Black Milk of Enlightenment We Drink You at Gotterdammerung
Maggot: “Hey fellers-- you over there-- you guys in the black hoods, come on over here… Loosen my strait jacket, won’t you? I want to lecture these good people who have wandered on in to the Enlightenment Underground…”
Black-hooded Man: “Lecture them about what? You stupid prick!”
Maggot: “Not so harsh, not so harsh!
[Maggot faces away, whimpers-- tears and sweat covers his face and brow… He looks as bravely and as directly into the eyes of the black-hooded man as he is able, but it isn’t very convincing at all, as he’s trembling and his eyelids and lips quiver violently…]
Maggot: “I’m gonna lecture the good people about how by my bravery and hard work I overcame my “self-incurred tutelage.” I can’t do that so well when these laces are cutting into my sides so hard. I can’t breathe, and when I can’t breathe, I can’t enunciate clearly or correctly.”
Black-hooded Man: “Hell you cain’t… We’re always as free as we choose to be… Even Sartre said that. Strait-jacket or no, you can have your say… As long as your mind is free, as long as your soul is free-- YOU ARE FREE…NO MATTER WHAT!”
[Author’s note: “no MATTER what!” Get it?]
Maggot: “Exactly, man! Exactly! We see eye to eye, and I am only supporting you… I am right here next to you and all I want to do is make sure that your ideas are broadcasted far and wide, and have the imprimatur of a certified, a bonified, intellectual smart-guy like me, who speaks sixteen different languages, has a PhD, and who copiously praises the Mr. BigBigBigBlack-hooded-MAN, your boss! I praise him for his ENLIGHTENMENT! That’s all I want to do… I WANT TO PRAISE HIS ENLIGHTENMENT… I want to do it NO MATTER WHAT (except for the small matter of this strait-jacket.) Now let me go! Let me out of here!”
Black-hooded Man: “NO!”
[Maggot can’t disguise the whimpering any longer. He blubbers…]
Black-hooded Man (without remorse or compassion, with a chipper and life-affirming expression, hale and hearty and fellow-well-met): “This is for your freedom that we confine you, my brother, my equal, my co-partner in liberty. ( Moments ago he'd called Maggot a prick... That's forgotten now.) Do you ever think you’d have become so elevated above the rabble, above women, above Jews, above stinking nature and the stinking anus of your own body, if we had not strapped you in so that you could not, as you say, ‘ breathe, or enunciate clearly or correctly?’ Oh my brother, my equal, my co-partner in liberty, what you call breathing and enunciating clearly and correctly… is only the blathering of the woman, the Jew, of the weak in nature, of the anus farting…”
Maggot: “ Oh I know, I know, my brother…. Don’t you understand? I am only saying this, ‘ Think and argue as much as you like, but obey!(1)’” ( Maggot has forgotten the 'prick' epithet... indeed, Maggot has now forgotten the strait-jacket.)
Black-Hooded Man: “Oh I know, I know, my brother… But don’t you understand? You can think and argue as much as you like while wearing this tightened strait-jacket! For you, to obey is to wear this tightened strait-jacket! The strait-jacket is your obedience...”
Maggot: “I can’t describe this to you, but I don’t feel so good… I hurt… I feel as if I am decaying…”
Black-Hooded Man: “That’s merely your body, my brother, my equal, my co-partner in liberty. It cries! Let it! Affirm that cry! When you know that your body is sick and in pain and that you are yet free, my brother, you will have known God! God is the bodies cry of pain! Of remorseless remorse! Know that! And then you will have REASON to thank me!
Maggot: “ If I do not, oh black-hooded man, and praise be to you for the sharpness of your reminder and of your wit – I know you have a ‘numerous and well-disciplined army to assure public peace’(2) that will remind me yet again, and will with sharpness yet again get me so that I can say ( and here with worthy praise I repeat your main point to me, oh black-hooded and enlightened man --) ‘ Argue as much as you will, and about what you will, only obey!’(3)”
(1),(2),(3) – Immanuel Kant, “ Was Ist Aufklarung.”
(A),(B),(C)- Paul Celan, “ Death Fugue.”
Black-hooded Man: “Lecture them about what? You stupid prick!”
Maggot: “Not so harsh, not so harsh!
[Maggot faces away, whimpers-- tears and sweat covers his face and brow… He looks as bravely and as directly into the eyes of the black-hooded man as he is able, but it isn’t very convincing at all, as he’s trembling and his eyelids and lips quiver violently…]
Maggot: “I’m gonna lecture the good people about how by my bravery and hard work I overcame my “self-incurred tutelage.” I can’t do that so well when these laces are cutting into my sides so hard. I can’t breathe, and when I can’t breathe, I can’t enunciate clearly or correctly.”
Black milk of daybreak we drink it at evening we drink it at midday and morning we drink it at night
we drink and we drink
we shovel a grave in the air there you won't lie too cramped
A man lives in the house he plays with his vipers he writes
he writes when it grows dark to Deutschland your golden hair Marguerite
he writes it and steps out of doors and the stars are all sparkling
he whistles his hounds to come closehe whistles his Jews
into rows has them shovel a grave in the ground he orders us strike up and
play for the dance (A)
Black-hooded Man: “Hell you cain’t… We’re always as free as we choose to be… Even Sartre said that. Strait-jacket or no, you can have your say… As long as your mind is free, as long as your soul is free-- YOU ARE FREE…NO MATTER WHAT!”
[Author’s note: “no MATTER what!” Get it?]
Maggot: “Exactly, man! Exactly! We see eye to eye, and I am only supporting you… I am right here next to you and all I want to do is make sure that your ideas are broadcasted far and wide, and have the imprimatur of a certified, a bonified, intellectual smart-guy like me, who speaks sixteen different languages, has a PhD, and who copiously praises the Mr. BigBigBigBlack-hooded-MAN, your boss! I praise him for his ENLIGHTENMENT! That’s all I want to do… I WANT TO PRAISE HIS ENLIGHTENMENT… I want to do it NO MATTER WHAT (except for the small matter of this strait-jacket.) Now let me go! Let me out of here!”
Black-hooded Man: “NO!”
Black milk of daybreak we drink you at nightwe drink you at morning and
midday we drink you at evening
we drink and we drink
A man lives in the house he plays with his vipers he writes
he writes when it grows dark to Deutschland your golden hair Margeurite
your ashen hair Shulamith we shovel a grave in the air there you won't lie too crampedHe shouts jab this earth
deeper you lot there you others sing up and play
he grabs for the rod in his belt he swings it his eyes are blue
jab your spades deeper you lot there you others play on for the dancing
Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night
we drink you at midday and morning we drink you at evening
we drink and we drink
a man lives in the house your goldenes Haar Margeurite
your aschenes Haar Shulamith he plays with his vipers
He shouts play death more sweetly Death is a master from Deutschland
he shouts scrape your strings darker you'll rise then in smoke to the sky
you'll have a grave then in the clouds there you won't lie too cramped (B)
[Maggot can’t disguise the whimpering any longer. He blubbers…]
Black-hooded Man (without remorse or compassion, with a chipper and life-affirming expression, hale and hearty and fellow-well-met): “This is for your freedom that we confine you, my brother, my equal, my co-partner in liberty. ( Moments ago he'd called Maggot a prick... That's forgotten now.) Do you ever think you’d have become so elevated above the rabble, above women, above Jews, above stinking nature and the stinking anus of your own body, if we had not strapped you in so that you could not, as you say, ‘ breathe, or enunciate clearly or correctly?’ Oh my brother, my equal, my co-partner in liberty, what you call breathing and enunciating clearly and correctly… is only the blathering of the woman, the Jew, of the weak in nature, of the anus farting…”
Maggot: “ Oh I know, I know, my brother…. Don’t you understand? I am only saying this, ‘ Think and argue as much as you like, but obey!(1)’” ( Maggot has forgotten the 'prick' epithet... indeed, Maggot has now forgotten the strait-jacket.)
Black-Hooded Man: “Oh I know, I know, my brother… But don’t you understand? You can think and argue as much as you like while wearing this tightened strait-jacket! For you, to obey is to wear this tightened strait-jacket! The strait-jacket is your obedience...”
Black milk of daybreak we drink you at nightwe drink you at midday Death is
a master aus Deutschland we drink you at evening and morning we drink and we
drink this Death is ein Meister aus Deutschland his eye it is blue
he shoots you with shot made of lead shoots you level and true
a man lives in the house your goldenes Haar Margarete
he looses his hounds on us grants us a grave in the air
he plays with his vipers and daydreams der Tod is ein
Meister aus Deutschland dein goldenes Haar Margarete
dein aschenes Haar Shulamith (C)
Maggot: “I can’t describe this to you, but I don’t feel so good… I hurt… I feel as if I am decaying…”
Black-Hooded Man: “That’s merely your body, my brother, my equal, my co-partner in liberty. It cries! Let it! Affirm that cry! When you know that your body is sick and in pain and that you are yet free, my brother, you will have known God! God is the bodies cry of pain! Of remorseless remorse! Know that! And then you will have REASON to thank me!
Maggot: “ If I do not, oh black-hooded man, and praise be to you for the sharpness of your reminder and of your wit – I know you have a ‘numerous and well-disciplined army to assure public peace’(2) that will remind me yet again, and will with sharpness yet again get me so that I can say ( and here with worthy praise I repeat your main point to me, oh black-hooded and enlightened man --) ‘ Argue as much as you will, and about what you will, only obey!’(3)”
(1),(2),(3) – Immanuel Kant, “ Was Ist Aufklarung.”
(A),(B),(C)- Paul Celan, “ Death Fugue.”
posted by Yusef Asabiyah at 5:07 PM
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