Cleaving Roberto Bolaño



fiction / führer / fucking around

“Among the many acid pleasures
of the work of Roberto Bolaño is
his idea that culture, in particular
literary culture, is a whore.”
—Stacey D’Erasmo, “The Sound
and the Führer,” The NYTimes
February 24, 2008

it’s midnight—in chile
the intellectual elite—write poetry
they paint and—discuss the fine arts

european post—avant-garde lit…
as the junta—tortures nude students
in suburban bedrooms—with stilettos

torture has no—national loyalty
only a fascist scream—adolescent sex
no political bent—only squeezed scrotums

the same in paris—during the occupation
gestapo genies—summoning up evil nazi
would-be masters—tits, testicles, electricity!!!

ironies so sharp—poets with sharp tongues
but fingernails pulled out—with bloody pliers make
hemorrhaging syntax—even more exquisite…

my cut hands—smearing the runny pages
my confession—not coming easy since there was
no anesthetic—no hide-and-seek from the knife

I used to think—I was, well, courageous
existentially heroic—reading jean sartre & brecht
before the military coup—butt-fucked plato


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