the insurmountable nature of desire
there are two roads that track each other
fear and desire
sometimes these ribbons run together
sometimes they cross each other
sometimes one or the other will double back
I am in a vehicle, my body,
that races along this road
it's fuel is time and since time
never stops then this vehicle
never stops
one day I will fall down dead of course
and my version of this journey
will have gotten to wherever it got to
some days I realize I am on fear's highway
and those days I seem to go ever faster or
ever slower its a perceptive reality
some days I recognize my true path
is always the path of desire
though what or who it is that I desire
is never quite clear
but Nabokov said that what his book, lolita,
was really about was
the insurmountable nature of desire
so do I wish to overcome desire?
the buddha advises it
and if I do, is it even possible?
isn't what vladimir is saying here
is that desire cannot be controlled
and inevitably destroys the self?
I wonder about this.
the story on hemingway was
that he killed himself because he couldn't
get a stiffy anymore now that I'm sixty-ish
I have a little more sympathy for that
than I once had.
did he have desire, but the inability
to act on it destroyed him? so desire
ultimately destroyed him?
and my desires are not just that one
desire, no more really the wishes in
my heart have more to do with
opening the path to those others
I love and cherish, wife and kids
what is it that is left for me to see
in the distant mirror what is left to
fear, the sharp noise of failure
whistling in my ears, each morning's
memory of a hardon echoes that
past of giving into passions
right or wrong good or bad
the mistakes I learned from
the children that I had
this is just an exercise in
an al-jebr* that doesn't exist
geometry I could do
symbolic logic structures
suddenly eat the holy self
the worm ourobouros
can I see into my own heart?
*al-jebr, arabic meaning "reunion of broken parts"
fear and desire
sometimes these ribbons run together
sometimes they cross each other
sometimes one or the other will double back
I am in a vehicle, my body,
that races along this road
it's fuel is time and since time
never stops then this vehicle
never stops
one day I will fall down dead of course
and my version of this journey
will have gotten to wherever it got to
some days I realize I am on fear's highway
and those days I seem to go ever faster or
ever slower its a perceptive reality
some days I recognize my true path
is always the path of desire
though what or who it is that I desire
is never quite clear
but Nabokov said that what his book, lolita,
was really about was
the insurmountable nature of desire
so do I wish to overcome desire?
the buddha advises it
and if I do, is it even possible?
isn't what vladimir is saying here
is that desire cannot be controlled
and inevitably destroys the self?
I wonder about this.
the story on hemingway was
that he killed himself because he couldn't
get a stiffy anymore now that I'm sixty-ish
I have a little more sympathy for that
than I once had.
did he have desire, but the inability
to act on it destroyed him? so desire
ultimately destroyed him?
and my desires are not just that one
desire, no more really the wishes in
my heart have more to do with
opening the path to those others
I love and cherish, wife and kids
what is it that is left for me to see
in the distant mirror what is left to
fear, the sharp noise of failure
whistling in my ears, each morning's
memory of a hardon echoes that
past of giving into passions
right or wrong good or bad
the mistakes I learned from
the children that I had
this is just an exercise in
an al-jebr* that doesn't exist
geometry I could do
symbolic logic structures
suddenly eat the holy self
the worm ourobouros
can I see into my own heart?
*al-jebr, arabic meaning "reunion of broken parts"
Labels: Lolita, Ourobouros, the Ides of March, Vladimir Nabokov
posted by As Bjorn at 12:24 PM
2 Comments:
I thought Hemingway died due to electro-shock therapy. It was 1961 and JFK was being inaugurated and he invited all the great writers to read. It was the last time anyone saw Robert Frost in public. So when he tried to write something, the therapy had caused mempry loss and he couldn't write anything and that was too much for him.
My way is a bit more romantic than erectile disfunction (as the gay guys say), but women were pretty important to him too. So I wouldn't rule it out.
Probably the main reason was that his father suicided too and as a result he always saw it as a way out.
I really love this piece. The rhythm is very interesting: a sort of heartbeat that turns irregular sometimes. I've been reading a lot of Vonnegut lately and this has a similar sense to it: time is marching on, but we are all still children of a sort in our minds. Lovely!
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