A poem revisited and Lacan's repetition automatism

Even though I promised myself to write daily, I've decided to revisit something I've written before. This led me to think about, not only my laziness, but of memories and the fixation of certain memories. Some memories return for obvious reasons, because they played such critical roles in our lives. But there are memories we wish to put to rest, yet we’re constantly returning to them. I’m reminded of Lacan’s notion of “repetition automatism” which he articulates in his seminar on Edgar Allan Poe’s story “The Purloined Letter.” It is this compulsion to repeat and it is related to the death drive. We are compelled to repeat painful, even destructive, actions, many times in hope of a different outcome. So, in other words, the death drive leads to the continuous re-locating/moving/positioning of the subject which “materializes the agency of death.” For Lacan, as for Freud, this repetition s inevitable as we’re moving along a chain of signifiers. Alas, we should examine why we return to certain points.


I’ve always wondered what you think of
When you stop talking

You do think, right?

Your thoughts are surely of a light blue
a blue flame -- Copper Halides
you were always warmer in silence
your frown calm


or have you been enveloped by capitalism
that you think in green
meadow fields on fire

or do your neurons dance
every colour
and all you see is movement
swings and hips

or do you deconstruct the alphabet
digging up ancient codes
translating red scripture

or are you thinking of a response
and rethinking that response
and of my response to your response

or has the conversation ended
and your thoughts colourblind

this conversation

This conversation: a cool breeze unravelling, dispersing, awakening meaningful past moments. Spaces travelled, thoughts gathered, memories opened together. Live words erupt a streaming symphony rupturing silky blades against the winnowing night. Your words like curves, yes curves, never harsh, but expanding, soft against the dying light, moist. I listen. I move. I look. I wait. There are photographs in the background, catastrophes abroad. Politics empties cities, pouring souls to merge in tongues across the globe, all in search of proximity. They sail on edges, tattooing wet passports where the heart should be. I speak. You hear nothing.

thoughts inspired by a conversation

So I’ve decided to introduce a series on conversations –whether in the form of a dialogue or ideas that spiralled from a conversation—that I’ve been having with people; conversations that seem to linger after silence.

My friend mentioned a question that has been on his mind, and frankly on mine, lately: it is the question that Martin Heidegger posed in his Introduction to Metaphysics, "Why are there beings [or something] at all, instead of Nothing?"
I’m wondering how to go about answering this question, while avoiding a purely theological answer that begins and ends with God, which isn’t necessarily problematic, but even with the existence of God, you wonder about existence. To begin to answer this question, we must define nothing. What is nothing? Well, nothing is the lack of something and it is nothing. It is an indefinite non-thing, empty, neutral—neither evil, nor good. Is something the opposite of nothing, or does it spring from nothing? My mind’s a bit inert, so I shall finish my thought when my mind’s back in motion.
Does my definition of nothing have any clout? Is the question a mere tautology and pointless to ask?

a step forward

we share a conversation down the stairwell, your voice a breeze against the damp yellow light
wandering wondering about the yellow flower under the sparkling rain
the echo of brave excuses seem to slip under my feet. memories lie
some where, deflated among the crevices.