προγραφές

THE TURTLES

It was in the Pacific.
Off the coast of Nicaragua.
We were out fishing for red snappers
in the blue sea with the blue sky
the sea like blue ink

and suddenly two turtles, coupled
one mounted on the other
making love in the sea
as they had been doing
as they since the beginning of their species
to reproduce their kind
and produce more species and more species
the same act in the sea for millions of years
for love
of the human species
and its fulfilment
communism.
The act that had gone on since the world began.
And I think of Matthew nineteen verse twelve:
And there are those who do not marry
for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, communism -
like a lonely turtle in the middle of the Pacific
like a lonely alone under heaven
wedded to heaven.

Ernesto Cardenal, Nicaraguan New Time, translator: Dinah Livingstone, publisher: Journeyman Press

It takes place on the top floor
where the television is and the big bed.
It takes place when the afternoon has reached an end
or after a trashed film has been shown on television
and when it is what is left to do.
It takes place between two bodies that join together
and have some movements to exchange
and some words to utter. Fucking is a language
that is used and a story that is told
and it is something that takes place while the ocean whispers
outside and the stars in the sky are still invisible
and the people in the town are still indoors.
Fucking is something that takes place in the eternal afternoon
when the electric pumps and the refrigerator have become silent
and conversations from the street rise up to the top floor
with the television and the bed. It is here with overwhelming
light coming in through windows and doors that it takes place. It
extends in this hour and takes shape in this room.

*

NEW TIRES

The white man fucks the black woman.
Amid vodou and death.
That’s how simple I see it.
Let me go on.
The palm tree trembles.
The sea prostitutes itself every day.
Animals murmur in the inner sanctum.
The gate is closed all day
and there’s no water in the pool.
I buy four new tires and arrange a repair
of the chassis.
That’s all.

Jorgen Leth, Trivial Everyday Things, translator: Martin Aitken, publisher: Book Thug

Oh Cranium...

Oh cranium anus of the empty night
the sky blows away dies
the wind brings absence to obscurity

Deserting a sky sdistorting the being
empty voice tongue heavy with coffins
being bumping against being
the head conceals the being
the sickness of the being vomits a black sun of spit.

Shirt pulled off in the water
blooming with hairs
when filthy happiness licks the lettuce
heart sick in the rain
in the vacillating light of drool she laughs blissfully.

*

Earth turn turn earth
turning whores of wood
sun red sun black
roses white roses pink

roses of the grave
turning roses
whores of the grave
turning graves.

Georges Bataille, The Collected Poems of Georges Bataille, translator: Mark Spitzer, publisher: Dufour Editions