from The Ethics

The Ethics[1]

[2]

I can no longer be concerned with god.

If there is a point, it has long since faded

into the nothing of an[3] infinite violation

of boundary logic.  So I, unlike Spinoza,

conjure an ethics sans god. [4]  [5]  [6]

This ethics is a world of vapor,

a world of smoke, of arcane legerdemain

half hidden under a veil,

this ethics is a punch[7] [8] [9] in the head to dark purpose,

a deck of pornographic trading cards,

a blue hope,[10] [11]

that thing you forgot, remembered, forgot

again, then forgot you forgot.[12] [13] [14] [15] [16]

I scratch out an ethics in fine point against type,

a frail bulwark against onrushing words

like waves, words drifting[17] [18] [19] like ashy snow

that never melts, the snow falling

on the living and the dead, burying[20] ciphers

[empty] like[21] acorns forgotten by squirrels,

words torn loose and herded by green capital

into holding pens on vast[22] ranches deep in Texas,

words that accumulate to words

like capital accumulates to capital,[23]

with no regard to anything

beyond accumulation and attraction,[24] [25] [26] [27] [28]

with emptiness at the very core.[29] [30] [31]

It is the mission of this ethics to

1. have no fear of emptiness at the core of words.[32]

It is the mission of this ethics

to kick words into forbidden trajectories

to split them like atoms

to create blinding white light.

It is the mission of this ethics

to liberate words from meaning,

but not meanings.

It is the mission of this ethics

to liberate meaning from capital,

from ranches of privilege and tradition.[33]

I am inadequate for the task,

but I am what is left.[34]

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[1] for Tony Woollard

[2] CONCERNING GOD – or not

[3] infinite

[4] effect

[5] knowledge

[6] nothing

[7] ignorant

[8] true causes

[9] confusion - think

[10] only truth

[11] external to the intellect

[12] If anyone now ask, by what sign shall he be able to distinguish different substances, let him

[13] show that

[14] the universe

[15] infinite

[16] would be sought in vain

[17] no cause or reason can be given

[18] which destroys

[19] existence

[20] absurd

[21] nature of

[22] God

[23] nothing which is in itself

[24] this is exactly

[25] the weapon

[26] aimed at us

[27] reality recoiled

[28] conclusion that extended substance must be finite, they will in good sooth be acting like a man who asserts that circles have the properties of squares, and, thereby finding himself landed in absurdities, proceeds to deny that circles have any center, from which all lines drawn to circumference are equal

[29] substance could be so divided that its parts

[30] admit of being destroyed

[31] as to leave no vacuum?

[32] God is free cause

[33] Conceive, if possible

[34] idea of God does not naturally follow