Words.

Regardless of the staggering dimensions of the world about us, the density of our ignorance, the risks of catastrophes to come, and our individual weakness within the immense collectivity, the fact remains that we are absolutely free today if we choose to will our existence in its finiteness, a finiteness which is open on the infinite. And in fact, any man who has known real loves, real revolts, real desires, and real will knows quite well that he has no need of any outside guarantee to be sure of his goals; their certitude comes from his own drive.

-Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity.

And I pollute
the air!
Come, smell these
hands, that whiff
of mortality
stinks to the
high heavens.

And I fling this dust
up into the midnight
sky, freckles remain
embedded in my palm.
The dust that I comprise:
a terrible, terrible thing.

The Accordion
Let me play
the Accordion of Time,
a piece to lull and lure,
to employ
to meet
our desires.
Listen:

The shortened
compressed months
bringing two
ends together,
playing a single note,
held in the
cool air of
a night in
spring.

And the lengthening of minutes
stretching that period of pleasure
that moaning note sounding softly
gently caressing us into
the eternal cover of night
a note that shall never end…

Did you look under
every stone and every shell
as you walked along on the
beach? Or inside
every tree and inside the soil
as you passed through the
forest? What di you want
to look for? How did you
think that you would ever
be able to find that which
was to be given by nature?

A half that travels
the world,
exploiting the imagination,
to seek completion
in any conceivable way.

Against Nature’s silence I use action
In the vast indifference I invent a meaning
I don’t watch unmoved I intervene
and say that this and this are wrong
and I work to alter them and improve them
The important thing
is to pull yourself up by your own hair
to turn yourself inside out
and see the whole world with fresh eyes.

-Peter Weiss, Marat/Sade.