Tides of the moon

Antonin Artaud

Moon

Bitter tasting tonight,
Jealous of some obscene tart,
Dark, cavernous, dirty with clouds
Floating between the moon and us.

Rancorous moon on the sea,
It was a cheerless moon,
Like a sick man's thoughts,
On the nature of the universe.

In the fabled dark
Where the moon had risen,
Summer's calm,
Stretched out in it's hazy foliage.

The Bad Dreamer

My dreams are mostly liquid. I am immersed in sorts of nauseous waters where the blood-red films toss and turn. I never rise up to the level of certain impressions, whether in my dreams or real life. I am never settled in the continuity of my life. My dreams are offered no escape, no refuge or guide. Truly the rankness of severed limbs. Besides, I am too resigned about my thought to be interested in anything that goes on in it. I ask for one thing only: to be locked away in my thought for good. And as to the physical appearance of my dreams, I told you, a liquid.

He gives words to mental states perfectly, he describes this as death approaching, I relate it to chronic anxiety.

Who in the heart?

Who in the heart of some anxiety at the bottom of certain dreams, has not known death as a marvellous disruptive feeling which could never be confused with anything else of a mental order? One must have experienced this exhausting crescendo of anguish which comes over in waves and then swells one up as if or forced by some unbearable bellows. Anguish which draws near and withdraws, each time stronger  more ponderous and replete. This is the body itself, having reached the limit of its strength and distension, and yet must go on. It is a sort of suction cup on the soul, whose acridity spreads like acid into the furthermost bounds of the senses.

Anais Nin was friends with Antonin Artaud, apparently he wanted to have her as a lover but she declined his advances. She speaks about him "Then he offered to burn everything else for me, to dedicate himself to me. I deserved a black holocaust. What would Artaud burn for me? I did not ask. And I knew that just as Allendy's magic was too white, Artaud's was black, poisonous, dangerous"