Three Poems

Michael Fried

The Message
According to the theory of deconstruction the sender of a message is absent in principle, even when she sits touching the excited receiver with her knee. So as Jacques Derrida drafted a few sentences to be read aloud at the memorial service that was held the week after he disappeared he smiled, despite not feeling great, to think how moved that solemn gathering would be by words that did nothing more than allegorize the condition of all speech.

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Critical Inquiry / Winter 2007

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The Death of Jacques Derrida

Somewhere in the north, a vast lake, partly frozen. Snow covering the ground, on the r trees, in the distant hills. The sky a deep, radiant, metaphysical blue. Cold wind blowing in gusts. A magnicent day. No humans in view, thats the important thing. But from the dark recesses of the forest there one by one or in small squads comes forth an ordinarily mutually shunning population of foxes, wolves, bear, elk, deer, beaver, otters, raccoons, porcupines, hares, moles wincing at the light, skunks, squirrels, eld-mice, voles, no doubt other, lesser creatures as wellall seemingly pacic, self-contained, one might say preoccupied. And for perhaps an hour they mill or skitter or in a few cases leap about, to no apparent purpose, the stronger taking care not to step accidentally upon the weaker. After which they return to the forest, silently for the most part. On the snow: tens of thousands of hoof and paw prints, involuntary brushings of tails, urine traces, steaming turds, even a few crimson specks of blood. A message of farewell to one who held them in his thought.

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Michael Fried / Three Poems

Macintosh
It all hangs by a hair: one day everything is going well and the next some test result comes back just slightly awry and you are embarked. When a visitor let drop the news that Jacques was seriously ill I interjected, Vous etes sur? What I meant was: How can that be as if the rate at which he produced his books not to mention the avidity with which each was devoured would keep him safe from harm until the day when he himself closed his Macintosh.