Shades Of Black - essay

  But can you see its opposition
  Comes rising up sometimes?
  That its dreadful and position
  Comes blacking in my mind
   
  Johnny Cash


 1
 Paragraph first. When light is…

At the beginning there is only fluctuation and then the explosion. It means that fluctuation itself before the Committed caused by predestination, prediction of What will happen next. You open your eyes in a dark room trying to reach the nightlight  or lamp, a candle cinder, burning coals or other fuse but before that the Beginning simulates – the oscillation of your eyes, the coding of pupil, the calibration of vision. But let’s say you got up from the bed, looked around and saw – darkness, or rather – hadn’t seen, because the Dark expressed by the missing of seen – You Felt the Darkness Around, made a thought calculation about what is happening around under the guise of awareness yourself-in dark, in blackening, in unknown, in borderline – you are just like between two worlds: conscious and natural, or realistic. Finding the needed by Order switch with touch, you make an attempt, – the blessed "click", – making thorough hesitation, "shift" – in the material world, – and the room illumines with light, twilight, or the other part of it which depends on electrical power that you can afford to yourself. In limits of permitted (Conscience) the Structure manifests, the object environment, the environment itself (the fusion of things in a certain ordinal number of their detection), and therefore your reaction to the visible, which has passed into the category of what is seen, noticed, registered by the retina. This is what you made of, your construction, worldview, perception of world –, that which exists for it exists next to you, in your field of view, your – "gee" if you want. Your true task in this chain is to trample your way, to accurately indicate landmarks, to trace the line between dead and living stars in the sky, to draw the Ends of Perception (!) – to find out the Limits of the Perceived, to implement, let's say, the Duty of the Motherland – all the borders of the Motherland (understood, valid), so as not to touch in any way in the future with that, why, in fact, you have fenced yourself off with a Wall, not daring to disturb the peace of Another, multiplying, Waiting for You – there, beyond the Limits of limits, beyond Every facet, – to shut out the Whispers of Nothingness, perceiving in every possible way only the social and geometric science of assimilation (which, I think, Pink Floyd's album "The Wall" was written about at the time, as the most conceptually transcendent release of the group, hidden behind the mask of the usual escapist commentary on social reality). The Curvature generates an event, a Case when the Curvature itself (or Your Handiwork) comes from Chance, the order of the Case(s) in a single System of Chaos - to build fortifications of safety, to erect barricades of normality, points of preservation, security from the consequences of the tragedy of your own Curvature, your own otherness (as Being Embodied) – that's your main the secret, your little "ministry", the Prefecture of Foreign Languages, the Raj;mon gate, erected "between-between", your Moat at the Break, the Pit at the Bottomless-inside and your credo (actually – "protection" from counteraction, your "pro" ...), – like a light that is lit in a dark room, making this room, in fact, a Room As Such, creating a Room out of Universal Loss, so that you, a monovalent individual, an observer, can track them (Rooms and other things) The phenomenon, to experience the same biblical contemplation described by both King Solomon and David, the plagues of Job! Ecclesiastes used to say the same thing, if you haven't had time to forget it in the depths of household bail, looking after the inactive! Finding a certain Center, reliability, reliance (support over the Abyss), creating Music, your own language (epicureisms), Light in Speech, personal Darkness – and contains the essence of your eternal return, a cycle of oscillations assumed by each other in the turbulent flow of literature or, for example, sound recording, consonances with Another (but, at the same time, and with the Real) – the content of its own cycle, inscribed in the Circle of Being, its Humanity, its Faith -in Existence (as a double preposition, of course), in the natural from nature (in Reality) – as an end in itself, self–determination of one's own Movement, one's own Path (its fences with a "path" from a field, forest or lake are part of a larger one, individuality in a vacuum...). Struggle! This is our human confrontation with the Absurd, with the Great Case, with Ubiquity! Our dissent! Comfort and tradition! This, in fact, is what W.H. Auden tells us in his last book, which means that poetry in general is about the same thing (which is consonant with the phrase "human existence" (its logic), with the spectrum of art (the vector of freedom) and the beginning–the end of a mentally observable Existence!)


 2
 Dark, darkness and blackness

In detention, with the severity of a duplicitous finding, a protracted noose around the neck, it is important, as we know, first of all, to preserve reason for possible subsequent acquisition, the mystery of images, the revolution of reality. The poet Vadim Kozovoy called this sacrament, this "gloomy and natal secret" – a way out of obedience. I think this is exactly what we are looking for and we all need within the framework of prolonged imprisonment in a room, arrest in the dark of night – such as, for example, the structuring of the subjective, anthropological expression about "ours" and "not ours", well, you know...– Distinction. Barriering. Bowl – Counterpoint – Infinity – Counterpoint – Finita...! Getting used to the Darkness, to wrap yourself in its cover, to stand in the visible light – that's what I suggest. Of course, here we are talking about the acceptance of Darkness in general (internal, external, foreign), but first we will have to figure out the ordinal number (or order-In-number, here –as anyone wants), I mean, in its numerator, draw the bisector of the negative, find out where the narrative takes place where the Thought arises, find the Center of the Prerogative, to inspect the objectness, thereby parrying the Magnitude of the Case. Let's consolidate what we learned above, there are three unscripted Borders, three invisible Walls, three secret Doors, a priori Meetings. The first of them is Darkness. It is very visible, manifested (albeit indistinctly), significant. Semi- and micro-light that the Moon gives to the earth, residual celestial eruptions, etc. all this gives your room – Darkness, because dark space is expressed, of course, first of all, by secrecy, latency of existence, i.e., there is something There - definitely and irrevocably, but that's what? We should guess, or, having accepted one's half-light-dark position, get used to It (Darkness), which means to get used to It (mastering the given being, the so–called, its p e r m i s s i o n), begin to follow the given laws of the universe (the new world in which he found himself – by O. Huxley). Then the objects, the very objectness around – the Realm of Dark Things – hidden, lost – will play with you with other colors, not yet otherworldly, but already qualitatively otherworldly, slightly ghostly, like the breath of the future deceased. Also, after all, it is worth paying tribute to this phenomenon, Darkness is expressed (almost in the same qualitative fluctuation) in the boundary between the two types of existence found by the pupil, a certain outline of it, if you want. Electric light already plays a role here, that is, more native, more aggressive (manifested evil, perhaps?), contrasting with Treason, with Defeat, with a Sign. By turning on the lamp, you can immediately distinguish these signs, these omens on your floor, in your room... They are everywhere! These little passages to other dimensions are some kind of field trenches – shadow barricades – constructions! Where there is a Shadow, there is a Difference! The shadow always divides, always dissolves the two-event, object-subject, territory, subatomicity and atomicity in general. Existing between, the shadow puts on its Atlantean shoulders the most important task of being – to divide, takes on the role of the Great Division (Dichotomy), in this particular case expressing exactly that – the difference between Darkness and Light. And this Darkness, which is visible, distinguishable and readable in the light (in the shadow), is Darkness, like the same Darkness in the evening, the Darkness of the background, the Darkness of car headlights, The Darkness When You Close Your Eyes (all highlight in visual italics). But there is another interesting thing. What hides behind the limit (that is, Behind Itself. And where it actually is). What is behind the Darkness? That's right, you guessed it, my little psychonauts, – Mother Night. Oh, her unexplored collection, concealing more than it could be! Unpredictability! Not valence! Redundancy of absence! Perhaps you thought that Darkness is in the field of view (!) inherently metaphysical, rather than real, generally accepted. But no! The darkness is visible! She, there is an Impenetrability! There is an Abyss, looking into which you will stumble upon only Black, antiphysics, just antimatter, a Labyrinth inheriting Emptiness, but also Covering it! That is, Darkness becomes for us, as it were, the last frontier before the last readable mechanism (having its own logic, perhaps even counterlogy), followed by Absence in the highest form – the Absolute, if you will, the Great Emptiness! – this is what sits in the Dark, what we are forced to fear, before which we tremble in Horror, then we are slavishly pressed... – Delight! Oh, that's what I've really been talking about for an hour, sitting at my old desk, which I inherited from school days, although it doesn't take out time edits at all anymore – it's loose, it's bathed, it's out... (like Our Time!) ... I'm sitting right on that very chair of a Chinese firm with shaved armrests, scribbling this rude and useless text, – my stupid confessions, prayers of a madman in a burning Monastery, – oh, Reality! – I understand everything, dear, it's just punctuation marks, – and nothing more, – it's Darkness – what I'm doing now, – Darkness and period. I see Darkness. I know the Darkness. I notice. I give. She takes it. She's on the trail. She's an interrogator. I am the giver. Tsereteli? Maybe. But... what is it there? What is it... The impossible? Never Even The Unthinkable At All? A fossil buried like a passion? Yes, yes, yes! Exactly. This is you, Beyond The Control Of Any Particulars. You, the Infinite-the unreadable-the all-existent. Different! "other" even for the Absolute, especially for matter, FOR ME! Oh, in what words! what kind of speeches, in what language should I... I can at least guess! just introduce you? where are you? What are you wearing? how are you? Under-The-Last-Step? Or at the Bottom of the Abyss? Ugh, drop the vulgarity! Maybe – The Edge of the Night? Celine again! Again, literature, hated to the extremity of my soul! Or... "Or-or", maybe so... Maybe so. I must have lost my mind. But sometimes it seems to me, especially on days of special exacerbations of my illness, when visions, hallucinations and poems become almost indistinguishable from each other, acting as one under the red mask of a buffoon, when a Poet and a Psycho are inseparable in my single Ego, when it is unclear where high Poetry is, and where is the Nonsense about dead stars and the end of the world (!), where is the Angst, where is the beginning, where is the Novosibirsk poet from Marx Square Lev Khlebnikov, and where is that extinct visionary and publisher of my books... or my hero's books..? then... THEN! then – and is born! (getting infected?) the idea that, perhaps, it is There, In the Darkest, or else there is a REAL LIGHT. The reality is the opposite! Yes, yes. Subtraction! Yes, yes. The absurd, turned inside out, as Part of the Story! Yes, yes. We understood each other. But after all... suddenly it's true... What We are Looking For All Our Human Existence does not relate to electrical devices or natural devices (M.B. The sun or the Moon is a projection of the sky – it doesn't matter, delete it), namely, what to, – two thousand twenty–third year, February, snow outside the window, a joint in the mouth, fifty pills, a fish's head, the future is a grave or a madhouse, – exactly to Where There is No Vision, where it is impossible for the root cause of our physical (not) capabilities, do you understand? The theory is idiotic, I understand, as, in general, the whole idealistic philosophy, as my deflated hope for an accurate translation, for transfysics, for transmission! It's all about transcendence, friends! Poetry! Our life! Our whole (?) existence! Here you are up. Darkness. Lamp. Semi-darkness. The pupil is straight. Things-things-and-things. The Other Is There. Dark. Abyss. The Abyss (Nietzsche?) maybe. T a m . About N. O. Non-event. The darkest. Impersonal. Non-cash. Emptiness. B e h i n d. Light. And... the journey has come to an end, Captain. Pass the peace pipe on.


 3
 The wealth and misery in doorway

"Noticing area" is the primordial task (if the word is appropriate here at all) of art, the single path of the poetic highway, the cultural bridge "Europe–West", our burden, it is also our First and last Hope. Even the great Auden spoke about the possibility of happiness through observation, straining to peer into the sum of the located objects – through a vow of pain, lust for suffering, when the eyes seem to burst from the electric voltage, the pupil will leave the orbit, become a New Cosmos, and the personality will become nothing more than a set of boring things in a toy store – a used puppet of the word. Horror. Oh, that's what is there, in the Darkness, that we see, which makes the temples throb so much, the pressure in the capillaries rises, the bowstring of the gaze is stretched to the stop... But this is exactly how (according to Brodsky) it is possible to understand something, to comprehend something in the Hidden, in the chosen T h e r e, certain h e r e. The poet is the compiler of the order of things, this, I think, is clear to everyone, and no one is going to argue with that. But in what order? Confined to a particular mind? Or to THE WILL OF UNIVERSAL POETRY? The question is debatable. That's why I propose to look into the text, subtract the root cause from the letters, lose your vocabulary, find the Darkness of the Language (as the absence of any constructions), so that you finally understand for yourself who you are... Walt Whitman praising Participation, or Charles Baudelaire mocking Causality? I would choose a Third Figure – for example, Dovlatov in the dungeons of a prison, or Karl Prefer, stuck in a corridor with a view of the Alpine Mountains, Leonid Andreev, deliberately looking at the snow, as if there, in it... and the Original Evil, sought by him throughout his life, is hidden. All these are phantoms, glare, the result of a light anomaly, melting ice... We are all involved in this Big Origin, all poisoned by this Event, all – stuck in a doorway, abandoned, used and thrown out... In that there is our grace and our own inappropriate existence, extension and laying on, the end of the beginning and the beginning of the end, the first steps and [...], collaborations with Reality and the deception of Death, life in a diffused light, the joy of origin, the despair of the formula "Forever = Never", etc., our shamanism, lyricism and curse, absence and outlined kennel, the ghostliness of immortality and the fleeting wave of the Swallowtail, the conscious apartment and pit chosen by us, the flight (as an act of suicide) and the flight of the cuckoo (as intent, as Something Else), the nonsense and paradox of our existence, harsh twilight over the city, rain before drought and etc., and etc., in general – The universality of our existence, the main human sign – being stuck (as a zone, as being under arrest, as a supreme dictatorship) – coronation and tribunal over a decapitated subpersonality, the sophistication and poverty of our shadow in the damn corridor, in this fucking dungeon... but..! Come on! Let's move on! Chief Great Needle is calling on! Following the Rain! Let the drums ring! The next step is to exit the room. You almost did it! Let's take another wrong step, Mon Cher. Merge with the flow! Our whole Life! All Poetry! Everything and Everything! Mold the likeness! Space! Nirvana! The wind, bursting with laughter over the reeds, over our defeat, over our beautiful and belligerent attempt to c r a w l i n g... another pupil turn is required. Pnin's little feat. Painfully. Well, of course! Then silence! Into the darkness into the darkness into the darkness!


 4
 Praise to the corridor

After leaving the room, saying goodbye to the past, but more to your present, finding yourself in a new environment, that is, in a position expressed from Above, look ahead – into the projection, into the distance, geometrically arranged in a strict aspect ratio. Rectangle! Oh, this position is more correct than a square that has lost its freedom in the equality of sides, has given weight, the sum of the meaning of its existence to emptiness (volume, if we recall Euclid). The same is said about the Circle with its idea of ahr and eternal return, sub-existence, cyclicity as an end in itself. And I'm still silent about the straight lines, about the soldiers of geometry, that like pawns on a chessboard, they strive for the Queen, like checkers, they dream of becoming Kings, becoming an Inhabited Queen, gaining freedom – reassigning their properties, turning into a ray. But always hearing a little Edgarpian exclamations – Mate! Mate! The rectangle is much freer, it is stretchable, which means it is true to affect, trauma, tragedy, or poetically composed. What do you see, old man Cash? What kind of music around takes the form of walls, finds words (what things manifest themselves), maybe shoes in the shelves (under the rack with perfumes) or what other utensils inspire you to a new song, a new invention, a different formulation of the question. Which whisper of coming chases you this time, Lone man? What haven't you said yet, what haven't you done, what haven't you boasted about? Questions, questions... words, words, words... Oh, they also take shape, they also line up in their own row, they are adjacent to Things (to things in the plural), they are part of the Corridor, in the Recalculation of Darkness, which is now expanding in a very unusual way, although it is obviously clear – distilled, I am transformed from a Square into a Rectangle, from the Ideal, Evil – to Realism, to a certain measure of recognized existence in the dust from dirty shoes, crumbs brought from the kitchen, and cobwebs, entourage of the king, dropped from the sky, clinging to the very cobweb thrown by the Buddha so that All the Kings of this World suppressed each other in an attempt to climb higher, in the desire to survive, avoiding karma, blowing rebirth to the wind as an atavism. His teachings, knowledge hidden only in the human heart, because, as we know, if you see a Buddha, kill the Buddha, and therefore I propose to bow before the Corridor, before the weight of the Rectangle, before its disharmonious volume, so that a little after – to strike an accurate blow in the back, because this is the only way to get rid of the oppressive space and go out into the private space, go out into the Heart, a Broken heart, find a corridor through its visible destruction, through the Darkness Identified, in order not to let it take over the Form, accept the desired, find geometry, because the Darkness must remain incomplete, excessive, surplus, and not as neither a measure, nor a ratio, nor a manifested war, that is the salvation – in the conclusion, in the circulation of corridor perception, in building your own empire, laying your own marble, a new figure, the latest mathematics, which neither Darkness nor Light knows, nor Life with Death, but Time with Space – I'm afraid that's the only way ... in the language of Poetry and only as opposed to Eternity... – the uprising, the collapse, the acquisition, – such things.


 5
 Justified Border

"Meet me at immolation" – the Sixth Angel said, retreating in gloom, disappearing in darkness, in tale, in myth. The stranger – an old rabbi adjusts the bag on his belt and the guitar on his shoulders, shakes off the sand from his robe and fades away in Neverend. Words of the Sixth written in ancient texts which he said travelling around the cities have sticked, in his head. He thought: "How is it? After everything I’ve done for God?" each time stumbling in stoned snake after he mentioned God. There, in Womb, the Freedom chaotically multiplied – a True Demon, hidden from people’s eyes – behind all the vision or nomad’s fires. One of them named Rabish right now stews fires, for they say right about him – he can speak with gods, not only listen. It means that in his ear there is a Great Omenб ancient evil which was seen and foreshadowed by Darkness; what was prepared by Dark, given by Blackness. And there is no end for that process. Bonfires are going out on mornings. And then, almost immediately, the Sun of Undefeated, invisible signs and allusions rises. The day flows sluggishly, rampant wandering, the death of observations and in general – disappointment, in short, as, in fact, the main cause and consequence of the presence of light. And then... Then only night, dream malaria, desert matter – writing poetry, and so on. The bonfires are lightened up. Rabish listens to the Void and peers into Silence. And by the signal of Dark One immediately extinguishes the flame, the torches of people, taking with them their vision. И только тогда. And only then. Only at this moment, for a few moments of life, they (people) are given a chance to also see, at least try to listen from the general Chaos – the notes of the future, the real whisper of being, the echo of the Root Cause. Only in these moments of time is it possible to see there, on the sand dunes, three figures fumbling in the darkness: an Angel searching for words for every description, a Wanderer trampling on sandals for every comprehension and a Bedouin gagging his mouth and ears for every omission. Three figures who will never meet, will never know about the existence of each other, as a whole concept, as an Absolute, collect which – a Beast, a spawn of the Darkest, will come out of the deep black sea, and a moment before the ignition of the sun's rays – will devour the whole world, thereby giving the Natural color of reality, changing the Universal Matrix from- and-before.



 6
 Anti-color rainbow
 (poem)

the titans here who fell long time ago
in moon and in the moonlight are merging with sand
as if they are when buying time
they violate upon their own existence, –
excessively composed into legends
and everyone who found about them reminder
will stand in, opened under the sky, –
the burning abyss, before the time, which is out of
practical use, and only disappointed fool,
looking at motley of virgin nature
will hide his smile and try to link
everything what he saw– to upcoming picture
where on canvas – no place for beauty
like the void has no place in his world,
and what will be, will it be at all,
is no matter, if in this the point of notebook
in a cell, written, this is moveton
the idea – offers only gloom
as well as sickness, and a spirit, nourishing the drawing
which forces to pick the brushes carefully,
there contains the aim-inside
when outside you feel the push on temple with a clip
unnecessary and useless, in all, circumstances
and he paints darky-dark landscape
as if he replaced the paints
on the shadow of his own, the memories
the final of which– in unconscious tomb
and, creating nothing like Aranowski
he laughs with joy, because he made it,
The Art, Made No Flesh,
made with something bigger, something which is hide,
thoughted with every possible void,
and, leaving the picture for the next probes
he picks the glasses and a coat
hiding in a desert, walking
near broken up on times and mentions, –
the titans who hadn’t saved from death,
he sits with them, preparing the fire,
with smile he plays on the guitar
"Spiritual" by Johnny Cash, and time
crawls back, erasing all the limits
and here – no titans
no sand
nor picture "Rainbow of anti-color"
but canvas still is full of dark
he is – hollow
and it means
that nothing
had changed


 7
 Outlandest

Getting past the Back Door, at the very end of Limitation, we fall into an unthinkable crime, a sin of consciousness. "This is a dead-end area" – the ancient said. I would add: This is the Art of B E I N G. Existence itself is very speculative as we know. The project of "Human" doomed to be forced by the very interpretation of the definition. Going around, wandering, clinging to outright nonsense fragments of false ideas, broken concepts – that's all that remains for blind Homer in the depths of ocean waves, when he climbed the highest mountain, opening a view of the dreary (in its doom) cape, reducing thoughts that usually expand along with the changeable Cypriot wind along the valley, now they are promoting calm, a strike of existence (surplus absence according to Marx's theory). And what is left in this actual order of metaphysics? What happens to the out-Darkness, the Darkness-outside, the Darkness-in-everything? Where does the heel of Achilles tread, reduced by will to the decomposition of his features into declensions and cases, into myths and legends, bones and carrion. A logo. Yes, I think this is, in fact, all the multi-component functions of the Darkest. First of all, as a Real Addition, and only after the Addition is Implicit (auxiliary). Logo is chasing us from the moment we were born, as something absolutely undetected, latent, intravenous, but at the same time – exactly existing on some inexplicable level, undetected, but manifested, to put it briefly. What comes out of Darkness is Dark, so there is Darkness, but not all the Dark that came out of Darkness is really Darkness, True Darkness, for such Darkness, or the Dark that came out of it, is, according to my schizocidic observations, nothing but an Idea of Darkness, I will decipher: That which Brings News (which tells us about that very Existence, Another Being, and not at the level of substructure, but on a purely metaphysical alert, on proto- and un-dark). That which Brings News (which tells us about that very Existence, Another Being, and not at the level of substructure, but on a purely metaphysical alert, on proto- and un-conscious frequencies of human post-perception). When you understand that, you will certainly look back, looking at the whole path you have traveled without much pride, but also without fantastic sadness. You did what you were supposed to do, you were on the other Side, on Another Level of Perception, and all this has a reason. Only overcoming the Darkness, knowing the edges of its nocturnal (natural) and existential (fate and guilt) logic, having studied it, having made certain conclusions, one can understand the bonfire that in the future will light up, there will be a beacon to other Bedouins, and the Darkness will accept it, letting into its veils a being endowed with the gift of sympathy, sorrow, honor, love and hate. And so, looking at the dancing flames in the Venusian womb of shadows, you suddenly realize that the experiment that you conducted at the beginning of the path with the lamp turned on and extinguished completely repeats the event that is taking place right now – in the hemispheres of absence, in Absolute Darkness, equated just now – to Emptiness. And this rises several random thoughts in your head, flowing into a reasonable antithesis: laughter. You laugh, you can't get enough of the fruits of your hands, the shadows dancing now in the hearth of dying branches and twigs, thereby equating yourself to the flame itself, as if saying: "We are of the same blood." And after that – you switch the lamp off and leave damn room once and for all, depriving yourself of the possibility of a suitcase – slamming the door with all strength. When somewhere away, someone or something in the dark, continues to laugh at you as if it is the Dark itself mocks your entire human being, as if to say, inheriting Epicurus – live inconspicuously...

I am, believing in you, Human, already
Once opened the Door,
and because of that calmly and peacefully
I follow you, falling, in the Dark,
saying: «Live – irreconcilably»,
and suddenly I disappear in heaps of
text you have rad above,
in white emptiness of Word, which waits you lower, –
and in Horror, which open Peace and Laughter,
leaning in all-seen
limits of grey-shaped smoke,
appeared from extinguished tube
Big Needle chief frozen
in one pose before the Great Rain ends,
and I am joining to his exaltation
over death
like to an old friend,
shimmering in following for-
us time –
all
shades of
black.


  Nemel, Vakhrin
  Ferbruary-April 2023
  The Marx Square – Room