Iteration eruption irritation
Roland Barthes slaughtered by a laundry van
OMO powder sprinkled liberally on the bodies of dead and alive authors
I follow the blue dots, like biscuit crumbs, through Binet’s imaginings:
Jacques Derrida attacked by dogs, his throat ripped out (it was pancreatic cancer,Wikipedia tells me,
which got him in the end)
Louis Althusser strangles his wife (true)
John Searle throws himself into black unforgiving water (false)
Michel Foucault gives head gets head (probable)
Umberto Eco in a peaked Venetian mask (possible)
Soller and Kristeva plot a psychopathic couple (im-possible)
Judith Butler down on her performative knees (horrible)these icons – these thinkers, these – yes, I will admit it – heroes of mine – not all,
only some – played with – in a sacrilegious waymade flesh and corruptible, made foolish and foul
(were they ever Gods? yes, perhaps … if the Gods are those who tell us how to live)
I remember my pre-semiotic days
a tree was just a tree: prescient foliage, yes, but real dew drops on the end of the wattle
blossoms
We shook the branch to make fake rain, our daughter laughed her seven-year-old laugh… she is 7 and there is a 7th function of language
and on the day I read of a plot twist, in Binet’s book, on the 2nd of August, 1980
it is the 2nd of August, 2017, which is also my daughter’s 7th birthday
the signs are everywhere …
impossible, now, to escape, to go back to innocence
truth representation intentiona huge piece of ice breaks off Antarctica
“the size of Luxemborg”
“seven times the size of New York City”
“one and a half times the size of Adelaide”
“more than half the size of Melbourne”
floating, free of referent, shape mutating in every different inflection of a news reader’s
surprise
It speaks in frozen water, and this is not a language we know“I don’t want you to go” she weeps in the doorway; a body felt, a body feeling
I am leaving my daughter on her birth day
to be interviewed interstate, to be questioned as to my knowledge of the Gods: I grasp at
academia,hopeful of the climb, scrambling at the edges
They won’t ask about that day of birth, there is no way to speak of it, that day
no words
the bloated body does not exist in these exalted towers, I whisper of my childrenwill we hear the ice bump up against us when it comes?
Stretching breaking yearning
“I don’t want you to go”
the ice will say something different when it comes
happy to say goodbye to its former tethering, to drown usthe 7th function of language, Binet proposes, creates powerful politicians: Mitterand and
Obama, the
smooth ascendance of linguistic manipulationin the meantime, the Gods have melted
there is no phone call, I listen hard
only the trickle of water to be heard
slowly rising
- 115: SPACE
with A Sometimes
114: NO THEME 13
with J Toledo & C Tse
113: INVISIBLE WALLS
with A Walker & D Disney
112: TREAT
with T Dearborn
111: BABY
with S Deo & L Ferney
110: POP!
with Z Frost & B Jessen
109: NO THEME 12
with C Maling & N Rhook
108: DEDICATION
with L Patterson & L Garcia-Dolnik
107: LIMINAL
with B Li
106: OPEN
with C Lowe & J Langdon
105: NO THEME 11
with E Grills & E Stewart
104: KIN
with E Shiosaki
103: AMBLE
with E Gomez and S Gory
102: GAME
with R Green and J Maxwell
101: NO THEME 10
with J Kinsella and J Leanne
100: BROWNFACE
with W S Dunn
99: SINGAPORE
with J Ip and A Pang
97 & 98: PROPAGANDA
with M Breeze and S Groth
96: NO THEME IX
with M Gill and J Thayil
95: EARTH
with M Takolander
94: BAYT
with Z Hashem Beck
93: PEACH
with L Van, G Mouratidis, L Toong
92: NO THEME VIII
with C Gaskin
91: MONSTER
with N Curnow
90: AFRICAN DIASPORA
with S Umar
89: DOMESTIC
with N Harkin
88: TRANSQUEER
with S Barnes and Q Eades
87: DIFFICULT
with O Schwartz & H Isemonger
86: NO THEME VII
with L Gorton
85: PHILIPPINES
with Mookie L and S Lua
84: SUBURBIA
with L Brown and N O'Reilly
83: MATHEMATICS
with F Hile
82: LAND
with J Stuart and J Gibian
81: NEW CARIBBEAN
with V Lucien
80: NO THEME VI
with J Beveridge
57.1: EKPHRASTIC
with C Atherton and P Hetherington
57: CONFESSION
with K Glastonbury
56: EXPLODE
with D Disney
55.1: DALIT / INDIGENOUS
with M Chakraborty and K MacCarter
55: FUTURE MACHINES
with Bella Li
54: NO THEME V
with F Wright and O Sakr
53.0: THE END
with P Brown
52.0: TOIL
with C Jenkins
51.1: UMAMI
with L Davies and Lifted Brow
51.0: TRANSTASMAN
with B Cassidy
50.0: NO THEME IV
with J Tranter
49.1: A BRITISH / IRISH
with M Hall and S Seita
49.0: OBSOLETE
with T Ryan
48.1: CANADA
with K MacCarter and S Rhodes
48.0: CONSTRAINT
with C Wakeling
47.0: COLLABORATION
with L Armand and H Lambert
46.1: MELBOURNE
with M Farrell
46.0: NO THEME III
with F Plunkett
45.0: SILENCE
with J Owen
44.0: GONDWANALAND
with D Motion
43.1: PUMPKIN
with K MacCarter
43.0: MASQUE
with A Vickery
42.0: NO THEME II
with G Ryan
41.1: RATBAGGERY
with D Hose
41.0: TRANSPACIFIC
with J Rowe and M Nardone
40.1: INDONESIA
with K MacCarter
40.0: INTERLOCUTOR
with L Hart
39.1: GIBBERBIRD
with S Gory
39.0: JACKPOT!
with S Wagan Watson
38.0: SYDNEY
with A Lorange
37.1: NEBRASKA
with S Whalen
37.0: NO THEME!
with A Wearne
36.0: ELECTRONICA
with J Jones