PILGRIM’S THROAT
Les mots c’est ce qui reste quand on a épuisé la trahison Jean Genet
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PHILIPPE VANDENBERG
PILGRIM’S THROAT
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à toi, reine des mouches petite soeur d’Orphée ma boule à cris, ma lune de sang d’avant d’avant la vase
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1 prologue Child in the stars 14 September 1998
Father let the dogs copulate and Mother drank herself through her sorrow. No misery meant. No misery at all, really: bottles and copulating animals. The grass was high and in wicked games I rubbed dirt on my sister’s face. Behind the house ran the railway as always in Flanders and behind the railway was the wood, like. And I am drawing the fat lines of the wood straight and above the lines of the grass, but that is nothing, that is just a support, the girl I can’t yet squeeze in, the sister with dirt on her face, the courtisan, l’élue du père. And that’s what it was about: locking her up in the wood, guarded by the railway track on which locomotive monsters were slowly shuttling by. Engines with their red wheels and their black stench, driven by grinning black men who spat from high so high: a long-drawn-out white wisp of spit from that black head, the girl didn’t want to be in the drawing in the wood, the girl wanted Father, wanted to be in Father, and Father spat at me from the high height of his tower-being and I fell down the stairs, down his stairs. And so: my father let the dogs mate. My mother drank the sea. Who sends, who is being sent? Who sends me the painting? Does the painting send itself to me? La favorite du roi a le cul épilé. Mother drank the sea, Father let the dogs mate. I kicked the beasts anchored in each other in the ribs and slammed heavy gates shut on their trembling rumps, I cut off my sister’s hair, a hole in her head, my father spat at me, but I was watching out and the spit slithered from the banister. Each drawing is a message, each drawing comes from above, each drawing is a key. Monkeys screeched in the living room; my father built large cages in it, my mother stared and grinned. Each line is a horizon and I inserted the pen in my penis, the stains stiffened the sheets. Nothing remains, everyting lasts, nobody comes. Father let the dogs mate and Mother at the table, the food crumbling from her mouth. I drowned chickens in muddy water tanks, rubbed dirt in my sister’s mouth, Father hit me. Big locomotives separated me from the wood. Who sends me a painting? Nothing remains, everything lasts. Nobody comes.
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2 Fra Angelico a white angel visits Mary
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23 July 2001 yes yes lovely fly lay your eggs in my eye do yes yes lovely fly do lay my eye in your eggs do yes yes lovely fly do lay your eggs in my eye yes yes yes yes yes yes lovely fly lovely lay your eggs in my eye eye eye lay your eggs do lay yes fly lovely lay your eggs in my eye do lay your eggs in my eye in my eye in my eye eggs in eye of mine lay yes yes yes do lay fly lovely I love you lay your fly lay your fly eggs I love you in my eye lay your lovely fly lay your eggs your sticky eggs in my fly eye eye your nest eye lovely fly fly lovely in your eye lay your nest in my eye lay your nest lovely fly lay your egg in my eye lovely nest lovely eyes for your eggs lovely eyes for your eggs my nest in your eggs lovely fly fly lovely indeed lay my lovely in your nest lay your eggs in my eye lay my nest lay my nest in your egg in your nest eye lovely my nest eye lovely my nest eyelovely lay your eggs in my nest eye lovely I love you
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19 September 2001
the steppe there are no more escape routes there will be no more escape routes from now on there won’t be any escape routes anywhere where does the animal drive itself to? to what wall of prickly foliage? where is the animal driven to? where does the animal drive itself to? prickly and hard the growth under and for the animal the animal must be killed off now it will be killed off now somewhere in the blistering silence of the scenery there also in the blistering silence of the murderous the murderous, yes the scenery kills off the animal there are no more escape routes, all has been killed off the animal will be killed off now yes now the animal must be killed off there are no more escape routes there will be no more escape routes now the animal must be killed off in the blistering heat, in the blistering silence of the uninterrupted scenery there are no more escape routes no the animal knows as much and most of all it has a foreboding of what is bound to happen so motionless now, rudderless now it knows it will be killed off from now on there will be no more escape routes from now on there will be no more escape routes the animal yes must be killed off now the scenery will not stop blistering with silence with heat, unchanging, unchanging in its primordial prickliness in which the animal moves on writhing no path no route no escape the animal must be killed of now now now oh yes now
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5 October 2001
and still I am whirling and still I am whirling towards you from you to you mercilessly you have me whirling: how firm is my fly-dog-corpse still? how meaty, how still escaped from worms and holes in which flies are gnawing? how firm is my road to you my Gaza my Lebanon my wasteland? how am I whirling and still whirling from you to you? broken up broken by your so many branches by my so many trunks from your leaf to leaf I am whirling I am whirling unwritten? oh no not you me even less, I will always be whirling from your nerve to my bark
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6 october 2001
Mekong it can’t always be a sugar prince on a purple horse they don’t swim to the bottom of the river the yellow river
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7 october 2001 tous les matins du monde sont sans retour our dreams begin beyond our limitations it’s still half-dark in the morning when the cocks start to crow here and everywhere, possibly also in Nicaragua where dark women are cleaning themselves of their lovers’ seed in the black river not you, you keep my seed in you, wait for me wait for me my black angel angel here in the ward the junkies are already shuffling through the corridors to fetch valium and methadone and the like: their dreams no longer go beyond their pain without the white angel’s generous hand, I’m dozing off, too much crystal against too much pain, but still carrying all my dreams nothing will nip that bud in me, no dark bottom no crystal lake.
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7 October 2001 the houses I shall want you, you will win me but what will the aching decide? will it withdraw like the red storks far across the sea in short far away? for without aching the blood turns colour-empty and light as spring water take me away to the spring, I shall clean us the way the black birds do: in the waterfilled roof-gutters of the houses, of the houses of happiness
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8 October 2001 the net why is my body so very black? why don’t my floodgates suck in the light? my sweaty skin no colourful net? in whose mesh you hook yourself with fingers teeth toes hair and lips and get stuck forever
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9 October 2001 envoi this is the observation ward, here we are observed: monkeys behind a glass door in the brown corridor yes in that brown corridor the monkey phone rings and more and long and so much the operator is munching salty liquorice, she is peeling ochre walnuts as now autumn is colouring a single one of us is called, a single one of us may go hobble limp stumble sock-shuffle is it mother? is it lover? is it child? is it friend? it takes so long please please madam madam the operator is munching liquorice so salty so salty
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10 october 2001 to Klaus Kinski der Zorn Gottes when Aguirre came down the Andes mountains 3,600 perishing slaves, pigs rounded up and cannons pulled by Inca princes he could not know his last talk with monkeys an arrow pierced his so beloved daughter’s neck I do not know, my so beloved daughter sister wife of my burnt-up life I do not know with whom my last talk your throat slit with rusty sabre steel I shall strangle myself in you, in you I shall mutilate myself big filthy creature that I am big nasty filthy creature that I am WIZARD that I am
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10 October 2001 Daddy Bosch, the war your people is not mine oh no they will pitch battle against each other in some muddy field let’s hope they get their skulls crushed they’re certain to get their skulls crushed and their brains mixed with peat and wet horse muck are the survivors seriously wounded, I shall ram my heel into their gullets and the cracking will deliver me from the stronghold on my backbone lockjaw in my loins and then my darling, then we shall love each other wallowing in their wounds and still warm guts
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12 october 2001 I am not the murderer of the girl who drowned I did not cut her wrists and her ankles I did not turn the open wound in her thigh but I am the liar who promised her from now on: happiness I made her believe in it believing in happiness is so easy for one who had been looking for it a life long and loved me, therefore believed in me and I lied, for I had never known happiness myself wizards are liars I am the murderer the lying hunchback I loved her you’ll never believe me
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12 October 2001 the executioner I don’t want to evade the execution no no no no for god’s sake no je suis un peintre d’embouteillages
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13 October 2001 landscape
after Edvard Munch
am I the murderer of love? will you convince me I am? is that how you get rid of the heavy burden your love for me would be? would you rather break that rock on my shouders than simply tell me: it was so beautiful but much too much? would you rather break my neck than tell me: darling go now what you want I cannot do, what I can do you no longer want? so many mountains so many clouds so much powdery snow between us, am I the murderer of our love? or is it both of us? and are we really murderers? are we not just ignorant of each other? are we not just two errors, packaged together? two landscapes scattered by some drunken god or other wrongly put side by side? for instance an iceland and a sunland you cursing my sun, me scraping your ice and still wondering: why does the sun not fade into the ice that it melts? why does the ice not reflect the sun’s blood-red glow? am I the murderer of love?
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14 october 2001 the evening
after Philip Guston
rock me rock me suspended in the unlikely evening light that blackens the barred window in its red glow
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15 October 2001 scene it’s twelve o’clock I know, for I can hear the crutch man stumping up the stairs methadone please methadone! his crutches already delight in the coming high he’s sweating the cold out of his lame body, the preparation takes ten minutes which is terrible for him, really terrible, the unforeseen pain of waiting even his crutches are shaking with him my hands are not shaking just because it’s twelve o’clock, they shake throughout the yellow-coloured day, because of crystal crystal crystal to crush the pain spiked in my body, crystal acts more quickly if you crush it between your teeth or let it melt under your tongue, there are a thousand such secrets to raise the high or the low it’s twelve o’clock and I get crystal, I have to swallow on the spot from a metal cup, only junkies know secrets of rapture, are in the know it’s twelve o’clock, I know everything that’s going to happen, now
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17 October 2001 little manual
à ma mère
the liar is a supple animal the sooner he starts, the more gifted he turns out in playing on his art for the liar is also an artist with all the disquiet that comes with it the sooner he distorts his world, the more credible his distorted story the technique to be mastered is of course the body language and the unity between the story’s form and content the liar is a supple animal with an infallible dosing capacity lies must be presented in the right dosage so that the lied-to has no time to get confused the liar is a supple animal that must not lose its suppleness in any circumstances the liar therefore must constantly practise packaging the lie perfectly so that the lie and the truth can shelter each other fully the two hazards threatening the liar are forgetfulness and confusion: regularly practising thinking techniques is to be unreservedly recommended mental arithmetic, crossword puzzles, memorizing quotations poems texts (also, showing off knowledge of foreign languages may make an impression) I am a bad liar, I am not a supple animal I am an artist with all the disquiet that comes with it, but a bad liar I learnt to fly to make myself loved both by my father and by Mother especially my mother was always pestering me with the blood-curdling question: who do you love more? him or me? and then I replied: both equally, but I flinched, that way I quickly learnt that a bad liar is a crippled animal and I became one instantly
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19 october 2001 dantesque
to Mario De Brabandere
hell is not the gates not even the banging sound of the gates slamming shut hell is the sound of the keys afterwards
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19 October 2001 to die alone will be easier than to live alone to live is to die for so long, you learn this my father’s dogs died alone were they aware of it? what does a dog know about loneliness? what did my father know about dying alone? yet nobody has ever died more lonely than my father perhaps he had been studying it for too long in his lonely dying beasts he had felt how the heart broke, the guts discharged seen how the blue membrane pulled across the eyes and the legs bent as if broken perhaps it would have been better the other way around he could have helped his parents die then they would not have been so alone but I did not help my father to die either, though I wept when I buried his dogs
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21 October 2001 waking up and you shall wake the child and take it to school so everyday so everyday so everyday so everyday as death
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23 October 2001 who’s afraid etc. afraid of course who isn’t afraid to lose each other and yet we lose each other afraid to have to lie and yet we lie to each other afraid of the wrong dreams and yet the wrong dreams creep into us afraid not to achieve the obligatory happiness and yet we don’t achieve it afraid to be caught at an unbeautiful moment and yet we’re caught afraid to be unable to cross the river so wide to each other and yet it happens afraid not to recognize the enemy, the unknown, and yet the enemy enters afraid to see beauty change and yet beauty always changes afraid of course, of course we’re all afraid all of us afraid to spy the shadows that will demolish our love and yet this may happen at any moment afraid that our bodies will tire of each other and yet habit is lurking afraid that our souls will change colour and change colour they will afraid that the spring tide that lifts us high above the splattering water withdraws, how often does that happen! afraid that our eyes will squint, it is bound to happen afraid oh darling of course we’re afraid even more afraid we’ll be when my knees no longer fit into your armpits my hands no longer in your hair, my thumb no longer in your mouth but angel so often we shall also be not afraid because our eyes will never let go of each other
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25 October 2001 Sainte-Hélène the pilgrim, that’s what I’ve been since I came to stay here the pilgrim is a lion’s rest, pilgrims no longer wander far away they have a girlfriend and keep their hands moist pilgrims sometimes paint but not always successfully upset by lack of time or disbelief or etc. they end up with the big madam who shrinks the knots from their soul yes yes that pilgrim that’s been me, ever since I came to stay in the mirror like the rest of the lion of Water-loo
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26 October 2001 I have come to love you because of the death that you press into my arms like a bunch of black roses do not damage me, or you will not dare to behold me and your memory of me will chase you like a spotted dog
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27 October 2001 Apocalypse the revelation is the question or is it? the giant combine harvesters that light up the cornfields at night, are they God? or the reincarnation of Vincent? where is the revelation? where is the question? was Breughel an apple picker? Lowry a wet duck that sank? where is the revelation and where is the question? the revelation lay between Mary’s legs, but was the truth there? and the thundering of the Apocalypse? who was John? and what stuff did he put in his tea? the revelation came from John’s arse and the giant combine harvesters that at night churn up the cornfields with light he would have praised like a god who stops at nothing the revelation is an awkward affair as it is the question
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29 october 2001 Le grand pêcheur why didn’t the big fisher of shrimp drown me, when he caught me in his wide net together with you, he saved us to play with us and to shoot his seed in the salty water – it burnt our eyes - , the big fisher’s seed, his net of razor-sharp steel and how he hurt you! the more you bled the more he groaned and shot at the uninterested clouds my blood turned into salt water and that was what he wanted: me to bleed invisibly for the white blood makes the water foam and my foam on your wounds made him go into such raptures that even the indifferent clouds plunged into the sea and we, my darling, were wriggling like two newly hanged at the goal posts of Taliban football pitches who will kill the big fisher of shrimp? trip his horse? pull his steel nets through his scaly skin? who will cure your salted wounds? pull the needles from your eyes? I’ll have to do it I lured you to the sea, I’ll have to do it
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1 November 2001 the wizard there’s no hour you don’t know where the lie is there’s no hour you don’t know what’s going to happen there’s no hour you’ll claim not to know everyone knows everyone knows he who doesn’t want to know will find out before the others
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4 November 2001 the anchor
to Marc Maet
why woodcutters cut wood is logical but why ships sink is a difficult question why love strangles us is not that logical but still a bit for loving woodcutters strangle their wives in ships that sink there is much more sea than land and the water is so salt, I love salt I also love licking salty figures cows lick salt blocks in the meadow cows are so beautiful but hard to drown except in floods, when you can see them floating in an awkward position over the surface of the meadow, spotted whales with club feet I’ve got to get out of here because a flood might make me bloat and my buttocks turn purple, no cow no woman would ever fancy me not to mention my tail
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5 November 2001 sex & drugs & rock ’n roll forever
to Ian Dury
il y a Hamlet il y a Oedipe Hamlet hallucinated on rampart grass Oedipus juggled with swords and missed a double blow once it could have been simpler couldn’t it if Oedipus who was stone-blind anyway had screwed Hammelette in the arse the fathers would have stayed in their coffins what have fathers got to do with it anyway? not to mention the mothers, those dirty randy bitches love me love me
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8 November 2001 berceuse and what shall we do with the liar? and what shall we do with the liar? what shall we do with the liar? we cut his filthy tongue from his devious mouth
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9 November 2001 Daddy Bosch Black Bird
to Alfred Kubin
I am just the raven, wandering about jerkily landing on a rotten field of honour: one bullet through your left eye, and now? now you’re ready, yes ready for what? do I have to peck out your other eye? or do I shove my head my wings my hopping mad grief in your torn up womanliness?
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11 November 2001 tired God a fisher of shrimp and you a little local shrimp and that’s exactly why, my cricket, God, the eternally disappointed God throws all shrimp into one large black cauldron of boiling water
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11 November 2001 madonna nothing will harm us anymore the scorpions will sting themselves, naturally until death le scorpion est dangereux parcequ’il est malheureux
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11 November 2001 Caligula are we locked up in each other like gladiators? like lions devouring christians? like lovers so close losing ourselves with each touch?
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12 November 2001 sarabande what lies? the liars ask what murders? the murderers ask liars are the shrimp, crabs are the murderers who am I? who are you? who is she, the white madam torturing me? and who is the black madam torturing herself? who are the rats at the foot of the gallows? are they good at what they do, those infamous gnawers how should it go on, now that we’re all dead? we can’t be more dead, more alive than we are now
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13 November 2001 tao the black woman is the mountain, the white woman the river I want to wrap the river round the mountain, the white river round the black mountain it would be treacherously beautiful, but the black mountain would triumph because the core always triumphs over the skin, the water skin unless the black mountain founders and crumbles in grit and mud but then the river also founders and everything turns into a black gritty muddy lake qui est la femme blanche? qui est la femme noire? je les aimerai toujours dissous en elles mais elles, m’aimeront-elles?
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15 November 2001 in the tub you were going to die with me, but these are vocals yes and so what: dying together also requires you to find a pleasing solution for it or you’ll get bored out of your mind
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15 November 2001 flood and you, my little rugged girl, lost in a corner of my heart, will be pouring away with the blood brook, just like that, out of my heart, just like that, out of my body disappearing for eternity and even longer in sour seas
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19 November 2001 petite rencontre à l’asile every so often we cross in the corridor, I mean : he’s returning, I’m going he wears little slippers, I wear socks, I have no slippers and – in spite of the sign: please lift the seat, to leave it dry for the ladies – people here are always peeing beside the bowl back in my room I dry my socks, wash my feet I occasionally wash my socks with shampoo every so often we cross in the corridor, numb with valium I focus hard on the target: the pee-corner route, but he, he’s coming back from it already he has relieved himself, an advantage on me strange that he’s holding his left arm in the air above his bumpy head and opening and closing his hands in little spastic gestures is that the sioux junkie greeting? I don’t know,me, I’m still new here and always think of her, because yes he’s yelling something at me about bus line 71 that departs from nowhere yes yes and more: lots of metal glistening in his ears he walks on and I stumble on the toilet platform, wet my pants a bit perhaps he also loves someone : a sioux junkie woman in one of those baseball caps turned backwards, covering the back of her neck
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21 November 2001 the snail well, my darling, I’ve started my fourth week each morning in the mirror I can see myself bit by bit change into a snail that shows how magical and predictable my paintings are now the snail is just on my forehead, in my hair, but slowly its growing shell will enclose my skull and its slimy body will glue my eyes shut stuff my nose my mouth this happens here yes and slowly the snail people drag themselves along the stained walls the worst are those who have completely turned into snails and stick themselves in the corners of the rooms so many here, their slime drying up they have stopped moving in them some blood ash may sparkle feebly still, perhaps still listening in to the infamous secret, the humiliation, the debts perhaps the shrivelled little snail people are still writing about what must not be known that’s how, my darling, the snail man’s fourth week starts I’ll have to bear many more days, accept my punishment, undergo my punishment my punishment how will I ever be able to paint again with glistening slime only in a pitch dark shell and what is being painted in a snail’s shell? shall I still be able to draw you? I think so Oedipus would be able to even with scabs instead of eyes
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22 November 2001 need now time is really running short short for what there is left to live, still left to live so short that too many letters contain it now time is really running short short for what there is still left to live so short that all signs have become redundant
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22 November 2001 tenderness is what is left for me, crumbled scattered on the way black birds make their entrance now, they have become so strong and I so weak so weak that I can no longer myself lift the crumbs to my mouth with a wet finger tenderness is what is left for me, crumbled and scattered on the way one day you will crumble and lose your magnificent feathers thank god I loved you so
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25 November 2001 marine and we, we shall wash ashore like plankton at night tide they are but sand, dead grains lashing us whipped up by rough wind that knows no better
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26 November 2001 who has never been cradled will never be comforted who has been cradled will be happy
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26 November 2001 the thief clean yourself clean yourself in me, I shall enfold you with an infinity of rays stolen light
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28 November 2001 tous les matins du monde, encore no dawn is as poisonouos as you, no dawn cares so much about me no dawn I will not give you, you who are for me, for me who is waking up blue black little sister of mine
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29 November 2001 when the end begins when the beginning of the end begins, fear keeps a low profile when the end finds us fear will sneak away from us fear is for those who want to live when we lie down, nobody or nothing will touch us anymore this you know this you have taught me: when the end begins, the joy begins the joy we have missed so much because of the fear of losing each other when the end finally creeps up, put my hand on your eye and I will look deep so deep into your soul through your fingers never will that image stop existing when the end begins when the beginning of the end begins, fear keeps a low profile nobody will touch us anymore
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?? ?? the back wounds are the most dangerous they are the fault wounds of the man who leaves his back naked and unprotected that is why the back wounds are the rawest, you cannot see them the man closed his back eyes why did he close his back eyes? in overconfidence? in foolish love? the back wounds sometimes fatally wound the man’s angel for like the angel watches over the man, the man has to take care of the angel the tension of climbing blind tears open his back and the man is not going to live without eventually turning around he feels the tearing between his shoulders, where is the angel? the man who betrays his angel, rips his back open there the claws take hold, to which he exposes his back unprotected let the angel come with forgiveness and compassion tear open the back of the man who is unheeding, tear open his back so that his wounds are deep, he has to turn around where is my angel? the man calls out now that the front of your body is covered with eyes, your back torn open, turn around man! turn around, turn your eyes around and see what happens wipe out your blood traces, the claws follow the blood traces like crabs many countless crabs, find your angel, he is not far only surrounded by crabs be courageous now, set your angel free be humble now ask him forgiveness man, the back wounds are deep, flies keep them clean angel ! cover the man’s back angel ! go back to the man who can summon the courage to go and look for you cover his wounds, put his eyes on his back his eyes reflect the crabs that will disappear in the bushes angel, angel! help me, cover me, announce me: I am the backless animal, your backless animal put your wings around me, cover me bury me in you
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3 epilogue
with Soutine in the mirror La ruine, seule la ruine est le refuge SAMUEL BECKETT
16 February 2002 when my pain wears your mask when your pain wears my mask that’ll be the day when sorrow stops so amazed at its own monstrosity
13 September 1998 what is failure? and what is blame? is retreating into one’s shell a reprehensible act? a consequence of exhausted mental capacity? or simply going deeply into the crucial question: what is attitude and what is truth?
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colophon
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?? ??
the man is grinning and staring at his feet what is happening there is above his comprehension
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