James Graham Ballard. What I Believe:
Interzone, #8, Summer 1984. A prose poem, originally published in
French in Science Fiction #1 (ed. Daniel Riche) in January 1984. (found
on jgballard.ca)
I believe in the power of the imagination
to remake the world, to release the truth within us, to hold back the
night, to transcend death, to charm motorways, to ingratiate ourselves
with birds, to enlist the confidences of madmen.
I believe in my own obsessions, in the
beauty of the car crash, in the peace of the submerged forest, in the
excitements of the deserted holiday beach, in the elegance of automobile
graveyards, in the mystery of multi-storey car parks, in the poetry of
abandoned hotels.
I believe in the forgotten runways of Wake Island, pointing towards the Pacifics of our imaginations.
I believe in the mysterious beauty of
Margaret Thatcher, in the arch of her nostrils and the sheen on her
lower lip; in the melancholy of wounded Argentine conscripts; in the
haunted smiles of filling station personnel; in my dream of Margaret
Thatcher caressed by that young Argentine soldier in a forgotten motel
watched by a tubercular filling station attendant.
I believe in the beauty of all women, in
the treachery of their imaginations, so close to my heart; in the
junction of their disenchanted bodies with the enchanted chromium rails
of supermarket counters; in their warm tolerance of my perversions.
I believe in the death of tomorrow, in
the exhaustion of time, in our search for a new time within the smiles
of auto-route waitresses and the tired eyes of air-traffic controllers
at out-of-season airports.
I believe in the genital organs of great
men and women, in the body postures of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher
and Princess Di, in the sweet odors emanating from their lips as they
regard the cameras of the entire world.
I believe in madness, in the truth of the
inexplicable, in the common sense of stones, in the lunacy of flowers,
in the disease stored up for the human race by the Apollo astronauts.
I believe in nothing.
I believe in Max Ernst, Delvaux, Dali,
Titian, Goya, Leonardo, Vermeer, Chirico, Magritte, Redon, Duerer,
Tanguy, the Facteur Cheval, the Watts Towers, Boecklin, Francis Bacon,
and all the invisible artists within the psychiatric institutions of the
planet.
I believe in the impossibility of
existence, in the humour of mountains, in the absurdity of
electromagnetism, in the farce of geometry, in the cruelty of
arithmetic, in the murderous intent of logic.
I believe in adolescent women, in their
corruption by their own leg stances, in the purity of their disheveled
bodies, in the traces of their pudenda left in the bathrooms of shabby
motels.
I believe in flight, in the beauty of the
wing, and in the beauty of everything that has ever flown, in the stone
thrown by a small child that carries with it the wisdom of statesmen
and midwives.
I believe in the gentleness of the
surgeon’s knife, in the limitless geometry of the cinema screen, in the
hidden universe within supermarkets, in the loneliness of the sun, in
the garrulousness of planets, in the repetitiveness or ourselves, in the
inexistence of the universe and the boredom of the atom.
I believe in the light cast by
video-recorders in department store windows, in the messianic insights
of the radiator grilles of showroom automobiles, in the elegance of the
oil stains on the engine nacelles of 747s parked on airport tarmacs.
I believe in the non-existence of the past, in the death of the future, and the infinite possibilities of the present.
I believe in the derangement of the
senses: in Rimbaud, William Burroughs, Huysmans, Genet, Celine, Swift,
Defoe, Carroll, Coleridge, Kafka.
I believe in the designers of the Pyramids, the Empire State Building, the Berlin Fuehrerbunker, the Wake Island runways.
I believe in the body odors of Princess Di.
I believe in the next five minutes.
I believe in the history of my feet.
I believe in migraines, the boredom of afternoons, the fear of calendars, the treachery of clocks.
I believe in anxiety, psychosis and despair.
I believe in the perversions, in the
infatuations with trees, princesses, prime ministers, derelict filling
stations (more beautiful than the Taj Mahal), clouds and birds.
I believe in the death of the emotions and the triumph of the imagination.
I believe in Tokyo, Benidorm, La Grande Motte, Wake Island, Eniwetok, Dealey Plaza.
I believe in alcoholism, venereal disease, fever and exhaustion.
I believe in pain.
I believe in despair.
I believe in all children.
I believe in maps, diagrams, codes, chess-games, puzzles, airline timetables, airport indicator signs.
I believe all excuses.
I believe all reasons.
I believe all hallucinations.
I believe all anger.
I believe all mythologies, memories, lies, fantasies, evasions.
I believe in the mystery and melancholy of a hand, in the kindness of trees, in the wisdom of light.