Three To Tea Party: Joseph Conrad, Alice Miller and Toni Morrison.

On Toni Morrison s Beloved; Joseph Conrad s Heart of Darkness; Page | 1 Alice Miller s The Drama of the Gifted Child.
The Searchforthe TrueSelf.
THREE TOTEA PARTY: JOSEPH CONRAD,ALICE MILLER ANDTONI MORRISON.
the middle passage: bridging aethiopia and the americas.
ammabirago
Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous
Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child.Take up the White Man's burden-To seek another's profit, And work another's gain. Take up the White Man's burden--The savage wars of peace-(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:- "Why brought he us from bondage, Our loved Egyptian night?" Rudyard Kipling. White Man s Burden.
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James Baldwin. On serpents and the garden of one s dreams.What one does not remember contains the key to one s tantrums and one s poise. What one does not remember is the serpent in the garden of one s dreams.
"Tell me," Beloved said. "Tell me how Sethe made you in the boat." "She never told me all of it," said Denver. "Tell me." She swallowed twice to prepare for the telling, to construct out of the strings she had heard all her life a net to hold Beloved. I watched that son a bitch grow up and whup everything in the yard." "He always was hateful," Sethe said. "Yeah, he was hateful all right. Bloody too, and evil.Crooked feet flapping. The last of the Sweet Home men. "Mister, he looked so... free. Better than me. Stronger, tougher. Son a bitch couldn't even get out the shell by hisself but he was still king and I was..."
A second time into the womb. On man, fear of the uncanny and mourning, the eternal quest for renaissance. Alice Miller. The Drama of the Gifted Child.In Search of the True Self. But this freedom cannot be achieved if the childhood roots are cut off. For a person with narcissistic problems access to the "true self" is thus only possible when he no experienced longer has to be afraid of the intense "psychotic" emotional world of his early childhood. Once he has this during the analytic process, it is no longer strange and threatening and need no longer be hidden behind the prison walls of illusion. A good deal of advice for dealing with the depressive patient (for example, turning his aggression from the inner to the outer world) has a clearly manipulative character. If the analyst can see through to the goals and compulsions behind this provocation, then the whole decayed building collapses and gives way to true, deep, and defenseless mourning. When finally the narcissistic wound itself can be felt, there is no more necessity for all the distortions. This is a clear demonstration of how mistaken the attempt is to show a patient his instinctual conflicts, if he has been trained from earliest childhood on to feel nothing. How can instinctual wishes and conflicts be experienced without feelings? One cannot remember one's parents' attitudes then, because one was a part of them, but in analysis this early interaction can be recalled and parental constraints are thus more easily disclosed. Political action can be fed by the unconscious anger of children who have been so misused, imprisoned, exploited, cramped, and drilled. This anger can be partially discharged in fighting our institutions, without having to give up the idealization of one's own mother, as one knew her in one's childhood. The old dependency can then be shifted to a new object. If, however, disillusionment and the resultant mourning can be lived through in analysis, then social and political disengagement do not usually follow, but the patient's actions are freed from the compulsion to repeat. The inner necessity to constantly build up new illusions and denials, in order to avoid the experience of our own reality, disappears once this reality has been faced and experienced. We then realize that all our lives we have feared and struggled to ward off something that really cannot happen any longer: it has already happened, happened at the very beginning of our lives while we were completely dependent. "Society" not only suppresses instinctual wishes but also (and above all) it suppresses particular feelings (for instance, anger) and narcissistic needs (for esteem, mirroring, respect), whose admissibility in adults and fulfillment in children would lead to individual autonomy and emotional strength, and thus would not be consonant with the interests of those in power. However, this oppression and this forcing of submission do not only begin in the office, factory, or political party; they begin in the very first weeks of an infant's life. Afterward they are internalized and repressed and are then, because of their very nature,
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inaccessible to argument. Nothing is changed in the character of submission or dependency, when it is only their object that is changed. Therapeutic effects (in the form of temporary improvement) may be achieved if a strict superego can be replaced by the analyst's more tolerant one. The aim of analysis, however, is not to correct the patient's fate, but to enable him to confront both his own fate andhis mourning over it. The patient has to discover the parents of his early years in the transference, and within himself, and must become consciously aware of his parents' unconscious manipulation and unintended contempt, so that he can free himself from them. So long as he has to make do with a tolerant substitute superego, borrowed from his analyst, his contemptuous introject will remain unchanged, and hidden in his unconscious, despite all his better conscious knowledge and intentions. Although this contemptuous introject will show itself in the patient's human relationships and will torment him, it will be inaccessible to any working through. The contents of the unconscious, as Freud said, remain unchanged and timeless. Change can only begin as these contents become conscious. It isas if the "badness" in the parents that had caused a person the most suffering in his childhood and that he had always wanted to shun, has to be discovered within himself, so that reconciliation will become possible. Perhaps this also is part of the never-ending work of mourning that this personal stamp must be accepted as part of one's own fate before one can become at least partially free. When the patient has truly emotionally worked through the history of his childhood and thus regained his sense of being alive - then the goal of the analysis has been reached. The paradise of preambivalent harmony, for which so many patients hope, is unattainable. But the experience of one's own truth, and the postambivalent knowledge of it, makes it possible to return to one's own world of feelings at an adult level without paradise, but with the ability to mourn. It is one of the turning points in analysis when the narcissistically disturbed patient comes to the emotional insight that all the love he has captured with so much effort and self-denial was not meant for him as he really was, that the admiration for his beauty and achievements was aimed at this beauty and these achievements, and not at the child himself. It is only after it is liberated in analysis that the self begins to be articulate, to grow, and to develop its creativity. Where there had only been fearful emptiness or equally frightening grandiose fantasies, there now is unfolding an unexpected wealth of vitality. This is not a homecoming since this home had never before existed. It is the discovery of home. 3. The phase of separation begins when the analysand has reliably acquired the ability to mourn and can face feelings from his childhood, without the constant need for the analyst. Every affect belonging to an emotional impulse, whatever its kind, is transformed, if it is repressed, into anxiety, then among instances of frightening things there must be one class in which the frightening element can be shown to be something repressed which recurs. The uncanny tendency to reenact a trauma, which itself is not remembered, at times has something cruel and self destructive about it and understandably suggests associations with the death instinct. How should they know this when their teachers refuse to find out anything about it because this access to childhood fills them with fear? It is the fear of one's own history, of the truth of the naked facts that can be brought to light by this therapy. Alice Miller. The Drama of the Gifted Child. Odysseus wandering through heaven and hell, passing from the bestial to the divine to return again and become human, while woman has always been the same, unchangeable and without problems.That which he has set up to-day as his highest erotic ideal, the blending of sexual and spiritual love, has been her natural endowment from the beginning. Never perfect, he falls into error and sin where she cannot err, for her instinct is Nature herself, and she knows not the meaning of sin." Emile Lucka. Levi-Strauss. It is a universal characteristic in myths that men born from Earth, upon emerging, either cannot walk or walk clumsily. And however shocking to the moral sense this eternal competition of man against man and of nation against nation may be; however revolting may be the accumulation of misery at the negative pole of society, in contrast with that of monstrous wealth at the positive pole; this state of things must abide, and grow continually worse, so long as Istar holds her way unchecked. It is the true riddle of the Sphinx; and every nation which does not solve it will sooner or later be devoured by the monster itself... Huxley. The struggle for existence. 1888.
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THREE TO TEA PARTY: JOSEPH CONRAD, ALICE MILLER ANDTONI MORRISON.
the middle passage: and the americas.
bridging aethiopia
The recipe.Soul making.Civilization and its discontents.The English malady.Maladieimaginaire. Thalithakumi, Thalithakumi. The merry wives of Windsor are seduced by apples on trees, apples on Adam, apples hysteria. Victorian Britain is palsied by the disease nervosa and there is no Adam s apple nor balls big enough to contain, articulate or calibrate the pain psychic, the pain psychosomatic. The English malady.Maladieimaginaire.Husbandry, the enslaving and taskmasteringof time, time and minus the will, the wit or the way, time of husbandry born, time the enslaving and taskmastering of life, life lying dormant, prostrate, frustrate, a disease triggered by the ghosts of living children, ghosts and scarecrows of living children, neanderthal children, gifted children, William Blake children, songs of innocence suddenly experience children, paradise lost children, lost, expulsed, expelled, out of Eden, children kwashiorkor with trauma, children swollen-bellied and rake-thin, children white trash and white raceblackface and sweeping chimneys in the bowels of industrial Britain. The English malady.Maladieimaginaire. Husbandry, the enslaving and taskmastering of time, time and minus the will, the wit or the way, time of husbandry born, time the enslaving and taskmastering of life, life lying dormantin the bowels of industrial Britain and a revolution non-medusa, imaginaire, gagged, mugged and hysteria and all peaceful. The English malady.Maladieimaginaire.The bowels of industrial Britain and a revolution and a disease social, sure-footed and coming this way, coming.Spiritus Mundi, a shape with the body of a lion and the head of a man, a gaze blank and pitiless, its slow thighs, the indignant desert birds, Spiritus Mundi, twenty centuries of stony sleep vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle of civilization.The English malady.Maladieimaginaire.And the sphinx, surnamed Spiritus Mundi, in the poem The Second Coming, by W. B. Yeats. A rocking cradle of civilization and its discontents, lulling the landscape, lullabying and welcoming a goodbye, like this, Thalithakumi, Thalithakumi, like that. Her slow thighs and ten decades of stony sleep awakened, and from the landscapes of unpainted, untainted history, her anatomy somatizing prowls the living daylights, and the living and drawing rooms of women of leisure and women of none. Civilization and its discontents. Soul making the recipe.Civilization and its discontents.The merry wives of Windsor are seduced by apples on trees, apples on Adam, apples hysteria. Victorian Britain is palsied by the disease nervosa and there is no Adam s apple nor balls big enough to contain, articulate or calibrate the pain psychic, the pain psychosomatic.
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Mother of Oedipus.I am the woman with breasts from here to Abyssinia and there is no support for them. Iam the woman with breasts from here to Abyssinia, from here to Abyssinia and I am the woman whose breasts the earth is, the woman whose breasts the earth is and there is no support for them, no support and no letdown reflex. I am the woman with breasts from here to Abyssinia, from here to Abyssinia and there is no support for them, no support and no letdown reflex. The moon.The moon.Wielding my mind the moon.The moon.The moon.Unraveling my mind the moon.Above.Above.Above as below.Above.Above.Above as below and my mind the moon and my womb gone with it. As above so it is below, and in a time so long ago it is out of mind and out time, in a time when trauma primordial, primordial, the occasioning of the sphinx and the cords umbilical will not stop the letting of blood, the letting of blood, the letting of blood and the blood not letting up, will not let up or down, and there is no Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous
letdown reflex and these breasts from here to Abyssinia, without support, without support and will not wait for my waters to break, breaking water and bleeding blood blue and red. I am the woman with breasts from here to Abyssinia, from here to Abyssinia and I am the woman whose breasts the earth is, the woman whose breasts the earth is and there is no support for them, no support and no letdown reflex. I am the woman with breasts from here to Abyssinia, from here to Abyssinia and there is Page | 6 no support for them, no support and no letdown reflex. From here to Abyssinia, I am Sphinx said to have come from the most distant parts of AEthiopia, from here to Abyssinia, I am the Sphinx. The machine. Can he enter a second time into the womb of his mother and be reborn? Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit. All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is; Without number. Worlds Lie in this bosom like children. I am the woman with breasts from here to Abyssinia, from here to Abyssinia and I am the woman whose breasts the earth is, the woman whose breasts the earth is and there is no support for them, no support and no letdown reflex. Hand me my cords umbilical, my cords umbilical and let me fold the life out of me, the life and the time, the life and the mind.
Oedipus, the time traveller.The time machine.A second time into the womb.Oedipus as Conrad and Company, traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. A Psalm of David. Levi-Strauss. It is a universal characteristic in myths that men born from Earth, upon emerging, either cannot walk or walk clumsily. I am in exile, in exile and in search of my mother Jocasta, she is the 'dark continent' of psychology, the female anatomy, anatomy and sexuality, Freud s colonial black. Conrad s Heart of Darkness. "Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet. We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive toil. But suddenly, as we struggled round a bend, there would be a glimpse of rush walls, of peaked grass-roofs, a burst of yells, a whirl of black limbs, a mass of hands clapping, of feet stamping, of bodies swaying, of eyes rolling, under the droop of heavy and motionless foliage. The steamer toiled along slowly on the edge of a black and incomprehensible frenzy. The prehistoric man was cursing us, praying to us, welcoming us who could tell? We were cut off from the comprehension of our surroundings; we glided past like phantoms, wondering and secretly appalled, as sane men would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse. We could not understand, because we were too far and could not remember, because we were traveling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign and no memories. Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous
"The earth seemed unearthly. We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly, and the men were No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled, and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity like yours the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was ugly enough; but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself Page | 7 that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you you so remote from the night of first ages could comprehend. And why not? The mind of man is capable of anything because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valor, rage who can tell? but truth truth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the fool gape and shudder the man knows, and can look on without a wink. But he must at least be as much of a man as these on the shore. He must meet that truth with his own true stuff with his own inborn strength. Principles? Principles won't do. Acquisitions, clothes, pretty rags rags that would fly off at the first good shake. No; you want a deliberate belief. An appeal to me in this fiendish row is there? Very well; I hear; I admit, but I have a voice too, and for good or evil mine is the speech that cannot be silenced. The current ran smooth and swift, but a dumb immobility sat on the banks. The living trees, lashed together by the creepers and every living bush of the undergrowth, might have been changed into stone, even to the slenderest twig, to the lightest leaf. It was not sleep -- it seemed unnatural, like a state of trance. Not the faintest sound of any kind could be heard. You looked on amazed, and began to suspect yourself of being deaf -- then the night came suddenly, and struck you blind as well.
My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. A Psalm of David. Levi-Strauss. It is a universal characteristic in myths that men born from Earth, upon emerging, either cannot walk or walk clumsily. Oedipus, the time traveller.The time machine.A second time into the womb.Oedipus as Conrad and Company, traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world.
Toni Morrison s Beloved. Sweet Home Men. The horror! The horror! Intimacy grows quickly out there. I knew him as well as it is possible for one man to know another. A second time into the womb.A second time into the womb. How can these things be? How can a man enter his mother s womb a second time and be born again? Each time she came, pulled up her skirts, a life hunger overwhelmed him and he had no more control over it than over his lungs. "Well, ah, this is not the, a man can't, see, but aw listen here, it ain't that, it really ain't, Ole Garner, what I mean is, it ain't a weakness, the kind of weakness I can fight 'cause 'cause something is happening to me, that girl is doing it, I know you think I never liked her nohow, but she is doing it to me. Fixing me.Sethe, she's fixed me and I can't break it." What? A grown man fixed by a girl? But what if the girl was not a girl, but something in disguise? A lowdown something that looked like a sweet young girl and fucking her or not was not the point, it was not being able to stay or go where he wished in 124, and the danger was in losing Sethe because he was not man enough to Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous
break out, so he needed her, Sethe, to help him, to know about it, and it shamed him to have to ask the woman he wanted to protect to help him do it, god damn it to hell. Each time she came, pulled up her skirts, a life hunger overwhelmed him and he had no more control over it than over his lungs. And afterward, beached and gobbling air, in the midst of repulsion and personal shame, he was thankful too for having been escorted to some ocean-deep place he once belonged to.
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A second time into the womb.A second time into the womb. How can these things be? How can a man enter his mother s womb a second time and be born again? Sweet Home Men. The horror! The horror! Intimacy grows quickly out there. I knew him as well as it is possible for one man to know another. Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child. "Why brought he us from bondage, Our loved Egyptian night?"
Oedipus, Moses, Nicodemus and Conrad.A second time into the womb.Toni Morrison s Beloved as the Alice Miller s Gifted Child. "Come on. Come on. You may as well just come on." Call then. Call. Call the Tea Party. Call the Tea Party and hand each one a show-way cloth. A show-way cloth for all and each. Show each one the way home. Each one a return to the mother. Indigene is the desire of the ages. A second time into the womb. Call the Tea Party. Call Joseph, call Conrad. Call Sigmund, call Freud, call Alice, call Miller. Call Toni, Call Morrison. Come on. Come on. You may as well just come on. Come. Come. Come. Come one. Come all. The Gifted Child.In search of the true self and true freedom. "That way." Halle was pointing over the stable. "Where he took my ma'am.Sixo say freedom is that way. A whole train is going and if we can get there, don't need to be no buyout." Beloved is Rudyard Kipling s White man s burden. She is the Gifted Child separated from the mother, harboring contempt and fear of the mother, the child without memory or ritual and yet looking to be born again, all manners of renaissance, looking to enter the womb a second time, a second time into the womb. Beloved, she is poster child, the neanderthal experience engendering neanderthal behavior: The out of Eden, the separation from the mother and so now an inability to mourn this loss. Beloved is poster child of a most gross and unmanageable contempt of mother and other, contempt and incapable of the ritual of mourning. Beloved child. Here comes the drama. Where is your mama? How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his Mother's womb, and be born? Call Sethe. Somebody call Sethe. Sethe, she is the sphinx. Of the most distant parts of AEthiopia, Sethe, she is the sphinx. Somebody call Sethe. Sethe? Here come Beloved. The drama of the gifted child: the search for true self and true freedom. "That way." Halle was pointing over the stable. "Where he took my ma'am.Sixo say freedom is that way. A whole train is going and if we can get there, don't need to be no buyout." Hush, hush. Somebody's calling my name. Hush, hush. Somebody's calling my name. Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous
How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his Mother's womb, and be born? All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is; Without number. Worlds Lie in this bosom like children. "Good morning, Mr. D." "Garner, baby. Paul D Garner." "Yes sir. "Glad to get a look at you. Last time I saw
Page | 9 your mama, you were pushing out the front of her dress." "Still is, provided she can get in it."
Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child. "Why brought he us from bondage, Our loved Egyptian night?" Rudyard Kipling. White Man s Burden. Come on. Come on. You may as well just come on. Come. Come. Come. Come one. Come all. "Come on. Come on. You may as well just come on."
The drama of the gifted child.In search of true freedom.Wading the water. Letting ritual trouble the water.Rituals seeking a denouement.My nightly dreams and my daily wanderings like the moon unhinged, the moon binged, my nightly dreams and daily wanderings is the journaling of serious serial losses and absences, testimony, testament old and new, testifying to the lay of the land that is me. I am the lay of the land, the lay wasteland, the lay plundered, the lay pillaged, the lay woman, unlettered, fettered to husbandry, tethered to a past spectral upon the landscape from where the moon rises and goes to die when there is no moon. The moon, unhinged, binged, bulimic and anorexic, swears on the mother of pearls of her necklace studded with losses disavowed. Studded, stuttering Tourette and deafened by the roar of its own history, her hand on her bosom, and another on the worry beads about her neck, she repeats her trauma on each count, systematic, mechanic and unable to look her children in the eye, her children embodiments of her remembrances stifled and her dismembering, asphyxiated, a blue-veined and throbbing cord umbilical at all cost avoiding dnouement and seeking the company of ghosts harboring grudges, ghosts resistant to rituals and pacifiers. Then one midmorning, they hear it. Or Halle does and begins to sing it to the others: "Hush, hush. Somebody's calling my name. Hush, hush. Somebody's calling my name. O my Lord, O my Lord, what shall I do?" All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is; Without number. Worlds Lie in this bosom like children. How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his Mother's womb, and be born? "Good morning, Mr. D." "Garner, baby. Paul D Garner." "Yes sir. "Glad to get a look at you. Last time I saw your mama, you were pushing out the front of her dress." "Still is, provided she can get in it." I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.
Now, at Sweet Home, my niggers is men every one of em. Out of Eden, the gods, gender and agenda, to the letter and spirit of the law. A man ain tnothing but a man. Odysseus wandering through heaven and hell, passing from the bestial to the divine to return again and become human, while woman has always been the same, unchangeable and Page | 10 without problems. "Y'all got boys, Young boys, old boys, picky boys, stroppin boys. Now at Sweet Home, my niggers is men every one of em. Bought emthataway, raised emthataway. Men everyone." A man ain tnothing but a man. Tell them Baby, tell it to them. Tell it to Nicodemus. Tell it, Baby Suggs Holy. A second time into the womb, Nicodemus.A second time. Yes, Baby, say the word. Speak on it. A man ain tnothing but a man. But a son, well now, that is somebody. All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is; Without number. Worlds Lie in this bosom like children. Sweet Home men, all five, animals seeking same, seeking, riding, fucking, needing, yearning and pining for mother-sister lover-friends, Sweet Home men, all five, animals every one of em, and loving same till stuttering Sethe came along. They were full and brimming while she mourned with the moon, while she motherless girl mourned her motherloss without burial, her motherloss without ceremony, her motherloss unspoken at the moon. Stuttering Sethe who loved ceremony, ritual, . "Is there a wedding? ... Mrs. Garner put down her cooking spoon. Laughing a little, she touched Sethe on the head, saying, "You are one sweet child." And then no more. They were young, it is said, young and taken to calves, taken to calves, while Stuttering Sethe fawned at the prospect of calflove, thoughts of Mrs. Garner to replace her own mama, Young Sethe, before she could check for the sign, if it was her mama lying alongside the corpse marked with the cross under the breast, ... Before she could check for the sign to be sure it was the mama whose face was not there, no face mama but one otherworldly and full of signs and wonders. They were full and brimming while she mourned with the moon, while she motherless girl mourned her motherloss without burial, her motherloss without ceremony, her motherloss unspoken at the moon. Stuttering Sethe who loved ceremony, ritual. It was her all right, but for a long time the tourette and stuttering Sethe didn't believe it, stuttering till she laid eyes on Halle, angel man Halle. Come here Jesus, Halle, a young man who healed herla distance, Christ-like, angel man Halle, Christ-like, nigger-Jesus, nigger moon, even the wind obeyed, the young buck, full and brimming, the edge of whose cloak and cloaca healed the stuttering medusa, placating the sphinx within with rituals of love-making Ruth and Naomi-like amidst the corn. Ruth and Naomi, after a long, tough year of thrashing on pallets eaten up with dreams of her. Heal her and draw her to you. Paralyze the coming year, another one full of yearning, and decked with rape as the solitary gift of life. Halle man, Angel man Halle, He had to, the hem of his cloak, cloaca, something, anything, ... A woman. Replacing mother.A second time into the womb. Minister to the woman, brotherman.Minister to this here mother-sister lover-friend. some of the corn stalks broke, folded down over Halle's back, and among the things her fingers clutched were husk and cornsilk hair. How loose the silk. How jailed down the juice. As soon as one strip of husk was down, the rest obeyed and the ear yielded up to him its shy rows, exposed at last. How loose the silk. How quick the jailed-up flavor ran free. It was her all right, but for a long time the tourette and stuttering Sethe didn't believe it, stuttering till she laid eyes on Halle, angel man Halle. Come here Jesus, Halle, the young buck, full and brimming, the edge of Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous
whose cloak and cloaca healed the stuttering medusa, placating the sphinx within with rituals of love-making Ruth and Naomi-like or David and Jonathan-like, rituals calamine lotion, rituals ocean, rituals, pacts andclabber if none of these work in times of crises, times when rememories fail and times when rituals lie broken, in times of crisis,clabber all over your face if you can t face your insides no more, your insides and the horror, the horror, the horror of rememories unchained and coming on down and fast and furious, fast and with nowhere to run. The horror! The horror!Clabber so you die soft, clabber so you hit the ground running, Page | 11 and clabber so a white trashy and niggered girl see your body floating in the Ohio river, make mention of it, but no, no, Sethe, so full of memories and motherloss, memories and motherloss, so full her body an underground and railroad, her body a crawling graveyard too full and can t take one more, no more, They were young and decked with rituals of love-making Ruth and Naomi-like or David and Jonathan-like, rituals calamine lotion, rituals ocean, rituals, pacts andclabber if none of these work in times of crises, times when rememories fail and times when rituals lie broken, in times of crisis,clabber all over your face if you can t face your insides no more. Clabber so you die soft, clabber so you hit the ground running, and clabber so you find a way to negotiate with Denver and show up instead, a girl-boy, a fetu in fetu, a second time, a second time, a second time into the womb, and born again, a second time, a girl-boy with a white girl s underwear for comforter and her name as identifier, pacifier and without shame. They were young, it is said, young and taken to calves, taken to calves. All in their twenties, minus women, fucking cows, Come here Jesus. Minus women, fucking cows, dreaming of rape, thrashing on pallets, rubbing their thighs and waiting for the new girl "Y'all got boys, Young boys, old boys, picky boys, stroppin boys. Now at Sweet Home, my niggers is men every one of em. Bought emthataway, raised emthataway. Men every one." A man ain tnothing but a man. Tell them Baby, tell it to them. Tell it to Nicodemus. Tell it, Baby Suggs Holy. A second time into the womb, Nicodemus.A second time. Yes, Baby, say the word. Speak on it. A man ain tnothing but a man. But a son, well now, that is somebody. All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is; Without number. Worlds Lie in this bosom like children. Heal her and draw her to you. Paralyze the coming year, another one full of yearning, and decked with rape as the solitary gift of life. Halle man, Angel man Halle, He had to, the hem of his cloak, cloaca, something, anything, ... A woman. Replacing mother.A second time into the womb. Minister to the woman, brotherman.Minister to this here mother-sister lover-friend.Odysseus wandering through heaven and hell, passing from the bestial to the divine to return again and become human, while woman has always been the same, unchangeable and without problems.That which he has set up to-day as his highest erotic ideal, the blending of sexual and spiritual love, has been her natural endowment from the beginning. Never perfect, he falls into error and sin where she cannot err, for her instinct is Nature herself, and she knows not the meaning of sin." Emile Lucka. How can these things be? How can a man enter into his mother s womb a second time to be born? Tell it to Jesus. A second time into the womb.
Diva child, Beloved.Neanderthal behavior.The out of Eden, the separation from Mother, Gifted childand White folk. Beloved is my sister. She was not like us, says Denver. She was wild game. My mother s eyes worshiping her little babe, her hands, sweet licking upon hearing the primal scream, so I survived, so I thrived, so I rise. Mother tongue that washed me by the sweet long lick, linking me to the roots Page | 12 and shoots and the fruits also, licking me to wash and licking me to laundry, with no water to spare and soap a luxury, the sweet long licks dispensed by mymother s worshiping eyes, worshiping eyes and mother tongue. Beloved is my sister. She was not like us, says Denver. She was wild game. My sister, she gone; un ours mal lache, she is entered the seas. Mother died at her birth and so my sister remains un ours mal lache plugged from my mother s bosom upon my mother s last breathe. My sister, she gone; un ours mal lache, she is entered the seas. She did not survive, my sister, she did not survive. The water took her, she did not survive, the moon swept her mind full and blue, she did not rise from the bosom of the water where our mother is, the click which is her tongue, and her arms and bosom the waters in utero. Beloved is my sister. She was not like us, says Denver. She was wild game. My sister, she gone; un ours mal lache, she is entered the seas. She is gone to our mother s bosom. I long for my mother, her gentle ministrations. Grown and grown children of my own, grown children and a husband, I long for my mother. Her gentle ministrations, the womb-priest this mother of mine, her ministrations calming lotions on my insides, rubbing the distress in my gut, the sweet salt ocean of her womb, calamine lotion. I long for my mother, nostalgia primordial, nostalgia in utero. Where is Nicodemus? Come here Jesus, a second time into the womb. All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is; Without number. Worlds Lie in this bosom like children.
Of Neanderthals and men.Out of Eden, the gifted child and their drama.A second time into the womb. Beloved is the Gifted and Neanderthal Child. Beloved, Conrad, Maslow and Mr. Kurtz.There where angels have trod. On trauma, the eternal quest for identity, motherloss and womb nostalgia. How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his Mother's womb, and be born? But first on earth as vampires sent Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent, Then ghastly haunt thy native place, And suck the blood of all thy race. Of our legends.Europa, Levant and Tyre.Of our legends. Of our legends is it not even said? It is said. For is it not known that Levant is the birthplace of Europa? Levant is the birthplace of Europa. Of our legends. It is said of our legends. It is known. Thy victims ere they yet expire. Shall know the demon for their sire, As cursing thee, thou cursing them, Thy flowers are withered on the stem.
Beloved is the Giftedchild,the Neanderthal Child. A second time into the womb.There where angels have trod. On trauma, the eternal quest for identity, motherloss and womb nostalgia. Beloved is Rudyard Kipling s White man s burden. She is the Gifted Child separated from the mother, harboring contempt and fear of the mother, the child without memory or ritual and yet looking to be born again, all manners of renaissance, looking to enter the womb a second time, a second time into the womb. Page | 13 Beloved, she is poster child, the neanderthal experience engendering neanderthal behavior: The out of Eden, the separation from the mother and so now an inability to mourn this loss. Beloved is poster child of a most gross and unmanageable contempt of mother and other, contempt and incapable of the ritual of mourning. Beloved child. Here comes the drama. Where is your mama? How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his Mother's womb, and be born? Call Sethe. Somebody call Sethe. Sethe, she is the sphinx. Of the most distant parts of AEthiopia, Sethe, she is the sphinx. Somebody call Sethe. Sethe? Here come Beloved. The drama of the gifted child: the search for true self and true freedom. Beloved is the gifted child. A second time into the womb. I stand at the door and knock. Beloved is the gifted child. Toni Morrison s Beloved is Alice Miller s Gifted Child and indigene is the desire of the ages. Autochthonous, the desire of the ages. Beloved is the gifted child. The out of Eden, the out of Africa.The gifted child. Of Neanderthals and men. Neanderthal genome reveals interbreeding with humans. There were Neanderthals and there were humans. Two very different species.And their children?The children of the Daughters of the Earth, of Eden, indigene, the children of the Daughters of the Earth and those of theNeanderthal?The gifted child. Toni Morrison s Beloved is Alice Miller s Giftedchild. Nicodemus.The eternal quest for renaissance. Beloved is Rudyard Kipling s White man s burden. She is the Gifted Child separated from the mother, harboring contempt and fear of the mother, the child without memory or ritual and yet looking to be born again, all manners of renaissance, looking to enter the womb a second time, a second time into the womb. Beloved, she is poster child, the neanderthal experience engendering neanderthal behavior: The out of Eden, the separation from the mother and so now an inability to mourn this loss. Beloved is poster child of a most gross and unmanageable contempt of mother and other, contempt and incapable of the ritual of mourning. Beloved child. Here comes the drama. Where is your mama? How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his Mother's womb, and be born? Call Sethe. Somebody call Sethe. Sethe, she is the sphinx. Of the most distant parts of AEthiopia, Sethe, she is the sphinx. Somebody call Sethe. Sethe? Here come Beloved. The drama of the gifted child: the search for true self and true freedom. Beloved. The Neanderthal experience, neanderthal behavior. The Gifted Child.The out of Eden, the separation from mother and other. She took the best of everything--first. The best chair, the biggest piece, the prettiest plate, the brightest ribbon for her hair, and the more she took, the more Sethe began to talk, explain, describe how much she had suffered, been through, for her children, waving away flies in grape arbors, crawling on her knees to a lean-to. And Sethe cried, saying she never did, or meant to---that she had to get them out, away, that she had the milk all the time and had the money too for the stone but not enough. That her plan was always that they would all be together on the other side, forever. Beloved wasn't interested. She said when she cried there was no one. That dead men lay on top of her. That she had nothing to eat. Ghosts without skin stuck their fingers in her and said beloved in the dark and bitch in the light. Sethe pleaded for forgiveness, counting, listing again and again her reasons: that Beloved was more important, meant more to her than her own life. That she Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous
would trade places any day. Give up her life, every minute and hour of it, to take back just one of Beloved's tears. Did she know it hurt her when mosquitoes bit her baby? That to leave her on the ground to run into the big house drove her crazy? That before leaving Sweet Home Beloved slept every night on her chest or curled on her back? Beloved denied it. Sethe never came to her, never said a word to her, never smiled and worst of all never waved goodbye or even looked her way before running away from her. When once or twice Sethe tried to assert herself--be the unquestioned mother whose word was law and who knew what was best-Page | 14 Beloved slammed things, wiped the table clean of plates, threw salt on the floor, broke a windowpane. Beloved is the gifted child. Child diva.Diva mama. Beloved is the gifted child. Gifted with a trauma beyond the reach of her mother and her best self. Beloved is the gifted child. Child diva.Diva mama. Beloved is the gifted child. Gifted with a thing inherent, mechanic, yes, machine-like, a twisted sense, a wounded and wild self, a thing other than it most definitely would have turned out were it not for the trauma that implanted the machine. Afterward she would go to Sethe, run her fingers over the woman's teeth while tears slid from her wide black eyes. Then it seemed to Denver the thing was done: Beloved bending over Sethe looked the mother, Sethe the teething child, for other than those times when Beloved needed her, Sethe confined herself to a corner chair. The bigger Beloved got, the smaller Sethe became; the brighter Beloved's eyes, the more those eyes that used never to look away became slits of sleeplessness. Sethe no longer combed her hair or splashed her face with water. She sat in the chair licking her lips like a chastised child while Beloved ate up her life, took it, swelled up with it, grew taller on it. And the older woman yielded it up without a murmur. Denver served them both. Washing, cooking, forcing, cajoling her mother to eat a little now and then, providing sweet things for Beloved as often as she could to calm her down. It was hard to know what she would do from minute to minute. When the heat got hot, she might walk around the house naked or wrapped in a sheet, her belly protruding like a winning watermelon. Then the mood changed and the arguments began. Slowly at first.A complaint from Beloved, an apology from Sethe. A reduction of pleasure at some special effort the older woman made. Wasn't it too cold to stay outside? Beloved gave a look that said, So what? Was it past bedtime, the light no good for sewing? Beloved didn't move; said, "Do it," and Sethe complied. She took the best of everything--first. The best chair, the biggest piece, the prettiest plate, the brightest ribbon for her hair, and the more she took, the more Sethe began to talk, explain, describe how much she had suffered, been through, for her children, waving away flies in grape arbors, crawling on her knees to a lean-to. None of which made the impression it was supposed to. Beloved accused her of leaving her behind. Of not being nice to her, not smiling at her. She said they were the same, had the same face, how could she have left her? And Sethe cried, saying she never did, or meant to--that she had to get them out, away, that she had the milk all the time and had the money too for the stone but not enough. That her plan was always that they would all be together on the other side, forever. Beloved wasn't interested. She said when she cried there was no one. That dead men lay on top of her. That she had nothing to eat. Ghosts without skin stuck their fingers in her and said beloved in the dark and bitch in the light. Sethe pleaded for forgiveness, counting, listing again and again her reasons: that Beloved was more important, meant more to her than her own life. Beloved is Rudyard Kipling s White man s burden. She is the Gifted Child separated from the mother, harboring contempt and fear of the mother, the child without memory or ritual and yet looking to be born again, all manners of renaissance, looking to enter the womb a second time, a second time into the womb. Beloved, she is poster child, the neanderthal experience engendering neanderthal behavior: The out of Eden, the separation from the mother and so now an inability to mourn this loss. Beloved is poster child of a most gross and unmanageable contempt of mother and other, contempt and incapable of the ritual of mourning. Beloved child. Here comes the drama. Where is your mama? How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his Mother's womb, and be born?
Call Sethe. Somebody call Sethe. Sethe, she is the sphinx. Of the most distant parts of AEthiopia, Sethe, she is the sphinx. Somebody call Sethe. Sethe? Here come Beloved. The drama of the gifted child: the search for true self and true freedom. That she would trade places any day. Give up her life, every minute and hour of it, to take back just one of Beloved's tears. Did she know it hurt her when mosquitoes bit her baby? That to leave her on the ground to Page | 15 run into the big house drove her crazy? That before leaving Sweet Home Beloved slept every night on her chest or curled on her back? Beloved denied it. Sethe never came to her, never said a word to her, never smiled and worst of all never waved goodbye or even looked her way before running away from her. When once or twice Sethe tried to assert herself--be the unquestioned mother whose word was law and who knew what was best--Beloved slammed things, wiped the table clean of plates, threw salt on the floor, broke a windowpane. She was not like them. She was wild game, and nobody said, Get on out of here, girl, and come back when you get some sense. Nobody said, You raise your hand to me and I will knock you into the middle of next week. Ax the trunk, the limb will die. Honor thy mother and father that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy god giveth thee. I will wrap you round that doorknob, don't nobody work for you and god don't love ugly ways. No, no. They mended the plates, swept the salt, and little by little it dawned on Denver that if Sethe didn't wake up one morning and pick up a knife, Beloved might. Frightened as she was by the thing in Sethe that could come out, it shamed her to see her mother serving a girl not much older than herself. When she saw her carrying out Beloved's night bucket, Denver raced to relieve her of it. But the pain was unbearable when they ran low on food, and Denver watched her mother go without--pickeating around the edges of the table and stove: the hominy that stuck on the bottom; the crusts and rinds and peelings of things. Once she saw her run her longest finger deep in an empty jam jar before rinsing and putting it away. They grew tired, and even Beloved, who was getting bigger, seemed nevertheless as exhausted as they were. In any case she substituted a snarl or a tooth-suck for waving a poker around and 124 was quiet. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," and nobody needed more; nobody needed a grown-up evil sitting at the table with a grudge. All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is; Without number. Worlds Lie in this bosom like children. Beloved is the gifted child. Child diva.Diva mama. Beloved is the gifted child. Gifted with a trauma beyond the reach of her mother and her best self. Beloved is the gifted child. Child diva.Diva mama. Beloved is the gifted child. Gifted with a thing inherent, mechanic, yes, machine-like, a twisted sense, a wounded and wild self, an thing other than it most definitely would have turned out were I not for the trauma that implanted the machine. Beloved is the Gifted and Neanderthal Child. A second time into the womb.There where angels have trod. On trauma, the eternal quest for identity, motherloss and womb nostalgia. Beloved is the gifted child. Toni Morrison s Beloved is Alice Miller s Gifted Child and indigene is the desire of the ages. Autochthonous, the desire of the ages. Beloved is the gifted child. The out of Eden, the out of Africa.The gifted child. Of Neanderthals and men. Neanderthal genome reveals interbreeding with humans. There were Neanderthals and there were humans. Two very different species.And their children?The children of the Daughters of the Earth, of Eden, indigene, the children of the Daughters of the Earth and those of theNeanderthal?The gifted child. Toni Morrison s Beloved is Alice Miller s Giftedchild. Nicodemus.The eternal quest for renaissance. How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his Mother's womb, and be born? But first on earth as vampires sent Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent, Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous
Then ghastly haunt thy native place, And suck the blood of all thy race. Of our legends.Europa, Levant and Tyre.Of our legends. Of our legends is it not even said? It is said. For is it not known that Levant is the birthplace of Europa? Levant is the birthplace of Europa.Of our legends.It is said of our legends. It is known.
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Thy victims ere they yet expire. Shall know the demon for their sire, As cursing thee, thou cursing them, Thy flowers are withered on the stem.
Of the sons of god.The making of the sphinx.Daughters of the sphinx. Life is trauma. Life is theatre. In the beginning there were Giants in the land. Giants, the sons of god.The daughters of the EarthMother. And they took them wives of all which they chose. The tents of Kedar.The tents of Kedar. Husbandry, the enslaving and taskmastering of time, time and minus the will, the wit or the way, time of husbandry born, time the enslaving and taskmastering of life, life lying dormant, prostrate, frustrate. "After I left you, those boys came in there and took my milk. That s what they came in there for. Held me down and took it. I told Mrs. Garner on em. She had that lump and couldn't speak but her eyes rolled out tears. Them boys found out I told on em. Schoolteacher made one open up my back, and when it closed it made a tree. It grows there still." "What tree on your back?" "Huh." Sethe put a bowl on the table and reached under it for flour. "What tree on your back? Is something growing on your back? I don't see nothing growing on your back." "It's there all the same." "Who told you that?" "Whitegirl. That's what she called it. I've never seen it and never will.But that's what she said it looked like. A chokecherry tree.Trunk, branches, and even leaves. Tiny little chokecherry leaves. But that was eighteen years ago. Could have cherries too now for all I know." Sethe took a little spit from the tip of her tongue with her forefinger. Quickly, lightly she touched the stove. Then she trailed her fingers through the flour, parting, separating small hills and ridges of it, looking for mites. Finding none, she poured soda and salt into the crease of her folded hand and tossed both into the flour. Then she reached into a can and scooped half a handful of lard. Deftly she squeezed the flour through it, then with her left hand sprinkling water, she formed the dough. "I had milk," she said. "I was pregnant with Denver but I had milk for my baby girl. I hadn't stopped nursing her when I sent her on ahead with Howard and Buglar." Now she rolled the dough out with a wooden pin. "Anybody could smell me long before he saw me. And when he saw me he'd see the drops of it on the front of my dress. Nothing I could do about that. All I knew was I had to get my milk to my baby girl. Nobody was going to nurse her like me. Nobody was going to get it to her fast enough, or take it away when she had enough and didn't know it. Nobody knew that she couldn't pass her air if you held her up on your shoulder, only if she was lying on my knees. Nobody knew that but me and nobody had her milk but me. I told that to the women in the wagon. Told them to put sugar water in cloth to suck from so when I got there in a few days she wouldn't have forgot me. The milk would be there and I would be there with it." Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous
"Men don't know nothing much," said Paul D, tucking his pouch back into his vest pocket, "but they do know a suckling can't be away from its mother for long." "Then they know what it's like to send your children off when your breasts are full." "We was talking 'bout a tree, Sethe." "After I left you, those boys came in there and took my milk. That s what they came in there for. Held me down and took it. I told Mrs. Garner on em. She had that lump and couldn't speak but her eyes rolled out Page | 17 tears. Them boys found out I told on em. Schoolteacher made one open up my back, and when it closed it made a tree. It grows there still." "They used cowhide on you?" "And they took my milk." "They beat you and you was pregnant?" "And they took my milk!" In the beginning there were Giants in the land. Giants, the sons of god.The daughters of the EarthMother. And they took them wives of all which they chose. The tents of Kedar.The tents of Kedar. Husbandry, the enslaving and taskmastering of time, time and minus the will, the wit or the way, time of husbandry born, time the enslaving and taskmastering of life, life lying dormant, prostrate, frustrate.
Moon die, soul and sphinx making. Schizo and phrenia, sances and sections.Of the sphinx.Infanticide and the cry of savagery. Worlds lie in this bosom like children. The sons of god.The sons of god. And they came in her yard anyway. In the beginning there were Giants in the land. Giants, the sons of god.The daughters of the EarthMother. And they took them wives of all which they chose. The tents of Kedar.The tents of Kedar. Twenty eight days. The Sphinx.Of the most distant parts of AEthiopia.The Sphinx.The making of the Sphinx.Trauma primordial. Twenty eight days and moon die. Wandering moon and maternal energies, Sethewandering the woods, the moon, wild animal, wounded, enwildened and sphinxed out, Sethewandering the woods, the moon and looking for a mothering place, a place where mothering rises up from the deep, raises its head and tail, sweet fang and split-tongue, from the bosom of the earth to caress a niggered neck in her neck of the woods, in her neck of the woods while washing the living dead in sances and sections. Twenty eight days. Trauma primordial. Twenty eight days and moon die. Sethewandering the woods, the moon, wild animal, wounded, enwildened and sphinxed out, wandering the woods and through the days ofthe moon, a crawling graveyard taken hold of by a typhon spirit and split-mind and split tongue, schizo and phreniaSethe, schizo and phrenia and glossolalia, the unspeakable unspoken, heavy on her niggeredneck, too heavy, heavy and breaking her back, her back and her mind while wandering the woods, the moon and looking for mother and a mothering place, a place where mothering rises up from the deep, raises its head and tail, sweet fang and split-tongue, from the bosom of the earth to caress a niggered neck in her neck of the woods, in her neck of the woods while washing the living dead in sances and sections. Twenty eight days. Trauma primordial. Twenty eight days and moon die, and those twenty-eight happy days were followed by eighteen years of disapproval and a solitary life. Disapproval and a solitary life, the moon gouged out from the pith of her eyes, her mind, her eyes and her mind, her eyes and sights also gouged out, the memories, the rememories, schizo and phrenia, schizo and phrenia and the sons of god, the sons of god, gouge out the moon, mug, gag and gouge out her mind, the primordial trauma, send the earth, the moon, the mind womb loose, unhinged, and wandering in the cosmos.
Twenty eight days. Trauma primordial. Twenty eight days and moon die, and those twenty-eight happy days were followed by eighteen years of disapproval and a solitary life. The heart that pumped out love, the mouth that spoke the word, didn't count. They came in her yard anyway and she could not approve or condemn. In the beginning there were Giants in the land. Giants, the sons of god.The daughters of the EarthMother. And they took them wives of all which they chose. The tents of Kedar.The tents of Kedar.
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Twenty eight days. The Sphinx.Of the most distant parts of AEthiopia.The Sphinx.The making of the Sphinx.Trauma primordial. Twenty eight days and moon die. Wandering moon and maternal energies, Sethewandering the woods, the moon, wild animal, wounded, enwildened and sphinxed out, and looking for a mothering place, a place where mothering rises up from the deep, raises its head and tail, sweet fang and split-tongue, from the bosom of the earth to caress a niggered neck in her neck of the woods, in her neck of the woods while washing the living dead in sances and sections.
Sudden Sethe turn Persephone. Albatrosses and crucifixes. Mama Sethe Persephone turns sudden sphinx. Mothering is an albatross, and life a crucifix. By the time she faced him, looked him dead in the eye, she had something in her arms that stopped him in his tracks. Mama Sethe Persephone turns sudden sphinx. High-topped hats and stiff collars. Mama Sethe Persephone turns sudden sphinx. Like Persephone, she was squatting in the garden, picking flowers when she saw them coming. Like Persephone, she had wings, heard wings, and had them wings, little hummingbirds, their needle beaks right through the receptacle cups of her flowery headcloth, wings and stuck their beaks into her hair and beat their wings, siphoning nectar, they beat their wings. And she just flew. Sudden Setheturned Persephone. MamaSethe Persephone turns sudden sphinx. And she just flew. By the time she faced him, looked him dead in the eye, she had something in her arms that stopped him in his tracks. Persephone turned sudden sphinx, sudden sphinx looking for ritual. Ritual is the new sphinx. The axe and dagger, the sword and shield.Sudden sphinx looking for ritual. Ritual is the new sphinx, and so Sudden Setheturned Persephone. MamaSethe Persephone turns sudden sphinx. And she just flew. She flew, collected every bit of life she had made, all the parts of her that were precious and fine and beautiful, and carried, pushed, dragged them through the veil, out, away, over there where no one could hurt them. Sudden sphinx looking for ritual. Ritual is the new sphinx. Over there. Outside this place, where they would be safe Mama Sethe Persephone turns sudden sphinx. Sudden sphinx looking for ritual. Ritual is the new sphinx. By the time she faced him, looked him dead in the eye, she had something in her arms that stopped him in his tracks. He took a backward step with each jump of the baby heart until finally there were none. "I stopped him," she said, staring at the place where the fence used to be. "I took and put my babies where they'd be safe." Mama Sethe Persephone turns sudden sphinx. Sudden sphinx looking for ritual. Ritual is the new sphinx. By the time she faced him, looked him dead in the eye, she had something in her arms that stopped him in his tracks. "You got two feet, Sethe, not four," he said, and right then a forest sprang up between them; trackless and quiet. ... Meanwhile the forest was locking the distance between them, giving it shape and heft. Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous
Ritual is the new sphinx. And Paul D. is the new Oedipus. The roaring in Paul D's head did not prevent him from hearing the pat she gave to the last word. Sudden sphinx looking for ritual. Ritual is the new sphinx, and Paul D. is the new Oedipus, the fear of the uncanny, master of religion, the invention and reinforcement of it, security and safety at 124. Security and safety form memories, from history, from red heart and ritual, and the something in her arms that stopped him in his tracks, made him take a backward step with each jump of the baby heart until finally there were none.
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Paul D is the new Oedipus. Oedipus who thought he had made it safe, had gotten rid of the danger; beat the shit out of it; run it off the place and showed it and everybody else the difference between a mule and a plow. And because she had not done it before he got there her own self, he thought it was because she could not do it. That she lived with 124 in helpless, apologetic resignation because she had no choice; that minus husband, sons, mother-in-law, she and her slow-witted daughter had to live there all alone making do. He was wrong. This here Sethe was new. The ghost in her house didn't bother her for the very same reason a room-andboard witch with new shoes was welcome. Mama Sethe Persephone turns sudden sphinx. Sudden sphinx looking for ritual. Ritual is the new sphinx. This here Sethe talked about love like any other woman; talked about baby clothes like any other woman, but what she meant could cleave the bone. This here Sethe talked about safety with a handsaw. This here new Sethe didn't know where the world stopped and she began. By the time she faced him, looked him dead in the eye, she had something in her arms that stopped him in his tracks. I'll explain to her, even though I don't have to. Why I did it. How if I hadn't killed her she would have died and that is something I could not bear to happen to her. Mothering is an albatross, and life a crucifix. O! Death where is your victory?
The fence is gone. There is no defense. No defense. The fence and the memory coming to me is gone. Conrad s heart of darkness. Who is afraid of the dark? And god stepping back.A second time into the womb.The uncanny, memories in utero and the fear of castration.Standing up to god, toe to toe, blood at his feet. The fence and the memory coming to me, coming, coming, through the woods and the trackless quiet, through the muck and the wading through the water, through the water and through the word, the wood, the womb of time, the womb of mind The fence is gone. There is no defense. No defense. The fence and the memory coming to me comes and goes, comes and goes, comes and goes and now is gone. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun, And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing: Conrad s heart of darkness. Who is afraid of the dark? And god stepping back.A second time into the womb.The uncanny, memories in utero and the fear of castration.Standing up to god, toe to toe, blood at his feet.
The fence is gone. There is no defense. No defense. The fence and the memory coming to me, coming, coming, through the woods and the trackless quiet, through the muck and the wading through the water, through the water and through the word, the wood, the womb of time, the womb of mind. The fence and the memory coming to me comes and goes, comes and goes, comes and goes and now is gone. The fence is gone. There is no defense. No defense.
Page | 20 Memories find their way to me like walking zombies needing air, needing life, and none but my own. My life,
my mind, my body. Ritual became my fence. Ritual coming to me.Folding the sheet, coming to me.Washing my feet, coming to me, and rituals crying Defense.Defense.Defense.The fence is gone. There is no defense. No defense. Rituals coming to me, rituals, beloved-like, rituals at my apron strings, rituals my defense, my offence. Ritual is my name. Hysteria is what you call me. Ritual is my balm. Ritual I am embalmed. I am my memory, my memory without ceremonies, my memory without ritual. The fence and the memory coming to me, coming, coming, through the woods and the trackless quiet, through the muck and the wading through the water, through the water and through the word, the wood, the womb of time, the womb of mind. I am my memory, my memory without ceremonies, my memory without ritual. And ritual threading time, time and all of its three dimensions to what is left of me. I am the medium of time, time and all its dimensions. I am the living memory of me. It is the reason hysteria. Ritual. My memory bloody, disfigured, bleeding, beloved coming and going, beloved wallowing through each of the dimensions of time, my body, womb, mind and vagina as canals, harbor, labor wards and rooms delivery, my memory in all its dimensions cradled, thick with love, clabber as a side dish, if I wish, clabber, so as to make the escaping to the other dimension of time, the escaping, the shape-shifting, the shift-shaping to that place, yonder of here, where my people, where other world, where out of this here place, by ritual we nearing and enjoying zero, where well out of your reach, and as you can see still pulsating in my arms and you stepping backward. Ritual. Conrad s heart of darkness. Who is afraid of the dark? And god stepping back.A second time into the womb.The uncanny, memories in utero and the fear of castration.Standing up to god, toe to toe, blood at his feet. Ritual is my name. Hysteria is what you call me. Ritual is my balm. Ritual I am embalmed. I am my memory, my memory without ceremonies, my memory without ritual. And ritual threading time, time and all of its three dimensions to what is left of me. By the time she faced him, looked him dead in the eye, she had something in her arms that stopped him in his tracks. He took a backward step with each jump of the baby heart until finally there were none. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun, And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing: Conrad s heart of darkness. Who is afraid of the dark? And god stepping back.A second time into the womb.The uncanny, memories in utero and the fear of castration.Standing up to god, toe to toe, blood at his feet. I am time cleaving the bone, rituals quick and to the bone, and enabled by the sudden handsaw, sudden and never seen before but here, sudden and within reach, sudden because this here calls for ritual, this here calls for time, this here calls for an escape, a beyond reach, an out of the reach of your laws, your understanding, your pen, ink, paper, bureau, stamp, paid or not, bills owing or not, one-two-three and thirty-seven cents was it? A handsaw, give it here, because this is time for zero, and ritual made more binding is my greeting, my handshake. Worlds lie in this bosom like children. Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous
Your name School Teacher? Well, my name Ritual. I have four feet on waking, two at noon and three by when the sun go down. Go figure. Ritual is my name. Hysteria is what you call me. Ritual and I am embalmed. I am my memory, my memory without ceremonies, my memory without ritual. And ritual threading time, time and all of its three dimensions to what is left of me. Rituals, beloved-like, at my apron strings, rituals my defense.My offence. Page | 21 Ritual is my name. Hysteria is what you call me. Ritual and I am embalmed. I am my memory, my memory without ceremonies, my memory without ritual. The fence and the memory coming to me, coming, coming, through the woods and the trackless quiet, through the muck and the wading through the water, through the water and through the word, the wood, the womb of time, the womb of mind. By the time she faced him, looked him dead in the eye, she had something in her arms that stopped him in his tracks. He took a backward step with each jump of the baby heart until finally there were none. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun, And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing: Conrad s heart of darkness. Who is afraid of the dark? And god stepping back.A second time into the womb.The uncanny, memories in utero and the fear of castration.Standing up to god, toe to toe, blood at his feet. I remain Ritual.
Mrs. Garner, and Sethe beside herself and at her side. Goiter and Glossolalia. And the unspeakable remains unspoken. my mother's children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept. The unspeakable is what is stuck in my throat, Sethe. See? This here is not an Adam s apple ripe and all swole up ... this here goiter, like a sea-gull with love-pouches of food in her neck, this here is my gut feeling come up, thrown up and carried about in a goiter-like swole, the unspeakable stuck in my throat ... it remains unspoken, it is what like my mind wanders about like the moon, even at noon, my mind wandering womb and history, my account not spoken, my verse and version, my confession not faced-up to, what I see, what I saw not testified, no testimonies because I was spoken for, you see? I was spoken for. It is the reason for my silence, my silence, my sentence and this swole named for hysteria stuck in my throat. Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book? Psalm 58:6
The making of the sphinx.Sethe with iron in the pith of her poked-out eyes.Sethe is Lady Button-Eyes, her human characteristics on the left and her animal ones on the right. Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous
The nigger-lady with iron rods in her back, she is iron wrought with passion and iron in the pith of her eyes. "That way." Halle was pointing over the stable. "Where he took my ma'am.Sixo say freedom is that way. A whole train is going and if we can get there, don't need to be no buyout." The moon was with Sethe. She is the new Sphinx, this Sethe. Iron rods in her back, iron wrought back, a tree,
Page | 22 shoots, fruits and bloom, strong roots to boot, ... Iron, and iron in the pith of her eyes. The moon was with
Sethe, the moon and pulled a white girl, niggered and trash through the muck and the wading water, the thick shrubs, thick with white, with white and with harvest, ... Pulled a white girl, niggered and trash out of the woods, niggered and trash with hair for five and enough to say, enough words to keep you alive, hanging by a thread, the shreds of your back, a white girl, niggered and trash come out of the woods to help her not labor in vain. The moon, its blue blood blue vein blue moon heart, softening the ground to the Ohio river, soft so dead or alive, you hit the groundrunning, running, running on home. The moon was with Sethe, troubling the water and coming on down like angels congress annual at the Pools of Bethesda. The nigger-lady, Sethe pregnant with the moon on her mind, the moon and her mind gone. The moon was with Sethe. She is the new Sphinx, this Sethe. Iron rods in her back, iron wrought back, a tree, shoots, fruits and bloom, strong roots to boot, ... The nigger-lady with iron rods in her back, she is iron wrought with passion and iron in the pith of her eyes. The moon was with Sethe. Twenty eight days of solid peace and moon-coolbeyond understanding. The moon was with Sethe, twenty eight days waking up leisurely and wondering what to do with her time, no task and no master, no sons of god nor schoolteacher, her twenty-four hours for twenty-eight days, twenty eight days of solid peace and moon-cool beyond understanding. The moon was with Sethe. She is the new Sphinx, this Sethe, the wandering moon, the monkey off her back, the monkey, the memories, the disquieted grief tugging at her apron-strings, tugging beloved-like, tugging and asking for ritual, ceremonies and show-way cloth to the womb of time, calming and calamine ocean and deep, primordial and pre-sphinx, tugging disquiet, tugging on her back, disquiet and will not be pacified, the boys with mossy teeth milking her, the milkmaid, the cow, the cow and the moon, leaving her mangled, mangled like hereboy, man-handled by a disgruntled spirit coming and going, coming through, saying: I stand the door and knock. I stand at the door and knock. Matricide is the coming of the sons of god, the skyward ones. And they took them wives. And they took them wives. Wives of all which they chose. In the beginning there were Giants in the land. Giants, the sons of god.The daughters of the EarthMother. And they took them wives of all which they chose. The tents of Kedar.The tents of Kedar. Bit a piece of my tongue off when they opened my back. It was hanging by a shred. I didn't mean to. Clamped down on it, it come right off. I thought, Good god, I'm going to eat myself up. The making of Sphinx.Sethe turned Sphinx. Sethe, she is gone wild and never will be back. The mishandling of the nephew, his overbeating of Sethe, Sethe turned other, a crawling graveyard with fangs in her head, cold jaws and grinding. The mishandling of the nephew, his overbeating which made her cut and run. Think--just think what would his own horse do if you beat it beyond the point of education. Or Chipper, or Samson. Suppose you beat the hounds past that point thataway. Never again could you trust them in the woods or anywhere else. You'd be feeding them maybe, holding out a piece of rabbit in your hand, and the animal would revert--bite your hand clean off. The moon was with Sethe. She is the new Sphinx, this Sethe, the wandering moon, the monkey off her back, the monkey, the memories, the disquieted grief tugging at her apron-strings, tugging beloved-like, tugging and asking for ritual, ceremonies and show-way cloth to the womb of time, calming and calamine ocean and deep, primordial and pre-sphinx, tugging disquiet, tugging on her back, disquiet and will not be pacified, the boys with mossy teeth milking her, the milkmaid, the cow, the cow and the moon, leaving her mangled, mangled like hereboy, man-handled by a disgruntled spirit coming and going, coming through, saying: I stand the door and knock. I stand at the door and knock. Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous
In the beginning there were Giants in the land. Giants, the sons of god.The daughters of the EarthMother. And they took them wives of all which they chose. The tents of Kedar.The tents of Kedar. "That way." Halle was pointing over the stable. "Where he took my ma'am.Sixo say freedom is that way Floating above the railing as she squatted in the garden, schoolteacher's hat. By the time she faced him, .
Page | 23 looked him dead in the eye, she had something in her arms that stopped him in his tracks. He took a backward
step with each jump of the baby heart until finally there were none. "I stopped him," she said, staring at the place where the fence used to be. "I took and put my babies where they'd be safe." "You got two feet, Sethe, not four," he said, and right then a forest sprang up between them; trackless and quiet. ... Meanwhile the forest was locking the distance between them, giving it shape and heft. "That way." Halle was pointing over the stable. "Where he took my ma'am.Sixo say freedom is that way. A whole train is going and if we can get there, don't need to be no buyout." The moon was with Sethe, the moon and pulled a white girl, niggered and trash through the muck and the wading water, the thick shrubs, thick with white, with white and with harvest, ... Pulled a white girl, niggered and trash out of the woods, niggered and trash with hair for five and enough to say, enough words to keep you alive, hanging by a thread, the shreds of your back, a white girl, niggered and trash come out of the woods to help her not labor in vain. The moon, its blue blood blue vein blue moon heart, softening the ground to the Ohio river, soft so dead or alive, you hit the groundrunning, running, running on home. The moon was with Sethe, troubling the water and coming on down like angels congress annual at the Pools of Bethesda. In the beginning Giants, the sons of god.The daughters of the EarthMother. And they took them wives of all which they chose.
Lady Button-Eyes, by Eugene Field When the busy day is done, And my weary little one Rocketh gently to and fro; When the night winds softly blow, And the crickets in the glen Chirp and chirp and chirp again; When upon the haunted green Fairies dance around their queen - Then from yonder misty skies Cometh Lady Button-Eyes. Through the murk and mist and gloam To our quiet, cozy home, Where to singing, sweet and low, Rocks a cradle to and fro; Where the clock's dull monotone Telleth of the day that's done; Where the moonbeams hover o'er Playthings sleeping on the floor - Where my weary wee one lies Cometh Lady ButtonEyes. Cometh like a fleeting ghost From some distant eerie coast; Never footfall can you hear As that spirit fareth near - Never whisper, never word From that shadow-queen is heard. In ethereal raiment dight, From the realm of fay and sprite In the depth of yonder skies Cometh Lady Button-Eyes. Layeth she her hands upon My dear weary little one, And those white hands overspread Like a veil the curly head, Seem to fondle and caress Every little silken tress; Then she smooths the eyelids down Over those two eyes of brown - In such soothing, tender wise Cometh Lady Button-Eyes. Dearest, feel upon your brow That caressing magic now; For the crickets in the glen Chirp and chirp and chirp again, While upon the haunted green Fairies dance around their queen, And the moonbeams hover o'er Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous
Playthings sleeping on the floor - Hush, my sweet! from yonder skies Cometh Lady Button-Eyes! --Eugene Field
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And god stepping back.A second time into the womb.At the hill of foreskins, a pacifier in the mouth of this god of war. By the time she faced him, looked him dead in the eye, she had something in her arms that stopped him in his tracks. The uncanny, memories in utero and the fear of castration.Standing up to god, toe to toe, blood at his feet. Iron.Iron.Iron.Blood and iron. Iron taking life, and giving breath. Iron, giving life and taking breathe. Dust to dust. Ashes to ashes.Bloodletting in the killing fields. Blood sport in the arena roman and catholic. Blood.Blood.Cold blood. And iron. Blood and iron. Pacify the gods of Iron. Pacify the god of Iron. A pacifier in his mouth. Grab a stone. A flint. Let blood, blood, blood, let blood cold by the foreskins to pacify this god. Sethe, like Zipporah, Setheflings the bloody foreskin at his feet, a pacifier in his mouth, and spits this out at him. A bridegroom of blood thou art to me. Blood.Blood.Blood.A bridegroom of blood. A sharp knife, and circumcise him the second time at the hill of the foreskins. By the time she faced him, looked him dead in the eye, she had something in her arms that stopped him in his tracks. He took a backward step with each jump of the baby heart until finally there were none. "I stopped him," she said, staring at the place where the fence used to be. "I took and put my babies where they'd be safe." And it came to pass, on the way to the lodging place, that the Lord met him and sought to kill him. Conrad s heart of darkness. Who is afraid of the dark? And god stepping back.A second time into the womb.The uncanny, memories in utero and the fear of castration.Standing up to god, toe to toe, blood at his feet.
Where is the drama? Where is your mama? Dearly Beloved, gifted child, here comes the drama, where then is your mama? Toni Morrison s Beloved, she is Alice Miller s gifted child, Conrad s Neanderthal out of Eden returned. I stand at the door and knock. Our beloved is the gifted child. Poster child of the neanderthal, the gifted child. Levant is the birthplace of Europa. Even Europa.Europa, also Levant, and Tyre. The pleasure principle couples with the death drive, the death drive and instinct tonight and for all time. Coupling with such drives and instincts, the womb and tomb of the mother, her grave love albatross-like, hundred-breasted, erotic and erogenous, her grave love omnivore and majestic in size, even sepulcher, pontificating at all things neonatal, policing and pontificating, omnipresent, phallic, the embodiment of the Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous
pleasure principle which tonight couples with the death drive, the death drive and instinct tonight and for all time hissing into each other s neck, death, I have seen death, she is Janus, death straddling birth. Our beloved is the gifted child. Poster child of the neanderthal, the gifted child.Dearly Beloved, gifted child, here comes the drama, where then is your mama? I stand at the door and knock. Poster child of the neanderthal, the gifted child.
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Levant is the birthplace of Europa? I stand at the door and knock. Our beloved is the gifted child. Poster child of the neanderthal, the gifted child. Dearly Beloved, gifted child, here comes the drama, where then is your mama? Queen of the ice ages.Queen diva, baby ghost sitting at the table high on diva attitude and wielding a grudge. Levant is the birthplace of Europa? Even Europa.Europa, also Levant, and Tyre? And Sethe, she is the sphinx amongst us. The sphinx unveiled. Tell me. Tell me. Who is this Sethe? Who is she? Sethe, mighty Sethe, her lifeless body, her milk stolen, her back pulped, her children orphaned, a something came up out of the earth into her, a something like a freezing, but moving too, like jaws inside, cold jaws grinding, eager for his eyes, all jaws and hungry, fangs and a split tongue. Sethe, mighty Sethe, mighty and sphinxySethe. She, like Ishtar, holds her way grossly unchecked. Iron wrought rods in her back, the pith of her eyes and her wandering mind, full and absent moon wandering mind, and nurturing moon Sethe, the nurturing one, breast milk for four, breast milk for all, and messed up and down the front of her dress. She is the sphinx. She is Ishtar. And Ashera.Astarte and Ishtar.Sethe she is hysteria. She is the spirit asphyxiated, dispossessed from her mother, her tongue, her mother tongue, her very self, soiled from here to high heaven, soiled and strangled by her own cords umbilical, cords umbilical and memories of the welcoming cool of unchiseled headstones; tiptoe-ing around her memories, the knees of these mother-memories, mother mercies and ceremonies wide open as any grave, and her rememories split off splintered shards from off her mind, schizoid ready by the time she faced him, by the time she looked him dead in the eye, she was dead in the eyes and with a medusa-like something, a something minus ritual, minus pacifier or identifier, a something in her arms that stopped him in his tracks. He took a backward step with each jump of the baby heart until finally there were none. If Ishtar is to reign on the one hand, she will demand her human sacrifices on the other. Sethe, mighty Sethe. Sethe is the mother and her child Dearly Beloved is the gifted child, and this life is her drama, the trauma also. Sethe. Like Ishtar, Sethe, she holds her way grossly unchecked. Iron wrought rods in her back, the pith of her eyes and her wandering mind, full and absent moon wandering mind, and nurturing moon Sethe, the nurturing one, breast milk for four, breast milk for all, and messed up and down the front of her dress. How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?
Out of Eden. The return of the neanderthal child. Is there any madness in your family? Savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent.The Drama of the Gifted Child.The Search for the true self. Odysseus wandering through heaven and hell, passing from the bestial to the divine to return again and become human, while woman has always been the same, unchangeable and without problems.That which he Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous
has set up to-day as his highest erotic ideal, the blending of sexual and spiritual love, has been her natural endowment from the beginning. Never perfect, he falls into error and sin where she cannot err, for her instinct is Nature herself, and she knows not the meaning of sin." Emile Lucka.
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Neurotic men declare that they feel there is something uncanny about the female genital organs. Freud. Of Conrad s Heart of Darkness. "'If she had offered to come aboard I really think I would have tried to shoot her,' said the man of patches, nervously. 'I have been risking my life every day for the last fortnight to keep her out of the house. the whole sorrowful land, the immense wilderness, "She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly, with a slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She carried her head high; her hair was done in the shape of a helmet; she had brass leggings to the knee, brass wire gauntlets to the elbow, a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads on her neck; bizarre things, charms, gifts of witch-men, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step. She must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her. She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent; there was something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress. And in the hush that had fallen suddenly upon the whole sorrowful land, the immense wilderness, the colossal body of the fecund and mysterious life seemed to look at her, pensive, as though it had been looking at the image of its own tenebrous and passionate soul. "She came abreast of the steamer, stood still, and faced us. Her long shadow fell to the water's edge. Her face had a tragic and fierce aspect of wild sorrow and of dumb pain mingled with the fear of some struggling, halfshaped resolve. She stood looking at us without a stir, and like the wilderness itself, with an air of brooding over an inscrutable purpose. A whole minute passed, and then she made a step forward. There was a low jingle, a glint of yellow metal, a sway of fringed draperies, and she stopped as if her heart had failed her. Once only her eyes gleamed back at us in the dusk of the thickets before she disappeared. "'If she had offered to come aboard I really think I would have tried to shoot her,' said the man of patches, nervously. 'I have been risking my life every day for the last fortnight to keep her out of the house. The return of the Neanderthal child.Drama of the Gifted Child. In Search of true self. Is there any madness in your family? Savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent. The stove didn't shudder as it adjusted to its heat. Denver wasn't stirring in the next room. The pulse of red light hadn't come back and Paul D had not trembled since 1856 and then for eighty-three days in a row. Locked up and chained down, his hands shook so bad he couldn't smoke or even scratch properly. Now he was trembling again but in the legs this time. It took him a while to realize that his legs were not shaking because of worry, but because the floorboards were and the grinding, shoving floor was only part of it. The house itself was pitching. Sethe slid to the floor and struggled to get back into her dress. While down on all fours, as though she were holding her house down on the ground, Denver burst from the keeping room, terror in her eyes, a vague smile on her lips. "God damn it! Hush up!" Paul D was shouting, falling, reaching for anchor. "Leave the place alone! Get the hell out!" A table rushed toward him and he grabbed its leg. Somehow he managed to stand at an angle and, holding the table by two legs, he bashed it about, wrecking everything, screaming back at the screaming house. "You want to fight, come on! god damn it! She got enough without you. She got enough!" The quaking slowed to an occasional lurch, but Paul D did not stop whipping the table around until everything was rock quiet. Sweating and breathing hard, he leaned against the wall in the space the sideboard left. Sethe was still crouched next to the stove, clutching her salvaged shoes to her chest. The three of them, Sethe, Denver, and Paul D, breathed to the same beat, like one tired person. Another breathing was just as tired.
"'If she had offered to come aboard I really think I would have tried to shoot her,' said the man of patches, nervously. 'I have been risking my life every day for the last fortnight to keep her out of the house. Neurotic men declare that they feel there is something uncanny about the female genital organs. Freud. A second time into the womb.
Page | 27 On man, fear of the uncanny and mourning, the eternal quest for renaissance.
The return of the Neanderthal child.Drama of the Gifted Child. In Search of true self. Is there any madness in your family? Savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent. A second time into the womb.A second time into the womb. How can these things be? How can a man enter his mother s womb a second time and be born again?
Castration: Let the water and let the blood. gorgons.Infanticide and the cry of savagery.
Court rise.Gargoyled
Women minus crowns and testes, minus brawn and witnesses, women minus frowns and testimonies, women crowned with sorrowful ceremonies, nubile and burnt more than brown, old women, down and out. Blood.Blood.Blood.Blood and iron.Blood and iron. Let the water and let the blood. Women minus crowns and testes, minus brawn and witnesses, women minus frowns and testimonies, women crowned with sorrowful ceremonies, nubile and burnt more than brown, old women, down and out, armed with not but the menacing look of the gargoyledgorgons by which they fired their uncanny guns and psychic economy and threw earth on ballistic cannons seizing fire, dungs of red, fresh and still-bleeding menstrual clots, decked with mother-of-pearl-tipped vulvas like the fly-trappy sticky-tongues of chameleons calling for armistice and hosanna presentations tender as fresh Palm Sunday flowers, fenced tender and barbed wire ready and harnessed to chariots Etruscan, chariots of fire, fire, fire and chorusing, defense, defense. Neurotic men declare that they feel there is something uncanny about the female genital organs. Freud. A second time into the womb.a second time, Nicodemus. For crying out loud, is not a vulva all the penis possible? For crying out loud, is this not the reason for the fear of the uncanny of neurotic men? Their inordinate fear of erotica uncanny, for to be human is to be of the feminine, is this then not the seat of their inordinate fear is of castration? Neurotic men declare that they feel there is something uncanny about the female genital organs. The uncanny.The uncanny.The inordinate, violent and traumatizing infantile fear of the uncanny, the mother, her genitals medusa and the castration of fallacies and phalluses ego-filled. Castration: Let the water and let the blood. Court rise.Gargoyled gorgons.Infanticide and the cry of savagery.Blood.Blood.Blood.Blood and iron.Blood and iron. Let the water and let the blood. Odysseus wandering through heaven and hell, passing from the bestial to the divine to return again and become human, while woman has always been the same, unchangeable and without problems.That which he has set up to-day as his highest erotic ideal, the blending of sexual and spiritual love, has been her natural endowment from the beginning. Never perfect, he falls into error and sin where she cannot err, for her instinct is Nature herself, and she knows not the meaning of sin." Emile Lucka. Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous
Deus in machina.Memories of trauma primordial, trauma in utero.Primordial and in utero memories.The fear of the uncanny, patriarchy and the invention of religion.
Page | 28
Neurotic men declare that they feel there is something uncanny about the female genital organs. Freud. It is a universal characteristic in myths that men born from Earth, upon emerging, either cannot walk or walk clumsily. Levi-Strauss We s suregon get you. It ain t over till all of this done and over with. Men areDeus in machina. Masculine is the second sex. The succumbing sex.Succumbing to the gods.Agents of the gods here on earth.Agents of husbandry.Systems of control. The body held down and taxed, corded, wired and coursed with Hermes strings, yarns and yarns, spools and bolts of Hermes strings. It is the reason hysteria. It is the reason the unspeakable unspoken. What you done to me. I am my own witness.I am my own witness. My own advocate.My own testament.Water into wine.Wine into skins.Old and new. I am my own witness. I am my own witness and my own advocate. My own testament.Old and new testament. Testament, testimony, testify, testosterone. What else you got? Testes and testicles? Unlike you, I am my own witness. My own testament.Water into wine.Testament, old and new. I am hysterick, sick, full of rebuttals, broken chains and roaming free, prowling my anti-establishment and animal spirits. Unlike me, your memories in-utero, memories of a time and place when your organs sexual were in reverse, in reverse and woman, hysterical and other. We s suregon get you. It ain t over till all of this done and over with. Unlike you, I am my own witness. My own advocate.My own testament.Water into wine.Wine into skins.Old and new. I am my own witness. I am my own witness and my own advocate. My own testament.Old and new testament. Testament, testimony, testify, testosterone. What else you got? Ovaries descended and fallopian tubes full and frontal, affronting, cat and name calling and confronting? Phallacies phallic? Well, I have got more than you got. I have a mind of my own, a mind lunar, loony and weepy. I am hysterick, asphyxiated, cat-walking. What you got? Trauma primordial.A primordial bill s owing, ovaries descended, fallopian tubes full and frontal, a multitude of wrongs discoverable, a multitude of wrongs outside the diction of love and in an exiled place, out of town and outskirts. That s all you got? Your organs sexual and in utero, a pair of tubes fallopian and also ovaries, a pair of them, walnut-shaped and undescended, an aspect crucifix, crucifix and woman. Heal thyself, physician. Heal thyself, or I will bring on and up your memories hidden in cords umbilical, pumping with vessels blood blue, cords ugly and long, discarded, memories strangulating, memories asphyxiating, memories castrating. A redox reaction, quick and to the bone. I am my own witness. My own advocate.My own testament.Water into wine.Wine into skins.Old and new. I am my own witness. I am my own witness and my own advocate. My own testament.Old and new testament. Testament, testimony, testify, testosterone. What else you got? Testes and testicles? I will get you there where though exiled gerrymandered by jurisdiction anarchy, anarchy and right down my alley. Oh! And nota bene, we have been keeping a record of wrongs. A record, rows, and rows, and rows upon wrongs.Columns too.Columns, columns, and columns of wrongs, errors intended, errors egregious and disingenuous. I am my own witness. My own advocate.My own testament.Water into wine.Wine into skins.Old and new. I am my own witness. I am my own witness and my own advocate. My own testament.Old and new testament. Testament, testimony, testify, testosterone. What else you got? Testes and testicles? ... your memories in-utero, memories of a time and place when your organs sexual were in reverse, in reverse and Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous
woman, hysterical and other. Your organs sexual and in utero, a pair of tubes fallopian and also ovaries, a pair of them, walnut-shaped and undescended, an aspect crucifix, crucifix and woman. Heal thyself, physician. Heal thyself, or I will bring on and up your memories hidden in cords umbilical, pumping with vessels blood blue, cords ugly and long, discarded, memories strangulating, memories asphyxiating, memories castrating. A redox reaction, quick and to the bone for unlike you, I am my own Page | 29 witness. My own testament.Water into wine.Testament, old and new. I am hysterick, sick, full of rebuttals, broken chains and roaming free, prowling my anti-establishment and animal spirits. We have a mind of our own, a mind lunar, loony and weepy, and full of animal spirits. We are otherworldly. Also we are testate, intestate and so very testy; you cannot imagine. Testy and sphinxed out. We s suregon get you. It ain t over till all of this done and over with. Men areDeus in machina. Masculine is the second sex. The succumbing sex.Succumbing to the gods.Agents of the gods here on earth.Agents of husbandry.Systems of control. The body held down and taxed, corded, wired and coursed with Hermes strings, yarns and yarns, spools and bolts of Hermes strings. It is the reason hysteria. It is the reason the unspeakable unspoken. What you done to me. I am my own witness. How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? Neurotic men declare that they feel there is something uncanny about the female genital organs. Freud. It is a universal characteristic in myths that men born from Earth, upon emerging, either cannot walk or walk clumsily. Levi-Strauss All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is; Without number. Worlds Lie in this bosom like children. We s suregon get you. It ain t over till all of this done and over with.
H. G. Wells and the Time Machine.Oedipus, Autochthonous and Auto-Enucleation.The struggle for existence.The overman and overcoming man. The pleasure principle couples with the death drive, the death drive and instinct tonight and for all time. Coupling with such drives and instincts, the womb and tomb of the mother, her grave love albatross-like, hundred-breasted, erotic and erogenous, her grave love omnivore and majestic in size, even sepulcher, pontificating at all things neonatal, policing and pontificating, omnipresent, phallic, the embodiment of the pleasure principle which tonight couples with the death drive, the death drive and instinct tonight and for all time hissing into each other s neck, death, I have seen death, she is Janus, death straddling birth. It is the true riddle of the Sphinx; and every nation which does not solve it will sooner or later be devoured by the monster itself has generated. For Wells, the "true riddle of the Sphinx" is reducible to the following question: "How can man be stirred out of his complacency?" How can man be stirred out of his complacency? How can a man be born when he is sold. Can he a second time enter into his mother s bosom and be born. O! Death where is your victory?
And however shocking to the moral sense this eternal competition of man against man and of nation against nation may be; however revolting may be the accumulation of misery at the negative pole of society, in contrast with that of monstrous wealth at the positive pole; this state of things must abide, and grow continually worse, so long as Istar holds her way unchecked. It is the true riddle of the Sphinx; and every nation which does not solve it will sooner or later be devoured by the monster itself...
Page | 30 "Stuff!" said he; "nine times out of ten nature does not want to cure the man:
wants to put him in his coffin." Thomas Henry Huxley: The Struggle for Existence, 1888
she
More than the rest, they killed the flirt whom folks called Life for leading them on. Making them think the next sunrise would be worth it; that another stroke of time would do it at last. Only when she was dead would they be safe. The successful ones--the ones who had been there enough years to have maimed, mutilated, maybe even buried her--kept watch over the others who were still in her cock-teasing hug, caring and looking forward, remembering and looking back. Life was dead. Paul D beat her butt all day every day till there was not a whimper in her. Life rolled over dead. Or so he thought.
Lay my bead on the railroad line, Train come along, pacify my mind. If I had my weight in lime, I'd whip my captain till he went stone blind. Five-cent nickel, Ten-cent dime, Busting rocks is busting time. Bare feet and chamomile sap. Took off my shoes; took off my hat. Bare feet and chamomile sap Gimme back my shoes; gimme back my hat. Lay my head on a potato sack, Devil sneak up behind my back. Steam engine got a lonesome whine; Love that woman till you go stone blind. Stone blind; stone blind. Sweet Home gal make you lose your mind. Can he a second time enter into his mother s bosom and be born. Nine times out of ten nature does not want to cure the man: she wants to put him in his coffin." O! Death where is your victory? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman: A laughingstock. A painful embarrassment.

Three To Tea Party: Joseph Conrad, Alice Miller and Toni Morrison.

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Three To Tea Party: Joseph Conrad, Alice Miller and Toni Morrison.

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On Toni Morrison s Beloved; Joseph Conrad s Heart of Darkness; Page | 1 Alice Miller s The Drama of the Gifted Child.

The Searchforthe TrueSelf.

THREE TOTEA PARTY: JOSEPH CONRAD,ALICE MILLER ANDTONI MORRISON.

the middle passage: bridging aethiopia and the americas.

Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous

Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous

Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous

THREE TO TEA PARTY: JOSEPH CONRAD, ALICE MILLER ANDTONI MORRISON.

the middle passage: and the americas.

Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous

Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous

Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous

Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous

Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous

Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous

Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous

Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous

Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous

Je suis la oaparle. I am there where her speaking. Hlne Cixous

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