Imaginary Depiction of Marquis De Sade-H.Biberstein 1912J.G Ballard once noted that the Marquis De Sade remains the spectre at the feast of European letters and thought. On the rare occasions when anyone decides to let him in from the cold, he leaves bloody footprints on the welcome mat.
A fiercely contrarian spirit, the Marquis has been variously called, by admirers and detractors alike: revolutionary, radical, reactionary, an anarchist, a socialist. Depending on who you read he is either a much maligned libertarian or he paved the theoretical way for the homicidal tyrants of the 20th century. No one can quite decide where the Marquis lies on the political spectrum. The debate is probably fiercest regarding his views on gender and pornography, understandably so as the body in De Sade is always the locus of power and freedom, but even here views diverge. Virulent misogynist whose fiction continually degrade and devalue women, or a radical feminist who, in one of his darkest fictions, Juliette, shows the possibility of complete female emancipation?
Illumination cannot be found in his life either. Strangely enough for a man who is know for transgression and excess, his behaviour as a free citizen in Republican Paris shows an unexpected moderation. De Sade didn’t avail himself of the unique opportunities present during the Terror, instead he kept a cool head while others were losing theirs.
After his release from prison in 1790 (see Citizen Sade), he lived in Paris with his mistress Marie Constant Quesnet and her six year old son. His long suffering wife Renee-Pelagie, after standing by him during the long years of imprisonment had obtained a divorce by this time. De Sade was elected to the National Convention and was appointed to the local Section Des Piques, one of the forty eight administrative divisions in the new Republic. It was in this position that he could have condemned his loathed in-laws, especially his mother-in-law, La Presidente who was responsible for the lettres de cachet that had caused him to be under lock and key for over a decade, to death. But he refrained; the Marquis De Sade had always been a principled opponent of the death penalty. This restrain and his criticism of Robespierre led to the Marquis being detained again in 1793, where he narrowly escaped execution due to a clerical error.
De Sade wrote a number of stirring pamphlets in defence of the Revolution, notably the famous Yet another effort, Frenchman, if you would become Republicans, nestled in his libertine classic La philosophie dans le boudoir (Philosophy in the Bedroom). In this text De Sade gives an outline of his version of Utopia, a minimal state that interferes as little as possible with the rights of the individual. I shall by reviewing this work in greater depth and further detail in the next post on the Marquis.
Imaginary Portrait of D.A.F Sade-Man Ray 1936In 1789 the Marquis De Sade was one of eight prisoners held in the state prison of Bastille. For a number of years he had been detained under lettres de cachet, a system were the King could imprison a subject without trial and without the opportunity of appeal. Lettres de cachet were one of the most hated features of the ancien regime, as it was open to a wide variety of abuses, notably the possible life-long detainment of embarrassing family members by wealthy and noble petitioners.
On the morning of July 2, the Marquis was in a highly excitable state and nervously paced the confines of his cell. His wife had told him about the chaos on the streets of Paris. The Marquis had noticed the stepping up of military preparations within the fortress. At noon his warden came to tell the Marquis that his daily walk around the prison grounds was cancelled for today, by the order of the commandant. Outraged by the loss of this privilege, the Marquis grabbed a long metal funnel, that was usually used to empty his chamber pot into the moat below, but also worked as an impromptu megaphone, and began to harangue the crowds below that the guards were slitting the prisoners throats and called upon the assembled mob to storm the fortress. After being subdued with great difficultly by a number of guards the Marquis was transferred from the Bastille to the mental asylum of Charenton.
Just 12 days later the Bastille was indeed stormed by the revolutionaries and the weapons and ammunition’s cache were seized. As a symbol of Royal authority its fall was especially significant. The French Revolution had begun in earnest and the world would never be the same again. One of the first things the new government did was to abolish the lettres de cachet and so on April the 2nd 1790 the Marquis Donatien Aphonse Francois De Sade left Charenton a free man for the first time in over a decade: and with this release was born Citizen Sade, revolutionary and man of letters.
The above imaginary portrait by Man Ray refers to this central event in De Sade’s life. De Sade is the imprisoned man whose entire countenance is made out of prison bricks who dreams of an absolute and terrifying freedom, looking on at the conflagration of the hated citadel of oppression. The text at the bottom of the painting is a quote from the De Sade’s last will and testament.
The interplay of light was different, even the seemed different to Max. As they walked along the avenue, the horizon stretched out before them indefinitely. He could detect the curvature of the earth —meaning that if they carried on walking as did, in a perfectly straight line, they would eventually reach this point again. There was no end. They were two tiny specks scurrying across the crust of a tiny ball spinning in space. For the first time, Max understood, really comprehended, that the world was round.
A heat haze shrouded the street, as the sun slowly but perceptibly leeched away all colour from their surroundings. Margot had dug out a pair of sunglasses from her small black handbag. As Max raised his hand up to shield his eyes from the sun glinting off the windscreens of the speeding cars, he cursed himself for not showing the same foresight. Each flash of light was like a blade slicing into his pupils. Max felt as exposed as a shucked oyster beneath a half lemon, poised to be squeezed. Glancing at Margot, he noted that she was as composed as ever. Nevertheless, she must have realised —either by intuition or telepathy, perhaps— his distress, because she paused and raised an arm.
Almost immediately, a black cab pulled over and they climbed in.
‘Euston Station, please.’ Margot said to the driver.
The driver started the meter and turned around to face them.
‘Are you young folks catching the train to anywhere nice?’ he asked.
Max looked at him in bewilderment. He was young for a taxi-driver and although his English was good, he spoke with an accent, perhaps German? That wasn’t the strange thing, though. His features were sharp and angular, yet the planes of his face failed to intersect. It was quite unsettling.
‘Oh, not really, just off to Birmingham to visit some friends,’ Max answered, bemused that he had lied for no reason whatsoever.
‘OK then, what time is your train?’ the driver asked, as he started up the engine. ‘Traffic is quite heavy and it is cross-town.’
Max turned to Margot but she was nestled in the corner, staring out of the window at the passing pedestrians. Obviously, it was up to him to make conversation with the driver, who, with his accent and heavy dark jacket (in this weather!) looked like a member of the Gestapo or the Stasi.
‘No particular time. I mean, we haven’t booked it or anything. I believe they run quite frequently, though. Maybe every hour on the half-hour… or is it every half-hour on the hour and at half past? Something like that, anyway… I think. Besides, I am sure we will get to Birmingham before night-time.’
The driver nodded without turning his head. Max hoped this was a sign that he could now stop babbling nonsensically, as it was a real effort not to give himself away. Surely, the driver could tell that he was out of it. Max imagined that the driver wasn’t a taxi-driver at all. He certainly didn’t look like your archetypal, loud-mouthed, pink-shirted, London cabbie. Maybe he was a former Stasi agent freelancing. Max looked again to Margot who, this time, returned his stare after pushing her sunglasses to the top of her head.
She didn’t speak, but in his head he could hear her saying not to panic. ‘That’s the cardinal rule, never ever panic.’
Was it a memory? Telepathy again? Whatever the case, Max felt calmer. His hand sought Margot’s hand lying limply on the seat between them, and when they touched, she interlaced their fingers and gave his hand a good squeeze. There, there now, that was much better. Much, much better. He could relax a little, despite the taxi driver watching them intently in the rear view mirror. Max was tempted to tell him to concentrate on the road ahead instead of spying on them, but thought better of it. It probably wouldn’t help matters, might even further arouse his suspicions.
The driver started rooting around in the glove compartment when the taxi stopped at a blocked intersection. After muttering what Max assumed were a string of German swear-words, he exclaimed with evident joy upon finding whatever he was searching for.
The traffic still hadn’t moved when the driver lit up what Max now realised was a joint. He opened the sliding glass panel and offered the joint to Margot, who accepted with a ‘why ever not?’ and an innocently winsome smile. Her left hand remained nestled in Max’s right hand, thankfully. He desperately needed that contact. The puzzle of the driver’s face was still terribly unnerving. Perhaps in some other dimension, those angles would form a pleasing symmetry.
After a couple of drags, Margot asked the driver if she could offer the joint to Max. The traffic had managed to unsnarl itself and they were at last, moving again through streets Max didn’t recognise. The driver nonchalantly waved his hand and said, ‘of course, plenty more where that came from.’
Max took the joint in his free left hand and inhaled deeply. It was strong stuff and it immediately reinforced the effects of whatever hallucinogen Margot had slipped him earlier. After a couple more heavy drags, he passed it back to the driver.
‘Thanks, its good is it not?’ the driver asked, then added, ‘What are all these people doing here?’
‘Yeah, it was excellent, thank you,’ Max answered. He had presumed the remarks about the people were a rhetorical question until he noticed the dubious-looking mob gathering outside as they passed. What indeed, were they doing on such an unprepossessing street corner in this rather unfashionable and frankly, quite desolate part of London? After what seemed a day and age, the taxi pulled up into the rank at Euston Station.
‘Here we are now. It’s eighteen pounds ninety, but we can call it fifteen pounds flat because of that hold-up.’
‘Oh, that’s very generous of you, but really not necessary. After all, you did help the time pass smoothly,’ Margot answered as she disengaged her hand from Max’s and pulled out three ten pound notes from her purse. She handed them over through the panel.
‘Really this is too much,’ he protested.
‘Not at all, your customer service skills are second to none. I can honestly say that this was the best taxi journey of my life.’
‘Thank you very much. I knew you were nice people as soon as I saw you on the street. Enjoy your trip to Birmingham,’ he said, as they tumbled out of the taxi in rather a heap.
Max felt quite dizzy. Margot took his hand and guided him through the entrance to the station.
‘Just concentrate on me, Max. Pay no attention to anyone but me, otherwise you’ll be getting the fear. God knows anyone could get the fear in this hideous hole at the best of times, but I have you covered. Do you trust me, Max?’ she asked him, her voice gentle, her mouth sweetly smiling. Her face, he suddenly realised, was simply angelic. It was like he was seeing her for the first time over again. No. Not true. He had never really seen her before this moment. All the other times were fleeting glimpses from a distance.
He trusted her totally.
But why? Was this trust misplaced? Did he actually know her any better now than he did this morning? This feeling of complete identification and of an absolute, telepathic communication —wasn’t it just an effect of the drugs? But even if it was, as he looked around at the surging crowds with their briefcases and handbags, these forever unreadable and unknowable strangers, he realised that this tenuous connection was all he had. He didn’t hesitate for a second longer.
‘Absolutely, I trust you, Margot. You’re still a complete mystery, of course, but I…feel like this is destined to be.’
‘That’s the spirit; you are your father’s son, after all. Come let’s get something to drink. After that we can sort out tickets and the such-like.. Everything is going to be peachy creamy, isn’t it Max? My brave little soldier.’
Hexentexte-Unica Zurn 1954In 1953 the German writer and artist Unica Zurn met a fellow German artist who was intimately connected with the Surrealists, Hans Bellmer. Ominously Bellmer reportedly remarked on first seeing Zurn, “Here is the doll,” a reference to the extremely disturbing series of photographs Bellmer had taken during the thirties and forties of an articulated mannequin of his own creation. The image of the Doll appear to be more of a crime scene reconstruction of some imaginary act of horrific violation than traditional works of art.
Zurn who had been barely been able to make ends meet in Berlin as a short story writer re-located to Paris to be with Bellmer. Here she socialised with the Surrealists and other artists who along with Bellmer encouraged and nurtured her writings and drawings, most notably in the anagrammatic poems and automatic drawings of Hexentexte (Witches Writing) from 1954.She also collaborated with Bellmer on a series of explicit sado-masochistic images that featured her tightly bound with rope.
During the sixties Zurn experienced a number of mental breakdowns that led her to be institutionalised. In 1967 her short semi-autobiographical coming of age novel Dark Spring was published. Dark Spring is an unbearably intense novel, astounding in its misogyny and masochism. It also foreshadows her own suicide by jumping out of a window three years later in 1970.
Bellmer died in 1975 and at his request was buried next to Zurn in Pere Lachaise Cemetery in a tomb marked Bellmer-Zurn. Posthumous writings of Zurn include the truly remarkable The Man of Jasmine which is a highly stylised account of her friendship with the writer Henri Michaux (author of the Miserable Miracle).
Below are some examples of her anagrammatic poetry and automatic drawings that Zurn produced throughout her career.
AND IF THEY HAVE NOT DIED
I am yours, otherwise it escapes and
wipes us into death. Sing, burn
Sun, don’t die, sing, turn and
born, to turn and into Nothing is
never. The gone creates sense – or
not died have they and when
and when dead – they are not.
for H.B.Berlin 1956
YOU’LL FIND THE SECRET IN A YOUNG CITY
Youth sings: now the sea is your harbor. Is
dream and hunt, the spirit’s inner feast, that send
him into dark, stony days, yes, you! – and he’s
immune from hand and serious sense – yes, You! Victories are
found forebodings. You travel to the city of Jim-Sing.
Go into the youngest street and find Amin, the Ti.
He says: yes, no, once, never, enemy, courage, it, are, you, D,H,G.
Secret signature? Jade stone? You’ll find the meaning.
Ile de Ré 1964
WILL I MEET YOU SOMETIME?
After three ways in the rain image
when waking your counterimage: he,
the magician. Angels weave you in
the dragonbody. Rings in the way,
long in the rain I become yours.
The Birds Are Following You-Paul Nouge-Subversion des Images 1968
In late 1929-early 1930 the poet, photographer, theoretician and co-founder of the Belgian Surrealist Group Paul Nougé created a series of 19 photographs that were collected and published as Subversion des Images in 1968. The series lives up to the title, subverting and questioning perception in the manner of his friend and fellow co-founder Rene Magritte, who is featured in several of the images.
Jupiter et Semele-Gustave Moreau 1894-1895A detail of Moreau’s stupendous and highly personal interpretation of the classical myth of Jupiter and Semele was used as the cover of Roberto Bolano’s masterpiece 2666, surely the greatest novel of the 21st century to date.
Showing the moment when Jupiter reveals himself in all his cosmic splendour to the mortal woman Semele, thus causing her death as she is penetrated by the divine effluence, Jupiter et Semele is, as critics have noted, ‘The most sumptuous expression imaginable of an orgasm.’ The crowded canvas with its startling contrasts of lush colour and deep shadow is populated by many mythological figures all seemingly unaware of what is happening in other parts of the painting. Although there is a frenzy of action Moreau has managed to create a frieze-like atmosphere; the awful stillness that happens before and after a cataclysmic event.
Moreau’s paintings are dense and hermetic dreamscapes. As Bolano notes only Moreau could convey, ‘A sense of terror, bedecked with jewels.’
Whatever the question
I’ve probably got the answer
For I have my tricks
And techniques I know
How to entrance and enthrall
To hypnotize and bewitch
To persuade and seduce
Just come over here
And look into my eyes
Bend down and I will
Whisper softly into your ear
Everything I know
Everything I ever learnt
About want and need
And the desire born
In the darkness
Of a heart filled
With a hate more
Vast and compelling
Than the night before
The last Judgement
And the ravening appetite
That can never be sated
Though I long to return
To the primal source
And its pristine innocence
Drink me and I will eat you,
Consume you and you gorge
On me and my love
For love is rapture
A rupture between
Heaven and Earth
Love is ecstasy
A nerve flaying glimpse
Of dizzying possibilities
Love is an acid
Corroding the identity
Dissolving the ego
Acid is the answer
The entire text of the spell dedicated to Roger Blin (recto and verso) reads; ‘All those who have gotten together to keep me from taking HEROIN all those who have touched Anne Manson because of that Sunday May 1939 I will have them pierced alive in a Paris square and I will have them perforated and their intestines burned. I am in a Mental Asylum but this dream of a Madness will be enacted and enacted by ME-Antonin Artaud.’
In 1937 Artaud landed in Cobh, Ireland with a letter of introduction from the French Embassy. Without that letter the Irish officials would have denied Artaud admittance. From Cobh he travelled to Galway where he holed up in a hotel room he couldn’t pay for. The purpose of this strange odyssey was to return a walking stick he had acquired which he believed was the staff of St Patrick, as well as being previously owed by both Jesus Christ and Lucifer. After a brief stint in Dublin’s Mountjoy Prison Artaud was deported as a ‘destitute and undesirable alien’. On the return ship voyage he attacked two crew members and had to be restrained and put in a straitjacket. Continue reading →
Margot insisted that Max needed to change first, as the doorkeepers at Xanadu could refuse admission for any reason they saw fit. ‘And you do look a rather young eighteen,’ she said teasingly. ‘Don’t you think Max?’
‘Not really… Well, OK maybe a little. But I still look older than you, Margot. Come on, you can’t deny it.’
‘I don’t deny it even a little,’ she said. ‘But Max, no door is ever closed to me. Nobody would dare to turn me away.’
What a puzzling thing to say, Max thought. How could she be so sure? Was Margot that well connected? Whatever the case, Margot wore such an expression of serene self-confidence that his doubts quickly evaporated.
With each passing moment, Max was learning ever more about her personality. Yet this knowledge only reinforced how much of a mystery Margot was. Who was this gamine, rather gauche, well-read and upper-class rebel, who —without ever stating the fact— just seemed to know things that others could only guess at?
From what Max had gathered from her off-hand remarks, Margot had been expelled from several exclusive boarding schools, much to the disgust of her wealthy, French father, who had subsequently disowned his incorrigible, troublesome daughter.
Margot, in return, had no time for him either. She explained that she had overheard her father justify his daily visits to prostitutes by saying that he preferred people to have expertise in their respective fields. ‘And well, they are professionals, after all…’
Her hatred of her father was only matched by her contempt for her mother, a terminal depressive who wandered vaguely around their Knightsbridge townhouse arranging and then re-arranging ornaments before absentmindedly breaking them…
And the question remained —how did Margot know Alex and how had she ended up living with him here at Elysium Crescent? Was she being coy earlier, when she had laughed off the suggestion that they were indeed lovers? Alex himself had been close-lipped on the subject. Max was half-tempted to go upstairs right away and ask him what the story was, but then he realized that Alex would, at this present moment, be zoned out on the shot that Margot had earlier administered.
Margot’s voice broke his reverie. ‘Well just don’t stand there, Max. Get a move on, will you? We have a long, long way to go, you know.’
‘OK, sorry. I was just following a train of thought.’
‘Well step off that train and concentrate on getting ready. And Max? Look smart, but try not to look like a boy trying to look smart.’
‘What do you mean by that? Exactly what should I wear then, Margot? Do tell, as you seem to be the dress-code expert for wherever the hell we are going.’
‘I may not be the expert, but I’m certainly older and wiser than you. So leave your smart remarks at the door and just do as I say, OK?’ she teased. ‘Just remember, you’re not going for a job interview, but you’re not going for a swift one at the pub, either.’ She waved him away. ‘Come on, move it. Go put something on and let me be the judge, but make it quick, otherwise we will never get out of here and we’ll end up spending the time just staring into each other’s eyes.’
Max thought it sounded like a heavenly way to spend the afternoon, but Margot’s restlessness was infectious. Besides, he wanted to see what effect the drug had on the senses beyond the four walls of the flat. It might all be too much to bear, but then again, it might just open his eyes. Perhaps he would see things as they really are. But then again… perhaps he would see things as they really are?
Max went into his bedroom and after a quick glance in his wardrobe, decided to freshen up first in the en suite bathroom. A whore’s bath would be just the ticket. Oh, and a brush of the teeth.
He had heard from someone (who) from somewhere (when) that you should never look into a mirror while tripping (if that’s what this was). Yet, the mirror was right there in front of him, staring him in the face. He could hardly not look now, could he? Besides, how am I going to get ready without checking myself out in the mirror, he thought. ‘It’s impossible, simply impossible,’ he laughed. How stupid to think that he could do all that without the aid of his reflection.
Tentatively and with a degree of trepidation, Max looked into the mirror. He smiled. Nothing to fear here. True, his eyes did seem to be constantly changing colour, from their usual copper hue, to grey, to blue and then black, before changing back to brown, but he could handle that. And yet, and yet…the longer he looked, the more he became aware of a vague double-image coalescing in the top, right-hand corner of the mirror. It was himself, but older. The eyes were slightly bloodshot and worry lines were etched into the forehead. In fact, the whole face was marked with the inedible stamp of years of strain and hard living.
Enough of this phantom from the future, Max thought and he slid the mirror over several times. After doing this for several minutes, the image finally disappeared. Focus, Max, he thought. Stop following chimeras; fight your way out of your own head for once. Right outside the door, there is a smart, pretty woman waiting to take you out and show you the world. It’s time to stop thinking and live a little.
Eventually, after much hesitation, he pulled it together and washed, brushed his teeth and changed. He hazarded another look in the mirror. Yeah, he thought, you’ll do. He just hoped that Margot would think so, too.
He returned to the living room and found it empty. No Margot. He considered calling out for her to hurry up, as he was anxious to get to wherever they were going, but decided that it would be better if he played it cool.
He sat, immediately stood up again, paced the room, spied the cigarette box on the coffee table and decided he needed one. They were Margot’s brand —Gitanes—smoked as an ironic homage to her loathed father. They were a little too rough for Max’s taste, but they were on hand and since he didn’t have a clue where he had left his own, he lit one up.
Mmmm, now that tasted good, he thought as he inhaled deeply. When did he last have a cigarette? Surely it couldn’t have been that long ago, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember. Time. Time —where did it go and what was the time now? And what time is love? Now? In some ill-defined future? Perhaps never? If only he could pin down the details, then everything would become clear. All the elements would fall into place and the seeming chaos would resolve itself into a logical order.
Max was staring at the rainbow-coloured ash, shifting like tiny crystals in a kaleidoscope, when Margot entered. She was so completely transformed, that at first, he wondered if the drug was playing tricks on his senses again. But no, this was simply what women were capable of —metamorphosis. A man, on the other hand, was compelled to stay true to the persona the world had selected for him.
Max stared at her. He had rarely seen Margot in anything but jeans and a t-shirt. She generally disdained make-up and hardly ever bothered to brush her hair. Now however, she had dressed in a simple, but stunning, black satin dress, complemented with an emerald necklace which perfectly matched her green eyes. She had wound her hair up in an elegant twist and applied subtle make-up that accentuated her high cheekbones and painted her bow lips with an exact shade of labial red.
Could this be love?
What time is love?
Can that instant last forever?
Even when time moves on and we age and fade and eventually turn to dust?
All these thoughts —along with other less pure images— were whirring through Max’s mind. However, with all sorts of marvelous words on the tip of his tongue, all he could manage to croak out in an awkward rasp was: ‘You look nice Margot.’
‘Gee, thanks Max,’ she said frowning. ‘After all that effort I went to, I’m glad I look nice.’ She gave him a once over. ‘You look nice yourself, Max. You did well with the brief. So, are you just going to sit there staring, or are we ever going to actually leave?’
‘Righty-o boss. Let’s get out of here.’ Max stood, then hesitated. ‘What about my Dad? Shouldn’t we tell him that we will be gone for a while?’
‘Don’t worry about that, Max. I checked up on him when I took a little bit of money to tide us over —you know, for taxis and train fares and general going around expenses. Oh, and I have his credit card, too. You have to pay to play in Xanadu, but don’t worry, I have the ways and means and I never lose. Well, hardly ever, anyway, and I will repay it all with interest. So relax, your Dad is fast in the Land of Nod, dreaming of distant lights or maybe of catching birds and mice —who knows with Alex, he’s a deep one.’ She winked.‘Perhaps he even dreamt us up.’
She sighed at the dubious look on Max’s face. ‘I didn’t want to disturb him so I left a note saying we will be back soon and not to concern himself about you. That you’re under my wing for the present and I wouldn’t let anything untoward happen. I’m sure he’ll find some way to entertain himself. He does so like the night.’
‘Are you quite sure about this, Margot?’
‘Positive Max. We are going to have a time. Believe you me. You haven’t really lived until you have been to Kubla Khan’s.’
‘Kubla Khan’s? I thought we were going to Xanadu?’
Margot regarded him with a look of amused pity. ‘I suppose you couldn’t know… how could you possibly? You’re still wet behind the ears aren’t you, my dear? Max, to get to Xanadu, you first have to enter the Pleasuredome, and you can only get to the Pleasuredome by visiting Kubla Khan’s. Don’t worry, it will all become crystal clear when we get there. That is, if we ever do, at the rate we are going. Enough chit-chat. We can talk on the way if you insist, but let’s just go.’
‘All right, but after you Margot. Ladies first.’
‘So Alex taught you something after all. I’m glad of that.’
Max followed Margot to the door, which he opened for her. Then they stepped out onto the street, Elysium Crescent, and into a brand new world.
What you dream of will one day
Flare with entropic intensity
I am aware of co-existing
Simultaneously on several planes
Threading the needle
Into alternative dimensions
Parallel co-ordinates
What is, was and will be
Blurring into a single instance
Memories are not to be trusted
That wasn’t me that did that
Not the I that I am now anyway
In this blighted shantytown
Of quantifiable materials
A dark grinding mill with
Ingenious sadistic machinery
Inside this infernal cathedral
A sacrilegious monument
To the eternal devourer
But beyond, maybe
The dancers will dance
To the music of the Spheres
Through to those imprisoned
Within delineated limits
It will only sound of silence
Myself I can hear her
Voice say with a precise
And clear elocution
The date of my summons
For my imminent execution
That is however
Only a matter of indifferent concern
For I have other selves
Existing other lives
In many places
At many different times
And at some point I will reach
The still centre that can
Never be diminished
Where the fictions of the ego,
The hallucination of space time
Vanish into an actuality
Where the divided selves
Fuse and become one
Where what you dream of
Is the source of all light.
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‘All those who have gotten together to keep me from taking HEROIN all those who have touched Anne Manson because of that Sunday May 1939 I will have them pierced alive in a Paris square and I will have them perforated and their intestines burned. I am in a Mental Asylum but this dream of a Madness will be enacted and enacted by ME-Antonin Artaud.’![18444627_250972078716108_6195764266084073472_n[1]](https://cakeordeathsite.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/18444627_250972078716108_6195764266084073472_n1.jpg?w=656)
