the Arachnoid is driving through the dead hours past high walls of yellowflowered prickly pear — through the shadeless Ramadan of the mind — landscapes of no description — goats’ heads garlanded in saffron — stenographies of the eye’s obsolescence — a hot wind carries Dido’s lament far over the desert from Magon La Goulette — on a raison de détester — the dagger through the heart is a compass needle — an idée fixe pointing north — latitudes cool as the blood cools & the roots recoil — now we must summon witnesses call up the dead — like eunuchs at a public flogging employed to rub ashes into the wounds — every stroke of the lash is a desire to see the universe structured like a web — in prayer to the attenuating powers — a tight closeup on a mist of flies hovering over a bowl of blood — the flayed goat hangs on the lintel & whoever passes beneath is absolved of their crimes — as a child the Arachnoid strangled little birds & cats in preparation for the coming “real world” augmentation — language too must experience the horror of its other side — maybe jumping off a tall building had a beginning middle & end but the outcome was still a fiasco — in other words an aesthetic not of completion but of atavistic replay — no gravitas but terminal velocity — on such days as these when bodies rain from the sky — as from Babel’s towering stacks of feedback — & who takes no secret pleasure in the relish of destruction? — you find Meaning by letting it off on a leash — old broken arrow staring from the bull’s eye — they were as much Pasiphäe as her revenge — the raped geist in the Minotaurmachine — symphonies of cauterised jouissance as ambivalent as a quantum superposition — sensed=out from genital twilight zones — puncturewounds — scar tissue — pinched=in around a collapsed centre — that ain’t no femmefatale — nebulous as a catastrophe in freezeframe — the way humxnity might appear if the Minotaur had a name for it — pushing open the temple door as if it were sleep — something monstrous walks over yr grave [it’s you!] — & what is inscribed there — services no longer required — well gratitude never was G.O.D.’s strong point — refusing to shake the hand that freed them they set upon a firm career path — always & in everything let there be irreverence so that creation may not remain tranquil — thesis & antithesis — these sepulchral orchestrations of the greater & lesser Arcana — to surpass the limits [e.g. of “understanding”] — or what it wld mean to act infinitively — the camera smiles at you & you smile idiotically back — the only good image is a dead image hahaha — they collected scalps to wear over their loins as a sign of potency — THE REAL PROBLEM W/ THE WORLD IT ISN’T SAVAGE ENOUGH — here the message is reworked simply because the alienhead finds different raw materials or instruments within its grasp — [another idiot who thinks they know you] — perhaps they misheard & thought aleankabut as in عَنْكَبُوت — to those who cannot write language is nothing but a shimmer in a mirage a noise among noises — this is its beauty — sifting amniotic murmurings through unhinged dreamcatcher bird=skeletons & twigs — threadbare as an arachnophobe’s weapons plucked from the very air — like molecules of resonated fear — pia mater of great unmeaning inshallah — spreading from ear to ear the way a genital rash spreads through any congregation of the elect — [alles kaputt! hahaha] — it seems not only an autist creates its own species — the question is in whose image? — wanting by itself isn’t enough first you must kill eat excrete whole masses — [no life not divided from dross?] — unfortunately for you not a biological anomaly that the proletariat speak — all hail the Christ bearing a sword! — to perform a “bisection” of power only where words also wield a knife — whose augury in dreams the mouth bound shut mollusc=tongued? — chère maman — there were giant spiderwebs in the outhouse a glowing red orb — for years pissing the bed was a matter of life & death — a secret primordial struggle — hiding under tattered sheets & ball of twine to reel=in dark labyrinths of erotic disturbance — fear doesn’t take just any form — something insensate as stone threatening to come to life the moment you lay hands upon it — always remain downwind of the prey — like an arrhythmia — hearing its molecules breathe — & in the faint paraselene something always adhering to the surface of appearances like a fly’s foot knowing I am the fly — the question isn’t whether or not it’s real & justified but wld enough people believe it? — [i.e. be sympathetic to its cause?] — light curving ever=upward along a silk thread the shape of desire — but no exponential lasts forever — eventually even Everest opens upon a salt lake w/ sculpted pillars of salt — bits of UFO wreckage strewn about — fissures spidering over the claypan to the four corners of the visible universe — thus is it written — a lone survivor staggering at the sun one day to arrive at salvation — the red witch of Chenini beckons into her cave w/ weak messianic force — stabat mater — gusts of myrrh frankincense thyme — the Arachnoid lies naked supine upon a Berber rug — wolves come from the mountains to feast — breasts rise & fall in lamentation — as G.O.D. dies so are the dead reborn — a scalpel probing in the guts for hidden artefacts — a living tumour ripped from the womb — burn it! burn it! — every night thereafter crucified by the hundredthousand incestfathers riding from the desert into the proffered vagina — to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s [a pimp’s tithe] — every one of them the face of Peter O’Toole w/ that colonizer stare — like poison=blue cenotes in the Yucatan — hands & wrists — drowned under jade skulls — Tlāloc giver of life & sustenance raises the sacrifice from the bloody goatskin — washes the sins of the sinners in a red petroleum tide — they are drilling & drilling into the Arachnoid’s brain as the red witch scatters bones feathers crows’ feet & eyes blue as peyote flowers — it is dawn it is dusk — three doves sleep on a branch in the sole Arabian tree — the white mosque of Chenini calls down the sky — see the shadows dancing across the hot sands like a spider on a stove — tea pours from a tall ornamental pot — long arcing streams — forming in the glass a resinous syrup to trap the words already falling from their mouths — flies in amber — they’ve translated the signs of extinction thus — the void repeats in the absent pronoun as zero repeats in the infinity symbol — a labyrinth begins in the prison of what’s known — close yr eyes —the totem isn’t a thing but a constellation spun from the emptiness behind the image — like a million Eichmanns falling from the sky — in conspiring cunning of prayers worst answered — Death’s many faces to love’s strangulated song — listen to the breathing Earth exhale — nothing lost! — all matter bride to contingency! — the self=annihilating vessels rise from gelid waves — felicitously doomsday comes again — pinched in the gut by yellow hellfingers — they’ve plaited chillies into their hair & mint in their ears — indigo rains from their cocks — for I am Ocean returned to stone — fossil Argyroneta aquatica high in the cliffs — ghost nets drifting like Saharan rain upon the humxn exodus — 40,000 years of refugee status [why neanderthalensis didn’t exterminate them on sight?] — the ye olde gods as from Olympos upon that barbaric horde gazing stupefied so long alone in sepulchral whiteness — a glacier flows through these veins — to bleed or breed — written on the stalagmites of Ardales of Maltravieso of La Pasiega — as w/ their genome they gird their loins against obsolescence — red ochre on limestone — hieroglyphs of Babel — herd — pulk sled — bison — iceboat hunter — driving before these glacial winds — mitochondrial tribes of the antediluvian haploûs — as when the great thaw did lap at Sinai as drowning Arabonubians raised plaint to their apefaced Himmelfather — Eloi! Eloi! Blahblahblah etc. — we must admit in any case to a certain autobiographical anxiety — the infant plucked from the forehead by one foot & plunged in a bucket of communal dreck by the other — the baptismal font from which all subsequent délire de grandeur — these & other disorders of foresight to be overcome for any hope of salvation to arise — languaged in pure advertising copy of the species — an idiot among idiomorphs w/ a hyoid bone lodged in its throat — look mamapapa no hands! — & so long as there’s something that sees the images never cease — eye of countless facets the size & shape of Atlantis — [every taleteller brought something big to the situation] — there have been other humxn extinction events before this one — I do I undo I redo — sucked down the gravity=well — dimensional voodoo — like a spider filling an infinite room — bronze by stone — silver nitrate patina — chère Maman — hung in a meshed sac w/ 8 white&grey eggs — a blue liquid glass jar — the ribbed spiral upper body turns in a vortex — glass suffocated in nylon — antique tapestries — hollowed bones & perfume bottles — bits of pendulous rubber stuck w/ pins — brooches — WWI medals — all because deliberate — clever — patient — fastidious — defensive — reasonable — subtle — indispensable — “refusing to answer stupid inquisitive questions” e.g. — the treatment of fear begins by erecting monsters — webfooted gulag archipelagos — a large X inserts an unknown — a misted room=amalgam at the humxn limit of intent — escape routes veer off dense w/ unexplored blue — arriving a hundred pages later trapped inside a revenge=avatar — another punishment routine ocular transmission — each tick of the clock casts a thread — its hands’ mobile compasspoints in a spiralling loom — direction slips its cage — from now on the repetitions are mutual — born in lockstep — Chernobyl in the blood twinned in narcotised embryo — where’s the mirror to remind these entities of their terminal state? — all the little Heideggers struggling up the mountain — roads of the grey sign etc. — [what is an inverted image?] — now that they’ve reached the crux of domination — the antidote touches upon the myth of a personal G.O.D. returning to foetus its horrors [the faulted constant] — in the spider’s lair nothing is as it seems — is the Arachnoid a fraud? [the Arachnoid is a fraud] — forged of the proverbial uncreated conscience sub specie aeternitatis — malice in underland through a broken mirror — concentric fracture & fissure lines sprawl thus as upon an unformed dial — attempting at every point to resemble nothing — a crucified void [isn’t nothing] — grid=centre on the radiation map [trinity by atomic transubstantiation] — Spiderman was that kid — duck&cover under snotstained schooldesk — peace ever after — before LSD & swinging from lightfixtures — beluga sunshine on the champagne trail — BIGGEST=EARNING FREAKSHOW IN TOWN — Arachnoid hits the bigtime like a sledgehammer through a slotmachine — an intense exploration of mood according to the programme notes — the in=house orchestra shooting at their captives’ feet so they’ll tarantella till they’re raw — this was back in the time of Amerika & other catastrophes beyond rational explanation — they’d mortgaged the dividing lines — neutrino music from an abandoned polar salvage operation [soundtrack for a film later destroyed or never in fact recorded in the first place] — what is sometimes referred to as its mythic dimension — & what if writing too were pure interaction rather than statements? — speaking of imaginary paradise birds [karyōbin] or elements once controlled in space or time now erupting in conflagration — the sound of butterflies at night or an ear pressed to a tearduct — LISTEN! they cried [suspiciously in unison] — wiping the paraffin from their occulars so as to be tuned to common accord — i.e. industrialised braindamage siphoned from subarachnoid cisterns for centuries undisturbed beneath the perineurium — as soothing to lumpenprecariat as chthonic eyeball whisperings — dank terrainian melodic lines that produce only echoes [not “communication”] — see how the Freimarkt’s deadhand wafts lovingly over them — RESURRECT! — ARISE! — in this game you only score by playing dead — helloooo! — anyone in there? — they’re switching the mindbox on again — jabbertubularjabberbellsjabber — TIME TO SHAKE A LEG BOZOS! — running the gauntlet from showerblock to gynaecological exam — rubber indexfinger truth in pointing — art means invaginated through square hole in venous round peg — beaten in back of head by psychic hologram — they ain’t in the business of asking kid they already know what you want — sucking on a pair of meaty medjouls like it’s the Last Supper already — the weightless & heavy particles — the Aleph & Omphalos — see how these test subjects exhibit all the traits of a sublimated pleasure principle come home to roost — well what good’s a truth kid if it’s universally acknowledged? — [someone inside yr head again pissing on the geraniums?] — strapped into the fire chair to examine just how weak the mind just how willing the caramelised flesh — bushmeat — consent being what’s left after they’ve taken everything else away — a piece of singed offal — scoria of destiny — humxnity’s one goal being to find a way of NOT ENDING — [by any possible means=ends opportunism needless to say] — like shameless Zalmoxis babblers praying for monsoon shooting blanks at the sky — see the millennial vapours gird the Earth in dizzying ricorsos of flood famine fire & fleas — a plague upon posterity — every future memory that never occurred flashing past in Cinescope — LIFE RIGHT IN FRONT OF YR EYES! — is the Arachnoid prepared to sacrifice all of this [just to make the obvious visible]?

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Louis Armand is the author of THE COMBINATIONS (2016), THE GARDEN (2020) & VAMPYR (2021). He lives in Prague & Beja. www.louis-armand.com