Alan Sondheim

[ for ELO, Paris ]

we all live within our hallucinations

when we die, we're sliding unawares and there have been
too many deaths and disruptions

holding on and poised above an abyss which opens everywhere

when i say "just over there" what i'm saying is that the
world falls off in every direction

you pick a point or position and walk towards it or force
your body into nodding

and over there, the abyss which means
there's nothing to hold onto

my breathing has become more and more difficult in these
rough terrains and when i sleep the machine prepares me
the catastrophe of the day

i'd want to say more, about how my search for the truth
was always emergent

but near the abyss, the loss, not only of information,
but of its viral carries, ensures it doesn't matter at
the end

and that matter doesn't matter, that every point of the
abyss falters towards every other, flounders on every
other

what life does is momentarily bear witness, and just
before blindness, it appears as if the subjunctive gains
the upper hand

oh these are heady days

these are days of death and the compression of death,
days of genocides and impulses

days of annihilation: to the limit!

when the earth turns, irradiating itself towards a bleak
and darkening sun

at least there are days and a succession of bands,
of light, then dark, then light,
of dark, then light then dark

the body embraces catastrophe: see how the abyss invades
and cauterizes each and every thought!

and in every direction, and among all, and every one!

these are heady days, salvation burning like a star
on its last coordinates

i'm looking up in every direction, and from each and
every one, i'm falling

i'm falling for no one, i'm falling for nothing
and i understand, annihilation is the path, not the
means

the journey, and not the goal,
the way and not the end,

that the limit is asymptotic, and whatever one does,
one is coasting

among the others that are our selves or the same,
one is coasting

among the abyss and cessation, among annihilations
in lock-step and ready-made,
one is coasting

the keel of the boat, that too, in every direction,
and the keel is coasting towards the shore

and the shore is an hallucination
and we're living there, and dying, we're dying
in great numbers,

and we're sliding, unawares

and in spite of or towards this speaking, and among
this speaking,

we're sliding, unawares

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