The Latitudes of Homosocial Motility Within Heterosexual Desire in Matthew Lewis’s The Monk (Prose Version)*

i was reading the monk when i realised i was in paris with my mum. it was early morning, still dark, and she had already gone for her morning walk. she had been taking pictures of unemptied rubbish bins around champs-élysées and abandoned rent-a-bikes everywhere that she said look like dead bodies.

“they used to push a lot of maghrebiens into the seine you know.”

i don’t remember what i said in return. but i was reading the monk and had gotten to the bit when rosario/matilda was sent to the dungeon with the baby still in her belly, and i found it hard to think about death in such a beautiful city. though i saw the bullet holes on the walls of buildings near where the paris commune was. i stuck my index finger in one of them and the sandstone felt cold.

“they used to drink their blood.”

my mum makes things up all the time, she lies like ambrosio, but sometimes it’s hard to read her expression, if she’s seriously joking or has gone totally bonkers. she hates black men too. she once refused to watch hotel rwanda because she didn’t feel like watching a bunch of negroes shooting at each other. i was up to page 434 as i thought of these things.

“why don’t you go with us to nice it’s nicer there.”

nice one, mum. i hate finishing off a good book. i wish it would go on forever. that’s why i sometimes read a book back to front so it ends where it begins and thus never ends. how’s that for a bushism. trés zen, non !? i don’t have an exit strategy for this poem but that’s alright coz i do not accept responsibility for it or for any other thing in my life. i think i should never have started it in the first place.

 

*pilfered from here

The Latitudes of Heterosocial Motility within Homosexual Desire in Matthew Lewis’s The Monk*

textual authority, propelled, in part, by capitulation to sexual desires,

governed by nefarious intervention, the manner by which egregious schemes transpire,

a patriarchal authority relegated by requisite friendship:

 

“Let us forget the distinctions of sex, despise the world’s prejudices, and only consider each other as Brother and Friend. Live then! Oh! Live for me!”

 

homosocial sentimentality, but also the protean and indistinct characterization of the relationship in which they thrive!

sexualized command and feminine influences enfeeble power,

privilege the woman within the male/female binary. in turn.

the seeming intermediary between semiotic motilities pervades the confines of

homosocial sphere via the confluence of feminine and occult autonomy—Lucifer himself.

 

to this end, the Devil’s synchronous “maleness” and “femaleness,”

in conjunction with his supernatural predominance, ultimately establishes his victory:

 

“I had already triumphed: My plots had already succeeded. Scarcely could I propose crimes so quick as you performed them. You are mine, and Heaven itself cannot rescue you from my power.”

Satan deftly maneuvers within the homosocial and heterosexual bonds,

forging mastery through the conflation of his own desires with God’s profligate sexuality.

what would Man do?

 

“Endanger his own position as a subject in the relationship of exchange: to be permanently feminized or objectified in relation to other men? Temporarily compromising his masculinity in order to gradually vanquish his ecclesiastical, yet pretentious, proclivities?”

 


‘Thine, ever thine!’ murmured the Friar, and sank upon her bosom.’

 

Satan’s masculine existence as a woman “penetrated” by the other man’s emancipated sexuality, hid masculine force. Though at first prostrate within a female body, Satan perspicaciously transposes the idealization of masculinity into the egregiousness of his female counterpart, thus demonstrating His artful role as an object of both homosocial and heterosexual desire.

“Those afflicted or affected by psychosis have put up in its place the image of the Mother: for women, a paradise lost but seemingly close at hand, for men, a hidden god but constantly present through occult fantasy.” (emphasis thine!).

*cobbled from here

pengumuman kematian dan tata cara penguburan / dánarfregnir og jarðarfarir

kita bermain sampai mati
lebah mendengung dalam telinga
terperosok dalam genangan
hilang di tengah lautan
hening

awal yang baik
kegelapan
harapan
kabut
terbang

terjemahan hopelandic:

við spilum endalaust
með suð í eyrum
hoppípolla
sæglópur
svo hljótt

ágætis byrjun
myrkur
von
mistur
fljúgðu

I’m kinda sweaty

And I said, “What about breakfast at Tiffany’s?”
I will surprise you sometime I’ll come ‘round
I’m not gonna give you a break
How does it feel
The book of love is long and boring no one can lift the damn thing
Cinta ‘kan membawamu kembali di sini
It hasn’t been so bad, yeah, I’d do it again
Inní mér syngur vitleysingur
Hey!
The night you can’t remember the night I can’t forget
I got soul but I’m not a soldier
Keepin’ down the underground
I’m sorry that I love you
Invitation to the last dance then it’s time to leave
The dirt in your fries

Solo Valensi

Solo Hammond, Jr.

Every single one of us is getting massacred on a frozen path
The Great Big No
Bye bye Badman
Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die?
All the clouds have silver linings
Gonna track this shit around
Úr stað – sjálfur
Some voice is asking how my weekend’s been
Tonight I’m gonna rest my chemistry
Flashback, wrong nights
C’mon let me hold you, touch you, feel you, always
Safe sex doesn’t mean no sex use your imagination
They just wanna, they just wanna
I feel alone and tired
First you look so strong, then you fade away

Solo King

Solo Hannemann

 

*all the lines were lyrics/things I heard on my orange iPod nano (16GB) the ones that stuck in my head in the past two days at work 5/8/09 and 6/8/09.

pondok lestari

gudangan lele tempe sayur bayam
jagung seperti afterthought

rantangan tak tepat selera
maafkan

aku bukan lakilaki yang kuinginkan
aku khawatir tentang kebahagiaan suburbia ini

seperti layanglayang berbenang kenur
no match untuk benang gelasan

seperti kepala marsose yang tibatiba tertimpa kelewang
lupa mengaitkan tali helm di dagu jerawatan

aku ingin tinggal di rumah saja
memasang teralis di depan semua jendela

agar contentment tak bisa terbang lagi keluar
seperti burung dalam sangkar

the c so beautiful

’tis like when achilleus gave away his body armour to patroclus
and he had to make do with odysseus’ ill-fitting
loincloth. i can no longer walk through your garden in my own
shoes. what’s left is a shed full of half-finished canvasses of
happiness with dainty little clouds rolling in. ’tis like when the ironmonger
had to relearn how to blow fire. did you hear the other day how
someone retweeted a google earth twitpic of the loch ness
monster? life could be kind and full of surprises
sometimes. i saw you once pick up your boyfriend’s changes off the
floor of a 7-eleven. ’tis like when helen gave paris a tap on
the shoulder on his way to needle the lion at the door. you might mean something
but no one would notice. i am sorry to have gone off the beaten
track i will try one day to bring you the world in the palm of my hand.
’tis like the time you put a stocking over a mannequin. everyone would
recognise you as the bank robber, he and everyone else said.
perhaps i will hashtag @yourname and @ashbery in one breath
and only you would understand what i mean. we are after all
together in this world, and what god had united let no man put us
under. ’tis like waiting for the river to flow again between the leaves
of the lemon trees. i have never wondered how two slices of lemon that had
lain on a girl’s bottom would taste like. i know. i’ve had them many
times. ’tis what my baby daughter feels towards her mother’s milk. i can never
get enough of it. ’tis like nothing else.