Title:
Sirventès of the Beast
Topics:
animality,
anti-civ,
anti-humanism,
civilization,
humanism,
insurrection,
Love,
Poetry,
Return Fire
Date:
2014/06/27
Notes:
Printed in Return Fire vol.6 chap.6 (spring 2024).
PDFs of Return Fire and related publications can be read, downloaded and printed by visiting returnfire.noblogs.org or emailing returnfire@riseup.net
PDFs of Return Fire and related publications can be read, downloaded and printed by visiting returnfire.noblogs.org or emailing returnfire@riseup.net
Anne Archet
Sirventès of the Beast
I am no citizen
I am no consumer
I am no tax-payer
I am no employee
I am no convict
I am no beneficiary
I am no person of color
I am no lesbian
I am no mother
I am no wife
I am no erotic writer
I am no poetess
I am no anarchist
I am no woman
I am surely no Human
That vile and ethereal being
Which has never been spotted elsewhere
But in universal declarations
I don't want to stay seated and raise my hand
I don't want to wait for the teacher to tell me to speak
I don't want to wait for a break to take a piss
I don't want to press 0 to speak to one of your representatives
I don't want to open a box or tear away plastic wrapping to feed myself
I don't want to drink from a bottle or tap
I don't want to go to the second counter to collect my order
I don't want to smile because the customer is always right
I don't want to sign my performance review
I don't want to sell my time my limbs my voice my orifices
I don't want to lose five kilos and find love
I don't want to prevent the signs of ageing
I don't want to smell like spring
I don't want to fill in the right form
I don't want to use the reserved lane at 5pm
I don't want to be the guardian of household and decency
I don't want to be a factor of production
I don't want to be an extension of a tool
I don't want to be a target audience
I don't want to act in my own interests as defined by the relevant authorities
I don't want to wipe my arse with the three-layer version of boreal forest
I don't want to produce and consume
I don't want to be produced and consumed
I don't want my survival to be a pretext for destroying everything around me
I want to hold you in my arms
I want to be able to love you without fear, without reserve, without pretentions
I want to draw my nourishment directly from the earth
I want my actions to be without bounds
I want to live and laugh and cry and love
I want to enjoy to the point of losing my mind to the point of losing track of myself
I want to do it the way we've been able to do it for millions of years
I want to do it with you
I want you to be with me
I want us to stop our race to devastation
I love you
I desire you
I want your skin against mine
We don't need all this shit
This filth that we produce in tears
That we consume without pleasure
That we throw away with a guilty conscience
We don't need this cardboard life
Of these stuporous vigils
Of these dreamless slumbers
Of these indistinguishable days and nights
Smothered in concrete, street lighting and plastic
Muzzled by alcohol, stimulants, sedatives, antidepressants
Distracted by screens, fashion, social networks, glamour
Restrained by sexual roles, politeness and conformist originality
Double-locked in this universal jail called Civilisation
Beneath this thin armoured varnish
lies a wild beast
Despite thousands of years of domestication
I remain a savage
Full of passion and fury
So are you
And it's this beast that I love
I'm flesh, bone and blood
I am a body, an animal
I am a wave of intense desire
I am desire incarnate, uncontrollable, and thunderous
I am your mad lover
I am sphincters, fluids, tendons
I am a goddess
I am your partner in crime
If you want to stop surviving
If you want to live
If you want to unite with me
If you don't, I'll be, happily and without regrets,
the enemy to be put down
I am no consumer
I am no tax-payer
I am no employee
I am no convict
I am no beneficiary
I am no person of color
I am no lesbian
I am no mother
I am no wife
I am no erotic writer
I am no poetess
I am no anarchist
I am no woman
I am surely no Human
That vile and ethereal being
Which has never been spotted elsewhere
But in universal declarations
I don't want to stay seated and raise my hand
I don't want to wait for the teacher to tell me to speak
I don't want to wait for a break to take a piss
I don't want to press 0 to speak to one of your representatives
I don't want to open a box or tear away plastic wrapping to feed myself
I don't want to drink from a bottle or tap
I don't want to go to the second counter to collect my order
I don't want to smile because the customer is always right
I don't want to sign my performance review
I don't want to sell my time my limbs my voice my orifices
I don't want to lose five kilos and find love
I don't want to prevent the signs of ageing
I don't want to smell like spring
I don't want to fill in the right form
I don't want to use the reserved lane at 5pm
I don't want to be the guardian of household and decency
I don't want to be a factor of production
I don't want to be an extension of a tool
I don't want to be a target audience
I don't want to act in my own interests as defined by the relevant authorities
I don't want to wipe my arse with the three-layer version of boreal forest
I don't want to produce and consume
I don't want to be produced and consumed
I don't want my survival to be a pretext for destroying everything around me
I want to hold you in my arms
I want to be able to love you without fear, without reserve, without pretentions
I want to draw my nourishment directly from the earth
I want my actions to be without bounds
I want to live and laugh and cry and love
I want to enjoy to the point of losing my mind to the point of losing track of myself
I want to do it the way we've been able to do it for millions of years
I want to do it with you
I want you to be with me
I want us to stop our race to devastation
I love you
I desire you
I want your skin against mine
We don't need all this shit
This filth that we produce in tears
That we consume without pleasure
That we throw away with a guilty conscience
We don't need this cardboard life
Of these stuporous vigils
Of these dreamless slumbers
Of these indistinguishable days and nights
Smothered in concrete, street lighting and plastic
Muzzled by alcohol, stimulants, sedatives, antidepressants
Distracted by screens, fashion, social networks, glamour
Restrained by sexual roles, politeness and conformist originality
Double-locked in this universal jail called Civilisation
Beneath this thin armoured varnish
lies a wild beast
Despite thousands of years of domestication
I remain a savage
Full of passion and fury
So are you
And it's this beast that I love
I'm flesh, bone and blood
I am a body, an animal
I am a wave of intense desire
I am desire incarnate, uncontrollable, and thunderous
I am your mad lover
I am sphincters, fluids, tendons
I am a goddess
I am your partner in crime
If you want to stop surviving
If you want to live
If you want to unite with me
If you don't, I'll be, happily and without regrets,
the enemy to be put down
[ed. – Sirventès were a genre of Old Occitan lyric poetry (usually parodies, borrowing the melody, metrical structure and often even the rhymes of a well-known piece to address a controversial subject, often a current event.)]