you-will-go-to-the-mall-----------to-the-home------

I wanted to write about the tough, wiry but straight stems of Herb Bennet, aka Wood Avens, aka Geum urbanum, a garden weed that's quite difficult to get rid of unless you're some sort of Bayer-head. Best to appreciate the pale green leaves, pretty yellow flowers and the spiked heads of seeds poking out from among other plants, and to put up with working on them every summer. It's a master of disguise and very good at being lost among other plants, only the hooked seedhead revealing its presence. With the ground being so dry,  it's sometimes possible to twist or rip out the whole root, but that's unusual. In normal conditions the stem just snaps, so we are talking about containment at best. The root is a magenta-flushed knobble, a bit like a miniature Pink Fir Apple potato.  I was thirsty but glad to be out in nature. Feeling below the canopy, my fingers easily distinguished the tough stems of Herb Bennet from e.g. geranium, loosestrife, bedstraw and marjoram.  From other gardens came the sound of shrieks and splashes from paddling pools. I laboured on, at the back of the bed beneath the bullace, getting ripped in my turn by slender bramble stems. Herb Bennet, on the other hand doesn't fight back. I've been immersed in it for hours and never even got a rash.


But and however, this post is about Johan Jönson.




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-------------the-home------------------you-will-go-to-Paris-------










I wake up.  The walls and windows are exposed to background
radiation. From a merciless and self-consuming sun. I know where
I am. in an artaud state. A müller bunker. A fanon field. I have just
woken up. May-




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be with memories from a memory collage of abstract bodies.
Of temporary vectors.  Of movement.  Of rest.  Of duration.
I lie down. I lie on my back. I find myself in a larger movement. It
is an uninterrupted movement








---Paris------you-will-go-to-the-worldfactory----------------------










away.  A pattern on the beach.  I move through colonized
territories. In segmented zones. In naming map-drawings.
It is an immense larger movement. It is a soft metabolic
transformation machine. It is an uninter-










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ruptibility. It is a force that wants to bring friction to an absolute
zero. That wants immobility. That reveals a desire to die. I move
continually in also this form of death. I myself participate in the
annihilation and recon








-worldfactory---you-will-go-to-the-mall------to-the-home------










struction.  Nobody is innocent.  Striated snake-spirals in the
desert are more complex than the mole's underground system.
I have to get away. I have to get away from the immobility of
writing. Away. Away. Constant uninter-














[from Collobert Orbital (2006). Translation by Johannes Göransson, Displaced Press, 2009.]










*


Antonin Artaud, French dramatist.
Heiner Müller, German dramatist.
Frantz Fanon, Martinican philosopher and revolutionary.


The names are not unconnected. For example, Müller's Die Hamletmaschine and Artaud-fragment quotes from Sartre's preface to Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth: "under the sun of torture".




Danielle Collobert, French author, took her own life in 1978. The poem is loosely based on her journals.  "An experimental writer, Collobert wrote prose poems in a haunting, pessimistic, tense and stark style. Her work showed an obsession with death as the destination of humankind, the ambiguity of gender, travel and madness" (Wikipedia). Like Fanon, she was involved with the FLN (Algerian National Liberation Front).




*






March

     Such a strange night -- on the Quai des Fleurs -- I've been living here for a
few days -- very nice apartment -- They're sleeping -- the table faces the
window where I write -- the Seine -- the lights -- water -- calm came back --
like glancing crystal in the water -- rising and falling -- as real as my hand
-- my face in the pane -- the Seine's reflections disrupting the lamplight's
opacity -- like crossing dream with reality -- and then a car passes -- from
light to opacity -- disappearance --
     tranquility -- very rare peacefulness - after days of emptiness -- empty
enough to put off getting up -- because of the emptiness itself -- and after
-- completely futile efforts to fill in --
     why despite appearances I go to such lengths to achieve this feeling
emptiness -- of discomfort -- as though every gesture --every movement were
bringing me nearer to death --
     the sensation of emptiness disappeared in that orgasmic moment --

---

     I have possibly never been so far into that solitude as these last months --
it still might not be enough -- there is a vague form of stability left here
-- of security -- some doubt about what I can stand --
     more wandering -- add leaving the country -- breaking all bonds -- or
whatever -- being broke in a country I don't know -- maybe --
     probably an illusion -- equating being alone in a room for days -- and going
off somewhere --


April

     Departure -- tomorrow -- real escape -- I'm going to Tunisia -- calm --

---

     Tunis 1
     here with no break -- already the same life -- I go to cafés -- I make love
-- I go to films -- I talk to people -- no distance -- I've already been here
since forever --
     but still it's the East -- the light -- the colors -- the beauty -- at least
this: I have new eyes -- senses beginning to function again as though after a
long illness -- this morning very early -- in the village -- scarcely daybreak
-- through the grillwork on the window -- some noises in the covered streets
-- after making love all night -- body heavy and hot -- impression of
tiredness -- of well-being -- H. motionless -- head on my belly -- almost cool
-- a smell I couldn't place -- almonds and oranges -- old food -- and then
suddenly in the silence -- a very long sound -- very low -- the slow
modulation of the muezzin -- extraordinary beauty --
    now here -- in the café -- seated on matting -- they're playing cards --the
patron sitting on a chair by the stove closes his eyes -- head thrown back a
little -- he is tall and lean -- looks high as a kite -- they aren't paying
any attention to me -- I'm fine here -- it's raining out -- sound of rain on
the steps --








[Extracts from Danielle Collobert´s Journal for 1960, trans. Norma Cole, found here: https://www.asu.edu/pipercwcenter/how2journal/archive/online_archive/v1_1_1999/ncdanielle.html]




*


Looking for a link with some good information about Johan Jönson, I came across this excellent post by Johannes Göransson:


http://montevidayo.com/2013/08/swallowed-repulsion-johan-jonsons-soiled-conceptualism/#more-3890


Reading further, I discovered my own name and that I had even asked a question in the comments stream: why might you consider Jönson a conceptualist poet?  I'd completely forgotten about this. So after a five-year gap,  I finally saw Johannes' very informative response.

Dryas octopetala and Geum urbanum from C. A. M. Lindman's Nordens Flora

[From C.A.M. Lindman's Nordens Flora. The Swedish name "Nejlikrot" arises, apparently, from the root having a slight scent of cloves ("Kryddnejlika"). I must try this on the next of my (rare) smelling days. The original meaning of "Nejlika" is the Pinks, i.e. various wild flowers in  the Dianthus family, some of whom (notably the Clove Pink or Carnation, from the Mediterranean) are quite strongly clove-scented. Lindman's fine illustrations, from 1901-1905, are widely available online, e.g. http://caliban.mpiz-koeln.mpg.de/lindman/]