A Void (16 page)

No gallantry for showing us -

No knowing us! -

No walking out at all - no locomotion,

No inkling of our way - no notion -

"No go" - thus no commotion -

1 0 3

No mail - no post -

No word from any far-flung coast -

No Park - no Ring - no door-to-door civility -

No company - no nobility -

No warmth, no mirth, no jocularity,

No joyful tintinnabula to ring -

No church, no hymns, no faith, no charity,

No books, no words, no thoughts, no clarity —

No thing!
THOMAS H O O D

BLACK B I R D

Twos upon a midnight tristful I sat poring, wan and wistful,

Through many a quaint and curious list full of my consorts slain -

I sat nodding, almost napping, till I caught a sound of tapping,

As of spirits softly rapping, rapping at my door in vain.

ayTis a visitor," I murmur'd, "tapping at my door in vain -

Tapping soft as falling rain."

Ah, I know, I know that this was on a holy night of Christmas;

But that quaint and curious list was forming phantoms all in

train.

How I wish'd it was tomorrow; vainly had I sought to borrow

From my books a stay of sorrow - sorrow for my unjoin'd chain -

For that pictographic symbol missing from my unjoin'd chain -

And that would not join again.

Rustling faintly through my drapings was a ghostly, ghastly

scraping

Sound that with fantastic shapings fill'd my Julminating brain;

And for now, to still its roaring, I stood back as if ignoring

That a spirit was imploring his admission to obtain -

"Tis a spirit now imploring his admission to obtain -"

Murmur'd I, but all in vain."

1 0 4

But, my soul maturing duly and my brain not so unruly,

"Sir" said I, "or Madam, truly your acquittal would I gain;

For I was in fact caught napping, so soft-sounding was your

rapping,

So faint-sounding was your tapping that you tapp'd my door in

vain -

Hardly did I know you tapped it" -1 unlocked it but in vain -

For 'twas dark without and plain.

Staring at that dark phantasm as if shrinking from a chasm,

I stood quaking with a spasm fracturing my soul in twain;

But my study door was still as untowardly hush'd and chill as,

Oh, a crypt in which a still aspiring body is just lain -

As a dank, dark crypt in which a still suspiring man is lain -

Barr'd from rising up again.

All around my study flapping till my sanity was snapping,

I distinctly caught a tapping that was starting up again.

"Truly," said I, "truly this is turning now into a crisis;

I must find out what amiss is, and tranquillity obtain -

I must still my soul an instant and tranquillity obtain -

For 'tis truly not just rain!"

So, my study door unlocking to confound that awful knocking,

In I saw a Black Bird stalking with a gait of proud disdain;

I at first thought I was raving, but it stalk'd across my paving

And with broad black wings a-waving did my study door attain -

Did a pallid bust of Pallas on my study door attain -

Just as if'twas its domain.

105

Now, that night-wing'd fowl placating my sad fancy into waiting

On its oddly fascinating air of arrogant disdain,

"Though thy tuft is shorn and awkward, thou," I said, "art not

so backward

Coming forward, ghastly Black Bird wand'ring far from thy

domain,

Not to say what thou art known as in thy own dusk-down

domain

Quoth that Black Bird, "Not Again".

Wondrous was it this ungainly fowl could thus hold forth so

plainly,

Though, alas, it discours'd vainly - as its point was far from plain;

And I think it worth admitting that, whilst in my study sitting,

I shall stop Black Birds from flitting thusly through my door

again -

Black or not, I'll stop birds flitting through my study door again -

What
I'll
say is, "Not Again!"

But that Black Bird, posing grimly on its placid bust, said primly

"Not Again", and I thought dimly what purport it might contain.

Not a third word did it throw o f f - not a third word did it know

of-

Till, afraid that it would go o f f , I thought only to complain -

"By tomorrow it will go off," did I tristfully complain.

It again said, "Not Again".

Now, my sanity displaying stark and staring signs of swaying,

"No doubt," murmur'd I, "it's saying all it has within its brain;
That it copy'd from a nomad whom Affliction caus'd to go mad,

From an outcast who was so mad as this ghastly bird to train -

Who, as with a talking parrot, did this ghastly Black Bird train

To say only, 'Not Again.'"

1 0 6

But that Black Bird still placating my sad fancy into waiting

For a word forthcoming, straight into my chair I sank again;

And, upon its cushion sinking, I soon found my spirit linking

Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of Cain -

What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of

Cain

Sought by croaking "Not Again."

On all this I sat surmising, whilst with morbid caution sizing

Up that fowl; its tantalising look burn'd right into my brain;

This for long I sat divining, with my pain-rack'd back inclining

On my cushion's satin lining with its ghastly crimson stain,

On that shiny satin lining with its sanguinary stain

Shrilly shouting, "Not Again!"

Now my room was growing fragrant, its aroma almost flagrant,

As from spirits wafting vagrant through my dolorous domain.

"Good-for-naught," I said, "God sought you - from Plutonian

strands

God brought you -

And, I know not why, God taught you all about my unjoin'd

chain,

All about that linking symbol missing from my unjoin'd

chain!"

Quoth that Black Bird, "Not Again."

"Sybil!" said I, "thing of loathing - sybil, Jury in bird's clothing!

If by Satan brought, or frothing storm did toss you on its main,

Cast away, but all unblinking, on this arid island sinking -

On this room of Horror stinking - say it truly, or abstain -

Shall I
- shall
I find that symbol? - say it - say it, or abstain

From your croaking, 'Not Again'."

1 0 7

"Sybil!" said I, "thing of loathing - sybil, jury in bird's clothing!

By God's radiant kingdom soothing all man's purgatorial pain,

Inform this soul laid low with sorrow if upon a distant morrow

It shall find that symbol for - oh, fir its too long unjoin'd

chain -

Find that pictographic symbol missing from its unjoin'd chain."

Quoth that Black Bird, "Not Again."

"If that word's our sign of parting, Satan's bird," I said,

upstarting,

"Fly away, wings blackly parting, to thy Nighfs Plutonian

plain!

For, mistrustful, I would scorn to mind that untruth thou hast

sworn to,

And I ask that thou by morn tomorrow quit my sad domain!

Draw thy night-nibb'd bill from out my soul and quit my sad

domain

Quoth that Black Bird, "Not Again."

And my Black Bird, still not quitting, still is sitting,
still
is sitting
On that pallid bust - still flitting through my dolorous domain;

But it cannot stop from gazing for it truly finds amazing

That, by artful paraphrasing, I such rhyming can sustain -

Notwithstanding my lost symbol I such rhyming still sustain -

Though I shan't try it again!

A R T H U R G O R D O N PYM

1 0 8

V O C A L I S A T I O N S

A noir (Un blanc), I roux, U safran, O azur:

Nous saurons au jour dit ta vocalisation:

A, noir carcan poilu d'un scintillant morpion

Qui bombinait autour d'un nidoral impur,

Caps obscurs; qui, cristal du brouillard ou du Khan,

Harpons du ford hautain, Rois Blancs, frissons d'anis?

I, carmins, sang vomi, riant ainsi qu'un lis

Dans un courroux ou dans un alcool mortifiant;

U, scintillations, ronds divins du flot marin,

Paix du patis tissu d'animaux, paix du fin

Sillon qu'un fol savoir aux grands fronts imprima;

O, finitif clairon aux accords d'aiguisoir,

Soupirs ahurissant Nadir ou Nirvana:

O I'omicron, rayon violin dans son Voir!

A R T H U R R I M B A U D

1 0 9

10

Which will finish by arousing pity in a big shot

Having painstakingly run through it, glancing at Amaury,

Savorgnan, Augustus and Squaw in turn, striving to find an obvi-

ous bait, a solid anchor to hold on to, a hook to catch on to, a

hint as to what such-and-such a locution might signify, Olga

sighs, a loud, long, profound sigh of frustration.

"I said just an instant ago that only Champollion would know

how to crack such a conundrum," says Augustus sadly. "But now

I doubt if Champollion could pull it off. A Chomsky might in a

pinch, though."

"Or possibly a Roman Jakobson, who could submit a struc-

turalist's opinion of
OzymandiasV

"Why not Malcolm Bradbury!"

"And why not OuLiPo!"

"Baffling, just too, too baffling," Amaury stubbornly murmurs

as though in a world of his own.

"What is?" asks Arthur Wilburg Savorgnan.

"Rimbaud's 'Black A (a blank), ruby I, viridian U, cobalt O':

it's obvious to you, is it not, that it's trying to point us towards

a solution!"

"Why not? If I know anything about Olga's anthology, it's

that not a word in it, not a comma, was put down at random.

But that's Anton Vowl's doing, not Arthur Rimbaud's!"

"Who can say?"

His mind a total blank, his imagination a tabula rasa, Augustus

starts to talk - if almost inaudibly. Rapt in thought, his

1 1 0

companions hang on to his words, which, though at first brist-

ling with abstractions, blown up out of all proportion, soon glow

with an aura of inspiration:

"Black A (a blank). An ambiguity, such as this is, is a major

factor in any
a contrario;
advancing from that
significmt
, which

signals ipso facto how important it is first to pinpoint, by chrono-

logically listing, all rival sounds (such actualisation, paradoxically,

proving virtualisation by outwardly confuting it, it's crucial, if

absorbing such a blank in its immaculation, first to affirm its

distinction, its original particularity, its opposition to black, to

ruby, to viridian and cobalt), this 'a blank' thus unfolds
motu

proprio
out of its own contradiction, a vacant signal of that which

isn't in fact vacant, a blank such as you might find in a book

across which its author's hand inks in an inscription implicating

its own abolition: O, vain papyrus drawn back, unavoidably back,

into its own blank womb; a tract of a non-tract, a nihilistic tract

localising that oblivion huddling, crouching, within a word,

gnawing away at its own root, a rotting pip, a scission, a distrac-

tion, an omission both boasting and disguising its invincibility,

a canyon of Non-Colorado, a doorway that nobody would cross,

a corridor along which no foot would pad, a no-man's-land in

which all oral communication would instantly find, brought to

light, a gaping pit consuming any possibility of a praxis, a bright,

blazing conflagration that would turn anybody approaching it

into a human torch, a spring run dry, a blank word put out of

bounds, a word now null and void, always just out of sight,

always contriving to avoid scrutiny, a word no mispronunciation

can satisfy, a castrating word, a flaccid word, a vacant word con-

noting an insultingly obvious signification, in which suspicion,

privation and illusion all triumph, a lacunary furrow, a vacant

canal, a Lacanian chasm, a cast-off vacuum thirstily sucking us

into this thing unsaid, into this vain sting of a cry arousing us,

this fold wrinkling, on its margin, a mystificatory logic that still

confounds us, tricks us, inhibiting our instincts, our natural

impulsions, our options, damning us to oblivion, to an illusory

111

dawn, to rationality, to cold study, to distortion and untruth,

but also a mad authority, a craving for a purity which would

synchronously affirm passion, starvation, adoration, a substruc-