Subject-‐Object-‐Desire
London 2014
Your business in this world is not to assure the salvation of a soul thirsty for peace; nor is it to provide your body with the advantages of money. Your business is the quest for an unknowable destiny. It is for this that you must struggle with a hatred of the limits that the codes of propriety oppose to freedom. It is for this that you will arm yourself with a secret pride and an indomitable will. The advantages that chance has given you – your beauty, your glamour and the impulsiveness of your life – are all necessary for your laceration. Of course, this testimony won’t be fully revealed: the light emanating from you could be compared to the moonlight falling on a sleeping countryside
Georges Bataille (1897-‐1962) – L’Alleluiah, catéchisme de Dianus (194
THE SUBJECT OF DESIRE The heart is filled and overflows With love, Brimming, brimming over Like pouring liquid nitrogen into a beaker It just can’t contain it So it bellows out in a white cloud Over the brim Like hot springs Unable to contain the sulfur clouds Billowing out, billowing out, Hovering above the chasm Of unknowing So the heart cannot contain As it too wells up In the pain Of loving and Of unrequited-‐ness All one can do is observe (Gently if possible) How curious the usually deadness Is brought to life So unexpectedly And how close this desire Is to the old wounds-‐ The absent validation, The abuse and tyranny, The powerlessness, Of childhood-‐ Subjected to arbitrary discipline How close the tears from this resemble Those ancient salty drops Held back by pure will Until unable to control, they Slowly form on the corner of the eyes, A sign of capitulation to the monster And lack of further strength on my part.
How close this pain is to the very wounds of youth The rejection and the torment The impossibility of conquest The setting of the bar too high The inevitable disappointment Only adding to the prosecuting attorney’s growing file Proving the character defects of this B specimen. And yet how blissful To feel In the heart After so long At 30000 feet In the silence of the darkened cabin Where others sleep -‐or at least try-‐ To feel this desire in that very place of wounding. THE OBJECT OF DESIRE What triggered this? What object within the object? I sit amazed at how little I really know About this unconscious soul I know only that I was captured Unwittingly Poor innocent thing! The eyes for sure…sad, tortured, wounded, Eyes that saw too much, Eyes that were betrayed, And knew too much for her age The mouth, that smiles a sweetness into the trusting wind The way she stands with one leg resting on another Her very posture betraying purity of spirit And her modesty among others who would flaunt their femininity She stands out in silent demure. Yet all of this falls short In describing why now Why her? Why her eyes? What in me was so moved by her gentility. Her teasing and her double entendres Never letting on her feelings
Her impeccable style of unacknowledged seduction The knowing without saying The seeing without letting on The smiling eyes that caress the deepest wounds All the while Never giving away her self Trusting no one Me? for sure not! She is wise! Parsing her body like a textbook of anatomy The perfect symmetry of parts The beauty unparalleled I am the Vesalius of form And she is the very model that reflects perfection. Simple and almost unconscious of her power A woman struggling against demons within and without Challenges of work home and family Embedded in her own life and friends The last thing she needs is this complication. THE DESIRE The bonding between subject and object The heart’s desire The locus of this obsession The fear of moving from this point further The refusal to hurt so many people The art of observing the self in burning desire Without acting on it Without moving on it’s demand for relief Either way, conquest or rejection Anything for relief from this agony, Rather, a gentle reflection As if looking into a mirror Albeit naked The aching, aging body Framed in the Dorian Grey sunset So this desire as mirror of the hungry soul Dissatisfied and wanting more and more Of life Of love Of burning
Your business is the quest for an unknowable destiny. It is for this that you must struggle with a hatred of the limits that the codes of propriety oppose to freedom. Bataille calls this a catechism! A sacred ritual requiring painful acts of sacrifice As in the Christian reliving of His death and crucifixion For surely it requires such courage To even accept your feelings as real, appropriate And true to yourself, Even when defying conventions piety and the social order. The desire points at you with an accusing finger Holding the subject and object in an unholy matrimony Probing your courage to defy To validate that inner child that was squelched And determine whether now Maybe now After all these years You might find that which your soul had been searching for All along.