steeloanticles
b y
M au r 1 @
R a wdo n


First Canticle
In first love he or she is
looking through the face of the
other and beyand the symbols
of agnosticism scattered about
the city in the form of houses
cars alarm clocks
boing in love is an exolusive-
ly christian state The modern
city's walls of secure steel
are dreamed away in this state
of ecatasy which is never re-
peated in quite the same fam
because it is in the nature of
a revelation
the queen
at this time she € is a student
Powerful incubatory growth
takes place in her at night
Her présent role is to be in
love wi th him
from the reservoir of night a
girl avakes ('have moved
across the sky my hooves on
the clouds In light I van
ish Must stretch to get/spend/
take' (alarm clock for seven))


'reservoir of night return to.
night Promise to move-me across 1
the sky again King help me gét
and spend today for tonight I
come back She promises that'
hame again/'in lovev/the re
servoir of night is punotual black
the king
'Ho? is a o onputer olerk not
yet nineteen
he on the other hand finds
only in 1ight his meaning
His worship yawns awake
his light lies in train win
dows dusty leaf on bright
brick am getting closer'
(or what the philos ophers
used to call immanent)
newspaper rustle is for him
the music of getting/spending
a number 17 steel
lights
the stage of life ga7 bim at
(a number 17 spot creates the
waterloo station It is cur
glitter of sunlight)
tainrise as he emerges from
the 7.32 tonight I shall'
he and she drink elbows an
the clouds She waits to be
queen of the night but his te
deum is the clatterand the 1


boom of the 7.32 upline He
feels he is getting closer
through the music to the SC ore
the being-in-love experience
secures the christian against
a relapse into savagery from
the state of barbarism


Sécond Cantiole
iove is a runner sent
from the gods a glimpse
(Diotima to Soorates)
of what wé could not
tolerably enact The
steps of love olimb sudd
enly up to the light
11ke Heliopolis whose
stairs rose out of chaos
to the aun
she discovers inher sleep
he in the 7.32 this
escalating stair of love
titania on receiving a runner
woke to love an ass And like
love opens cur eyes to the
wise he awakés on mellow rail
rosident 1ight
way line The runner is act
ive he never forgets He 18
the only tim gods apeak to us
ass love must however break
(1 e gods will not fome down
to the earth to play with us)
1 e love could not be entirely
here The world would roar with
(Socrates to Phaedrus)
it would burst our windows split
with Joy the leaf grow up beforent
the root the gel 17 gas the sta
tion with celebration we would
dance off the 7,32 kiss the por
ters waer the morning paper round
our neoks cast off our shoes
the runners discreetly come touch
here and there her lively hair
poke this one's sleep and that
one's war to help derange to plant
our ass love theref ore grows ti


tanie belches babies dripping
napkins hot beds naked cities
nights of gazing decados of
wanting shiploads of oondoms
that make ee-aw and later war
pain 1s to the degree
of the pleasure


Third canticle
war is an unfolding for
men who will not grow
They who will not grow
are already in war If
it breaks outside whin
ing spiralling to crash
land it is his whine it
is the orash of his stage
lit by a number 17 gel
or it can happen without
a sound or a sign outside
can pass behind still eyes
your war dan either come
în hoards of the dead who
rise like a hand from the
sheets of the land of the
night or else it oan oome
in your night not disturb
ing your neighbourts 1ight
depending on your degree
of helpleseness 1 e desire
but in either case outer
or lonely it is the same war
do you understand me? if
you won't grow the war has
begun though you may not hear
you may n ever know the day
it broke It may have boon
in you before you woke Or
else in something you nearly
spoke But the war is the same
in his casé the war broke out
the clerk received his call
on a dertain day in septamber.
that being tho month planned
up papers
for its peace some thousands of
memories ago and the arrival
of the sweetest fruit It broke
out then precisely in order to


achieve sharp contrast 1 e
number 52 gola plus number -
(the number 52 spot adds
17 steel (sunlight on a sea
mellowness to the 17 glitter
son of mists) dashed suddenly
denoting autum)
by concussion of bomb behind
the dressing rooms where cnly
a moment before he and-she
walked on their way to the play
his army number was 53847
53847 dug with his fingers in
the earth the night was rain
ing hand grenades and singing
mortar bombs After the bombard
ment he manioured his nails
that were full of black earth
and sat thinking about growth


Fourth Canticle
to reiterate So many millions
fallen in war mean that 8o many
grow into death are unfolded in
to it while others whom 1t may
have spared are unfolded into.
further aspeots of the war 10
for some death is the unf folding
they may not speak of it may only
know where to look for it and
suddenly recognise the place the
whizz that 1s theirs the meeting
others are gripped by study of life
Theyycannot leave it Thero is so
much to do no time to bother to hold
the head in place far the schrapnel
on its way They are. cn a journey în
the land of the ass So much to settle
they cannot even look up to see what
shrewd figure it was that passed (but
it does not matter he wiill pass again)
some like to study him so to speak
from this equine side preparing the
aoquaintanoe slowly not rushing in
But S ame rush as if all their wish
had been since birth to fly to his
shrewd arms Dare I say that we are
free? And 8 ome stroll smiling to him
the t ime of death is
chosen as a B tep in
development


Fifth Canticle
choosing means what I have donet
My will is heaped up for all to see
1t is vivid hehind me what I deoid
ed These memories are your will
They are its pictures An event is
the will unfolded To read your will
read the event Item a fornicatian
item another one item a nightmare
item some pain unaccounted for item
a yearning item a burning item a
war 1tem a wound item a happiness
1 e imagine an ondless display of
objeo ts any of which you may choose
Now the items you choose will suro
ly display what your interests are
dare I say you are free repeat free?
you may notice also that an event
1s a number of dots in the past which
is braught into oomposite pioture by
the desiring mind Therefore in this too
the will 1s exercised unfolding itself
in what it snatches from the flood
first I have acted thus selecting
then I have remembered thus select
ing a second time will is seleotion
when the force of ciroumatanoe is
great and we are all but crushed
our seléotion has been aire (deter
mined) a stark and absolute narrow
ing of the flood to the point of rege
This is none other than the rage of war


Sixth Canticle
the queen of the night said good
bye to her king now a number and
began to forget him the instent
the glasgow fog caressed his boat
and then expunged it.from her light
thus showing that she too had chos
en her war For with her mind she
knew him still but no longer in her
night where war began to wage- She
pr omptly took a downlined tra'in ir
onically a 7.32 and from that. time
she spoke of him as 'was' and didi
She made the mistake of thinking that
only his number had been wrong and
that somewhere lay a Bottom with a
different number on it or even a numb
er of Bottoms waiting for titania to
open her eyes and fall in love again
she realised she was
no longer in love
Titania now saw that
Bottom was an ass after
all
That was her var and she wagred it
night and day It was done with bull
etts of thought and schrapnel of de
sire The plan of campaign was cool
and number followed number in Bott
omless succession until titanio the


discharged sheets the shellholed
pillons the recce parties shot up


Seventh canticle
53847 dn battle
The bleck night he saw : the blacker not
because of the blackness but men in the
blackness in their thousands vaiting 1ike
he to tear the silence not with music but
soreans the wail of projectile thunp the
splash the crash and none wanting it but
evo oryone enlivening it with bayanet flash
with splash of foot with flosh with'schrap
nel flame with gasp as if they were hearing
only now the voice they. had spoken with
in all these years the thunder the shout
the crash of the ir words to their vives to
their mothers the splash of their ains the
bombs in thoir sleep the choice made sil
ently and satisfied now in too terrible
manner and all at the age of twenty or Bo


1l4
Eighth Canticle
the earth woke groaning its live
men moaning the trees mourning the
animals dumb the rivers stained
the morning after
the air remembering The new veils
his first battle
of light that came that morning
seemed not to wish to know acknow
ledge the steel tantrums of the
night befare the splash the gasp the
spurt the unbelief of the hit and
the unhit's terrible belief in black
Dawn was his teacher. It crept a
cross a haystack he was leaning on'
in golden veils it came it melted
with the whirling russet mist that
camé from the blood in the earth
of men like him who unlike him had
gone beyond to find new teachers
leaving for some remembering time
their flesh to fester before it
grew again in haystaok mist and ri
sing sun to teach the other flesh
that had asked to stay to hear what
message might in the light convey
iteelf to live men groaning and
trees mourning and the animals dumb


Ninth Cantiole
the origins of steel
steel was indeed the new reality A
million voices were raised girders
unsprung themselves from tight spirals
wombs in the earth deep concepts love
The air with st traightness formed new
platforms going skywards supported ba
lanced sustained taking the strain
steel was born it was hoped for
dreamed about Steel cities shonw
long before its birth in many minds
in tents and caves and briok hall
Songs were seoretly sung to sustain
ing to straightness supporting to
taking the strain to surface gleam
steel was a C oncept
nursed in the mind -
centuries before it
came to material
fruition
steel is a sight for the eye not to
forget it is higher than dreams its
surfaces hum so tensé are they They
can soar propel they can drili It
oan contain it holds it shatters
it mattes soream it is the jagged pièce
in the leg the gasp the end of ass
steel can itself soream it can rush
towards a steel or fleshly objective


steel oan itself soream it can rush
towards a steel or fleshly objective
always with the same steel intent It
can wail in the night cause winds and
hearts to beat and mouths towait It
can split the air and all impediments
remove to its impeccable government
steel is indeed the new dispensation
it was not formulated in a night it
grew was nurtured suspended for a
tine and taken up again Fresh minds.
applied to it until one day the flower
was cupped in the hand and dawn was
loud with steel musio steel spherès
steel can be tempered to various de
grees of hardness for cutting sustain
ing It grew wi th the growth of hard
thought Bronze would not have done
nor honest iron nor oopper sounding
brass would havé served this bent of
hardness Nor would stone have done


Tenth cantiole
the night after the
battle The dead have
not yet been brought
in They can be seen
through binotulars by
the living
stillness cames to the field The dis
tant watohers sleep The treés drip
thero being ra in No one notic es how
the mist rolls not preuming by so muoh
as a touch or a nudge on. the trées the
wire the four mén lying face down exact
ly as they were shot their conversation
still in progress in silence close to
gether for protection the untalkative
sky quite dominant now its praise se
oure while theso four men lie no lang
er in pain so they choose to remain
their rifles in no fighting position
nor their lanyards more than W ater can
ductors now and the stillness adamant
the sleep complete the mist unhindered
the river in flow (not one drop was im
peded one gurgle suppres sed by war)
while those men are alive and asleep
who might be lying face down and those
face down night still have béen asleep
and both in stillness this adament night


Eleventh Cantiole
early there 16 militanoe he finding he
is not loved she finding it is not she
he loves though he loving and shé lov
a glance back to when
ing yet love there is not it does not
he and she were nineteen
lie between them and there in the gap
the military enters the shooker the
iron interferer stakes his camp despite
and although and notwithstan ading the
love desired the love intended There
is early strategy early aforethought
early there is sarron he finding that
something daid led to strong effects he
did not intend and she in her dreams a
ware that roots are blindly putting down
that gron to entangling weeds although
she said not a word intended nothing
They walked as always arm in arm and
the passers by said how young how bright
the lové how it tints their hair and
lifte their féet and smiles in them
early there is reoognition he finding
that what he desires is not what ho
wills that what he desires in her is
not what he wills her to be and she
finding that what she desires of herself
is not what she is what she wills
Early they rec ognise that some one else
is there at their side an iran third
a maker of verdiots they dare not ex
press but whioh they know are their own


Twelfth Canticle
and so new dreams begin new bodies
are conjured up the nights are fuli
they leave each other
of unexpécted armies on the mové to
before the physical
unknown landscapes Voices are soft
separation takes plade
with new invitations sophistications
the flésh that seemed cnly yesterday
young is obsoléte now discarded by
the dream that has advanced to other
camps and these in hard deployment
mud confusion alarm in the night
the kiss that not two days before
was fertile now gives dust it hints
of operations skirmishes The héart
is surrounded now the wires are out
and no dommunication to the rear
the bed that gave its flowers fruit
is divided into secret oampments now
with undeciphered flashes muffled taps
of sappers underground It is oold the
flesh quivers The war has begun


Thirteenth Canticle
to go baok to the béginning did I say
that war was in precise dégree to the
love? that ass love mounted 1ts own con
ditione of aggression infiltration its
unsuspected propegandas heard in dreams
in thoughta quickened Buddenly in the
bed? alarmed prostrate the panting heart
because caught out though party to?
aid I sey that the smack of kiss the
thud of the rump the nights of skir
mishing the hânds the bellies the cries
of infants and the sky seen by lovers
at a windowsill like a jewelled oloth
and then the lonely oné who i8 touohed
by so moh touching moved to cry by so
mich crying did I say these are warnings?
did I say that detonations heard in the
dead of the night thèn forgotten in turn
ing back to the ass 's side are the first
telling olink of metal on hip the move
ment of men the starting of trucks thé
flares the muffled orders in the dark
the arrival of important leaders whose
faces we do not 1ike or recognise?
what connections has been made what se
oret roads? what agents paid meseagés in
cipher aiplomatic ohamels oan conjoin
so opposite stations as love and war?
so different climates languages abodes
one to the exclusion of the other as
blaok to white? But do we not make war
on thoso we know? Is battlo not a link?


I mean do we not understand each otherts
smallest pass and stance do wo not share
our weapone explosive ponder type of
gun the uniform the colourful map do we
not need to know the enemy in ourselves
indeed to love him if we arè to win?
IB there not some intimady oath between
the two that binds the loveworn ass to kili?


Fourteenth canticle
did I also say that ass love augments in
times of division dangér civil suspicion
that fear is its spouse that the man with
nudes on the wall is longeared with war
that the soldierts drèam is heavy sad with
promised fornications that the enemy and
women are bocome the samé that the sexes tts
lie in the grip of battle barbed their kisses
bristling their eyes with armament the ir bed
treeless under patrol disinfectant quicklime
in times of ambition is ass love the irritant
comfort bane? Does ambition cut forge
make a straight line waken in the sleeping
night does it shook spring surprises am
bsuhes? Does it study the unexpected make
demands storm the house the bed Can it
stop gorging devouring what the quiét night
gives 1 e tho sighs of otherattheir art their
desiring? Does it only yield to sickness
sleep and death which are its evil trinity?
is war ambition? ass love the fruit of am
bition? desire the body's ambitian hate
the same? So lét a moment of ambition ente
the child and there you have strategy the
battle lines are set reoce sections put out
the oceans sounded ' quiet nights explored for
eneny the paths wirematted mined the white
tapes laid for guidelines sentries out all
movement cautious fires damped the oyes a
forward observation post directing fire
Ambitious Bociety is alays miaitary in the
end Make ambition the centre the mark of
the mên and you bring forward captains ad
visers on deployment generals hungry to en
gage large forces get on the move NCOS re
sentful of higher oommand offioers in their


nice gradations bent on getting to nicer
self-displaying grades You get the mir
der unheard in the mi ddle of the night tho
failure of hearts due to causes unknown
ambition loves what the other man requires
It requires his disruption sometimes his
dismemberment liquidation Its battles are
private its tactics to encircle what the
other will supply an embrade or a placo ar
a pair of doad shoes It aches to hold to
stake a flag its desires are operations
It is hate It 1s ceaseless war no entrench
ment satisfies no new line or broach can be
oounted victory Its battles spawn new lines
it chooses a wife by her parts but on her
side too her parts havé their planning staff
their quarters in the blaokout heart Am
bition has its unseen maps its wild territ
orial claims its busy agents who. work at night
for their appointed parte they do not trust
they wake in the trusting marriage bed with
masked soft footed commando thoughts that
do tho sabotage and then are gone And when
they wake thèy ache to find no love is there


Fifteonth Canticle
when shells splash hollow out the
earth scoroh grass the wounded from
their s tretchers abandoned by their
bearers cry stop pleaso stop but
steel permits no courses but the
straight no incidental last minute
appeal to alter arrangements temper
the speed soften the arrival No
voice is enough to unmake the glor
ious crash dreamed once by other
brains and even spoken of by voices
just like these that crying in the
night are not ashamed to address
the S teel l1ke children crying stop
please stop but flying steel oannot +
when 1ighted bullets spray the night
in floating aros their olatter knows
no obstacle their darts are not polite
they do not yield for persons trees
they only bow to walls of other steel
which being consanguineous they make
a peace and bullet spent tinkles down
to friendly earth But meeting men
it does not pause look back A brain
a past a youth is easy for its passages
It comes from men to men but is not
of them steel is ambition the cutting
thought the dream that does not pause
for those who dreamed it being higher
faster straighter more consistent in
its parts than all its dreamers It
doës not wither it does not bend a
sudden compassionate ear to cries from
below It measures It conveys It
howls like men who dream of power It
is a vision It was made by men was fash
ioned in the ir hands to be unyielding
even to themselves It oame from trying
not to yield It is the end of youth
It brooks no waywardness no whim No
kiss was ever known to capture it


Sixteenth Cantiole
the ind us trial revolut-
steel too was grown It put down
roots It gorminated Winds
propelled its seed It shape grew
by love attention thought în the
night by care like that for babies
And then came the birth the winged
apparition fleet of foot revolving
unnamed the clean the that which
did not shit make a mess except
what oauld be cleared in a moment
by follow steel Like words like
lullabies it came The earliest
steel dreams wére wafted through
the fields and mostly other nén
were unaware of them They took
the silenée as just itself and not
a growing vibrating a fertilisation
a preparation Yes steel was once
a loving dream a folly nursed in the
guarded heart It grew from the
mating of dreams And then came
forth from bed from pregnant
silences a living ohild of steel


Seventeenth canticle
Someone is hammering A dog has
barked Quickfiring bores are
pulled they gloam again Boots
refitting after the
are scraped of last night's blood
battle
and mud There is work to do
Someone is whistling This is a
workshop The bushes are thick
with next yearts fruit Tea 1s
being brewed and enemy tunics
turned over in the hand And
stained letters found in another
language And new lettèrs wri tten
on living knees The earth steams
Metal gleams Trees drip The
field is glad The grub will soon.
be up Itssmells announce that
tho field is home and even sâne.
he bekins to finger her photograph
and think how the sunlight falls
through the window. of a house not
yet In a place not yet With a
person not yet But for convenience
the girl in the photograph He
needs it as a pass to softness hun
ming dreams Having escaped night's
steel he now unsteels hins elf in
the a SS love of. day He thinks
when we get back home But steel
is vatching decreeing Home is a
name it abnegates That was the
dream it care to shoot clean through
the night And now the four men
face down no longer lie in talk
We call them dead and gone from us


Eighteenth Canticle
This is no place for thinkers to
collèct The evening talk is no
longer here There are strolling
patrols they will. pick off a
thinker or two It is best to,be
undér e over this is not the
society for you It is an after
math of other thought than yours
These are its squares its sys
tems shrewd encampments Only
thought could have envisaged
such regularity could have taken
the place of stones Thé fields
are hard with them They make
no room far more They fill with
flatweight Nothing short of
absolute destruc tion will allow
a fresh C ongregation of thinkers
here They gather not disciples
but avalanches whirlwinds moteors


Nineteenth Canticle
steel brings its people into the warld
its especialy and elect its children
They cannot be included any more in
that venerable hierarchy ranging from
the primal procreative powers to the
dense rook in all the varying degrees
of breathing and root-laying ceeature
They have broken rank They would comm
itt on nature the anti-natural law
They can no longer be relied upon to
observe the subtle etiquetto of inter
dependent creatures For instanc e you
will observe that under attack from its
own kind the cat the wholf the tiger
prowling gènet will 1f weaker iié, on.
its back to denoto surrender And the
etiquette operates on the muscles mind
of the at tacking creature makes him
withdraw freezes his action But the
child of steel will press the attack
even harder Indeed the surrender is
his invitation His mind has come un
stuck from the general plan He perceives
no etiquette but that of his ambition
and this may demand the liquidation
of thé surrendering creature He will
not pause to dispense with what appears
to him an elaborate finesse and over
danè politeness inbred protocol a de
génerate observance of sweet hierarchies
he cên 1l1 afford and which give him
the creeps For steel doèsn not tempor
ise it spans projeots supports its e
quilibrium is stout autonomous unwaver
ing its etiquette is geometrical Its
courtiers are as highly strung as the
steel support itself They are hiers
to a flesh they feel unhappy with
They feel no safety in this W orld
They have to have the support a steel
design will give Thus creatures of
steel need 0 onflict flamos distress
not because they love it which no man


can but having smarted from steely
darts in earliest years they woke to
its touch they recognised a certain
unyielding gaze ànd this they bogan
to bee wherever they looked and even,
in trees And their own eyes too in
seeing suoh manifold coldness beoame
as cold and thus it happens that a
populace of steel is born and looks
identical In self defence they fight
and promise to get évér with the other
guy They make him put up his paws
and quarter 1s not given or received


Twentieth Canticle
secure quiet in villages breeds
the hope of disturbance The hope
breeds the disturbance itself Ànd
this (in villages now become sub
urbs) breeds insecure quiet which
in turn breeds fear of disturbance
with the birth of stael
the last si lent villages
disappear
they bec ome dreamed
thus steel serves both the market
of hope and the market of fear
-henoe its success in places where
fear of its coming is uppermost
for proportionate to tho fear is
the hope These are the male and
female progenitors of all steel
in the eighteenth century
Enlightenment and Revol-
ution were the fear/hope-
fear at one moment, hope
at another, fear in one
man and hope in another,
breeding steel for all
the child Steel quiets mother and
father for a time but W ill comitt
saint julian's orime mistaking mother


for wife and father for a lover in
his marital bed Remember the anguished
ory of julian's wife when she saw
what had been dane 1 e mother and
fathér slain by their only son
steel 1ike the saint establishes a
hospital in penanoé for the déed
The oancer-cutting steel is the pen
itent aftermath of the steel war


Twenty-first Cantiole
it is no usé looking in the war itself
for solutions causes plans of éscape
Its steel will only ordain a steel
peace and steel hearts will ask for
steel rewards fixed wagés central
the 1945 revolution
heating lifts to the top steel enter
tainments films television with their
promise that somewhere hearts are beat
ing not of steel but steel 1s their
saurce their component their bénediot
ion it is tripod dolly lens support
it glides on steel it tracks it zooms
the acene 1s cut with shining scissors
in first the mind and then the studio


o ry
Twenty-second Canticle
53847 béing in the memorandum of
agreement named the first part
*write a deed of gift
hereinarter called the soldier saw
with thine own blood *
the second part hereinafter called
the dying man with holes in his baok
lying face domn at the last gasp
and cried without sound or tears
at the barn door while a black
shawled woman amaller than he by
half mourned loudly in his place
it boing her inherited rustio duty
to do the wake even for a stranger
he of the first part could only
make silent water with his eyes
because he oould not understand
he did not see the connection be
tween the love he had made not
long since and this dying part
he did not know that these were
his desires his nights exploded
into deep black holes in another
mants back lying stomach down in: l+ t (
a barn trying an offered oigarette
but the thin white tube swelled red
no man's help. no, quotation of inn
ocenoe not the ohild he had been
nor mother's appeal nor city noise
could resoue him from the clause of
the memorandum in which it was stated
that there was a living and a dying part


nor réscue the living part from
his failing to understand decipher
the place in the covenant where
the precise relation had been set
down oonfirmed and duly signed in
his own blood his love désires


Twenty-third Canticle
a glimpse of civilisation
is a glimpse of the pre-
steel atate
Venice a city settled inside a
golden lake danced to herself she
talked to the sky to the reticent
walls of mist that came to seal
her off from landlockéd enemies
It ohly happened from time to
time that along with the waters
the refuse lapping against the
patient stones oame thoughts that
wére harder than iron more -durable
but then they were laid to sleep
in gondolas along the flat lagoon
where no ripple tree no tower
resisted the sky her oourtship bow
to brother earth her sympathy
but because of the iron thoughts
she fired the cannon first and
wreoked the parthenon which like
cassino fell thus early to oné
man's steel if most serene ambition
hence the fall of Venice
1796-1950 and the risé of
Maghera the chemical works


ten kilometres away on
the mainland 'the pois sonous
heads of whose énvenomed -
body have breathed a pest-
ilence on us all'


Tenty-f ourth canticle
steel is love of a straight line
of canfinement limitation Being
squared-in it offers the maximum
sharp angle most resistant frontier
to winds a shield to imagination
a hard front to the unpredictable
even a oirole in seeming to-orfer
concontric repetitions of itself
in endless ripples that might ex
tènd to infinity is unsympathetic
to the first progénttive dream. of.
steal that beokoned 1ike a friend
this saw ondless stuffs to be don
fined hemmed-in such as thoughts
and kisses hours lost in the waters
of a lake at night to givo them
shape a mark to see them by for
the long unwritton days eternity
steel came for the unsafe the
unsteady of foot the leaning the
bent who would have broken stioks
and staves and stumbled on brick
on a obble on imperfect stane
steel was the prayer for a moment
of sugared and canfin d life in


which to settle the terms of a
difficult journey to compass-read
oonfer on it within safe walls
the first clear decision to
take this journey was in the
éleventh century with the
first appearance of what
cape to be oalled the middle
class namely the explorers
the conceivers the ones who
thought; across the fields of
the closed domain to the
next tow (1 e trade)
and then to the next ocean
and then to the next planet
all the time more and more
encased in S teel
the desire to ex) plore begins
from doubt
steel was the mineral friend
for a journey out of chaos of
unsurveyed night out of sight
and S ound that offered no bright
no clearly right communique
the first explorations of
Mexico or New Spain were
marked by an intense desire
on the part of the settlers
to make a closed system safe
for the Spaniard against the
foreigner, for the Church
against the pope, for Now
Spain against Old Spain
from this first insemina tion
steel America grew
the steel mind sees life as
things to be dae


Twenty-fifth Canticle
steel was designed not to. dissolve
It intended a perfect projection of
the mind neat statio not given to
tho troubles sta: ins the forgetful
evolutions of the landscape the
knomn already worked such as wood
as rivers pryaers stone buttrosses
but steel being iron plus an alloy
has the mineral property of having
emerged from many untiring dissol
utions of deep packed shelves of
leaves and skeletal structures pro
cessed in a design perhaps more
cc amplete than even manufac tured
steel and thus implacably given
to its evolutions which load again
to further dissolving evolving
like the brain too like the imagin
ation like the nerves which have
the mineral properties of emerging
from sundry dissolutions over the
millenia and will go their wéy
even the perfect design the sure atratgkt
st traight iine too dissolves and
crooked grows éven steel the shining
the cléar the everlasting to their
grave in now delight must emigrate
dark war
so it happens that straight
wi th her aimed prjectiles only eurving
to the degree entailed by curve of
mother earth will dissolve her sharp
her cutting stripping and blasting ob
jeotives in the shape of a twenty-year
boy who hencefc orwerd will not raise


his arm his voice his mind to any
hurt So that here in order to a
chieve the dissolving of violent
intent a disrobing of power a war
has been engaged a disturbance of
millions of children philosophers
and populations of every colour in.
order to beget a particle of peade


Twenty-sixth Canticle
in the meantime wamen would seem
the antithesis of steel but this is
not the case Consider steel à ts hard
dependability and her desire in times
of threat for increasing firmess
The male and female are the same not
opposite poles They are one alloy
so was provided the opportunity for
muoh exchange of hard penetrations
deep experiment in the choice of the
right breed ing oombination this being
the natural solecting opération in
times of private distress and massivé
panic pmllojdisplacement of population
thus when stteel was acclaimed it be
came the sine qua non of the bed
The male spear had to have a steel
tip for its thrust to bring steel
babies farth howéver deep the wound
the orying flesh the wailing in the
night Take the lover of number 53847
how quickly she learned (in fact in
three or faur days from his depart
ure) ohcosing at onoe to be what she
couid not recognise in herself namely
a soldier no less than he She went
from breach to breach undoing male
defences claiming heavy casualties
on the other side and like a man she
mourned the wounded and the dead her
triste post coitum being a triste
post mortem much like that of 55847
in the old days we used to say that
iron entered a man but the steel re
volution in its cleanliness made poss
ible not éven regret nor a modioum


of bitterness disappointment to
bring on the state of steely quiet
the suspended fidelity the isolation
the apparently safe separation be
hind gleaming fenoés of desire
Newton was the philosopher
of the steel revolution
the lutheran revolutian in
Germany, the industrial
revolution in Ingland, the
french revolution vere
81 imply three phases in the
development of the steel
revolution


Twenty-seventh Canticle
a period of hospitalisation will be
necessary in view of the pollutibn of
the air by combustible liquids the
decimation of animals in millions of
roaring halls the withered the blast
shattered bowel of the earth the corr
upted sea the disorientation of the
upper atmosphere and thus the displace
ment of the seasons the broken weather
the broken heart the aborted the poi
soned orop the flood the holocaust
newtonian dostrine
proved poor soienoe in
taking no account of
hiddne vibrations and
radiations It tried
to reduce life to the
simple plane of the seen
and the thought
with disastrous con-
sequenc es when it came
to be applied
but revolution is only
made possible by a
quick C orruption of the
truth
this hospitalisation for which the
earth is at present groaning does
not imply a return to nature because
on the level of separable objeots
however manufactured distilled syn
thetiséd invented 0 omputerised nature
is never departed from in any oase


Only the revolution the opplication
of dootrine 1 e the thought the quost
the journey is a departure from nature
and requires the necessary rethinking
the birth and devel-
opment of the idea of
progress is preoisely
correspondent with the
birth and development
of steel
under the steel revolut-
ion the Ganges, Euphrates
and Nile peoplés are
judged to have done no
more than languish in
the picturesque
war is the kernel of the
idea of progress
the most clamorously
progress-bolieving
pe oples are the ones who
make most war
war is the climax of
progress bedause progress
was a simple contract of
war on the environment
var is conducted in the
air, the waters, inside
the body, the mind
it is a state not a
circumstance
progress is the achieve-
ment of total war
the instruments of battle-music the
shooting up the hollowing out the scorch
of grass the blasting the chemical with
ering were each a string on steel's


manifold bow and one day would make
a total harmonic contribution (given
timé and the right conductors) to
the production of a final and single
instrument that would make all misic
rise to one last definitive créscendo
HIROSHIMA


Twenty-eighth Cantiole
all the revolutions
tributary to that of
steel (namely the lutheran
the induetrial and the
frenoh) stem from the
mediaeval schools
the newtonian doctrine is
a picture of life as int-
ellectual for this reas an
pure the aspiration straight the
flight but a little question of
the displacement of air the ez
haust the pollution of conceptually
annoying particulars such as lungs
nerfous system oardrums and other
soft propensities were overlooked
on the basis of a giant error comm
itted early in the scholastic argu
menta nanely that the world was
intellectually created grew itself
from concepts But this was fast
disproved by the very minds believ
ing it and soon it was seen that
life is not neoessarily mathemat
ical nor infinite concepts the
edges of finite facte and that
the idea of a fixed oreation a der
tag an which it was all rigged
and shipshaped into bursting action
then launched and let slide into
the conscioumess was rot And
this entails a period of hospital
isation given the frightful gap
between the application and the PERKREE
facts the concepts and the une on
ceived the given the humming the r
throbbing of the whole machine


the backward peoples who
took over the ruins of the
Roman empire ignorant even of
the first principle of persont
al oleanliness (hence the
plagues) needed - a long
journey of self-discovery
their starting point was
Golgotha
the cancépt of the olock
(1 e the safe ticking off
of the silent pool of time
in regular beats) and the
concept of zero or infinity
(the silent pool itself)
were both mental innovations
of the mediaeval monasteries
They were the twin root of
the steel revolution They
were an effort to oontain
life inside a system of the
mind 1 e a sohedule It was
demanded by the organisation
of religious life into
community forms for the first
time in christendom The
monks gathered together
against the darkness of the
age (and the barbarian dark-
ness insidé themselves)
Thus the steel revolution---
through all its later
schedile-tightening convul-
sions whether lutheran
industrial or jacobin---
was always and exclusively
a theological matter


Twenty-ninth Canticle
hiroshima exploded history
To try to collect up the
bits into one order suggest-
ing forethought and control
beoame raidiculous
the disturbande of radiot-
aotivé balance means the
disturbance of all natural
processes
you can guard against the dis
ruption of seas ons by means of
central heating insulated fur
lined boots electric blankets
double windows fitted carpéts
sunray lamps pickmeups sauna
baths mas sages and also air can
ditioning far the sudden summer
day in heart of autumm not to
mention the frost in the dog
days But plants require sure
ly many years of indootrination
technical guidance gentle a
ssistance in understanding the
nature of our epoch in whioh
astonished they find themselves
preparing in dark winter earth
the sap the root for peeping e
mergenoe in spring and high per
formance in summer without the
seasons being necessarily there
having only the poor and insuff
icient guidance of many millenia
behind them the teohnical assist


ance of only stars the moon the
raging sun and timely irrigations
made by rain and blind mineral
activity and busy W arms and winds
that prune decay inseminate
in the old-style weather
Italy was the balano ed zane
between the harsh sahara
oven and the cold Atlantic
Rome (an Itrusoan site) was
once said to be the perfect
choice man éver made for a
city given its positian
between the mountains and
the sea The Italian su
used to rise like a gaig in
the sky and remain steady
in a blue sky Its steadin-
ess gave rise to an arrog-
ance of flesh among the
peoplo which it is hard to
imagine now When the old-
style balance collapsed
the Mediterranean fulcrum
disappeared and Italien
weather became as unpred-
iotable as any notth of the
Alps And Italy became a
northern country in all
senses. Latinity beoame
an anachranism
when the possibility of
sound health ceased Italy
ceaced
Italians say 'prosperity
has brought us anguish
The steel revolution gives
first the sugar and the
sheen and then the bitter
core
(n b the oommunist revolut-
ion is the steel revolution
enacted suddenly and el ry
late in a feudal society)


for a time America was
the sugar and the sheen
far many millions inside
and outside the American
continent
alone with two thieves he
hung During the night
the thieves understood
him


Thirtieth Canticle
nations make music Hearts
in many places sing The
withered vine the cactuo
burned by cold the olive
nipped in the flower their
music make So let despond
enoy not dim your tune Be
not overruled by these our
multiple deaths demise of
chemical initiative in thé
delving root the smile For
orchestras will ring despité
the fall Surdease of sap
oannot stop their song but
rather make new harmonies
the steel revolution has
cheated today's child of
plade Hena e his burning
resentment which can find
no words
the steel revolution was an
assault on belonging


Thirty-first Canticle.
the steel revolution
1ikeallrovolutions was
a crude stat tement of some-
thing that later looked
very much like its opp-
osite (ra ther as the
frenoh revolution olaimed
democrecy and established
a class)
expnlg
but in steel we are déaling not
with the hard square angled as
it seems at first Not with the
neat original soheme by whioh
the wild heart aimed to be struct
ured kept confined dependable
steel was not only a dream to
render finite that which threat
ened to escape beyond the due
measure or ra ther the measureable
steel aimed to extand to break
beyond the place the hot centre
confined cirole the home the birth
the death the daily sound of
work the expected and the accepted
the purring silences of truth
by explosion thrust establishment
of intricate bodies far higher
than the eye CO uld hope or the
mind contain or wild heart love
steel was what tore up


the old apparently for
a new fixed ordor but in
faot for the denial of
symmetry
the steel revolution was a
reorganisation of the
nervous system ie we oan
now stand much greater
speeds changes of climate
situation friond or homé
than any previous creature
We are not vh ole as they
We are not truly made
We have a imply grown this
layer We have come this
far to reach where the
Chinese were three thous-
and years ago


Thirty- sec ond Canticle
the steel man derives
great comf art 18 not erotic
exultation from accélerat-
ion Hence his willing in-
carceration in the auto-
mobile and his pride in ita
silentttransformations
window-slidinge hushed
spurts at the touch of a
digit
the man of steel sees the past
as a successive climbing to the
final realisation of a now static
if always improving kingdom of
steel scalpels engines olever
C omputers pills to bring off and
put on not to say revolvers He
prides himself on an unflinching
reaction to anything new prov
ided it is of a steel that is
clearly structured nature and not
invisible magnetio non spatial
immeasureable for the oool mind
thus the puritan revolution
(which oreated America as a
s teel dream) was the essenc
of the st eel revolution
The puritan revolution in
England caused the indust-
rial revolutian there just
over a contury later It
was the adoption of the
steam engine that won the
Ameri can states their indep
endence. and their viotory
against the south
the famous disgust of the steel
man towards his omn odours not
to say his love slime was nothing
but a criticism he was making of
his own barbario state and there
fore a rise from it He was shedd
ing the body escaping its grip
the so-called dark age
folldwing the breakup of


the Roman cities and their
middle class and their gods
and their memory of Greece
never opened at any stage
into light
some further - dark ages
transpired At no point
was a christian civilisation
achieved
the steel man saw steel
forms- as the unfolding
of long historical pro
cesses making us the
oromn of achievament in
what might be called his
sleepwalk of hegolianism
everything from the spinning
jenny to the moonfl ight is
the barberiants idea of
glamour
all his enterprises have
been cloaked military oper-
ations indluding TV films
the loudspeaker
if there has been any hegel-
ian or unfolding hist arical
theme in our past it was the
gradual enr olment of every
creature no matter what his
village enclave club in the
world military enterprise
of the last two thousand
years
those men most hegelian 1 e
most fixed in the 1llusion
of progress become the
cruellest war leaders (the
german torch passed into
american hands via the
british empire)


far from light having
grown over the centuries
from a dark beginning
theré was at first a Greek
light of Mosopatamian
origin (whioh was in turn
of Indian origin) which
shone in thé deserts of
the Thebaid (Paul,
Pachomius) and thon Antenca
smaller and Smaller as the
darkness of the noxt two
thousand years grew round
it A religion in Christts
name has not yet been mooted
lét alone a civilisation
been based on it
history 1 é development in
time was therefore our idea
(embedded in our *civilis-
ation')
the word christian cannot
describe a oivilisation
bedause it means war
Christ defined this in his
'I. bring not what you assume
to be peace but thesworage
A period of high fever sweats
out our poisons
in the east flu is called
the cleansing disease It
attacks most frequently those
sunk in self-indulgenoe
They réquire a fever to shed
the ir poisone That was true
of the barbarians who took
ovér the Roman en pire That
18 the reason for tho steel
revolution
flu is one of the many


private or fleshly aspects of
Christ's isword'
the steel man saw cannection
only in terms of the systèm
of his senses I e to be real
a thing had to be seen touched
the soientists thus superseded
(to his astonishment) the ateel
man locked in a visionary yet
no less false version of self
scienoe' merges into an
exploration of thé non-sensual
areas
pageant scienoe 1 e the moon-
flight is that oraved by the
steel man
moonflight is moonfright
the steel man taking fright
at himself undoes the hardness
thus achieving a hitherto. un
surpassed oompassion calm
the adoption of lang hair and
loose olothes may mark the con-
version of the steel man Short
is the Roman model imitated by
those disposed to the military
version of 1ife
in the eighteenth century vast
wigs were mountad on natural
hair to signify the abundance
of feeling béfore it was out
short by the steel révolution
in its final stages
thè barber often find s himself
in an attitude of vengefulness -
towards the hair under his come
and
the more reactionary the society
the more the barber identifies
hims elf with his steel


the first steel men the steel -
dreamers were the weak aisease-
prone areas of our body devising
a protective system for their
survival
without mines air-polluting
railways oars factories planes
without nervous tension wars
costing millions of deaths
bombs disposing of entire
populations christianity would
not have survived
industrialisation was the tirst
élear panio measure of survival
the Church brought in its
plainly military arm (the
Jaeuita, organised under a
*generait) at a time when the
collapse was imminent The
period coincided with the first
explorations of the Amerioas
which were an aspect of indust-
rialisation i e the mobilisation
of resouroes for war
n b that the industrial revol-
ution took place in England aB
part of a desparate attempt to
escape the cansequences of the
war-blocade against Napoleon
She had to produce jer own goode
All such advancesm being aspects
of war, whether industrial
tecmological or scientific,
take plaoe by means of and
through war alone


Thirty-third Canticle
it would be a mistake to assume
that the steel men were the equiv
alent of or identical with or a
simple definition of the middle
class Certainly they were its
leading lights but armies of sim
ple people not given to steel
thinking were prone to their bland
ishments in the form of blaok
mines eighteen-hour days and the
sweating of children They say
that men and women copulated willy
nilly in the mines as the mood
took them thus showing a choice a
predilection for barbarism Per
haps the steel revolution was more
a mase affair than we think a
populative olamour for some revenge
on the healthy body on history
peasants in their thousands
and then millions became
scheduled workers supply-
ing so to speak the choreo-
graphy required by the
steel men 1e no languish-
ing in silent unfolding
fields but people moving
like clockwork
it is often said that the jews
showed little resistance in the
campe of the last war that they
could easily have turned ontheir
guards being millions against an
armed handful But given a certain
implacable choice it may be bet
ter to choose death This may
have been a decision on behaif
of purity It may have been the


answer of the animal daged who
will not mate or run because
he knows he is not one but all
thé agreement to become a
working class implies an
agreement to further the
steel decision ie the
steel revolution was a
universal movement
in the samé way the chosen
péople of the east 1 e the indians
might ohoose their deach
the jews chose not only
death by gas but also
hitler


Thisty-fourth canticle
the war that suddenly 53847
found before him was surely I
am saying his own life ezplod
ing The puff of choking cordite
the quick probing action of the
sheli and then the scream were
only the unfolding of that which
he was with in Yet he did not
know nor approve nor participate
such is the irony of the
ohristian doctrine of
progress, derived from a
popularisation of the Hebrew
idea of a divinely appointed
people, that after nearly
2000 yeare we are reaching
an appreciation of indian
misio, namely the oldest
musical forms in existence
for we are the peoplé who enact
what we already are inside in
order to beoome for other mill
ions an opposite enactment
in becoming suddenly a war numb
er bereft of his girl home pros
pects of all S ign of a past of
cànneotions even of mother's
love our 53847 was doing nonè oth
er than passing into his identity
we are shedding the illusion
of you and I The steel men
were the oreators of you and
I in order to achieve one


unified experiende 1 e they
refined the You and I to the
fine point where it no longer
clung to place but made a
common life the world over
It was a brutal and primitive
version of the eastern pract-
ide of detachment
the barbed wite the shuffling
at night as a recde party passed
the stifled cry of someone not
even fighting were the steel pro
jections of the fight he had inei de
to take an example One day. be
foré he ever dreamed he might
be taking the pin out of a hand grauxta
grenade and throwing it he sat
with his girl on a summér evéning
talking about how they had reached
a surfeit and must perhaps some
times admit a désire for soméone
else At which she showed a flinch
ing surprise Not many weeks had
passed when she returned to him
shame eyed and said sho had lain
all night on a bed in the nude
with a boy not himself And from
that moment the love he wished the
girl he wished the bed he wished
were done to death they were no
more And was he not the cause?
had hè not asked her to do what
he perhaps could never bring him
self to do but insisted must be
done as maobeth did but left the
deed to his wife? And is it not
the same with war? Could it not
be that structures of steel of which
he dispoproved and whioh indeed
were outting him inside had still
to reaoh their zenith in his blood?
Could it not be that while he
asked for love he had it not at all?
the manifold steèl revol-
ution lies already in the
unknowing child
in which case the war was already
there One might even say each
young man to his own devastation
some to sleepless nights some to
bile some to extermination in camps


the child wakes to various
unexpected shocks accord-
ing to the role he has
chosen
he chooses his period his
function as the pollen
chooses the flower
it is no good looking far
tmy* or thist free will
because free will is exer-
cised by that in us which
1s not you or I It does
not speak or logio chop
It transpires


Thirty-fifth Canticlé
he has unknowlingly
uttered the terms of the
steel revolution whose
raticnal publicity he
would reject
translated into B teel terms
53847*S words to his girl
were a destruction of place
They asked for a consideration
of all human beings in what tever
home as the objocts of desire
in whatever other human beings
thus removing the question of
fidelity from one arena home
locality The matter of desire
was thus transforred from his
and hers to all of ours And
linitleos constructions shining
infinite had wan And st oel-
supported roads that ran from
town to town were running also
in him And one place one girl
one sure fidality was now a prison
steel strud tures imply sex
freedom
homosezuality being aisgust
of (1 e solf-identirication
with) the woman's softness
is a transference of the
steel revolution to the
sex organs
all this 1s an attempt to
dissolve sex difference and
rise from the barbarian
desire for assault


collapse and rise are sim-
ultaneous The oollapse of
the Roman empire was the
rise of the Christian empire
These' historian's derinitions
have to be unravelled, with
their tendency to hegelian
diagnosis
so he left himself with only
a photograph of the girl which
he looked at évery day to the
tune of the guns untii it be
camé exactly what it was ie
a st teel idea conveyed by black
and white dots He glanoed at
it in bivouacs at night when
screems had died Until hor
face was gone and all he saw
was spots 1 e a steel momento
the melting of sexes was to
be seen during Rome ts fall
as during Constantinople's
as during Venice's ('the men
are women, tthé women mon, and
both are monkeys la--Gozzi,
of the last Venice)
they were parts of the same
sezual deoision I e the
christian world must also
slowly groom its Women to
be sacred (not $ imply to be
described as saored as in
chivalry)
He now oould conoentrate on
war which was his metier
On soreams that seemed to be
his OHD And many times he
passed the body of a boy and
thought suppose that he is me
and death translates me from
this me to other mes for ever
And hame and kiss and varm
place died only bécause they
were where hè could belong
For all the revolution in him
said
have no place to lay
4 AT
you no fane to rec oenise


10 we do not belong on the
earth And the steel revolut-
ion was one of many convulsion
to tear us from tho illusion
of settling down even Fà ile
it seemed with its permanent
steel structures to offer a
security of tenure as néver
before
évery flash of bayonét every
blast announeed the same to
him that never must he pause
or lày his head for here was
no sécurity no welcome home
the reath (life) is only a
medium, a way of ezpressing
it Christ*s way of putting
this was a Hobrew way (*hate
your mother and father')
designed to shake the people
from a slough of family
thus the steel atruc tures were
to give us a temporary supp-
prt during cur first flight
from
from the hot bar-
barian anlacciro to put down
roots They prevented us from
succumb ing to panic in the
first uncerta: in moments of
losing a homé And they were
tho maans by which we lost a
home
To put it in Sumerian terms 9
the steel structures were
aoljioved by Enkadu thé men,
unawere that Golgemesh the
half-divine was behind him,
waiting to reap the fruits
indoed the meaning of every
whizzing car the whistle of
airbuses overheed the flicker
emanations
of soreens is you do not belang
1 e cars etc being
of steel


Thirty-sixth canticlé
one 'of the ironies' is that ali
these endeavours etbacke sur
vivals explosive fates add up
to no golden age nor the achieve
ment for any whole people or
time or global state of what
night be called imperishable
grace It may happen far one
man ot: ten or haif to one and
all to a million It may come
now for an instant or delaya
thousand years It may reach
what seems a climax only to
instantly fall It may be seen
for less than a moment or the
whole of a life And what for
us is a million deaths may be
a subscription to something we
cannot see but which another
may inherit Which is to say
that in whatever time or place
whatever ciroumstance the sub
soription whether of life ar
death 1s always to various
flowerings of a rhole body un
divided into one or two or
here and now Whioh is to say
again that you and I are not
Nevertheless some movements
are disoernible though not
in a graph of getting bet
ter or falling into worse
war settles on each area as
the steel revolution is re-
quired by peoples to burst
upon them and explode their
past Hence its appearance


in varying dogrées in the
east
where it does not appear the
people have no need of it
the var has verious forms
from the usé of high explos-
ive and the jot flame to the
working of gears and the
manipulation of knobs The
war thus presses home the
terms of the steel revolut-
Lon each moment of the day
the war in its manifold
forms shocks the péople out
of the sense of belonging to
any one, place
as the automobile drives the
jetoraft flies so the TV
pioture refers us to other
places other times always as
pictures dissolving into
others cut into others
we aré in every way trans-
ported


Thirty-seventh Canticle
he found when his war was
ovér that peace aid not come
belief in onself as the
climax-sooiety of history
and in advanoe of the past
1s the berbarian's failure
to penetrate beyond him-
self It coincides with the
inflictian of war on undefend-
ed peoples and the cruellest
rev enges The barbarian's
difficulty in penetrating
beyond his own hot self
creates a strong sense in him
of 'other* people as separable
and by implication inferior
*All men areislandst is the
height of the barbarian
philosophy
the barbarian and the half-
diviné present the tension
of history by the ir struggle
with éach other (inside the
same man) Enkadu and Gol-
gemesh
many times he dreamed it
then it ceased and dark
camo Once two kings came
to his blaok tent They
told him his business with
the women giggling behind
veils outside Then horses
twice the size of a child


came steaming from their
walk and russet red And
another time it oame in
a city by the sea with
blinds against .thè sun.
And then it was a man a
lone in his room - And then.
a girl on a hill in the
evening and very still
the barbarian is engulfed
by the hot demands of his
own nature and these may
donvince him that he is a
man of control and even of
civilisation
Attila the hun never hesit-
ated He swore that wherever
his horso trod the grass
would never grow again He
could not afford to hesit-
ate because of the power of
his own fears
and so it wove în and out
of epace and time which are
not fixtures of reality but
little veils to be drawn a
side if so 1t takes the will
history is an attempt to
'systematise the past as if
we had no other place but
hére
civilisation equals no
history
history is a glancing back
and forvward in the act of.
building. When the building
is done what-we-are replaces
what-we-have-done and what-
we-shall-do


Thirty-oighth canticle
53847 was transported home 0
after the war but did not
reoognise it because plaoe
had died in him He saw the
: faces he knew bu the motor
oentre of home in himself
was gae
official peace oame in form
of hungry memories stop chil
dren wandering skies undefined
by carved tops of houses pal
aces stop no roads to know the
truth by nor the expected cor
ner stop A whiff of someone's
death a gleam of bones stop
this peace surely no change
stop in fact war only the
ourtain raiser stop and this
peace a first tired scene
stop the denouement long to
transpire stop war here to
stay stop repeat stay stop
not that his own home had
been blown sky high It
nearly had The effect would
have been the Bame The loss
of home was no less among
those who returned home to
unsoathed streets Bombs
had exploded in people The
external bombs were only
the outer realisatian of the
inner deoision


bombs were the steel revolut-
ion blowing out the last re-
doubts of intimaoy place
(we remember how the streets
used to be hot with belong: ging
Now they mist be painted
planted with trees given vistas
We didn't see them before
We were simply in them This is
how the most unsightly slums
were loved)
Not mist these are
fumes This not the
earth but battle
field War has moved
to organsbtissues
air the waters
always remembering that the
objectiveof christianity was
not to create a civilisation
Indeed that could never have
oome within its sc ope given
the hordes it had to educate
from barren savagery
anachronistic the
bombs the screams of
women War is now
secretions fy
wages in the cell
Christ cantrolled the educ-
ation so to speak His oudects
ive was never pockets of oiv-
1lisation but a worldwide
presentation of the most
ancient thought, more ancient
than Judah This came to him
via Greece I0 travelled along
trade routes from the east to
the Mediterranean The Jews
were its vehicle to the Roman
empire
these are smokes of féar the


thunders of engines of dis
turbed thought These vi
brations are attempts at
action The crowded C amings
and goings exchanges at
airports stamped passports
gauges clocks pressure
valves are us heaving us
asteam with hot concern
what diseases what
plagues Like a land
scape they unf old
What disasters
End of message


Thirty-ninth canticle
war is the struggle to
eliminate as in vomiting
or diarrhea
has
Rali,
she
proved that she' is.
1ight by dying. So many
times she died: By a
faucis
godding
stream on so many pe ople
and ww,
has she been How this
plaype
mother weaves in and out
nus Hw
of death unveils her
divine
self How like a waking
and
and an incubatory sleep
1 cestoon
it is How we can see
her when we closé our
dinado:
touch hor in our sleep
How all she is how
mother How white a
million times How both
she 1s having the male
C aplete And how light
she knows how to be
come how silent


Fortieth Canticle
having lost his plaoe he
began to look for it not
knowing that this was all
designed He looked in
faces familiar plaoes
but nothing transpired to
teach him who he was
Even mother and father
were now remote Knowing
that enjoyment is a
sign of belonging he tried
to enjoy but not belong
ing anywhere he couldn't
53847 whom the Lord loveth
he chastenéth
he tried to talk to walk
but got strange looks His
talk was laim his walk un
steady His mother gazed
at him but could not find
her son And he not her
his nevervhaving belonged was
a fact blown into him by war
Wer was the first drastic step
to understanding that his not
belonging was far from being
an uncanny state the mirror
of truth


Forty-first Canticle
the key began to turn in the
lock whe en he realised aftor
many slow steps that indeed
he and not supposed implac-
able foro es outside had been
making his life 1e he had
to abolish the archetypes -
which the barbarian imagin-
atioh establishes outside
1tself and then bows down to
for five years or nore he
looked in the face of an
othèr and did not find his
wife Looked for another
and another but did not see
that the original premise
of which ranother* was the
supposed variation had been
lacking Like a man who
never having had a horse
was looking for tanothér onet
which aoo ounted for mioh
travelling and looking in faces
he ténded to cast back
glances to the time when
*she * had been there And
all he remembered of the
original she was a series
of steel-evoked blaok
dots cn an ageing piece
of paper kept in the int
erests of extra preserv
ation in the leaves of a
book and not any longer
in a pooket over his
saldier's heart *Shes


was perhaps the nearest
to the original premise
of wifo that his imagin
ation could get So his
tired mind adopted her
Thus he found himself
looking into other faces
for the presenc e of black
steel-engendered dots
And naturally since his
methods of choosing were
mad his choice was mad
too and he landed him
self with many clumsy
bed situations and no wife
i e he was now free to act
because outside 1ife had no
existende independent of him
And dethroning outside 1ife
was a step to de throning inside
life He came to know that his 1
area of action or freedom was
not outside or inside or any-
where It was simply where he
did not belong (1 e freedom
was not in space and tim/
number/identity)
and when he found her
he knew she was not
here or three but every
where and not a dot
the archetypal figure of
'other* people began to
collapse
Le began rgiel
He divine ho tkur She
rde li phullus H
Planif eye
a wrm cn Loweuv


huuch iu dirquise I alorg to
divine moits
ne heve belags
'he in Lai hunr 2 Crenton
hais ls hake tke crk G
belmghplac Amal Le
dirioven Hengr a pellip
upo Li flio Itv Ye do an
ho V belmyi indeart L
tvn
tur Le Can Lel Hre
giime 1 *e lalk kp
4e flea
henfme ae
nde inh anil G1ag uip
jin u
haltapid P
m'A Hoatiy Loi


Forty-sec ond Canticle
the soldiers have gone home Sicked
up now the heroism Rejeoted the ex
ample of shining valour Medals thromn
away in truokloads No longer required
the reminiscenedes with their thrilling
tribal suggestions or the speech by the
eminent captain All that lay with im
agination flair The smiles of boys
won wars A tint of hair could be de
cisive How the general moved his
shoulders when he had a hunch oould
signal victory And mén sat singing
in the dark But now there is a function
clearly marked And if it happens to
concern grenades chenical disruption
of orops the systematic gutting of
villages why other men are équally en
gaged în demolition for peacoful pur
poses in orop spraying éven the firing
of a ontaminated areas in the case of
cattle disease etc thus sh owing that
the function only has different results
in different fields One to life and
one to doath Which should not givé
rise to any extraneous dumbshow of
sacrifice belief c ourage or anything
on the level of viking atavism so to say
so put up your swords Fut up your
hard revenges Nothing now but shining
steel will meet your victory or de
feat So many have we lost on the way
Each death each ory is part of my
anatomy How bland has been the murder
and how unpausingly the war turns to
other fields Look how she passes in


the street a diso of silver light
in her eyes where she has murdered
a child The hordes that pour past
have each a murder undèr the careless
hair So many knives have twisted
in the night so sure.has been the
slide of steel the gleaming surgeorite
eye that stays the kicking child
the climax of the steel
revolution lies in the
abortion centre where the
young cammitt their
first act of premeditated
murder which prepares
them for the bigger acts
of war
blessed is the woman who has
never Long is the path of the
one who has ever For shé has
eut herself You did not knife
another in the dark it was
yourself No wonder that you
cry Some flowers have drifted
sullenly down with the falling
of night in the body in thé
womb and these are for you
derkness has fallen in the
passages No torches gleam
No glad forragers no ex
panding of soft walls A
oandle spits Some murder
has been done Silence has
fallen on the cave and
these mothers will not
the divine mother will
not bring forth in con-
ditions of captivity
She therefore ch ooses
war (techincal develop-
ment) as her means of
escape
the murderesses are vouchsafed
automobiles and when they
vreathe out it is exhaust gas


the use of the knife and
the renunciation of the
knife are olose by a
hair's breadth (the surgean
18 a man of nightmares)
Henry v11l's protestant
revolution provoked a long
outburst of poetry in
England Napolean s revol-
utian provoked the same in
France
click goes the cattle gun slit
goes the knife olatter goes the
pulley and the blood flows dovn
the gutters The walls have heard
such shouts They hang by hooks
These hordes enter by night and
by morning are divided Such
multitudes have been seen Their kuts
ghosts live up the hill in Eers
in the eyes of Atar the
sun god there was only one
crime---0ooking dead flesh
the daily extermination of
animals is the war visited
on other oreatures Thus
they too are drawn int o
the struggle They are not
simply edible bys tanders
the fear of the murdered
becomes the fear of its
eater Thé anger of the
murdered the anger of its
eater The assault on the
murdered the assault cn
the eater (At the moment
of alaughter the animal's
terror is said to secrete
a poison or acid into the
system This becomes the
poisan of the eater)
the flesh is in such turmoil Its
sex erupts in meteors that fly


across the
The heart
sky
beats
fitfully in windé in drifts that
take whole cities bladders livers
with them There is a state of
fever in the hills The patient
landscape trembles to the point
of magnetic attraction Depend
ent corpusoular populations un
acc ountably aie off or just as
unacoountably do away with them
selves Night and day andsoft
and hard and growing and dying
and laughing are all mixed up
And entirely nther forms such
as only the stars sould tell
are lurking in the smiling dark
the visible is an end-of-
the-line product of the
invisible
nature disasters and body
disasters are the same
the earth is equally with
ourslves a hospital case in
dire stress
the believers . in the visihle
are viotims of "unaccountablet
disease
disease is a great ar small
attémpt at suicide
smoking, drinking, over-
séxuality speeding, drug-
taking, night-makolilness
are extensional diseases
(1 e outside props are
gently or harshly engaged
to fulfil suicide) The
non-extensional disease
often contracted as a
result of these extensi onal
one S is carefully separa ted
by tho mind fron 1ts cause
(1s "unaccountable")
suicide is a savage haste
for the divine without
acquaintance with it
the voice of agnosticism
is the engine


Forty-third Canticle
take flies settling on an
arsenic-impregnated pad
They will mate a second be
fore dying in order to a
ohieve seourity not progeny
the use of sex for the dis-
burdenment of sorrow leads
to further sorrow It arises
from the mis take that we
belong here
death-sex is the musio of
war Where halls ghere at
mospheres ring with death
sex becomes remedial and
gives rise to anger and then
more remedial sex in ev er
darkening spirals to despair
hence we have the disarming
cantradiction much felt by
beginners that the practise
of sex draws love inch by inoh
to where she languishes and dies
and will not longer rec ognise
sex is coneonant with mad-
ness but love is not


Forty-fourth Canticle
it will never be said of the bird
that he failed in any partioular
His pecking will be perfect his
hopp the kind originally endowed
His worm will elide the same in
each millenial field And he will
sing from the selfsame tree that
ever hugged with shade his song
1t will not be said that this was
wrong much less irmelevant It
will not be said that what he
tunes his song by can be wrong or
what he hops by can be malinformed
absent to him is the présent voide
that in hit sings And absent is
the wire inside his claw And ab
sent is the figure inside the gloom
that makes him sing and touches
leaf to make the warming fire
everything of a technical
character has the same
function---of telling the
story of the world as if
it were the only place
Heaven and hell are further
extensions of this idea
on a pre-steel level
the suicide's conviction
that life is right at the
bottom drab is a recogn-
ition of the fact that we
do not belong here, with-
out the wherewathai to


realise it in experience
Hence the need for techincal
assistance
the yawning suburbs of the
Thirties, fat with 'reality',
produced their suburban
Boolzebub in hitler He
was simply their alter ego
The middle olass ev erywhere
simply carried out in bed
: and behind locked doors
what he announced publicly
The jews were reviled a
million times over, and they
reviled themselves a million
times over, before hitler:
put it. into policical lené
guage
it will not be said that any
thing of his is his that song
that olaw that peck that pounce
belong to him Never will it
be said that he is present to
himself and owner of his gifts
Or that the gloom of the leaves
that holds his song 1s where he
only belongs and always rests
the homosexuality and herm-
aphorditism that mark periods
of great friotion of ideas
are a withholding of love on
the sexual plane becase the
race 1s held up so to speak
in its progenitive decisions
the drunkard will see others
as drunk, the sick man may
suffer the same triok of
sight, and the homosexual
seos the heterosexual as a
*potential' or suppressed'
homosexual He sees the
heterosexual as suffering
the woman's a onstant demand
for servicing while yearning
for the freedam of loving
no one
the armies of homosexuals


are the eunuohs of God
forming up They mark a
new turn of religion
likewase a suioide is the
urgent need for an other
body
torC eneto
BRe serut 1
The idea that the universe
is dark and cold and empty
is barbarism defined
Hence barbarism entered -
the first christian theo-
logy after the desert
fathers in this form It
entered in order to elim-
inate itself, working
through the system like a
poison until violent vom-
iting took place in the
form of
the nineteenth
century (1 e the disrupt-
ion of local life every-
where by the creation of
world markets)
civilisation is the inher-
itance by gréat numbe ers
of the opposite idea
by its study of a throbbing
and alive universe (1 e
radiation and vibration)
science will now complete
the prooess of elimination
in the last redoubts of
the steel mind


Forty-fifth Cantiole
he saw him throb like
waves like waings He
said hullo to one'he
had not seen before
but was himself and
now walked shining at
his side He saw how
he had killed himself
had fired his bullets
in his selfsame face
had died himself and
in the field lay talk
ing silently with men
façe down and motionless
we choose the kind of sheath
which will serve our sl Ow or
quick purpose Think of all
the millions of ch oices from
mineral to vegetable
the steel revolution, in-
volving over the centuries
long relig ibus wars and
civil massacro and the ruin
of the young by work/perseout-
1on/fanine not to mention
the disruption of the pro-
genttive process in animal,
vegetable and mineral,
was the equivalent of a
thought in a room -
one whose dream all life had been bad
and was older than 53847 deoided one


night in his trench to clean his bed 1'
of its wife's lovers by destroying an
enemy The night was silent damp and
the enemy too He needed to remove a
man who had entered his bed that. night
and any man would do: The hated one
never has a name and his face and his
limbs are anyone's The morning papers
that reached the front the crackling
radio were loud each day declaring the
official enemy arranged to last for
the length of the war and quiet the
worms that each man had in his head
or his bed by rationing out one common
enemy He drank as much sootch as the
bottle held and sat looking at his
nails by the light of a oandle breathing
hard his men all round him knowing that
his enemy in this case a youth of twenty
or so with frightened blond eyes was on
the other side behind a quickfiring gun
Now this young man behind the gun was
not quite sure of his hate and only
half believed in the enemy's existence
on the other side But when the bad
dreamer jumped to his feet and called
to his men to follow him he knew that
the enemy was there He saw him suddenly
swaying screaming across the night in
front and pulled the sdmple trigger in
his hand and to his amazement fear the
night clattered with armament and the
shadow fell with a gasp in the middle of
the field and his men had not followed
They threw the empty bottle of scotch
away and phoned to the reare for another
officer This is how a dream can lead
straight to its fulfilment In this case
the enemy was destroyed precisely as
promised since the enemy was hims elf