-
Hawthorne
Stevens
Derrida
McCarthy
Page 1 | 2 | 3
-
From The May-Pole of Merry Mount by Nathaniel Hawthorne
As the moral gloom of the world overpowers all systematic gaiety, even so was their home of wild mirth made desolate amid the sad forest. They returned to it no more. But, as their flowery garland was wreathed of the brightest roses that had grown there, so, in the tie that united them, were intertwined all the purest and best of their early joys. They went heavenward, supporting each other along the difficult path that it was their lot to tread, and never wasted one regretful thought on the vanities of Merry Mount.
back to top
Mrs. Alfred Uruguay by Wallace Stevens
So what said the others and the sun went down
And, in the brown blues of evening, the lady said,
In the Donkey's ear, "I fear that elegance
Must struggle like the rest." She climbed until
The moonlight in her lap, mewing her velvet,
And her dress were one and she said, "I have said no
To everything, in order to get at myself.
I have wiped away moonlight like mud. Your innocent ear
And I, if I rode naked, are what remain."
The moonlight crumbled to degenerate forms,
While she approached the real, upon her mountain,
With lofty darkness. The donkey was there to ride,
To hold by the ear, even though it wished for a bell,
Wished faithfully for a falsifying bell.
Neither the moonlight could change it. And for her,
To be regardless of velvet, could never be more
Than to be, she could never differently be,
Her no and no made yes impossible.
Who was it passed her there on a horse all will,
What figure of capable imagination?
Whose horse clattered on the road on which she rose,
As it descended, blind to her velvet and
The moonlight? Was it a rider intent on the sun,
A youth, a lover with phosphorescent hair,
Dressed poorly, arrogant of his streaming forces,
Lost in an integration of the martyrs' bones,
Rushing from what was real; and capable?
The villages slept as the capable man went down,
Time swished on the village clocks and dreams were alive,
The enormous gongs gave edges to their sounds,
As the rider, no chevalere and poorly dressed,
Impatient of the bells and midnight forms,
Rode over the picket rocks, rode down the road,
And, capable, created in his mind,
Eventual victor, out of the martyrs' bones,
The ultimate elegance: the imagined land.
back to top
From Of Grammatology by Jacques Derrida (trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak)
In this play of representation, the point of origin becomes ungraspable. There are things like reflecting pools and images, an infinite reference from one to the other, but no longer a source, a spring. There is no longer a simple origin. For what is reflected is split in itself and not only as an addition to itself of its image. The reflection, the image, the double, splits what it doubles. The origin of the speculation becomes a difference. What can look at itself is not one; and the law of the addition of the origin to its representation, of the thing to its image, is that one plus one makes at least three.
back to top
From The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy
As in the cities of the plain. I thought there might be evidence of something suitably unspeakable such that He might be goaded into raising his hand against it. Something in the rubble. In the dirt. Under the vigas. Something dark. Who could say?
What did you find?
Nothing. A doll. A dish. A bone.
...What was here to be found was not a thing. Things separate from their stories have no meaning. They are only shapes. Of a certain size and color. A certain weight. When their meaning has become lost to us they no longer have even a name. The story on the other hand can never be lost from its place in the world for it is that place. And that is what is to be found here. The corrido. The tale. And like all corridos it ultimately told one story only, for there is only one to tell.
Previous back to top Next
bio prose poetry thesis links guestbook
chapbook journal featured artist home
|