Still from the animated sequence (Eric Drooker) from the film ‘Howl’ , Allen Ginsberg’s poem.
One kind of writer is embodied through the writing. They sit at the table, at a desk in a corner of a room with a view. The song that seeps into the world in that fiery silence, is punctuated with the percussive tip-tap of digit on keyboard keys. Kalam ke sipahi. Muscle memory. flux. ‘flow’ is singular, ‘flux’ is many singularities, in chaotic synchrony. Writing is an illumination of flux. Dust speckled into frenzy in a sliver of light. It surges into the ether with the surety of an idea that does not know its end. What can be deeper than this invisible act of intention. The writer always ‘writes into’ not ‘about’ phenomena.
Kant showed us that the inner world of the subject cannot exist without the ‘outside world’ of phenomena. Consciousness surfaces in the moment that perception meets the object of sensation. In that moment of flow, a force is felt. This must be the beginning of sensation. In an activity that unites consciousness within phenomena, a presence is birthed that walks the imagined city. The dystopia of this act of consciousness realises itself as a nostalgia for the future.
In the interaction of consciousness with world the metaphor is born by accident. The poem flares up at the end of the creation cycle, the starting point of which is perception. the moment of consciousness interacting with the world, is charged with the electricity of creation. This act is not mimicry, or documentation it's already a reconstruction. It is at this moment that the metaphor is born. It lives in the interstices, in the fissures outside of languages. Though the representation of a world is made in language, it's object is shot through with the awareness of an idealism, that is cast by consciousness on what is perceived.
Consider this man, beret pulled down so low as to cover his forehead, feet shuffling almost noiselessly, as he makes his way through a quiet road. Twilight floats gently around him. He does not meet anyone, but every step on the cold cement echoes around him. Light falls around him in patches of chiaruscuro. A pawn dodges trouble, on its path to the last black square. But the man is different from the pawn in one regard - the destination is uncertain, the movements are random, their only intention is to establish presence - life itself. This act translates into the awareness of a self. This is the name we give to the body located in space. The man walks the city. He unites consciousness with phenomena that are outside the subsumed temporality of the doubting self. The baby does not separate itself from the world. But the formation of consciousness, signalled by memory, and self-awareness, heralds the beginning of a separation between subject and object. The dystopia of this act of consciousness realises itself as a nostalgia for the future. This is the epiphany of self - and the perceiving ‘I’ is united with the Decartesian doubting ‘I’. Understanding emerges as revelation.
I was about to set out in search of a poem, but without realising, I found, that it has already been written.
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