect upon me,

  and I have been found among those who seek after me.

Look upon me, those who reflect upon me,

  and you hearers, hear me.

  You who are waiting for me, take me to yourselves.

  Do not be ignorant of me anywhere or anytime. Be on your guard!

  Do not be ignorant of me.

For I am the first and the last.

I am the honored and the scorned one.

I am the whore and the holy one.

I am the wife and the virgin.

I am the mother and the daughter.

I am the members of my mother.

I am the barren one,

  and many are her sons.

I am she whose wedding is great,

  and I have not taken a husband.

I am the midwife and she who does not bear.

I am the solace of my labor pains.

I am the bride and the bridegroom,

  and it is my husband who begot me.

I am the mother of my father

  and the sister of my husband,

  and he is my offspring.

I am the slave of he who prepared me.

I am the ruler of my offspring.

  But he is the one who begot me before the time on a birthday.

  And he is my offspring in due time, and my power is from him.

I am the staff of his power in his youth,

  and he is the rod of my old age.

  And whatever he wills happens to me.

I am the silence that is incomprehensible,

  and the idea whose remembrance is frequent.

I am the voice whose sound is manifold,

  and the word whose appearance is multiple.

I am the utterance of my name.

Anon.--Thunder, Perfect Mind.

There are rumors and ghosts in this land, and they are much revered. The tools, the art, the building--these things stand in judgment on the latter races. Yet there is nothing for them to grapple with. The old ones are gone like phantoms and savages wander these canyons to the sound of an ancient laughter. In their crude huts they crouch in the darkness and listen to the fear seeping out of the rock. All progressions from a higher to a lower order are marked by ruins and mystery of nameless rage. So. Here are the dead fathers. Their spirit is entombed in the stone. It lies upon the land with the same weight and ubiquity. For whoever has made a shelter from reeds and hides has joined his spirit to the common destiny of creatures and he will subside back into the primal mud with scarcely a cry. But who builds in stone seeks to alter the structure of the universe and so it was with these masons however primitive their works seem to us.       Cormac McCarthy--Blood Meridian

I am sorry they won't let you have your sloop again, for I scorn to do any one a mischief, when it is not for my advantage; damn the sloop, we must sink her, and she might be of use to you. You are a sneaking puppy, and so are all those who will submit to be governed by laws which rich men have made for their own security; for the cowardly whelps have not the courage to otherwise defend what they get through knavery; but damn yee altogether: damn them for a pack of crafty rascals, and you, who serve them, for a parcel of hen hearted numskulls. They vilify us, the scoundrels do, when there is only this difference, they rob the poor under the cover of the law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under the protection of our own courage. Had you not better make them one of us, then sneak after these villains for employment?

  You are a devilish conscience rascal, I am a free prince, and have as much authority to make war on the whole world as he who has a hundred ships of sail at sea, and an army of one hundred thousand men in the field; and this my conscience tells me: but there is no arguing with sniveling puppies, who allow superiors to kick them about the deck at pleasure.  Captain Bellamy--Rants

 

The words of the English language are futile, but words are for everyday use. When it comes my time to meet face to face the unspeakable vision of a happy life, I shall be rendered dumb, but the rain of my feeling shall come in torrents   Mary Maclane--The story of...

FORMLESS.--A dictionary would begin from the point at which it no longer rendered the meanings of words but rather their tasks. Thus formless is not only an adjective with a given meaning but a term which declassifies, generally requiring that each thing take on a form. That which it designates has no claim in any sense, and is always trampled upon like a spider or an earthworm. Indeed, for academics to be happy, the universe would have to take on form. The whole of philosophy has no other goal: to provide a frock coat for what is, a mathematical frock coat. To declare, on the contrary, that the universe is not like anything, and is simply formless, is tantamount to saying the universe is something like a spider, or spittle.    Georges Bataille--Documents, Vol. 1., no. 7.

Dark and puckered like a violet rose

it pulses, humbly hidden in the moss,

still damp from love that trickles soft

along white thighs right to it's lip

Fecit

Little drops like tears of milk

have wept, beneath the zephyr blowing cruel,

upon the pebbles of auburn marl,

obeying the slope and heeding it's call.

Often my mouth is pressed against it's hole,

often my soul will yearn for a fuck with

flesh,

And it takes it for it's dankest drip stone it's

nest

of throbbing sighs.

Invenit

It's the open olive in ecstasy, the blown flute

in the air;

it's the celestial tube down which all

fondants freely flow;

Female Canaan firmly moist and filled with

promise deep.     

 Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine--The Sonnet of the Hole in the Ass

Devisor of the voice and of it's hearer and of himself. Devisor of himself for company. Leave it at that. He speaks of himself as of another. He says speaking of himself, He speaks of himself as of another. Himself he devises too for company. Leave it at that. Confusion too is company up to a point. Better hope deferred than none. Up to a point. Till the heart starts to sicken. Company too up to a point. Better a sick heart than none. Till it starts to break. So speaking of himself he concludes for the time being, For the time being leave it at that.     Samuel Beckett--Company

Cellar.  We have long forgotten the ritual by which the house of our life was erected. But when it is under assault and the enemy bombs have already taken their toll, what enervated, perverse antiquities do they not lay bare in the foundations. What things were interred and sacrificed amid magic incantations, what horrible cabinet of curiosities lies there below, where the deepest shafts are reserved for what is most commonplace. In a night of despair I dreamed I was with my first friend from my school days, whom I had not seen for decades and had scarcely remembered in that time, tempestuously renewing our friendship and brotherhood. But when I awoke it became clear that what despair had brought to light like a detonation was the corpse of that boy, who had been immured as a warning: that whoever one day lives here may in no respect resemble him.   

Walter Benjamin--Reflections

 Greece, mid 80s

It is not easy to destroy an idol: it takes as much time as is required to promote and worship one. For it is not enough to annihilate it's material symbol, which is easy; but it's roots in the soul. How turn your eyes toward the twilight ages--when the past was liquidated under the scrutiny which only the void could dazzle--without being moved by that great art which is the death of a civilization?

 And so I dream of having been one of those slaves, coming from an improbable country, barbarous and brooding, to languish in the agony of Rome, my vague desolation embellished by Greek sophistries. In the vacant eyes of the statues, in the idols shrunken by sagging superstitions, I should have forgotten all about my ancestors, my yokes and my regrets. Espousing the melancholy of the ancient symbols, I should have liberated myself; I should have shared the dignity of the abandoned gods, defending them against the crosses, against the invasion of servants and martyrs, and my rights would have sought their rest in the delirium and debauchery of the Ceasars. Expert in delusions, riddling the new fervors with all the arrows of a dissolute wisdom--among them the courtesans, in skeptical brothels or circuses with their sumptuous cruelties, I should have swelled my reasonings with vice and blood, dilating logic to dimensions it had never dreamed of, to dimensions of worlds that die. 

 E.M. Cioran--A Short History of Decay

What is called Order, but is really nothing more than physical and spiritual exhaustion, comes into it's own when what is rightly called mediocrity is in the ascendent. 

Genet--Prisoner of love

If you, an adult, wish to be consistent with the proposition you keep hidden within yourself, you should trace this warning with charcoal on the foreheads of expectant mothers; "Attention, here lies danger!"

The greatest defense organization existing in the world is the one humanity has erected and maintains in constant readiness against the threat of childhood.

Little men and women, on their entry into the world are welcomed as enemies. War breaks out between infants and adults, between constituted authority and these proud battalions of minuscule people set out to conquer the world.

  That humanity's heart is so dry, it's imagination so spent, it's ambitions so meager, it's desires so limited, means that in the daily war between infants and adults, the heads of adults are wreathed day after day by a "base" victory.

  Childhood---a continuous wave of revolution, systematically crushed by those reactionaries, the grown-ups. A tireless revolution and never disappointed, because it has no inkling of the defeat in store for it. The rear guard does not see the trap into which the vanguard gradually falls. Brave, trusting, the march has gone on since the world began; the drying up of faith andˇ evaporation of illusions happen by dispersion, like a river drunk by the sand.

  The eternal dialogue between the populace and government---an unanswered dialogue; the reflected image of that other dialogue, much more grandiose, between childhood and adulthood. Both are tragic demonstrations that every revolution is a wish---with no possibility of fulfillment.

  An illusory duty and solemn buffoonery mask the humiliated sadness of this passage---from garden to cell, from freedom to duty. Alberto Salvinio--The Tragedy of Childhood

                                                                                      Cynthia Lahti

By giving up all hope

of warmth, I murder

                  the cold.

How good it would be if I could feel something

which was neither man nor woman. If that existed I would

live in it immediately. Perhaps then I would come to myself

---(or to you)?

As far as I know I have not received too much

from either man or woman, but enough

to feel it as a hindrance

My intermittent efforts to be neither the one

nor the other have not brought me any

results. Why? Because I alone have taken

great pains with it. I never managed

to bring anything to a good conclusion on my own.

No one with whom I can discuss it.

Which is to say: no fellow sufferer. For only

he could give me encouragement

to continue in my efforts.

And that is my quandary.

As if my son were already ripe in years

and approaching death, his eyes,

which search for me just as I search for his,

intersect those from the one casting looks

into empty space. A notion which is still unclear,

far too new to be defined.

Nevertheless it crystallizes, looks for a place

to reside in me and acts as a truism.

You ghostly gaze! Shy and radiant,

wicked with loneliness and humour; your sombreness,

seemingly without beginning

and thus without end, shines

through my dream-lit rooms. I ask myself

whether angels might have such eyes?

But this shy smile soon disappears,

the eternal youth of this unique smile

sinks like the long, nightless July day,

this long, radiant day

which is never bestowed

on us.

And that is my despair.

After forty three years this life

has not become MY life. It might just as well

be someone else's life.

Only once the events stop repeating

will it be my life.

And that will never occur, until death.

And that is my fault. My cowardice.

Sometimes I find it embarrassing to hear

my own breath. I bless the passing of time.

I slowly feel myself turn white...

swimming out into the whiteness...

so as at last to see...the white image?

And that is my imploring gesture.

Unica Zurn   Written in great anxiety on February 24, 1959

All people are stuck in sexual sins

Everybody is upside down in sin

Sacrifice sex is Devil

Your sin will find you out

A septic tank has no love until you clean it

No devil sex in Heaven

You will have nothing with hidden sins inside you

You do not love no one, you just sex them

Torture sex is Devil

Homo sex is toilet bound sex

Anon.--Berkeley graffiti

 In the bosom of the waters there is born another sun, light has eddies, it propagates dizziness. Whoever sees beneath the waters must often shield his retina. With each stroke the waters changes it's violence. But universes so new, so strongly imagined cannot help but work on the being which is imaging them in it's substratum. If we follow the images sincerely, it seems to us that the imagination destroys a being of earth within us. We are tempted to let a being of water be born in us. Melting into the basic element is a necessary human suicide for whoever wants to experience emergence into a new cosmos.

Gaston Bachelard--Poetics of Space

"From architectural and historical facts (as they are known) regarding the erection of the plantation houses, we must borrow the bones of our structure--this skeleton, however, can assume no significant or final reality til it is clothed in the flesh of poetic perception. By this is not meant merely superficial romanticism. The method of poetry is to abstract symbols from the stuff of living experience; to embody these symbols in not only an emotive language, but by means of the creative use of these symbols to subtly penetrate the tough, outer skin of appearances, and give it a reality which is not complexly sweetened or embittered by the perceiving mind, but more extensive in time than reality that is immediately apprehensible: since now the elements of the past and of the future play equal parts with that of the present. In the superior reality of poetic vision we enter a plane where symbols have a life of their own, and perhaps we transcend, temporarily and incompletely the limitations of time."

Clarence John Laughlin--Ghosts Along the Mississippi

I remember when I was a young boy lying on my back in the grass, gazing into the summer blue above me, and wishing I could melt into it, become a part of it. For these fancies I believe that a religious tutor was innocently responsible: he had tried to explain to me, because of my dreamy questions, what he termed, "the folly and wickedness of pantheism"---with the result that I immediately became a pantheist, at the tender age of fifteen. And my imaginings presently led me not only to want the sky for a playground, but also to become the sky!

 Now that I think that in those days I was really close to a great truth, touching it, in fact, without the faintest hint of it's existence. I mean that the truth that the wish to become is reasonable in direct ratio to it's largeness,---or in other words, that the more you wish to be, the wiser you are; while the wish to have is apt to be foolish in proportion to it's largeness. Cosmic law permits very few of the countless things we wish to have, but will help us become all that we can possibly wish to be. Finite, and insomuch feeble, is the wish to have: but infinite in puissance is the wish to become. By wanting to be, the monad makes itself the elephant, the eagle, or the man. By wanting to be, man should become a god. Perhaps on this tiny globe, lighted by only a tenth-rate yellow sun, he will not have time to become a god; but who dare assert that his wish cannot project itself into mightier systems illuminated by vaster suns, and there reshape and invest him with the forms and powers of divinity? Who dare say that his wish may not expand him beyond the limits of form, and make him one with Omnipotence? And Omnipotence, without asking, can have much bigger and brighter playthings than the moon.

  Probably everything is a mere question of wishing,---providing that we wish not to have, but to be. Most of the sorrow of life certainly exists because of the wrong kinds of wishing and because of the contemptible pettiness of the wishes. Even to wish for the absolute lordship and possession of the entire earth were a pitifully small and vulgar wish. We must learn to nourish much bigger wishes than that! My faith is that we must wish to become the total universe with it's thousands of millions of worlds,---and more that the universe, or a myriad universes,---and even more than Space and Time.

Lafcadio Hearn--Of Moon Desire

Since it was terror, and disturbance, and instability, and doubt, and division, there were many illusions at work. By means of these, and empty fictions, they were sunk in sleep, and found themselves in disturbing dreams. Either there is a place to which they are fleeing, or without strength they come from having chased after others, or they are involved in striking blows, or they are receiving blows themselves, or they have fallen from high places, or they take off into the air though they do not even have wings. Again sometimes it is if people were murdering them, though there is no one even pursuing them, or they themselves are killing their neighbors, for they have been stained with their blood. When they who are going through all of these things wake up, they see nothing, they who were in the midst of all these things, for they are nothing. This is the way that each one has acted, as though asleep at the time, when he was ignorant. Good is the man who will return and awaken, and blessed is he who has opened the eyes of the blind.  Gnostic Text, Nag Hammadi Library