1.
history is a word
ideology a word
the unconscious a word
words hover
in the mouth of the ignorant
now each sign is perpetuated
unavoidable freshness
do not leap into your own speech
do not sink into that of others
measure the blood of your thought
in answer to your question
you will only find vacillating targets
action draws the word
like the bow consumes the crystal arrow
2.
orphaned
is the one who opposes class
sovereignly orphaned
what does “orphaned” mean?
all heirarchy implies
a father a mother and a third party
all politics
a master a slave and a third party
historic being is a disgrace
can you disfigure the enemy of class
without assuming his features?
can you turn
against your own mirages?
everyone cherishes identity
everyone seeks the origin
whereas I teach orphan wisdom
so wander the paths
without merging with the grass
the bird’s song
in vain will follow the beat of your footsteps
in vain on your lips
the scarlet wound of the sun
I teach the difference with no return
and the exact violence
such is the meaning of the word “orphaned”
what does “sovereignly orphaned” mean?
the who opposes class does not display his weapons
he affirms from the inside
and rigorously destroys
whoever can do this and that
is my orphan comrade
sovereignty burns
the enemy of class
like a straw dog
3.
inside outside
near far
visible invisible
capital labour
such is the enemy of class
how battle the enemy of class?
change your categories of thought
you will modify your action
modify your action
you will raise your body
raise your body
you will converse with nonthought
politics is for meaning
a shifting calligraphy
with a rainbow of precise gestures
draw your destiny
the reflections in the iris
efface the heaviness
a strict lightness
must guide your spirit
how battle the enemy of class?
by all that comes from being expressed
against the enemy of class
you should be a cicada of poison
4.
when a revolutionary reads Marx
he practices it with vigilance
when a liberal reads Marx
sometimes he retains it sometimes he forgets it
when a fascist reads Marx
he bursts out laughing
if he didn’t laugh
Marx wouldn’t be Marx
but my adage says
the great revolution has no hero
5.
the family ruins you
the couple consumes you
all institutions are regressive
practice the combinatory coitus
such is the secret of all mild intoxication
before and after harmonize
high and low engender one another
the genitals and buttocks touch
there your desiring being is uprooted
I have heard that
the revolution is a universal coitus
but beware of this statement
beware!
best is to screw coitus
such is the secret of all intoxication
6.
licit illicit
good evil
presence absence
law transgression
the line separating them is vacillating symmetry
don’t follow those cold correspondences
class struggle changes the number’s value
open up to the contradictory scale
primary the contradiction blinds
secondary the contradiction vanishes
tactics strategy revolution
three words to form a sentence
beware
for each action invents a dancing hierarchy
the stars’ movement never strays
man’s revolution must never lose control
how then define your new hierarchy?
by all that comes to be expressed
sonorous fingers will never erase my exact rage
7.
I love the gazelle fleeing across the beach
and like a cut wind I have vanished
over the sandy fields and watery troughs
in this way my metaphor is an unproductive contour
to each part of your body
give a delicate nourishment
each moment of your life
be mobile and uncompromising
the being of time is a migratory art
Abdelkebir Khatibi
from Le lutteur de classe à la manière taoïste , Sinbad