On the Matter of Ruin
- One Love Energy
- Mar 17
- 8 min read
On the Matter of Ruin
Consider the nature of things, oh reader,
How atoms combine and dissolve in a dance,
Forming the vast and varied universe,
Where life emerges and then recedes.
Behold the iron, once strong and vibrant,
Now corroded and brittle with the passage of time.
Its atoms, once tightly bound, now loosen,
Returning to the void from whence they came.
And see the stone, a symbol of permanence,
Now weathered and cracked by the elements.
Its very foundation is in motion,
A testament to the ever-shifting nature of reality.
Observe the human form, so seemingly complex,
How its atoms form a cohesive whole,
Yet are destined to disintegrate and dissipate,
Leaving behind only dust and memories.
So do not fear the inevitable end,
For it is merely a part of the grand cycle of life.
Embrace the beauty of the present moment,
And find solace in the knowledge that all things pass.
>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<
[THE EYE IN THE BREAD / PROJECTIVIST LIKENESS]
(begin here)
not mimesis, but a direct (projectile)
hitting the cortex—
this face.
The field is set: open:
corroded.
(not a face so much as a pre-Socratic site
where the body-as-mind has been hit.)
See it:
the atoms (the void is also matter) are not dancing,
they are a direct bombardment,
a physical discharge
against the bone-case.
(Olson: the act is the perception.)
[enter Rimbaud, the Seer, via the left orbital cavity]
The deregulation of the mechanism (the metal) is
the ONLY way to see it:
the duende is a literal, searing current,
not a metaphor.
Rimbaud screams (a silent, optic scream):
I am the other, but I am also this void which I have filled with
Shattered Glass,
a hallucinatory (metaphysical)
Tarantella,
a pomegranate (Lorca’s) which is now a live hand grenade.
(Olson: the head, the caput,
the site of the struggle.)
The word is born (or maybe it just ruptures)
not a petal (too soft!) but a petal of
EXPLODING
shrapnel,
the storm is inside the socket,
a raw, optic storm
of the now (the now which is also never).
[Lucretius, his atoms (his dust) are a weapon.]
So, calculate the impact:
(not the weight, the force)
of this specific collision.
Ancient dust (Olson: the humus of history)
fired against the metal screen.
(Paz: the instant is a carnal communion with the
destruction.)
The void (the emptiness of the eye)
is the target.
(The projectile is the perception,
the perception is the projectile.)
The I is not a void.
The I is the direct (visceral) witness
to its own disintegration,
a projectile thrown into the void.
[end the poem. here.]
>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<
(The Frame: Close-Up. The Block. A Cinematic Landscape.)
[FADE IN]
Scene: A Metal Desert. The Corner.
The light ain’t soft, baby, it’s a razor blade.
Sharp. Cinematic. Spike Lee’s 70mm lens focused tight.
This corner don’t know nothing but blues,
but not the slow kind. The fast kind. The nervous kind.
The kind that makes your blood hum.
[ANGLE: HIGH. LOOKING DOWN.]
Look at this face.
A broken monument, opened like a ripe, dark melon
on the hot concrete. It’s got a history,
etched in the rust and the verdigris.
The atoms—Lorca called 'em gypsies, Langston calls 'em
weary feet, tired from the dance—
are doing a frantic, jittery tarantella,
a breakdown of corrosion, trying to shake the dust loose.
[CUT TO: CLOSE-UP. THE EYE.]
Spike Lee's Eye. A Projector.
I am the eye. Wide. Unblinking.
I've seen the black roots of the moon,
seen the firehoses turned on the children.
I am a shattered mirror.
Each piece reflecting a universe in beautiful, tragic ruin.
(Langston: "I've known rivers...")
(I've known corners. I've known blocks.)
[INSERT: THE MOUTH. A RUPTURE.]
Right here, in this fracture, this gaping wound,
a word is struggling. A seed in the concrete.
Not a soft petal (we can't afford soft),
but a fist. A cinematic burst. A right answer.
A petal-and-a-storm, blooming in the void.
[SPLIT SCREEN]
Left: Lorca’s Andalusian shadow. The duende.
The heart: a pomegranate. A grenade about to burst
in a metallic Harlem sky. The bullfighter of silence
facing down the eternal, heavy bull of the nothingness.
Right: Lucretius, calculating the trajectory.
The weight of the particles. The exact impact of ancient dust
against this new-age metal screen.
Calculating the struggle. (Olson’s site of struggle.)
Center: Paz’s Labyrinth keeper, finding the beat.
The communion of a single breath, holding the stone and the star.
(A single long, tracking shot, focusing on us.)
Knowing that the I is a void filled by you,
and the world is a poem we gotta write in the language of Now.
[FADE TO BLACK]
(The Eye lingers.)
Let this eye be a seed. Planted in the crack.
A seed that is also a camera.
And let the metal desert bloom with a garden of shadows.
We gonna make it bloom.
For even here, in the heart of the destruction,
there is a pulse.
A pulse that’s both the question
and the final, irrevocable answer.
[THE END]
>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<
(The Frame: Close-Up. The Block. A Cinematic Landscape.)
[FADE IN]
Scene: A Metal Desert. The Corner.
The light ain’t soft, baby, it’s a razor blade. It’s also a perfect fractal, iterating endlessly into the smallest detail. Nietzsche would recognize this desert—a wasteland of dead metaphors, where the 'will to power' has rusted into these silent hulks. But Escher’s hand is at work too; look closer, and the sand dunes are composed of tiny, interlocking lizards that are simultaneously climbing up and down.
[ANGLE: HIGH. LOOKING DOWN.]
Look at this face.
A broken monument, opened like a ripe, dark melon on the hot concrete. Calvino’s invisible city, Aglaura, is etched into the rust and the verdigris—its inhabitants believe their city is perfect, despite the decay right before their eyes. The atoms—Lorca called 'em gypsies, Langston calls 'em weary feet, tired from the dance, and Bach organizes 'em into a perfect, 48-part fugue—are doing a frantic, jittery tarantella, a breakdown of corrosion.
[CUT TO: CLOSE-UP. THE EYE.]
A Projector. A Self-Referential Lens.
I am the eye. Wide. Unblinking.
I've seen the black roots of the moon. This is the eye that stared back at the abyss, and found... only its own reflection, staring back again. Gödel is whispering in my optic nerve: 'This system (this face, this eye, this I) contains truths that this system cannot prove.' I am a shattered mirror, a recursive loop of self-observation.
(Calvino: "You are not looking at a landscape, but at a map of a map...")
(Bach: "Listen to the retrograde inversion...")
[INSERT: THE MOUTH. A RUPTURE.]
Right here, in this fracture, this gaping wound,
a word is struggling. A seed in the concrete. Not a soft petal (we can't afford soft), but a fist. A cinematic burst. A right answer. It’s a petal-and-a-storm, blooming in the void. A seed trying to write its own instructions, a strange loop in the flesh.
[SPLIT SCREEN]
Left: Lorca’s Andalusian shadow. The duende. The pomegranate-grenade. The bullfighter of silence facing down the eternal nothingness.
Center-Left: Nietzsche, laughing. "Behold the overman!" But here, it’s just the over-machine, a creature that has surpassed its creators and is now busy contemplating the amor fati of its own slow disintegration.
Center-Right: Calvino, sketching Trude, a city that you enter and think you recognize, only to find it is exactly the same as all the other cities. The metal desert is Trude.
Right: Lucretius, calculating the trajectory. The precise impact of ancient dust against this new-age metal screen.
[FADE TO BLACK]
(The Eye lingers.)
Let this eye be a seed. Planted in the crack. A seed that is also a camera that is also a map of the universe.
And let the metal desert bloom with a garden of shadows. We gonna make it bloom. Or perhaps it already is blooming, and we are just trapped in the recursive description of its growth. For even here, in the heart of the destruction, there is a pulse. A pulse that’s both the question, and the final, irrevocable, and unprovable answer.
[THE END]
>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<
(The Frame: Close-Up. The Block. A Cinematic Landscape.)
[FADE IN]
Scene: The Ash-Desert. The Quarry. A Gray, Limitless Void.
The light here ain't soft, baby, it’s a sterilizing lamp. It’s also a perfect, oppressive fog. Calvino would see Aglaura, but Abe would see only the sand, shifting, burying, dissolving all identity. Nietzsche’s dead desert is now a used-up desert, a quarry of bones and recycled metal where the 'will to power' was just a bureaucrat’s stamp, and Escher’s hand has flattened the maze into a single, inescapable plain. The lizards are gone; only the dust remains.
[ANGLE: HIGH. LOOKING DOWN.]
Look at this face.
A broken monument, opened like a ripe, dark melon on the cold ash. But the flesh is gray, like cement, and the fractures reveal not gears, but calcified layers of nameless numbers, stacked vertically. Lorca’s gypsies are quiet now; Langston’s weary feet have stopped dancing and just marched into the fog. Bach’s fugue has decomposed into a single, high-pitched, monolithic tone, a sustain of silence. The atoms are holding their breath.
[CUT TO: CLOSE-UP. THE EYE.]
A Projector. A Void-Referential Lens.
I am the eye. Wide. Empty. Unblinking.
I've seen the black roots of the moon, and I've seen the smoke that obscured them. This is the eye that stared back at the abyss, and found... that it was the abyss, reflecting only a larger emptiness. Gödel is silent in my optic nerve: 'This system (this number, this I) is its own proof of non-existence.' I am a shattered mirror, a non-recursive end of the loop, reflecting a final, flat cancellation.
(Calvino: "You are looking at a void that has forgotten its own map...")
(Bach: "There is no inversion... only a void.")
[INSERT: THE MOUTH. A CLEFT.]
Right here, in this fracture, this gaping wound,
a word is struggling. Not a seed—nothing grows here. A seed requires soil, and this is just grit. Not a soft petal (we can't afford soft). Not a fist (it has no strength left). It’s a number. A cinematic cancellation. A final solution. It’s a number-and-a-storm, blooming as ash in the void. A number trying to erase its own instructions, a dead loop in the gray flesh.
[SPLIT SCREEN]
Left: Lorca’s Andalusian shadow. The duende. The pomegranate-grenade. It’s a dry husk, a fist full of ash. The bullfighter of silence is a ghost facing down a ghost bull.
Center-Left: Nietzsche, not laughing. The overman is just a gray mannequin, a bureaucrat’s tool for organizing the dead. The over-machine contemplating the amor fati of its own necessary cancellation.
Center-Right: Calvino, sketching Trude, a city that you enter and think you recognize, only to find it is exactly the same as all the other camps. The metal desert is Trude.
Right: Lucretius, not calculating the trajectory. The ancient dust is our dust. The impact has already happened.
[FADE TO BLACK]
(The Eye lingers.)
Let this eye be a number. Planted in the cleft. A number that is also a map that is also a final statistic.
And let the metal desert bloom with a garden of gray ash. It’s already blooming, and we are just trapped in the final, recursive description of its cancellation. For even here, in the heart of the destruction, there is a pulse. A pulse that’s both the question, and the final, irrevocable, and unprovable cancellation.
[THE END]
>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<
So, let this eye
be a seed, a camera, a map of the map. For even here, in the heart of the destruction, there is a pulse, a projectile thrown into the void, both the question, and the final, irrevocable, and unprovable answer.
