You know that I prefer to live in the astral, I spend most of my time there. Obviously, it blocks me from the world where my fellow human beings live. Are those below my like? Not really. Like me, they have chosen the astral. Smoke, light up without getting cold. Cold-insensitive, do not look down. Dizziness.
Motionless at big strides
Zeno! Cruel Zeno! Zeno of Elea!
Did you pierce me with this winged arrow
That vibrates, flies, and does not fly!
The sound faints me and the arrow kills me!
Ah! the sun… what a shadow of turtle
For the soul, Achilles motionless at big strides!
~~Paul Valéry, The Marine Cemetery (excerpt)
Sometimes –often — I want to go back to the world where we are bored. Why do it? No idea, it feels like a need to pee. So I have taken the habit of not venturing too far into the multiverse, for fear that my flight back will take too long or even worse, the fear of not finding my way. Which is completely stupid.
Dasein, Being-Here
There is no time or space in the astral planes. From the moment I realized my naivety, I stopped applying to the astral the physical laws of our space-time. But it took me a while. I have admitted that the notions of space and time are no longer valid in the astral. Whatever my distance, on Betelgeuse or in Kalamazoo, I can come back here in the instant. And I find myself sitting in front of my screen, from where, by the way, I had not moved.
Only my mind leaves the field. My body remains fixed on the screen, at the keyboard, at the pond, at the gravel, at the foreshore, at none. I write without head, beheaded for a good cause.
This quiet roof where doves walk
Between the pines throbbing, between the tombs
The right Midi consists of fires
The sea, the sea, always recommencée
O reward after a thought
What a long look on the calm of the gods!
~~Paul Valéry, The Marine Cemetery (excerpt)
Hard Ending
Mysterious are the worlds of the beyond, absurd are our assessments of this other reality, more real than the original. What is called reality here on earth is an illusion fabricated by material beings and admitted by the lack of subtlety of our five senses. The message they send to the brain is not an exact reflection of what’s out there. It’s far from that. It’s partial and biased. Instead of a true copy, the message of our senses is a free interpretation. Free style in minor mode.
When this incomplete and distorted message reaches our brain, it, like any computer, interprets it with its programs. Yes, but here we go. These programs are bugged. They contain orders to distort certain aspects of the real considered dangerous for us other basic morons.
Summary: Our brains, like any computer, need programs. Their own are bugged.
Who made these programs? Nature? Why would this impersonal and imaginary entity want to hide certain aspects of reality from us? Is it nature that decides what to hide and what to let leak? She would then be our true god. Shall we worship him on our knees, rather than the old bearded man who seems to be completely uninterested in his creatures? If it exists, and has created anything.
My answer: Well, then who made these damn bugged programs? The matter beings I talked about earlier. It’s the best answer I could come up with. Now there are other, much more boring questions to ask, starting with this one: what happens to our free will?
Free will comes from ignorance of the real causes that make us act.
The high cries of ticklish girls,
The eyes, teeth, wet eyelids,
The charming breast that plays with fire,
The blood that shines on the lips that yield,
The last gifts, the fingers defending,
All goes underground and enters the game!
~~Paul Valéry, The Marine Cemetery (excerpt)
The more it’s there, the more we forget See how it melts into the folds Graceful light wavy Of your flying hair
She
Woman is the future of man. After being his long and distant past, she is sick and tired of now. She will go beyond herself. She will go beyond us. And we poor fall guys will all be broken. Some will die. Those who amassed the treasures of the past will suffer agony. Boned they will be. Stoned they will stay. Changed into rock. Petrified.
The future of man is woman. She is the colour of his soul. She is his rumour and his noise. And without her, he is but a blasphemy.
I’m flying to a distant galaxy suddenly I am there. I touch a star that has just lit up. I smoke a candle or two. Time is waiting for me, and I’m standing still. Whatever you do, it dies. It becomes space. It becomes tiny, gigantic, infinite. Its place is the opposite. A point is the universe, an eyelash the multiverse. Time is tired. Wherever you go, it dies.
I trust Her. Wherever Her ship passes from space, I follow her on the trail. She kisses me, it embarrasses me. I will go to Alcor and see the suns rise on the purple horizon of a rice pudding bowl. I will go into the thickness of an angel’s hair, in the intimate of an atom, in the immensity of a hadron squadron. Merry drills in espadrilles, towards the infinite of flying assholes I am squadron leader. My eyes are full of treacherous, and my fingers are glittering in your part of the stars. A heavenly ordeal. The Great All and the rest.
The ordeal or “judgment of God” was to subject a suspect to a potentially fatal test.
What pure work of fine lightning consumes
Many diamonds of imperceptible foam
And what peace seems to be conceived
When on the abyss a sun rests
Pure works of an eternal cause
Time sparkles and the dream is to know.
~~Paul Valéry, The Marine Cemetery (excerpt)
Aphrodisiac incense is born Our pagan Virgin exists
She Even
Women are the future of men. After being their long and distant past, they have more than enough. They will go beyond themselves. They will go beyond us. And we poor bitches will all be broken. Some will die. Those who amassed the treasures of the past will feel it pass. Will be boned. Shoved. Escagasser.
Contemplating the Goddess, we look at him without seeing him, jerk as we are. The traitor is hiding in the pure gold of Her hair.
A Star Lights Up
I’m flying to a distant galaxy suddenly I am there. I touch a star that has just lit up. I smoke a candle or two. Time is waiting for me, and I’m standing still. Whatever you do, it dies. It becomes space. It becomes tiny, gigantic, infinite. Its place is the opposite. A point is the universe, an eyelash the multiverse. Time is tired. Wherever you go, it dies.
So much space we space so much. Pastimes in the space-time. Let this time goes on free. Break the leash.
Shooting Star
I trust Her. Wherever Her ship passes from space, I follow her on the trail. She kisses me, it embarrasses me. I will go to Alcor and see the six suns rise on the purple horizon of a bowl of rice pudding. I will go into the thickness of an angel’s hair, in the intimate of an atom, in the immensity of a squadron of hadrons. Merry drills in espadrilles, towards the infinite of flying assholes I am squadron leader. My eyes are full of treacherous, and my fingers are glittering in your part of the stars. A heavenly ordeal. The great all and the rest.
The ordeal or “judgment of God” was to subject a suspect to a potentially fatal test.
What pure work of fine lightning consumes
Many diamonds of imperceptible foam
And what peace seems to be conceived
When on the abyss a sun is taking rest
Pure works of art from an eternal cause
Time sparkles and the dream is knowing.
~~Paul Valéry, The Marine Cemetery (excerpt)
Paul Valéry repose sur les hauteurs de Sète. Georges Brassens repose un peu plus loin. Sète admirable !
Chief Archon
They are swimmers from the sky, very old messengers. Many have known them, few have returned. Their used message has moved them. Their leader is an archon, a devil, a rabid. For the sake of payoff he got me out.
Drift. I’m delirious. This dream is becoming more realistic. I fly at a crazy speed in a fast one. That’s what it looks like. A current accelerated by unidentified masses of energy. And it flows through there like a raging torrent running into a canyon.
Keep my calm and my belt to brace. Don’t let me board. I’m too far off. The space brakes are on. All the ballast is dropped. This current is a shit. You have to go fording. All senses are on the lookout. The barge is decanted.
I make it up, but it does. The walls tighten. Thin me as quickly as possible. Fear makes me pale. My big belly hates the vacuum. Fatal handicap. Infernal parade. I get stuck. It pinches. It’s time to play the finer game. Slip nutmeg! Like in cotton candy!
I sink deep below the waterline. And not even a life jacket. My kingdom for a parachute! Come on, an umbrella is enough. A shoulder-strap umbrella. A Band-Aid will do!
Far from me the idea of breaking his blow, a daredevil whose soul roams in shit up to the neck.
Beautiful bitch, ban the idolater!
When, lonely with a shepherd smile,
I have seen grazing those curious sheep,
The white flock of my quiet graves,
Away from them the prudent doves,
The vain dreams, the insidious angels!
~~Paul Valéry, The Marine Cemetery (excerpt)
Minerve’s owl takes its flight at dusk
I make it up, but it works. Hail makeup! The walls tighten. Thin me as quickly as possible. Fear makes me pale. My big belly hates the vacuum. Fatal handicap. Infernal parade. I get stuck. It pinches. It’s time to play the finer game. Slip nutmeg! Like in cotton candy!
I sink deep below the waterline. And not even a life jacket. My kingdom for a parachute! Come on, an umbrella is enough. A shoulder-strap umbrella. A Band-Aid will do!
Far from me the idea of breaking his blow, a daredevil whose soul roams in shit up to the neck.
Stable treasure, simple temple to Minerva,
Mass of calm, and visible reserve,
Punctilious water, eye that keeps in you
So much sleep under a veil of flame,
Oh my silence! Edifice in the soul,
But a thousand-tiled gold, Roof!
~~Paul Valéry, The Marine Cemetery (excerpt)
Finally, Paul Valéry invokes heaven as a privileged witness of his change. The whole poem is a metaphysical meditation on the sublime beauty of nature in the Mediterranean summer. He has meditated, contemplated, evoked learned memories. He feels different, renewed, ready for the more prosaic life that awaits him in the capital. If he was born in Sète and if he rests there, he will die in Paris, victim of an uneasy celebrity.
His two friends Henri Bergson and Marcel Proust form with him the trio of intelligence and insight. Proust the novelist in his Quest for Lost Time, Bergson the philosopher in Matter and Memory or Creative Evolution, Paul Valéry the poet in the The Marine Cemetery, his masterpiece, even if he composed many other immortal poems.
Great sky, true sky, look at me who changes!
After so much pride, after so many strange
Idleness, but full of power,
I surrender myself to this brilliant space,
On the houses of the dead my shadow passes
Taming me to its weak move.
~~Paul Valéry, The Marine Cemetery (excerpt)
