...
The last rains fed
Into the newly opened canal.
The dust blows in.
The disturbance is
Nonverbal communication:
Meaningless syllables that
Have a music of their own,
The music of sex, or any
Nameless event, something
That can only be taken as
Itself. This rules ideas
Of what else might be there,
Which regroup farther on,
Standing around looking at
The hole left by the great implosion.
It is they who carry news of it
To other places. Therefore
Are they not the event itself?
Especially since it persists
In dumbness which isn't even
A negative articulation – persists
And collapses into itself
...
excerpt from 'Litany'
John Ashbery
Published in 'As We Know' – 1981
Thanks Tom. This is amazingly apt - you have to surmise that Mallarmé's hand is at work behind this text somewhere. Not just the craters and ditches and hollows, but the stuff around the event which can only be taken as itself, a negative articulation that collapses into itself. Wait till we get to A Throw of the Dice!
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