Page:Knight (1975) Past, Future and the Problem of Communication in the Work of V V Khlebnikov.djvu/155

147 :We teach: the word governs the brain, the brain–the hands, the hands—kingdoms. The bridge to a self—governing kingdom–is a self—governing speech.

Under the conditions of the present, self-sufficient language–the language of the "twilight" mental layers—is ruled by the "congealed", "bookish", "rational" language of the "daylight" waking mind. The "political" differences between these two forms of language have been noted already: one divides people, the other unites them; one corresponds to the "states of space", the other to the "state of time"; one corresponds to the world‘s "governments", the other to its "people"; one corresponds to "the present", the other to the future and the distant past. Another difference is suggested when Khlebnikov states his own preference as between these two forms or realms of existence of the word:


 * I would much rather
 * Gaze at the stars
 * Than sign a death—warrant...
 * That is why I will never,
 * NeVer,
 * Be a ruler!

The "bookish" language of “states of Space" is also the language of the bureaucrat who inflicts death with his pen. A different scale of violence through language-—the "historical violence" perpetrated over centuries against the entire continent and culture of Asia-seems to be what Khlebnikov tries to depict in another poem through an extraordinary extended metaphor. Here again the state is identified with language—in this case, with print—the inner ruptures and fissures through society being significantly "confused" with the effects on paper of the pressures of a printing press and its letters:


 * In that book you may turn pages
 * Printed by the pressure of seas,
 * Nations gleaming like inks in the night.