Franketienne - Ready to Burst

M ORE EFFECTIVE at setting each twig aquiver in the passing of waves than a pebble dropped into a pool of water, Spiralism defines life at the level of relations (colors, odors, sounds, signs, words) and historical connections (positionings in space and time). Not in a closed circuit, but tracing the path of a spiral. So rich that each new curve, wider and higher than the one before, expands the arc of one’s vision.

In perfect harmony with the whirlwind of the cosmos, the world of speed in which we evolve, from the greatest of human adventures to struggles for liberation, Spiralism aligns perfectly — in breadth and depth — with an atmosphere of explosive vertigo; it follows the movement that is at the very heart of all living things. It is a shattering of space. An exploding of time.

Re-creating wholes from mere details and secondary materials, the practice of Spiralism reconciles Art and Life through literature, and necessarily breaks with the hypocrisy of the Word. Re-cognition. Totality.

In this sense, as a means of expression — efficient, par excellence — Spiralism uses the Complete Genre, in which novelistic description, poetic breath, theatrical effect, narratives, stories, autobiographical sketches, and fiction all coexist harmoniously …

Every day, I employ the dialect of untamed hurricanes. I speak the madness of opposing winds.

Every evening, I use the patois of furious rains. I speak the rage of overflowing waters.

Every night, I speak to the islands of the Caribbean in the language of hysterical storms. I speak the madness of the sea in heat.

Dialect of hurricanes. Patois of rains. Language of storms. Unfolding of life in a spiral.

In its essence, life is tension. Toward something. Toward someone. Toward oneself. Toward the point of maturation where the ancient and the new unravel. Death and birth. And every being finds itself — in part — in pursuit of its double. A pursuit that might even seem to bear the intensity of need, of desire, of infinite quest.

Dogs pass by (I’ve always been obsessed with stray dogs). They yap at the silhouette of the woman I’ve been chasing. At the image of the man I’ve been seeking out. At my double. At the murmurings of fleeting voices. For so many years now. It feels like thirty centuries.

The woman has left. Without fanfare. Left my heart out of tune. The man never held out his hand to me. My double is always just a step ahead of me. And the unhinged throats of nocturnal dogs let loose terrifying howls, making the sound of a broken accordion.

It is then that I become a tempest of words, bursting open the hypocrisy of clouds and the deceitfulness of silence. Rivers. Storms. Flashes of lightning. Mountains. Trees. Lights. Rains. Untamed oceans. Take me away in the frenzied marrow of your joints. Take me away! It would take just a hint of clarity for me to be born with nine lives. For me to accept life. Tension. The inexorable law of maturation. Osmosis and symbiosis. Take me away! It would take just the sound of a footstep, a glance, a tender voice, for me to live happily in the hope that Man is capable of awakening. Take me away! For it would take so little for me to speak of the sap that circulates in the marrow of cosmic joints.

Dialect of hurricanes. Patois of rains. Language of storms. I speak the unfolding of life in a spiral.

In wanting so desperately to speak, I’ve become no more than a screaming mouth. I no longer worry about what I write. I simply write. Because I must. Because I’m suffocating. I write anything. Any way. People can call it what they want: novel, essay, poem, autobiography, testimony, narrative, memory exercise, or nothing at all. I don’t even know, myself. Yet what I write feels perfectly familiar to me. No one can say much more than what he has lived.

I’m suffocating. I write whatever crosses my mind. The important thing for me is the exorcism. The liberation of something. Of someone. Of myself perhaps. Deliverance. Catharsis. I’m suffocating. I can see no window in this cellar. And I push against the walls of my asphyxiation with the battering ram of words. If, after all this, the walls still don’t come down, surely a passerby will hear the anarchic rush of my language, or the savage SOS of my death throes. I have done enough thinking. People think too much around here. Or maybe no one thinks at all. I’m tired. Now I knock on closed doors. I paw at the ground. I shout. I call out. I scream. Will my cries for help manage to move anyone? To reach some sympathetic target? I don’t know. But unhappiness, misery, despair, rage, rivers, storms, blood, fire, seas, hurricanes, my country, trees, mountains, my people, women, children, old men, all men, all things, and all beings swell in my voice, to the point where, should I fail, I’ll have been truly alone. Terrifyingly alone. Horribly alone.

I accuse, in advance, the Pharisians of in vitro culture.

Lazy philosophers! Rid yourselves of the bacilli of pure intellect. Explain to me how it is that people all over the world go thirsty. That malnourished peasants feed themselves rock porridge. That children die from fever. That my friend is gone, lost in the American army’s invasion of Vietnam. Explain to me that woman who left and never came back. The Third World bullied, ridiculed, despised. The threat of Imperial Powers. The blindness of people who don’t know how to decipher the graffiti of time’s passing. The illiterate pride of dictators who stomp on the dreams of their people. The shuddering of death. The tremors of life. The sadness of some. The joy of others. The enigma of love. My beating heart. Explain all that to me. I’ll always have the patience to listen and to hear — as long as, at the end of it all, there is action.

In the meantime, I speak with the voice of Raynand, with the voice of Paulin, with my own voice. Raynand and Paulin are one and the same character. I am their voice — at times weak, at times strong, but always there. Always present. The voice of the Third World torn apart. The voice suffocated beneath giant shadows. Raynand, tired, tries to find himself in Paulin, an image of the one who fights to transform repugnant realities. And in the interval, one voice remains audible: Raynand’s, Paulin’s, my own. For myself, I don’t know anything about this life that sweeps me up in a set of mirages and enduring utopias.

Eleven hours and thirty minutes of night and thick shadows. Raynand has been walking for hours. He’s become a pair of legs that walk. Between Presbytère and the cathedral, the large bulb, hanging from the cylindrical streetlamp, is no longer lit.

Perhaps some of the filaments have broken, scorched by the intense electrical heat? Perhaps the eye of the pear-shaped bulb was shattered by a pretty little stone thrown by the delicate hand of some kid who, on the way to school, wanted to test his skill or prove his virtuosity?

Undoubtedly, the little round stone, washed by last night’s rain, had piqued the child’s curiosity. He’d stooped down. Picked it up. Thrown it in the direction of the bulb. Surprised. Astonished. Eager to tell his classmates all about his exploit, his good aim.

Tired, heavy-headed, not really knowing where he’s going at this time of night, Raynand tells himself that he has always behaved like a child. Irresponsible. Lighthearted. Carefree. Twenty-eight years, and what had he really done? Almost nothing along the path of blind stones. Absolutely nothing in the intermingling of demented winds.