_ by A. Gargett
“'Instead of God chance.' This means nature insofar as it
occurs, though not as occurring once and for all but as surpassing
itself in infinite occurrences, excluding any possible limits. In
this infinite representation (a representation that quite likely
is the boldest and most deranged ever tried out by humankind) the
idea of God explodes like a bombshell - divine impoverishment and
impotence clashing with human chance!”
(George Bataille)
Getting a grip? Easy! Though…I myself in control of myself
could scare me. Exasperation. Depression. Excitement. My life, or
the lack of one is my state of mind. Less and less do I question
to know. That’s something that pretty much leaves me indifferent.
And I live. And I question in order to live. I live out this search,
enduring relatively harsh ordeals - harsh because of the jangled
state of my nerves. I see no escape at this point. I’m alone
with myself, lacking any previous means of escape - pleasure, excitement.
I have to get a grip. If I don’t is there any alternative?
Endlessly, we annihilate ourselves - thought and life falling into
the void where they dissipate. To call this void divine - this void
at which I have aimed, at which my thought aims…
In the prison-cell of the body what can we do, other than provoke
glimpses of something beginning beyond the walls?
Get ready for the night, the rumours on waking, a gradual feeling
of learning and remembering ////
My life, strange and exhausting, tonight weighted down by grief.
Spent hours waiting, suspecting the worst. Then finally - chance
###########
I reasoned like this. My life is a leap, an impulse, whose strength
is chance. And now - at the level at which I presently gamble my
life - if I lose chance, I collapse.
Meet me at the crossroads, meet me at the edge of town. Outskirts
of the city.
Borderline dreams. New Mexico, sleep - death’s friend, death’s
sister. An abandoned motel, flowers and dirt on its walls. Darkening,
swift shadows lean on the meat your body to allow breathing. We
lie here stolen in the cold night. Strangled by doubt I relax in
your secret wilderness, your teeming emptiness.
You spoke to me. You took my hand and led me past silence into
cool whispered bliss.
Anguish, anxiety, preoccupy me and gnaw at me. Anguish is present
and hovering over possible depths…I raise myself up to the
limit and see the ground of things opening up. Like an unwelcome
knock on the door, anguish is present. Which is a sign of risk and
chance. In its demented voice - chance urging me. I “rise
up” out of myself, flames growing right in front of me. Bitter
scent of smoke, fire-night //////
What I loved in you, I loved to the point of wanting to die from
this love. Not some individuated existence but the universal aspect
of you. Although this aspect is what risks itself, risks me.
I can’t take risks without this anguish of feeling suspended.
But to take risks means to overcome anguish.
With your eyes, wary, gleaming. Warm creature of silence. The rustling
sex against skin. The wind withdraws all sound. In bed that night,
blackness burned. Savage destiny gone mad with fever.
Dance naked on broken bottles, feet bleeding and stained. Shards
cut stripes across your mind. Dust, knives, screams. Nightmares
along the divine corridor.
How can you know chance unless you’re filled with a secret
love for it?
An insane love creates it, hurling itself at your face in silence.
And chance fell on me from heaven’s heights, and chance was
who I am //////
To gamble or to question “self”…
Chance, endlessly contested, endlessly gambled. If you had decided
to embody chance right down to the last molecule, you couldn’t
have done better. Every flowery exhalation of you, the hectic flush
of your cheek touches it. Appearing - although through anguish…Then
disappearing so suddenly that anguish…As if night alone could
precede you, as if only night would follow you. But each time without
intending it. Appropriately (if you are chance).
Insanely loving chance, you gamble everything…even reason
itself.
Finally chance is purified. It’s freed from all minor objects
and reduced to its own inner nature. Chance is no longer a solitary
lucky response to the simple fact of risk. In the end the response
is chance itself - gambling endlessly, putting questions, wagering
all possibilities…
Summer sadness, the highways of this cancerous town. Ghosts in
cars. Electric shadows.