The city was a glittering ruin sucked upwards. nor am I parsed, me, a vain weath of milk, vanity itself, caro factum, quia certiones, non spiritus ambulans and islands of written stuff, a vast itinerary of errors as I died upwards towards you, vita mea, like a magnet, sure, like girls die of fierce love and friezes commemorate the fierce cords of light that are their souls and soldiers eat sponge cake and I don’t love you and I fornicate towards you singing down down and it is the solemn world I pull against my tummy, down down and no fierce extreme sedates me no sequence of the lips and teeth. say nothing of the soul that flutters its sleeve dictating not this not that not this muddled doctrine. I’ll not name each oblivion each venal carthage each dumb rut written up in verse. dominant my ink’s not diligent like yours. I simply tug and vend and strum at pacts secundum signa quibbling litteris in commodo. sit poetica stupid with words past their sweet-arsed date. dominant may I call you rex now and feed you tidbits? my heart calls you rex because you’re my first part, as rex I’ll serve you what are called tidbits and each locution and scribble and number just adores you rex what is vanity is really your discipline for vanis peccata delectum multa for the rest of my life to please you I won’t fib rex, I promise. and towards what illusion my little rex do I tighten the cord that is my ink and adulate everything sentient. rex my pet what is suspended between us is sewn of figura. who can resist a Human? who doesn’t finger lies? All the roads grew dark. I cut, I died I fell, I dove, I ate, I fell, I fed, I felt, and there I lay in ambush. I fought I found, I fled, I flung, I flew, I fore bore, I forbade, I forgot and my eyes my eyes shut. I lay down and shut. I forgave, I forsook, I got, I lay down and slept in luxury. I hid in luxury. IO went to Sleep before I hurt. I kept, I knew, I laid. I left, and went to Sleep above the wash of ripples. I lent, I let the wash of ripples. Dawn came. By night we lay. I lost, I made, I met, I over came, I overdid, and dawn came above the wash of ripples ran onward. Nine days I drifted. Sleep weighed, ran onward. I ran, I said, I saw, I sought, I sold, I sent, I set, I shook, and on my eyes nine days drifted. I shut, I sang, and Sleep weighed on my eyes. I went to rest out of the wind. Into the dawn I thrust. Day waned. I sunk, I sat I slew, I slept, I slid into evening to rest out of the wind. I spent, I span I wept until Sleep came. And I stunk. And I slept on duty. I struck hid in darkness, dropped my eyes and nodded, overcome. I store, I took, I taught, I tore, I told I wrote. Day waned into evening. Burnt, I burst, I cast, I chid day, waned into evening. I crept, I crept, I dared, I dug, I dipt, I drew, I dreamt two hours had disappeared. I dwelt, I wept until Sleep came. I froze. I gelt, I girt, I grew, I hung, I helpt I hewed, I knelt and I resumed. what’s a vestige what’s an ego what’s grace what locution helps this soft stove’s dreamt scrap in fracas? Love, be my believable tutor. Figurine, govern this redundant flush. Fate, resemble superlative and solemn congress. Holy animal, be Luck. Be force of anything earthlike and lovely and limited. Footstar, ear, give credence It is a fact that it is in the nature of gods to enjoy their immateriality in a place of profound peace. They know nothing of our business and are quite detached. No pain or trouble tests them – they don’t need our experience. Sometimes I permit myself to travel in their vitality. Their posture and noise pertain to History. When they lose their will I feel love mixed with repulsion Two paths lead to the body – the peacock mewls into rain – a liquid rope attaches them. this sibilant anything seized in the lightest and most plunging part dares the passage of my body and amongst bodies, weight pressed upwards from dirt dedicates itself to habit which is a god mixed with what we can want                                                                             And you are Torontos of cold trees Where erupts the morning’s catalogue. And you did not die outside of love And you do not judge. And you roll down scrabbling at its glaze The man on the right runs away terrified. And you see how an animal dies Giving a first drop of voluptuousness. And you seem to pour rosewater Leaning on trees for rest. And you speak in Leaves To flirt and fight and appease. And you turn into a her not knowing what’s happening The woman in your midst may be kneeling or seated or may simply be drawn out of scale. And you will not die But chance is always a little ahead. And your heart broke off into this great desire to see Into the tall grass. Because it is a known fact The wounded fall towards the point. Chance is always a little ahead But not under circumstances of its own choosing. ‘To super-add girls speaking to humans is not a pleasure.’ ‘No, it is a survival, a learning-to-live.’ ‘Probably whatever the feminine might mean has to do with the intellectual relationship to change.’ ‘None of the forms feel big enough.’ ‘She imprecisely uses freedom.’ ‘Part of her wanted nothing.’ ‘She will be the pronoun of her analysis.’ ‘Philosophy comes from her having difficulty.’ ‘When women are exiled it seems normal.’ ‘Probably whatever the feminine might mean has to do with the intellectual relationship to change.’ ‘She things she undoes her femininity to give herself pleasure.’ ‘She brings this vocabulary into her mouth to sex it.’ ‘The information of her fear is her most serious and fragile part.’ ‘She doesn’t have much time to understand her mortality.’ ‘Her voice turns towards weakness and shame and it pours down her face.’ ‘She exploited a splitting at the level of process.’ ‘Her pronoun is sedition unrecognized as such,’ ‘She feels free to set out in any discourse.’ ‘She doesn’t have much time to understand her mortality.’ ‘She hasn’t been human.’ ‘She wants to tell about it but not necessarily in language.’ ‘Here is a perfume burner of Khorasan, a bird sitting on top.’ ‘Birds perch on heaven habitually. They are not certaintity- seekers.’ To help the problem I changed into a clematis, I changed into a dog, I changed into a perfumed smoke. Some of my organs were outside history, which gave me an advantage. ‘This is wrong’ ‘This is beautiful’ ‘This is social’ ‘This is not thinking’ It is the handiwork of appearing only. This is the topic we discussed in your kitchen this winter. I said I didn’t know what thinking is. You said you were trying to understand your sense of an inner voice, which was separate from thinking. I didn’t understand. I let myself go blank. I began by taking everything that was doubtful and throwing it out, like sand. About 1836 (an essay on boredom) I met a dog who collected doubt until doubt offered a repose. I met a dog who displayed as love a surplus of inactivity. A surplus of inactivity. I asked the dog what I should do about believing. ‘Nothing’ he replied. He was the dog of Latinity and non-knowledge. Tacit dog I said tell me about boredom. The dog replied: ‘At the edges of the villages of Europe ‘there is boredom. ‘The villages of Europe ‘don’t want your thinking. ‘They want ‘not a world. ‘In these villages ‘one rereads the soiled timetables ‘of minor trains ’and finds therein ‘Grace. This is called ‘an environment. Now ‘you weep its surplus. ‘Nowhere is like that. And the dog said ‘I am going to call it hegemony when ‘waking life ‘feels like ‘purchasing water. ‘On animality I’ll claim ‘I wanted to go right out over wordlessness until it became a fabric ‘and then to lick it ‘gravely. ‘At the same time I was chagrined ‘and the social gadgetry hissed. ‘The outside spread without is the village, the outside ‘spread within is boredom. ‘We are often mistaken about origins ‘(against which we animals sleep). ‘So I became a collector of things ‘– ideas perhaps – ‘smoothing them in the privacy of my ennui ‘(my studio I mean) ‘as they smooth their ‘waning orchids. ‘Genially I am an object. ‘In my canine memory ‘things gently combine – ‘the glitter, the champagne, the sky-blue boudoirs ‘distributed across a surface ‘they would change but nothing would change ‘ever ever ever. ‘Time had no measure ‘other than enjoyment and boredom. ‘Simple bodies in combinations made types – ‘one suffocating, one airy, one narcotic: ‘there was an illegible relation to materiality ‘and this was mistaken for orthodoxy ‘but the orthodoxy did not replace the transcendent. ‘In its radical œther ‘flew ‘some dandiacal cravat. ‘One must withdraw for a long time to arrive at the minimum ‘at the cosmological minimum. ‘It takes an inhuman patience ‘to make the erotic into itself.† ‘By cosmology I mean ‘out in the shadows, out at the edge of the parking lot, just beyond ‘the signage, and beyond the erotic even ‘one’s relationship to utopia is elegiacal. ‘Time there is other time. ‘Forget the nostalgia for singularity. The ‘dismantling of hegemony begins with boredom. ‘If just a single one of the new sciences ‘had been sacrificed to the livid boulevards ‘(one of which extends from the era of Greek philosophy ‘to the advent of Christianity) ‘and the boulevard itself a mobile village – ‘and so it is with our own past: ‘Late Autumn ‘Low Latin ‘the history of the use of boredom ‘remains latent. ‘One’s strategies – how should I put this – ‘used up knowing. _____________ † (as when a swallow flies into my room – when a swallow flies into my study – being delicate and light as their bodies are light they are entirely free of trouble.) ‘I wanted to feel discourse on my pelt ‘but all I could see was theology’s iced hips ‘contra the use of the present. ‘Not will they welcome ‘the concept, not ‘the concept ... (that being what one usefully does against loneliness). ‘Whereas we in the villages, we must share our nightingales. ‘Somebody brackets their body and somebody ‘doesn’t bracket their body. ‘Each thing changes into a bare unit of wit ‘which offers a repose at best. ‘Excellent the applause excellent the money’s ‘boat-like gliding ‘coming into peregrination ‘to the point where all of the furnishing and utensils ‘love one out of despair ‘or lie ‘with a filthy laugh. ‘Soon there will be only society ‘and caricature. Monsieur, I am frightened. ‘My friends die. ‘As for the river ‘the light was the light. The surface ‘imperceptible. ‘Suicides and stories became trees. ‘Was one for the event? Or on the wrong bridge? ‘We do not pray. The brooder is thinking. ‘The famed impossibility of repetition ‘places itself in relation to ‘the mercantile, hygienic and military class ‘where those purchasers are honoured. ‘Two elements accost one: ‘both doors remain closed. ‘The historian captures above all a document ‘as if his eye loves. ‘Experiments along these lines ‘having a degree of luxury sufficient ‘to a certain stage of myth ‘– as in a letter to one’s mother – ‘elegantly dressed and rifle in hand ‘(rifle not-yet-conscious) ... ‘And what does fashion determine? ‘Fashion determines empathy. ‘When one speaks to flowers for example ‘it is an empathy one seeks and offers ‘as when you offer thinking to a lily ‘and it to you. But now we take a more humble view – ‘some elements of divinity are simulacra ‘and any theory of photography has a defeated and retreating feeling ‘like certain cities one has left. ‘One is not certain if boredom is emotion or philosophy or style ‘thus its suppleness ‘(whence fluorescence ‘and flower tropes). ‘Which leads to a kind of ... material negative ‘as recited on the ancient porches. ‘One’s torso swaddles Naught ‘only the structure of sex ‘its boat-like gliding. ‘Whatever records the fabric of the heavens and the earth ‘whatever cosmopolitan falcon ‘in the inscription-splattered panic ‘in the structure of waiting and epistemological ‘catalogues, erotic problems – ‘one can preserve the appearance of moving ‘to mask an entire incompatibility with the present. ‘An important part of the fabric of love is boredom ‘and this is not social – it is the necessary repose ‘of the socius: Nothing ‘of machination, only the animal infinite ‘contrapuntal, climbing the morning … ‘What falcon’s secular, most pliant ‘tether snaps ‘into dandiacal utterance ‘until the bells ring queasily. ‘In love one perceives directly using one’s hormones and one’s stupidity ‘one’s trifles that is – transcendence intact ‘rigorous in the decoration of all belief ‘as if sequestered in a hotel ‘(hotel of the decor of precious origins). ‘One slips all of one’s desire into the small silken pocket deep in the cummerbund ‘but leaves them their ‘tuxedos – ‘and this is fragility ‘taking leave of itself ‘Monsieur. ‘Can we awake from the century already ‘or only cast over it ‘propositions about the political ‘as if to rescue ourselves? ‘Further to cosmology ‘as the hawk shat ‘who can say what commodity is ‘if not the capacity to admit chance ‘with no admonishment Said the dog. ‘Repeatedly, in a pattern ‘what one thinks of the cosmos ‘is nothing ‘contra the misuse of the present ‘and the texture of waiting. ‘Sift ad hoc time or curse it ‘one seems to understand scale ‘(I mean in the cosmological sense) ‘only ever in relation to chance. ‘Simply to scaffold being ‘in multiple frames of probability ‘then swag it in heavy drapes – ‘was that the timely choral work? ‘Or rather that the question of time ‘sat on the surface of language ‘and laughed when I tried to face it. ‘And laughed when I tried to face it. ‘To turn from this institution ‘in the position of not-believing: ‘This would be the utopian turn. ‘I can’t do it. ‘So I pierce utopia ‘with divine boredom. And then the dog – for it was a dog who spoke – gently ambled off betwixt black trunks of trees and I am going to tell you that this dog glanced back in simple sadness said ‘Soon there will be only society.’ Care weighs so heavily. Cloth is by nature heavy and falls to earth. I wanted to describe the difference in sensation. With grace the curtains when struck with the wind showed the citizens. I designed all these movements for painting. Then the windows were as ripe as fruits bleeding sugars. That grace in bodies, which we call beauty, is born of sugars. I wanted to see if my body could amend space. Narcissus, who was changed into a flower according to the poets, was the inventor of changing. Some think that sugar shaped the soul. I was lonely and hungry and civic. I moved upwards in the sweet air. Its simplicity or complexity was not my own. It was a warm September evening with feminist emotion. Motion contracted. The air was destroying the layer of the future. We were still sand or gravel or stone slabs. How could I speak or groan or scream? I did not wish to disrupt their ceremonies. I sought the ornament of moisture. I needed to experience radical fluid. I played Roman games such as love, and change. It was a warm September evening and the city and the sky were of the same substance. But that substance was not in itself liberatory. It called for abundance and variety. I refer to largesse in thought. You must imagine that I was standing before a window through which I could see everything I wanted to depict. Utopia is so emotional. Then we get used to it. This work was completed in Roman Vancouver. This is a completely original treatise. The windows became more expensive. They were the ancient ornaments of things. I hovered just beyond the limit of the concept. This caused a sensation of anticipation or love. Narcissus who was changed into a flower was the inventor of changing. The outlines of things are frequently unknown. The things seen fit together rarely. I never experienced space as unifying. Always the city was a frictional edifice. We wanted to be happy and graceful in our work. Because of the corporeal largesse of the century I wept. Our freedom frightened the city. I used to marvel and at the same time to grieve. There were so many things that didn’t exist. This tradition was based on œsthetic experiments. My technique was based on desire, not experience. I had dismantled the interior. I was writing on the city, which was a screen on a clock. All I wanted to do was deform a surface. I wanted to experience the mortality of thought. I saw no space prior to bodies and their intervals. The secular niches flickered luminously. Space was a very fine condition of corpuscular light. I witnessed immaterial tissues. I embellished antiquity with my laughter. Sometimes I designed finely proportioned buildings in my mind. I occupied myself with constructions. I was subdivided by the thought of things. I had not fulfilled my sense organs. A painting is soft as Narcissus. The encompassing element faltered. What shall I do with my senses? The question of the origin of painting is obscure, or Egyptian. Pliny says it had to do with combat and victory also known as war and triumph. Such was its beauty that a crow would attempt to enter the tableau to peck at the corpses. We call this field of corpses monochrome. Its metal is iron. A rubric is a thick red earth. Seafoam mixed with grief becomes solid. This makes a conch shell which is also a kind of speech. Pliny says when the sun sets we search among rocks. Our tongues dry out. The pigment called dust comes from pillage fires. I really thought that painting would be about sex but Pliny says it is the same as war and space. With it we mark slaves thus a citizen is enriched and this is sex also. But generally it’s worth repeating: the earth is an island mixed with blood. In its furnace we concoct colour. Pliny says that painting is necessary and commodious. It is a medicinal subject. Painting threw bricks at the police. Painting wanted to devour skies Satirically. Painting wanted politics To be commodious. Painting was severely wounded by a governmental grenade on the Boulevard Saint-Michel in June 1968. It built barricades. It escaped through a window. Its throat was seized by a green- ish gas. The apparent freedom of painting will again be seized, enclosed, stricken. Painting will be herded naked into the street by the forces of order. Painting is ordinary. Someone will give painting his shirt. Someone’s vision will receive an incandescent projectile. Painting cowered in its blood. This is a secular fresco. I too wanted to throw something at them. What can painting plead? A string of olden coin slung on nervous sinew unprofitable, delirious, incredible, dear labyrinth stitched through with ribald sinew Painting stuffs and swells and abhors that circumvents a slit of light a fuzz of gods A winter fur in summer breeding vermin This Hyperbolical Nightingale.