Modern Mythology: Jailbreaking Language: Elegies for Realities Bygone and Yet to Come

By Prof. Rowan
dialdfordialectic (at) gmail

8-5-8

Who were we to cut time in two?
To place a hand outstretched between two infinities
Digits fingering the supernumerary infinite of time
enumerating, denumerating,
digitally devolving,
continuum contracting
i n t o
wind-blown desert-sand-seconds
counted and counted, once and eternally again
by three anthropomorphic clock-hands
grandfather-clock-hands
the clock
deified, itself now digital
clutching, counting,
sand-seconds
passing
sur-viving the dis-aster of man
two infinities of time once again become one
one-not-one
number-no-longer
analog continuum

Synchronic Chronology

In lunar or solar cycles, so natural
On inscriptions, of acid-etched dates
artificial and calendrical

In time with countless clocks and calendars
Which ones? And how many?
Detour-Questions – responses superficial

Transitory moments
Movements mortal-immortal
Indeterminate intervals
Instants – interstitial

The complicity of Chronos reigns over
my synchronic chronology
Marked-time signifier-guides
for this ephemeral revolutionary

The Point

So grave and egregious an error,
of having ever conceived the point
of a pointless non-dimension
How natural, then, how easy it was,
to think time as a line...

Pointillistic self-conception
Time, strung-out, in unceasing reduction,
Thought-thinned, wasted (away),
without width, wan, in one-dimension

Punctured and apportioned
According to an artificial and arbitrary order
Once moments of life abounding, now transfigured
as exchangeable points of time,
all-instants,
exchangeable
any-one for any-other
each one, self-ennobling, envisions
an eternal identity, a singular self
any-one ironically identical to any-other
in line with such pointless noetic economy

Moments of Orpheus

Quickening Pulse
at the heart of life
Changing Rhythms
at the moment of epochal revolution
Arche and Telos
at once, in momentary superposition
At the overflowing heart of life
In each ephemeral, momentary beat -
All Time, Eternal Beauty

Upon Wings of Time

Ceaseless oscillation, inexplicable hesitation
mobile moment – hiatus from history
hovering, gliding, on the winds, my wings, of time

Cosmic inflation, endless and without hesitation
advancing arrow – inexpiable succession of instants
passing, flying, on my wings unfurled, filled by the winds, of time

Circular undulation, infinite and without repetition
paradoxical presence – present moment populated with those
departing, arriving, on winds, on wings, of flying time

Supernumerary aspiration, to live without hesitation
revenant revulsion – intolerable idea of superannuated stories
- of the horror of history in repetition
- of retrograde motion, the future-past, of Mnemosyne's temptation
– and yet, desire and defiance,
surpassing, surviving, the tempestuous winds... borne aloft... fragile wings...
...of, ... on ... of TIME.

My Involuntary Muse

Your movements in accord
with the rhythms of my time
Into my world, my proximity,
you glide upon wings unseen,
unexpected
un-expecting
hovering above, coming-over, traversing
the void which makes ME,
makes YOU,
As pendulums suspended,
oscillating, above an abyss,
time brings an embrace -
an instant, immemorial
when, in unison, two mouths
speak one word - WE
Memory-images immediately effaced,
Imagination re-creates in remembrance,
as I think you into my arms
transfigured, my artifice has made you my muse involuntary

Speak To Me, Silently

Speak but a single word to me
Or say the same while pronouncing none
No Words, Not One,
Neither a Name,
Nor even the faintest sounds of a sigh
Need trespass,
transgress
that Hallowed Space
between your lips
Speak to me no more words than one
Or speak to me all the same while you remain in silence
Your silent address can only find its destination

Speak, speak not a word to me, but only in silence
And say all the more for pronouncing none
Not a Word, Not One,
Neither a Noise,
Nor the distant echoes of silenced sighs
Could surpass,
surmount
that Accursed Space
between your lips and mine
Speak, speak no longer with words to me,
Speak to me in silence, speak sweetly and remain silent
My lips will seek out yours as I hold you close to me

Speak to me,
No, do not speak,
Not with words of language
Speak to me,
Yes, without words of language, Speak
rather with a silent tongue

Likewise I speak silently to you
Or say the same faintly pronouncing but one (sigh)
No Words, Not One,
Neither a name
Nor even the anguished longing of a cry
Issues forth
Escapes
For my lips are pressed against yours and yours against mine
now, there is no longer any accursed "between."

I speak to you in silence
Or say the same with (n)one
You respond all the same, silently,
As lips touch, we embrace, and I draw you close to me
Speak, don't seek, for this close all words must fail
Speak, don't seek, let our shared silence prevail

Seek no more, speak, speak without Word or Voice
as you draw me closer to your lips, You are intertwined with Me.

IronynorI

For the inverse of irony
- does a word exist? in any language?
Perfomative non-contradiction
- no, there is neither word nor phrase
which does no violence to the idea,
which has the power to portray without reduction
moments overflowing
supersaturated instants
of untrammeled immediacy
truth beyond the true,
moments when,
(no(t)-
-where)
beyond the Word and the Act
co-inciding
co-incidentally
there exists a truth truer than fact
in moments when,
(no(t)-
(every)days)
beyond coincidence, the two contract
co-mingling
co-mmunally,
and as one, enact
those words which speak through me
speaking in synchronicity -
these words – (meta-
– phors? meta
– stases of meaning)
of words' impossible fidelity
to their deeds during
moments of pure, immanent immediacy

Revenants/Remnants

Five months, five days, and five years
These are the times of an epoch at last arriving at an end
Revenants and remnants of irretrievable moments
they speak through me,
they speak through you,
they speak through us as one, in one voice
These are the fading echoes of an epoch receding
and, too, the faint, distant annunciation of another, proceeding
resounding within walls of time
a spectral, scarcely audible, presence in the Now

Do you hear them too?
Do they haunt you too?

You

I saw your face
Barely beyond the blurred future-present boundary
I saw your face – did you see mine? through the mists of this borderland, in the ether

I saw the words-non-words
Written upon your chest in a scarlet script, incandescently
I saw those words-non-words, in which we recognize and speak with one another

I felt your embrace
After our utterance, our words-non-words, in mutual intelligibility
I felt warm in your embrace, in which we lose ourselves within one another