Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.63.0512210456120.28043@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.aol.com>,
"WRYTING-L : Writing and Theory across Disciplines" <WRYTING-L@LISTSERV.UTORONTO.CA>
Subject: credo / unutterable horror
Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2005 04:56:41 -0500 (EST)
credo unutterable horror if I did not _this_ and _now_ it would not, would never be, would never have been, done; this is the unutterable horror of death, with which I face every moment of my existence. I imagine myself near death, with the recognition, whatever I do not say _now_ will ever be said, that these sights are my last, my own, and not my own; that my possessions, which I have carefully tended for so many years, will lose their inherent skein with new distributions; that I will never see an end to anything, nor to myself. with unutterable horror I continue to write, as if texts would stave death from proximity; these myths no longer work; I no longer sleep, or no longer sleep well; I survive to write _this_ text and only _this_ text; what I have promised myself - the knowledge of a new language, a visit to a foreign country - will never be done. when I open a book my first thought is always, will I survive to finish it; will this make a difference, certainly not to myself, on the verge of total annihilation. I cannot imagine such; such is literally unaccountable, unimaginable, replete with intrinsic absence. every saying, every utterance, is a gain- saying. this horror is not abstract; it is as concrete as the physical pain I also inhabit, and only the onslaught of physical torment will make my death bearable. I am a coward; such is not the case until disease or accident wills it so. I write, I create, as fast as I do, because it is all I can do; it is the only thing to be done; it is always the last rite; it is never enough.