The Neverending Seance: History Makes Monsters Of Us All (On Lacan-Bataille)

He is always with us: the man who raised you on the syrup of cruelty. There at the edge of your kiss, and the quicksnatch of my breath. In the meanfingered grip that leaves violet petals in the tender butterskin.

His stubborn ghost, passing for passion, is the uneven granite of the stone on the hill.  There, at that sad height, you are hostage to his unbending law: There is truth in pain and nowhere else.

No act of faith, no night vigil, no shroud of soft words can wear down your anger’s blade. This is a boy’s game with no role for me save that of the prey, of incidental cunt at the midnight feast of your foreverage.

(On reading “The Work of Alterity: Bataille and Lacan,” Diacritics 26.2 (1996) Johns Hopkins University Press)

One Thought on “The Neverending Seance: History Makes Monsters Of Us All (On Lacan-Bataille)

  1. ‘the man who raised you on the syrup of cruelty’ – what a lovely lovely phrase 😉

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