I imagine a woman, commissioned to produce a commodity,
an image to be reproduced indefinitely, for sale
ad nauseam, ad absurdum,
a sale from which she is not to benefit directly, but indirectly (maybe),
a sale which might expose her, and lead to a significant depletion of self-esteem.
She feels a very real sort of moral indebtedness?
fearing that she might not be a valuable investment in herself?
but only outside herself, in representation.
Her hang up:
Show us how art should change the world.
And authenticate your expertise on the issue by representing
an image of your own idiosyncratic suffering.
Listen, if you buy what nobody asked me to make,
let me tell you
what you invest in:
A re-invest-igation into the case of the death of the author and his missing corpse,
which is purportedly a feminist pin up.
My rent for the month of January 2021, in case none of my grant applications work out.
Time to strengthen myself so as to find a more internal locus of control.
The quest for truth leads me to a barren plane,
a depleted sheet of paper,
a short list of the remains of the day.
The idea of barenness is archetypal:
infertility, a source of great sorrow for every woman.
How about:
the strategic representation of barrenness to resist exploitation?
I can’t imagine the end of commerce,
there’s not enough space on the page.
This page is worthless.
Give me another.
A bit of water.
Shelter.
Food, sleep, safety, love, recognition.
I do this because I would not be doing anything else.
Grant art the basics.
Another page.
Shelter.
Another kind of page give me shelter.
Art is older than commerce.*
How competent do you think the woman is?
Wilke, reiterated, could be:
Who does she represent and why?
What do you want her to represent and why?
The artist, if she is worthy, should agree to indebt herself.
If both the personal and the political are capital,
it seems obvious what to write about.
This has already been discussed
?ad nauseam?
and signifies an error in logical argumentation:
Stating a falsehood over and over again expecting it to produce truth.
A self-sustaining fallacy.
If you buy what nobody asked me to make,
I am telling you
what you invest in:
yet another thing you did not know you needed or wanted,
a very good sense of humour.
*commerce
[ kom-ers ]
noun
1. an interchange of goods or commodities, trade, business.
2. social relations, especially the exchange of views, attitudes, etc.
3. sexual intercourse.
4. intellectual or spiritual interchange; communion?
If love’s a sweet passion why does it torment?
If a bitter, oh tell me, whence comes my content?
Since I suffer with pleasure, why should I complain,
or grieve at my fate, when I know t’is in vain?
Yet so pleasing the pain is, so soft as the dart,
That at once it both wounds me and tickles my heart
I.
whence comes my content, indeed
(as opposed to: wherein does my content occur)
when will it ?fill me up?
the problem at hand is the lack of content,
or the lack of satisfaction with content.
the poetic narrator
— whom we immediately identify as female in the performance of the song,
because that’s what is historically associated with a high pitched singing voice —
is an empty vessel
she is desiring
(bottomless)
never full
not receptive?
numb?
lacking,
or rather,
leaking
— dumb?
one could also ask, under which conditions can a female narrator be meaningful, find fulfillment?
II.
the narrator is experiencing confusion about how to categorize her sensations
what is the essential flavor of the passion she is experiencing?
sweet, or bitter?
the simultaneity of the two flavors is causing her both positive and negative stress
excitement
fear
an incongruency that demands categorization,
but resists being placed in one single category
III.
have you noticed that line of the song
?yet so pleasing the pain is?
i can’t help but hear
?yet so pleasing the penis?
pain is
penis
the dart penetrating the desiring heart is soft
the poetic narrator of the song is investigating
the intertwinement of pleasure and pain in the desire to be penetrated,
“filled up”
through metaphors coded with a language of consumption and of presupposed heterosexuality
IV.
oh tell me, she asks –
she needs information,
content.
information – latin for “to give form, shape to something”
there is desire for content and content in the poetic text
but which of the two is it –
does the narrator require to be “filled up”,
or informed, filled in, given a new shape
to better hold the content?
V.
a female poet goes to a bar and asks the bartender for information
and he says
“I am going to fill you up”
the narrator is confused
a soft penis is piercing her heart
she turns to the listener
and asks
“why am I staying at the bar when I could be writing?”
VI
if the penis were hard, the dart solid, it would be purely intrusive, unpleasant, mere torture
but since it is soft, it also tickles
tickling is a moment of perverse intimacy,
in which laughter can very suddenly transform into tears,
when the tickled is overpowered by the tickler
a sucessful tickle creates intimacy without exploitation
as the uncertainty about when and where the (un)pleasant feeling will occur
is carried, held by the tickler
VII
both a wound and a tickle
the intertwinement of pleasure with pain is especially pernitious because it discredits the poetic narrator’s right to complain or grieve
as part of the narrator enjoys the torture,
complaint and grief are forbidden, futile, vapid activities
“I know t’is in vain”, she says
in vain –
i can’t help but hear
vanity
vanity
(having the self-conceit to believe one was allowed to complain or grieve)
vanus, latin for empty, lacking content
again, “fill me up”
she asks the listener once more: “fill me in”, “how can I find fulfillment in this passion of mine?”
VIII.
the grief over a feeling of emptiness is sometimes believed to reduce suffering
because it lets the empty subject develop a tolerance to the lack of content
god forbid the poetic narrator was independent of content
that the lack of information, the inability to be given shape by something external
as well as the lack of content, the inability to be meaning-ful
were just accepted as a given?
what if the vessel was just good enough, meaning less?
IX.
the vanity of the empty vessel that is the female complaint just won’t suffice
potentially, one’s shape changes, depending on what one consumes
the poetic narrator
why indeed is she so disregulated
about the most normal thing in the world:
content
(the world is full of information)
in this world, specific vessels are conventionally used for different beverages,
they are standardised,
though obviously the rules about what vessel is used for what content are essentially arbitrary
the problem is not that no beverages exist
nor is the problem that no vessels exist
she
drinks small portions of decidre from shot glasses
pours her bitter tears into a cup of martini, shaken
drenches her vagina in wine
spits black whiskey into a milk jar at daybreak
takes the bartenders shoe and has him fill it with seamenly nothing
X,
XI,
XII,
we could say that with her high pitched voice, she is addressing us,
— if you allow me to be beside you —
and that she is asking us whether we can relate to her grief
“have you experienced passion, and if so, how does it feel to you?”
“have you experienced torture, grief over information and content?”
the female poetic narrator must complain, always, for this is her destiny
complain: latin, for: to lament, to criticise, to make a formal accusation to an authority
also: to beat the breast
complaint is always also self-harm
complaining is said to decrease the mental strength of the complaining
also: to emit a mournful sound
expression of grievance or blame
a gendered shriek, high pitched call-out
X,
XI;
XII
the formal accusation may be that the meaning produced in the act of seduction or tickling
renders the female narrator a mere vessel for either bitter or sweet flavors and that this categorization of their experience will no longer suffice to provide any fulfillment with meaning, content
we imagine the accusation is brought forward to a male bartender,
who provides the addictive substance
which makes the vessel a container for a specific content,
or the listener, who functions as an involuntary extension of the bartender.
it seems advisable for the female poetic narrator to address not the listener, not the bartender, but her own investement in the act of seduction ? is she seeking to be tickled, in a way that tortures her?
What does her lament generate?
A separation of content and form?
A refusal to consume?
A rejection of meaning?
A refinement of the palet?
After all there is more to sexuality than penetration or consumption,
and other nuances to passion than sweet or bitter;
– such as nutty, smoky, pungent, slightly tangy, and so forth.
THIRTEEN
the vessel
neither empty nor full
nor fulfilled nor deprived
nor blaming nor self-effacing
but in grief is a suspension of non-containment
there is con tent
She
fact is
She
is here
She
is her –
in some capacity.
Reality is not a form of experience;
it is a quality applied to forms
of experience.
My mouth is open.
My mouth–
open.
I am speaking.
My eye–
open/closed.
I am thinking.
My legs–
open:
I am ready to give,
but not to receive.
My thoughts–
angry, removed.
My voice–
matter of factly,
neutral.
My thoughts–
fearful, random.
My voice–
SUNDAY!
suggestive, sweet.
Life is an endless cigarette
I am inhaling smoke.
Place this body in a room,
bend,
allow for it.
Do not exhaust the body!
A week, many days.
A year, many weeks.
A life, sleepless nights.
A life, wasted–
months–
sulking in pretense.
Refusing to accept the ultimate compromise:
Expelled from the garden of eden.
Years spent in delusion.
Weeks spent in abundance.
Money spent–
one week.
I am dirt, wash me away.
Each day, when the clock strikes twelve, I wish there was
a way around labour.
I am infertile–
cant reproduce.
The capitalist labour market.
I am infertile.
I want to give life;
but all
shall be still born.
I have no emotion
I like conrol
I am rotten inside.
TUESDAY
Speaking is an obsession for me.
TUESDAY
I am talking to you right now–
but frankly,
even if you weren’t here…
Are you deaf?
Are you engaged?
I have found an engagement here.
I am grateful fo rthe engagements i receive.
I am aging–
gradually.
Have i lost all sensuality?
MONDAY
I am afraid that we have failed each other;
If love is about understanding who another person is,
that i have failed you many times.
MONDAY?
I have the capacity for brutality,
for cruelty.
I am good at gathering thoughts.
They pile up in my subconscious.
A personal grammar
which directs me.
None of the days of the week are what i need right now.
I place before your eyes all the material in my possession.
Let me explain–
its meaning:
Which may decompose slower than our human bodies;
You smell of sleep and tears.
I can see the pulse on your neck.
Let me say this to the audience:
We witness an animated corpse,
which reminds us of what once was.
I am a statue with the hopes of reanimation.
Give me a sedative, throw me away.
I am cold an rotten and
FRIDAY
indifferent.
It is no longer viable to exploit human labour as the mouthpieces for ideology.
It is no longer viable to enlist the audience as receivers of ideology.
Commit suicide–
TUESDAY
unthinkable!
You can refuse to move and be silent.
Then at least you are not lying.
She
can shut herself in,
shut out the world.
No played roles.
No faces.
No false gestures.
Nobody asks if its real or not.
If you’re honest or a liar.
We look alike
I think i could change myself into her–
if I tried.
I mean inside.
But her soul would be too big.
It would
stick out everywhere.
A year spent in delusion.
I dont want to lie–
but i have reason to believe it’s over.
(Pretense is negation of life).
Need better pretense.
Before stretching
time
wash me away!
WEDNESDAY
Stop making people into things.
Stop objectifying people by blaming them
for what they appear to be to you.
Legs crossed, eyes covered.
To make something that is not the case appear true.
Standing upright, leaning against the wall.
The world is all that is the case:
a false display of feelings
attitudes, intentions.
Come back tomorrow.
THURSDAY!
The practice of inventing imaginary situations in play.
How do we approach the plinth?
Affected and austentatious speech and behavior–
in the center of the room.
A claim to have a particular skill or quality.
Why is there a plinth?
Where is the script?
Where can i sit down to rest?
Where can I lie down to die?
How can i annihilate myself?
So that i dont have to make these choices anymore.
A choice is a plinth to sit on.
A gesture is a frozen intention.
Nobody can afford such insecurity.
Time is money.
time is tic tac–
tactic–
Time is strategy!
Money is time.
What can form afford?
How can we afford to be a form?
To be in shape.
Contortions of the spirit–
impossible in power poses.
Disposses me.
How long will it take you to dispossess me?
How many mondays?
I she even capable of such intensity?
I repeat.
To others what I have collected.
Repetitions are helpful as long as I mean to repeat a specific thing.
Often I end up repeating things unintentionally,
and there I go,
I am stuck in symbolic misery.
In a slackening compulsion,
which then makes me angry, or numb.
It repeats.
To persons what it has collected.
Repetitions are helpful as long as it means to repeat a specific thing.
Can it mean.
Often it ends up repeating things aimlessly,
and there it goes,
it is stuck in symbolic misery.
In a slackening compulsion,
which then makes it angering, or numbing.
Reality, that gaping narcissistic wound
of which it seems that I am about to write.
Thinking more about repetition than the average person
I can confirm that there are ways
in which the continuous occurrence of repetitions
can either be helpful to
or destructive of
the human consciousness.
Before I continue writing this,
let me get up
and walk to the stove.
So that I can make coffee.
I am back at my desk now.
Not often enough
I ask
How is it that the same thing
can cause you to either
feel
weary
or
joyful
?
What does same mean.
It took me seven hours to write the last 31 words.
When the sun goes down it means I can switch from coffee to wine.
I need space
We all need space
concerning space
two options present themselves to me
public and private
public and private
usually these two are separated
by a distinction
the function of this rule of separation is to maintain a relationship to yourself
to protect what is intimate
to exclude what is harmful to intimacy
public space shelters and incorporates the private spaces of all individuals
so that being intimate beings in intimate space
outside of it
individuals can enter a field of diplomacy
in which territorial negotiations take place
negotiations in public often concern intimacy
or the impossibility of it
when intimate space is threatened by public space,
this private, exclusive relation,
sometimes,
we need to re-enforce the boundary,
we need to play by the rule
we need to re-draw the line
when intimate space is threatened by public space,
sometimes we need to re-negotiate the rule
and introduce to the public that threatens our intimacy
the thing that threatens to eradicate the possibility for us to feel safe in public space
public space must also be protected from intimacy
because if everybody shared one single intimate space
diplomacy would fall short
and public discourse would become chatter
conflict could not be negotiated
never must we abandon the distinction
for we have the right to intimacy
and the possibility for diplomacy
only for so long as we have a space that grants it to us
look, my cigarette is burning an egg shell
innocence is a word i cannot spell
innoscence is a word reserved for con-men
experience teaches,
not even infants are innocent
language diables innocence in the world
as eggshells are meant to be broken
diplomacy means to refrain from saying what one really believes to be true
in order to protect and negotiate territory
intimacy is to say what one really believes to be true
regardless of all other spaces outside this particular intimacy
intimacy is not diplomacy
you are intimate with friends
diplomatic with strangers
you negotiate intimacy with both of them
gossip
is when intimacy is abused for political ends
gossip seeks to eradicate the boundary between public and private
the subject that gossips is wrong, is vulgar, is a liars
because
gossip wants to make up for a lack of intimacy in a subject’s life
gossip makes use of intimate language
when diplomacy would be required
gossip serves territorial fantasies
while abusing intimate language to achieve them
public ends through private means
gossip i s also
vulgar entertainment
a game to pass time with
an exercise in scheming
gossip and innocense are for con-men
gossip is not diplomacy
diplomacy seeks to negotiate
gossip seeks to influence, manipulate, control
if the distinction between private and public is lost
i do not want to live in relation to others
for nobody is to be trusted
and my need for intimacy is disregarded
i feel strange to say that i have a personal need for diplomacy
poetry re-negotiates the boundary between private and public
poetry does not want to abandon the rule of separation
it points to a perceived misplacement of the line between private and public
it seeks to draw the line elsewhere
gently uncompromising
carefully hurtful
it steps on a distinction
poetry is not diplomacy
for if poetry was to only ever shelter and never address what is intimate
it would not touch the listener
poetry is not intimacy
for if poetry was to only address private spaces
it would not be of interest for a public
poetry is not gossip
for if poetry was to vulgarize intimate experience for political ends
it could not be trusted
poetry balances on the line between diplomacy, gossip, and intimacy
think of an egg
on top of a wall
in which way can you trust the egg
when it says
i can use language however i please
poetry can balance
like no other form of speaking can
a friend is a private matter
a stranger is a public matter
if a friend betrays intimacy
they need to be called stranger
so that intimacy is protected again
public space must negotioate the possibility for intimacy without violating it
the smell of burning egg shell
is a threat to me these days
I want to fuck you
but you only love men
this is a private matter
i leave my trace in poetry
but a trace is but a trace is but a
do you understand?
consumer
be careful
perceiver
be careful
friend
be careful
stranger
back off
with your cigarette
the author
like an egg shell
is a fragile thing
Who is it, who is he, who is she.
She was chosen.
Chosen?
Selected. By the committee.
Is it the chosen?
Yes, it is her!
She looks like she just woke up.
Why is she squinting?
The beams are blinding her.
Amazing what one can make –
from nothing but cellulose and a little spit.
Her wings are a bit wrinkled.
She woke up like this.
All dressed up?
What a thought.
Horrifying!
A change of perspective:
To the costume,
the person is horror.
Yes, people don’t know how to match colors.
I beg your pardon?
My dream always was to throw shade at people.
I don’t know if this desire is
petty
or
horrific.
There is a big potential in both.
For erotic fantasies.
A lot of space.
Everything will be so different
When I’m on the stage tonight!
In the world outside:
A lot of space was subjected to petty desire.
Mono-eroticisms.
Mono-culture.
Back in the toilet:
She stabbed him, right in his heart.
Dein neon-rosaner Nagelack stach mich in den Kopf wie eine Hornisse!
Man eater!
Some people have beautiful wings without even trying.
Does she not feel uncomfortable on stage, with all eyes on her?
The schemes of admirers with their lustful, hungry gazes –
but in the shade:
Envy and malevolence, resentment, disgust, anger.
She does live a life that is rather
different.
How does she cope?
I for my part never wanted to be seen in this way,
I worked in the back, preparing the costumes.
My ironing skills have improved drastically over the years.
And I learned so much about garments.
Do you know this designer, Sybilla? I could give you her number.
She makes the most exciting robes.
Every year I come here, I look at all the beautiful creatures around me,
and I think:
I am so glad that this is not me.
A nightmare to wake up one day and find yourself in the center of things.
When things are so bad, would you want to be in the centre?
– – – –
Wer ist es, wer ist er, wer ist sie.
Sie wurde auserw?hlt.
Auserw?hlt?
Selektiert. Vom Kommitee.
Ist es die Auserw?hlte?
Ja, genau die.
Sie sieht aus als sei sie gerade aufgewacht.
Wieso blinzelt die so?
Sie wird von den Strahlern geblendet.
Unglaublich was man so anstellen kann –
mit nichts als etwas Cellulose und Spucke.
Ihre Fl?gel sind etwas knittrig.
Sie ist so aufgewacht.
So ganz angezogen?
Was f?r ein Gedanke.
Das ist ja der Horror.
Ein Perspektivwechsel:
F?r das Kost?m
sind Menschen der Horror.
Ja, die wissen nicht, wie man Farben kombiniert.
Was bitte?
Es war immer mein Traum, andere in den Schatten zu stellen.
Ich wei? nicht ob dieser Wunsch
spie?ig ist
oder
schrecklich.
Da liegt ja gro?es Potential in beidem.
F?r erotische Fantasien.
Eine Menge Raum.
Everything will be so different
When I’m on the stage tonight!
In der Welt drau?en:
Eine Menge Raum wurde spie?igen Begierden untergeordnet.
Mono-Erotizismen.
Mono-Kultur.
Zur?ck auf der Toilette:
Sie stach ihn, mitten ins Herz.
Dein neon-rosaner Nagellack stach mich in den Kopf wie eine Hornisse!
Manche haben sch?ne Fl?gel ohne dass sie was tun m?ssen.
F?hlt sie sich nicht unwohl auf der B?hne, so ganz im Rampenlicht?
Die Umrisse der Bewunderer mit ihren lustvollen, hungrigen Blicken –
aber im Schatten:
Neid und B?swilligkeit, ressentiments, Ekel, Wut.
Das Leben dass sie lebt ist wirklich sehr
anders.
Wie kommt sie damit zurecht?
Ich f?r meinen Teil wollte nie so gesehen werden.
Ich hab mich immer im Hintergrund gehalten,
an den Kost?men gearbeitet.
Meine B?gelfertigkeit hat sich drastisch verbessert ?ber die Jahre.
Und ich habe so viel ?ber Kleider gelernt.
Kennst du diese Designerin, Sybilla? Ich geb dir ihre Nummer.
Die macht die aufregendsten M?ntel.
Jedes Jahr komme ich hier her, ich schaue mich um
und sehe die wundersch?nen Gestalten um mich herum und ich denke:
Bin ich froh dass ich das nicht bin.
Ein Albtraum eines Tages aufzuwachen und sich selbst im Mittelpunkt wiederzufinden.
Wenn die Dinge so schlecht stehen, w?rdest du im Mittelpunkt stehen wollen?
This Text was written as a press Text for Jonathan Penca’s Show “Sympathy for the 6-Legged” at Deborah Schamoni Gallery, Munich in 2018. View the exquisite exhibition here.
spilt milk
no use
milk spilt
everyone spills milk
no one does not
once
let him who is without spills
milk me
no use
crying over
it’s over
spilt
milk is spilt
all over
all over me
spilt
my milk
spilt
no use
spill me
spill over
spilt over me
spill is over
gone
it’s gone
no use
I spill,no milk,no crying,no use.
Don’t use
me
use me but
don’t cry
no crying and
use me
cry don’t
milk
don’t spill milk
jesus let him
who is without crying
spill me
throw a stone
hang me
no use hang
milk spills
spills me
let her who is without use
cry
no use
cry over my milk
spill over
my self
useno crying
tears tears tears tears
tear time
no time for tears
no room for milk
spilling is useless
milk
is what spills
my crying over milk ? uselessspill me over crying
overspilling crying me
still spilling
being it still
having been it
still it
is over
overuse me
the liquid gone
spilt
used up
the woman is all used up
you milked spilling all over
milk won’t come back
milk spilt never comes back
a word spoken is past recalling
no use crying
spills happen
happens happen milk spills
a spill is over
past recalling is not milk
used to be milk
no use using milk
over crying
call a woman a bad name and milk her
milk her
it needs milk to spill one
the thing about milk is that it can be spilt
a lover spills milk
no use
crying
a word is past
recalling milk
no use
recalling a word
spoken
face spill
face your spilling
face milk when spilling
look look at me when I spill
look milk all over
no use
it’s over
no use over milk
crying
crying
crying
no woman no milk
a woman spilt is pasti
t’s past
milk is over
all over me
a word spilt
is past spoken
past milked is no use
a woman milked is past re-calling
no use
a woman spilt is no use
no use crying no use
crying over spilt woman
no use in spilling the past all over
over milk
past called
spilt me
I recall
milk was spilt
no use recalling spilt milk
all over a woman is past
no crying
hang her
call her a bad name
a name worse than spilling a name worth spelling
a name dropped is past re-called
a name broken is milk spilt
no use crying over a broken name
a thing is
either this, or that
it is the junction
that makes the body for all of my pain
you can say this for a specific or arbitrary number of things
in every case you realize that
either or
equals
and
and and
equals
neither nor.
you can say I am scared
you can say
I am scarred
you can say
I am scarred, or
as long as I adore you
I must devalue myself
so I choose to live without that junction
no to hell, no to heaven
no to dependence etc.
in the notness of my logic
and in the isness of my love
I arrive at
no to artificial flavoring
and the gravity of crime
It starts with a page, blanker than my mind.
At least I hope so.
Otherwise I had nothing to say.
This poem is a drawing.
It was hung in a room.
The room seems empty.
The room has dark floor
and white walls.
One of the walls is tilted.
The drawing is titled.
It was hung on the wall which is tilted.
Attached only at the top,
the bottom part is dangling in the wind
that enters the room through the window.
Curtains
fluttering,
thrashing,
threatening.
It is stormy outside.
Flowers are blown into the room.
It is stormy inside.
Dust is blown into the titled.
It is stormy in the drawing.
Ink is blown onto your face.
The titled is a piece of wood.
On it are lines drawn in ink.
The lines are dancing seductively.
It’s a real shock for everyone involved here.
The drawing is aware of itself
and wants to draw you in.
For a second you feel manipulated –
as the beauty of those lines is so mysterious
that you are afraid
that it is playing on perverse desires.
The author of the poem sits in the corner
watching you regarding the titled.
It is still dangling.
The author calms you down,
says there is nothing perverse about your pleasure.
The drawing is vulnerable –
your gaze is stabilizing.
The author of the poem finds fatal attractions attractive.
The lines in the titled are jittering.
The lines in the poem are jittering.
You regard the author.
The author has no qualities, says a second author,
who sits in the other author corner.
You look into the remaining two corners,
There are two women.
Both of which are also authors
Each of them is cornered.
Neither of them has a name.
The first of the two
is free
because words are bricks that needn’t make walls
The second of the two
is bound
because words make riddles without answers.
The first of the two is powerful.
The second of the two is spiritual.
Both of their minds are fleeting.
And only love can break your heart.
My inner truth is on the titled.
My outer truth is in the poem.
Exit all authors,
for you want privacy.
You haven’t heard your own thoughts since you entered the room.
You focus on the titled.
You sit down on the bench –
it is placed in the otherwise empty room.
I sit down next to you
very very closely.
I am breathing on your neck.
It is still quite windy.
The wind is blowing.
The lines are jittering.
The wall is tilted.
The authors are outside.
I am breathing on your neck.
You focus on the drawing.
and bang it is gone.
There is (at least) two characters.
She, the narrator.
And he, the composer.
You are the witness.
And maybe, this has nothing to do with you.
So many thoughts inside his mind.
In order to be a good composer, you have to be sensual.
I love the way you touch me.
No one knows the way you touch me.
People are allowed to envy me, but they can’t have what is rightfully mine.
They will be allowed to look at me if they have good intentions.
They will not be allowed to comment on me if the comment alienates them from their own ideas.
I am interested in the way that we look at this.
I am looking at myself.
This man is me.
You are looking at me.
And you are looking at a man.
I am tall and have a good jawline.
I am looking at you knowing that you think of me.
I have some footage of us in bed that I think is very good.
What do we have here?
I will tell you what we see.
I say:
You are looking at me.
Maybe too obvious of a cameo.
I guess I understand.
We are back inside his male mind.
It is very male in there.
If you want to be a good composer, you have to to be spiritual.
You have to have a snack.
You need to eat well.
You need to drink only as much as you have to.
And if you drink, you have to consider the degree to which alcohol will be useful to you.
In this moment.
Firstly with regards to the next day.
Then with regards to the whole week
to the month, to the whole year
and then eventually, your lifetime.
A lifetime is composed of various instances of consumption.
I want to live a life of integrity while constantly arguing with myself.
If I am going to say that I am torn, you can’t do anything about it.
Nobody is ever reliable.
But you can have the wish to be.
If you want to be a good composer, you have to have good memory.
Being in this poem,
he misses you terribly.
What is your hand doing in your pants?
That hand has touched him the night before.
It made him experience emotional and sexual attachment.
Things he does not admire about himself.
He envies your senses.
He feels an urgency, but he lacks insistence.
While actually he finds nothing to insist upon.
Actually.
He felt anxious that day.
Nervous. Self-conscious. Not normalized.
What holds narrator and composer together is the expectation to float on the other’s insecurities and be carried for a while.
My mouth is the best clockwork.
If you keep it running, you are in touch with your mortality.
My mouth is the best clockwork.
What the two have in common is a constant crippling worry.
My mouth is the best clockwork.
What we share, you and I, is that we are afraid that we will lose each other.
That the other will find a better opportunity to escape themselves.
The positive version of this would be.
My life has shape without you, but it is quite rough.
I receive a call.
It is him, he is wondering about my hand.
What it is doing in this moment.
Hello?
Yes I am just narrating.
Yes maybe tomorrow is a better time.
Yes I love you too.
Excuse me.
If you want to be a good composer, you have to have good eyes.
My motives for choosing how to spend my time are mostly intrinsic to the choices.
Extrinsic motives repel me.
People who have extrinsic motives are mostly very absent.
It is always easier to have a motif than a motive.
The motif of this work is a weakness of character.
The motive is the composer’s job.
I guess he is masturbating right now.
He wasn’t in the mood.
His mood had other plans for him.
He is trying to be charming because he wants so much from other people.
His heart is always sweetly looking out for you.
You are burnt into his consciousness. Branded.
What are his ideas about ethics?
He was frustrated.
But then he told himself the world is big and one is probably in the wrong place all the time.
You tried your best and if the stars don’t align with how you wanted them to be,
then that is what you have to take.
Then sometimes your hair shapes up quite nicely.
Hello?
Yes, I am just narrating.
It is one a clock in the morning and a hot summer night.
And this is the face of New York when it is asleep.
This is the narrator.
She is dead. I hated her and I couldn’t get her out of my mind.
She lost a lot of money gambling, and then she died.
Some day a real rain will come and wash all that scum off the streets.
Goodbye, I love you too.
He is abusing himself constantly.
He truly never meant to. It is in his nature that he is abusive.
He is trying not to be.
I am being serious, not defensive.
I won’t stop being weak until you can accept my weakness.
There is an obsession in her but she has it under control.
If there were no other requirements for production, he would just use it to tell you how he loves you.
If her metabolism was faster, then she would be wittier, too.
Let them see what kind of person she is.
I imagine you to say.
I imagine him to think.
He will never trust you again.
Back and forth back and forth.
He wants to touch you he wants to touch you he wants to touch you.
Nobody else can touch you.
Nobody else can have you.
All he wants is you.
His mind is spinning because he is obsessed.
To be drowsy can be advantageous.
Evolution gave us drowsiness so that we can cope with loss.
I have some footage of us in bed that I think is very good.
This chair.
The chair as friend.
Who is knocking at the door.
The hands are weaker.
The legs too.
There is two of each.
Habits to have.
Habits to hate.
An air of impatience.
I was put into a blanket and into some shoes.
I then wrote sentences.
I follow a script.
Decide which color.
Which size.
Which degree of softness.
An inappropriate remark.
I turn away.
Very inappropriate.
I would rather not have this happen.
Slowly bending the knee.
Until it gives in.
Little piece of chocolate.
The cause is the emotion.
The effect is more complex.
Emotionally dominant.
I can make it easier for you to feel yourself.
Now you dropped a jar.
You dropped the jar with tomatoes in oil.
You are destined to be clumsy.
You spilled everything.
Clumsy, clumsy you!
Furniture.
Books and cutlery.
Do not fill your mind with dirty things.
You will become those things.
Expose yourself to cruelty or banality.
Become cruel and banal.
The risk of being frivolous.
The window is open and one can see the sun dancing.
Hold my hair.
Soreness and misanthropy.
Walk.
Walk towards me and hold my hair.
Hold my newspaper.
Whisper.
Let me be dull just for now.
Forgive me.
Eat this bun.
Do not speak to me in this flippant way.
Say things you really mean.
Hold my hair.
Childlike.
Sense of injustice.
This is my bed.
This is my bathroom
This is my sink.
Centuries of this.
Except for travel diaries.
Other things.
Tripping over rocks.
Somebody I thought I knew.
First in a boat.
Then in Budapest.
A dirty little room.
I caught her and this very tanned man.
Tattooed all over.
No sounds except theirs.
She was embarrassed.
She apologized to me.
My breath is too loud in my ears.
Had I known, I wouldn’t have gone.
The chair again.
My friend holds the soreness.
Have some berries and chew.
I do not desire these berries.
Yet the taste is not unwelcome.
Automaton and autonomy are similar sounding words.
Similar looking wounds.
Sounds of things falling on the floor.
The silence of the space.
Except for when you trip.
Make a trip.
Chunk-like thinking.
This is not grammatically incorrect, not unconventional.
Life as dramatically incorrect.
The best is to stay dry and light.
Longing depresses.
You have no right to seat me!
have you no shame
any shame at all
at all times ashamed
body mother
and mind mother
have dragged me to a pond
the want happens here
I promise to pretend to be true
the head looks into the water
while the brain is occupied otherwise
no matter
the moon is crazy and unattractive
the exchange of niceties
is a projection
of the impoverished
their urge for achievement
it isolates us even more than hostility
there sits an untouchable
sits down by the pond in the moonshine
condemns herself–
don’t be a snob
find a home in alienation.
Be careful not to understand more than what I am providing.
What is the world asking of me?
What does it want?
Has it abandoned me?
Is it revolving around me?
My love read to me a sentence:
Thoughts are but texts to condemn us.
Is the world plotting against me?
Desires are not needs.
There is a difference and the difference is:
Needs are neglected, desires are used.
I know what I am doing to myself.
I am Neglecting myself for you.
You are welcome.
My body is fine.
I am afraid somebody is watching me.
Many and many a year ago
there was many and many a thing to do
many a thing to forget to do.
I consumed too many toxins over the last months.
Once consumed, the amount of toxins in your body always remains the same.
It never changes.
The toxins don’t disappear.
You merely replace one with another.
Restraint is the only way to stay clean.
Therefore the most repressed people are the healthiest.
Repressed with a glass of milk.
A new systematics.
You are naturally totally unfit.
But culturally tough.
Hello this is me and this is all my stuff.
Hello this is me and these are my muscles.
Hello this is me and this is my narrative.
I am totally unfit to be part of this operation.
I have an insatiable psychic longing.
For critique.
Dichter, Denker
Richter, Henker
I don’t think you should force people to be naked.
If you are melancholic it is because something was stolen from you.
There is this event that I never asked to be part of.
Now it is consuming all my time.
You become part of it because it is rewarding.
It rewards things nobody would ever have considered worth rewarding.
Like following a law.
Laws are nonsense, everybody thinks that.
Shut up.
You are being unreasonable.
Eat the or d’heuvre that you are offered.
Olives give me a rash.
Eat your olives and you will get your belly button pierced.
I have painted an oak tree.
It symbolizes my lust.
I made a movie about a brothel.
It symbolizes the symbolic order.
I have written a poem.
It refers to my struggle for recognition.
You have made a play about your problems.
It means that there are problems that belong to you alone.
Shut up, this is bourgeois.
You have made a film about filmmaking.
It symbolizes the narcissism of the medium.
You have painted me.
This symbolizes nothing but you just can’t help yourself.
Be careful not to understand more than what I am providing.
I have told you
to mould you
I have told you a hundred times, a million times,
a trillion
a bazillion
I have told you
all I know
is that you
have been told
by me
you are the one
that I told
the only one
boldly I told
You – are my hand.
I told you to open the door
to carress the one who was close
to point at the one who was guilty
to straighten the linen, the line
and to finish the text
word! You say.
boldly you’re telling
what you have heard
doing what you’ve been told
a hundred times, a million times
a trillion,
a bazillion
they told me
you should do
I told them
they can’t tell my hand
to do
they told you
you did
as me telling
is equally good
as them yelling at you
Bread is the body of the word
bread is gluten
butter is the cloth of the body which is bread
bread is dressed in butter
butter is lactose
gluten and lactose on top of each other
the word has become bread
it is somebody else’s word
body eats bread
which is the word
body becomes word
lactose is watching
the foreign word is gluten
when body eats bread
body loses its own word
foreign word hits body’s intestine wall
and body becomes bread
lactose becomes tears
butter runs down body’s face
words run down body’s face
bread’s words liquified
dressed in milk dress
body is bread, body wears butter
body is immune against itself
which is the foreign word
word must be digested
body in the attempt to digest itself
body shrinks itself
body becomes bloated
body perpetually dies into life
bread speaks, butter is silent
gluten forbids, lactose enables
lactose legitimizes
lactose opens the doors to heaven
body can’t enter
body has stomach pain
bread feels sorry
gluten hates itself
bread wants to be independent of gluten
gluten is precondition for acceptable bread
lactose is dumb
body continues to shrivle
gluten is the perpetrator
lactose is the perpetrator
body is the victim
word is the perpetrator
word is lost word is found
bread and butter
gluten and lactose
word and flesh
reason and aim
attempt and outcome
body and dress
The tamer of horses was given a knife.
He is not sure about what it is for.
Self-defense. Attacking, killing, hurting.
Suicide.
Yes, suicide seems to be the healthiest option under all these very unattractive choices.
He might have had numourous dissonances to resolve.
He cannot hold the knife.
His hand nearly fell off the other day.
He thought about using the knife as a tool.
To cut off the arm of a friend and claim it for his own.
The horse tamer was given a knife.
He doesn’t really want to own it.
But he guesses if he was given it, it is expected of him to keep it.
He could leave it somewhere in a bush or in a sewer.
But if it were found, if his fingerprints were on it – it would be discovered that it belongs to him.
He is going to keep that knife.
Though it gives him a bad feeling to have it around.
It might slip from his pocket and slit someone’s throat.
He cannot hold it properly.
His hands are not used to the shape of its handle.
The knife causes yet another dissonance inside his head.
To be able to use this knife as a tool,
He might have to enter into some kind of evolutionary regress,
because as a monkey he could probably hold that thing with his feet.
Then he could probably cut the lettuce.
But here, desire enters the stage.
And he must say,
that he does not have the desire,
he cannot begin to even slightly feel
any inclination whatsoever to cut lettuce.