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MY PROJECT
A sad
spirit of mockery
speaks through me. Contempt
that I understand
not as me but as
- let us put it this way -
my left hand. Conscience
(but is that not
just another voice?) dictates
which hand to use
when. One day one
thing (this
poem for example)
is possible, another
another.
I must have a project.
I have a project, which is
to get drunk. Which is to say
to be carried away -
by drink, by love,
by faith, by an idea,
only to be free of that
spirit of mockery,
that voice lurking
at the bottom of the ladder.
So what
of the many possible drinks
should I choose?
Oh to be free of choice!
to be free of that
freedom, that
emptiness Heidegger calls
authenticity.
To be carried away by what
is required of me -
by duty,
by responsibility,
which is to say, to be
a continuity, shifting
backwards and forwards
with the wind, with the tide, rejoicing
in that enormity -
the everyday life,
the idle talk,
Das Man
that which I might imagine to be
my right hand.