A/A

 

 

A

Hay un paisaje repetido en el monitor, un paisaje repetido en el recuerdo, un paisaje repetido en el audio del hiperlink. Hay una reproducción de códigos en esta pantalla, una página que no es una página, un punto de la vida, una conversación en las cabezas de los otros. Hay prisa, aquí no, pero hay prisa en general, hay amo en general en nuestro comportamiento. Hay una ambigüedad reforzada en el lenguaje cada vez que decimos “a primera hora”, cada vez que leemos “a primera hora”, cada vez que interpretamos esa ambigüedad: sutilezas del amo, seda, suavidad. Hay un control retomado, una facilidad para reinterpretar, un descaro ante la incapacidad de retener. No tenía conciencia. Ante la incapacidad para resignificar la realidad. Me gusta dejarme vencer. Me fascina la vulnerabilidad pura. (Te amo, amo). Disfruto la imposibilidad de la repetición. Esa ilusión del lenguaje para dejar fuera lo que sea: ex (fuera del lugar que construye el lenguaje). El sentido de nada. Sí. No conozco otra manera de vivir salvo perdida, desde un punto localizado del animal que soy; aunque Oliverio dijo “no sé hacer el amor más que volando”^1&2 es lo mismo. Cuando tengo esperanzas siento que vivo donde quiero vivir ¿Ves? Adopto lo que me toca. En los momentos de agradecimiento percibo que, si pudiera abarcar todo lo que la realidad es, no lo soportaría: la mente consciente de la mente. La copia consciente de la copia. ¿Y si los esclavos somos frutos que alguien más cultiva, desprende, discrimina, comercia y devora? ¿Alguien más que se parte el cuerpo del corazón, doblado el día entero para desplazar, someter, controlar? Acabo de utilizar un lugar común,³ en plena facultad de mi derroche.
No sé si lo exacto es lo idéntico.
¡Benditos manipuladores de la retórica en la que algunos esclavos nos convertimos para soñar que somos libres! ¿Percibir la libertad como un deber la convierte en anzuelo?

Abismos. Frutos.⁴
Dejar de continuar es imposible.
(A como símbolo de abandono, que corresponde al mismo aspecto que el del “objeto perdido”; ambos son paralelos al de la muerte y la resurrección (Jung). Sentirse abandonado es, esencialmente, sentirse abandonado del “Dios en nosotros”, del componente eterno del espíritu, proyectándose en una situación existencial ese sentimiento de extravío, que también sostiene relación con el tema del laberinto. (Cirlot) Pero también A de ti.)
Se une con dulzura al alivio de una exhalación profunda. Se manifiesta para abrir. Sana el infierno. A: sin interrogación. Estabilidad serena. Comienzo. Principio.
Hacer es deshacer.

* * *

A

There is a repeating landscape on the screen, a repeating landscape in memory, a repeating landscape in the linked recording. There is a reproduction of codes on this screen, a page that is not a page, a point in a life, a conversation in the heads of others. There’s a rush, not here, but there’s a rush in general, there’s an owner in general in the way we behave. There’s a reinforced ambiguity in language, every time we say “a primera hora,”⁵ every time we read “a primera hora,” every time we interpret that ambiguity: subtleties of the owner, silk, softness. There’s a control that’s resumed, an ease of reinterpretation, an insolence in the face of our inability to retain. I wasn’t aware of it.⁶ In the face of our inability to resignify reality. I like to let myself be vanquished. Pure vulnerability fascinates me. (Te amo, amo). I enjoy the impossibility of repetition.⁶ That language illusion that leaves whatever-it-is out, outside: ex (outside the place language constructs). The meaning of nothing. Yes. I don’t know any other way to live except to be lost, from the precise location of the animal I am; though Oliverio said “I don’t know how to make love except in flight”^7&8 it’s the same. When I have hopes I feel that I’m living where I want to live. See? I adopt what’s destined for me. In moments of gratitude, I perceive that if I were able to take in everything reality is, I wouldn’t be able to bear it: the mind conscious of the mind. The copy conscious of the copy. And if as slaves we are the fruits that someone else cultivates, detaches, discriminates, trades, and devours? Someone else who splits the body from the heart, the whole day bent over⁹ so as to displace, suppress, control? I just used a commonplace,¹⁰a cliché, with full awareness of my flamboyance.
I don't know if what is exact is what is identical.¹¹
¡Blessed manipulators of rhetoric some of us slaves become so as to dream that we are free! To perceive freedom as a duty turns it into a lure?

Abysses. Fruits.¹²
To cease to continue is impossible.
(A as a symbol of abandonment, with the same profile as that corresopnding to the “lost object”; both are parallel to that of death and resurrection (Jung). To feel abandoned is, essentially, to feel abandoned by “God in us,” the eternal element of the spirit, that feeling of going astray projecting itself into an existential situation, one that also maintains a relationship with the subject of the labyrinth. (Cirlot)
But also A as in you.)
Is united sweetly to the relief of a deep exhalation. Manifests so as to open. Heals the inferno.
A: with no question mark. Serene stability. Beginning. Start.
To make is to unmake.

Translated by Jen Hofer.

---

 

^{1. Lo que Oliverio dijo era: “y por más empeño que ponga en concebirlo,/no me es posible ni tan siquiera imaginar/que pueda hacerse el amor más que volando”—aunque igual que con la cita de Vercelli, me imagino que dices algo distinto muy a propósito. Me gusta mucho el traslado del “no me es posible…imaginar/que pueda hacerse el amor” de Girondo a tu “no sé hacer el amor”. ¿Eres la mujer voladora en el poema de Girondo? ¿La somos todxs? ¿El pájaro o el espantapájaros? ¿El aire o el vuelo?[back]}

^{2. D.D., respuesta a nota 1: Yo sólo soy un animal. Sin modificaciones predeterminadas. Todo solo sucede –incluso en la cita de Vercelli-, a Girondo lo recordé así, tal cual y no, no soy La Que Vuela, de Girondo.[back]}

^{3. Si hablar de la maneras en que lxs esclavxs están dobladxs—de su desplazamiento, sometimiento, control, de su cuerpo y su corazón—es un lugar común, entonces todxs debemos vivir y hablar en ese lugar. O más bien todxs ya vivimos allí. El lugar común es el único lugar: ¿dónde encontramos lo que existe fuera de lo común? [back]}

^{4. Literally “at the first hour,” but colloquially “first thing,” or “first thing in the morning.” (Trans.note)[back]}

^{5. You told me in an email that you chose to rearrange the material you quoted from Ariel Vercelli in your epigraph to the Ánima post purposefully. One effect (ripple) of that rearrangement is a difference in my representation of one of Vercelli’s phrases in English. When it was by itself as a sentence, in your version, I translated “No tenía conciencia” as “I wasn’t conscious of it.” But in the context of a larger and more complex sentence (see the footnote to the Ánima post), that phrase became “I wasn’t aware of it.” Consciousness, awareness—are they the same thing? (Trans. note)[back]}

^{6. The impossibility of repetition: “Te amo, amo” means “I love you, owner,” but it also means that “amo” (I love) and “amo” (owner) are the same—the impossibility of repetition—which in English perhaps means that the “you” in “I love you” is the owner (I love you, you) or that “love” is the owner (I love you, love) or just means that repetition is never identical, and that the owner is part of I, part of love, and part of you. (Trans. note)[back]}

^{7. What Oliverio Girondo said was: “y por más empeño que ponga en concebirlo,/no me es posible ni tan siquiera imaginar/que pueda hacerse el amor más que volando,” or “and no matter how much effort I put toward conceiving it,/it’s not possible for me even remotely to imagine/that one might make love except in flight.” (That’s my translation; Gilbert Alter-Gilbert translated that poem as well, and no doubt excellently, but I won’t have time to access his book before this post needs to go live. Trans. note)—though as with the Vercelli quote, I imagine you’re saying something different on purpose. I’m very fond of the shift from Girondo’s “it’s not possible…to imagine/that one might make love” to your “I don’t know how to make love.”¿Are you the flying woman in Girondo’s poem? Are all of us her? The bird or the scarecrow? The air or the flight?[back]}

^{8. D.D., response to note 1 (and to note 7): I’m just an animal. With no predetermined modifications. Everything just happens—even in the Vercelli quote—and I remembered the Girondo that way, just like that, and no, I’m not Girondo’s She Who Flies.[back]}

^{9. There’s a resonance here built into the Spanish version that won’t build into the English: doblarse can mean either fold or bend—so here the slaves are bent over, where the worlds in Ánima and http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2015/02/extremoextreme/ are folded. In Spanish both are doblados. (Trans. note)[back]}

^{10. If speaking of the ways slaves are bent over—of their displacement, their suppression, their control, of their body and their heart—is a commonplace, then we all should live and speak in that place. Or rather, we all already live there. The common place is the only place: where might we find what exists outside what is common, out of the ordinary?[back]}

^{11. “Exacto” can mean “identical,” so perhaps exact and identical are identical, without being at all the same. “Exacto” can also mean “accurate” or “correct” or “right,” terms that are arguably identified with (if not identical to) the owner. (Trans. note)[back]}

^{12. “Frutos” in Spanish is “fruits,” but it’s also “products”—the fruits of your labor. Figurative fruits. Figurative lives, those born to us and called “products” in the institutions that are literally the first places they see. (Trans. note)[back]}