ALWAYS THE SAME SKY
THE COMING COMING
"The Self is the Auspicious Moment, devoid of the auspicious and conspicuous time [...]
The Truth which is homogeneous is of the form of the sky." --Avadhuta Gita, VII:11
TODAY (THE PRESENT-PAST) - No ideas without things ... no things without ideas ... Every curve incurs coordinates ... all coordinates insinuate a smile ... A two-way street to/from some-thing else ... a gorgeous no-where ... The (un)common source of every-thing and no-thing ... Imagination ??? ... desire ??? ... The proverbial ladder to the moon ??? ... the latter, the eye of Time ??? ... Time-with-its-eye-on-nothing ??? ... You ??? ... This nothing-almost-always-something ... some-thing else ... Your eyes ... your hair ... your skin ... lost ... in the topologically-rich expanse of Time, the arms-of-Time ... an alarming sense of some-thing else ... Your walk ... your gait ... your whisper ... your absence ... The same whisper heard before Time ... all times ... Your sigh ... your touch ... your question ... your why ??? ... your who ??? ... your when ??? ... your where ??? ... No questions without answers ... No answers without questions ... No one without you ... You no-where, but here and there ... No here and there, but what always exists ... Things that never speak, but sing ... Songs without words ... topologically-inflected formless-form ... ash-and-dust ... Echoes of other things-in-things ... Milieux-and-anti-milieux ... When ??? ...
YESTERDAY (THE PAST-PAST) - A sketch by Cocteau ... drawn in the pale blue sky ... wisps of cloud ... An eye and the curve of a cheekbone ... For a mouth, the blazing sun ... Framed by the edges of buildings ... erased by the wind ... You sailing east, the sun sailing west ... more exquisite than silence ... Who are you ??? ... Where are you ??? ...GK (11/23/03)
MERCI/MERCY (THE PRESENT-PRESENT) - Three times ... The Present-Present, the Present-Past, and the Past-Past ... Ernst Bloch's insight that as soon as a thought is thought it is past is the conceptual sign of the Present-Past ... The Past-Past is the debris field of thought (memory) otherwise known as History (personal and impersonal) ... The words merci/mercy can only be spoken/represented in the Present-Present (Now) ... They are the intonation of the present moment ... The future never arrives ... Futurity only exists insofar as it resides in the Present-Present as potential ... The words merci/mercy have no other tense (presence) than the present tense ... The starry heavens above, the moral law within ... The affective sublime is the 'place' ('time') when these two things are the same thing (non-thing) ... Universal concepts are generally abstractions ... They conceal the true Universal (the Present-Present) ... Kant has fallen out of favour because his Moral Law (the Categorical Imperative) has been misread as an abstraction, when it is (instead) an idea that coincides with the Present-Present ... The Present-Present is the 'gift of the world' ... The Present-Present is always-already 'given' ... It is the mark of 'the given' ... The Present-Present is a revolutionary/radical rupture in things (in time) ... It is of the moment ... and it is the 'primordial' (originary) Real Thing ... It is the sign of 'S' (Spirit) ... the first and last sign of the Sublime ...
--Giorgio Agamben, "The Thing Itself" (1984), Potentialities: Collected Essays in Philosophy (1999)
