The ‘doer’ is merely a fiction added to the deed (Nietzsche)*

Nietzsche warns:
There is no ‘lightning’

that strikes
There is only the striking

No – thing performs this action
Only action itself

[She understrike] acts the part
And is stricken from the page

She is no longer subject
She was never object

She is all action
and reiteration

She is repetition
She is the sum

of all mirrors
repeating

an infinite version
A vision

of herself
for which there is

no original

[She strikethrough]
has out-done herself

[She] is all doing
and undone

[She] is in-deed
a fiction

written in
after-

thought

How can she
continue

To remain
Only energy

Light
particle

When will it be time
to strike

[She] senses
a storm brewing

Sarah Rice

 

*  Judith Butler quotes the above from Nietzsche’s: On the Genealogy of Morals, and adds ‘There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender’ (Gender Trouble).

Sarah Rice’s poetry collection Fingertip of the Tongue (UWAP 2017) was recently shortlisted in the ACT Publishing Awards, and her work extensively published in journals and anthologies. Sarah won the Ron Pretty and Bruce Dawe, co-won the Writing Ventures, and Gwen Harwood poetry prizes, and has been shortlisted in numerous writing awards.

© 2019