I
Derrida’s cat
What we men call animal, animaux no,
l’animot, should bring us back to the name, the thing – as such
to speak across … the abyss
as always on my lips, on the tip of my tongue
as if, in the instant I had said (or was going to say), the
forbidden something
the something that shouldn’t be said – this something (un)said between us —
our naked{ness} the shame this naked man (sous rature) gazed at by this
{irreplaceable} living being
derrida’s { cat
Contains text from Jacques Derrida, The Animal That Therefore I Am (More to Follow).
II
Lévinas’s dog
Fallingsbotel Concentration Camp:
a wandering dog
endured in a desolate region of the Camp
greeted a rabble of prisoners, daily:
Bobby’s bark, wagging tail!
irrepressible,
and this, his saying, across
the [infinitely] unspeakable space,
said
— there was no doubt
we were men . . .
Contains some text from Emmanuel Lévinas, The Name of the Dog or Natural Rights.
III
Heidegger’s bee
I tricked her from murmuring her munificent
Being
as in the suck of honey,
she had to prove she could not cope with all the honey
present
in the little bowl.
As I carefully cut away her abdomen while she sucked, yet, even still, she silently sucked —
as the honey poured out from behind:
which I say,
speaks of
…
Contains some text from Martin Heidegger, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: World, Finitude, Solitude.