Poetry

“I no longer want to be astonished.”
A declaration made by Antonin Artaud during the last
years of his life. When I read this I was astonished.
Why did he even bother to write this down at all?
Could he imagine the effect it would have on a reader?
The impossibility of living without astonishment
is terrifying to challenge. Is that what we amount to? Terrified
slaves to wonderment? Bewilderment domesticated?
The codification of self-delusion?
All the myths of deathlessness lead to the preposterous posturing
of civilians who adopt the attitude of happiness as a strategy
of denial. Happiness has become a Cult with vast numbers of adherents.
To live without conscious awareness of death is like being unaware
one casts a shadow in the light. Dreams have become consumer rubbish.
Dreams and Death go hand in hand into the forgotten Shadow’s land.
*