Analogies for Time

by Jeremy Osner

Personal density is directly proportional to temporal bandwidth.

-- Kurt Mondaugen

Lonesome Nickel pressSouth Orange, NJ

2013

Analogies for TimeBilly Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.

—Kurt Vonnegut

Think of time as a river of events think of time simply as a river: Events the features of the landscape the river flows through. The river erodes the landscape. The landscape is formed, created, given shape by the river. Analogies for time. Time shapes you but does not abide; and you––– you're floating down the river in the hot, hot sun and gawking staring at the drama that unfolds upon the shore. (and here the analogy rings clear) Swim upstream. Float, idle, absent, absorbed. Swim with the current, slide along the surface of Reality, irritated, muddled,you're scratching at a scab. Cannot––– cannot analogize this river backwards so to speak, to get perspective on this landscape you're a part of. Any map you draw or pearl that you accrete completecoterminous. Your poems, they blossom forth, they map they coincide with this earth immaculate in conception corrupt in execution and deconstruct create around you reader, pull you in. You scratch your head and look up at the clock that's floating by; & the second hand creeps by buoyant abiding, arriving, enticing in the moment rejoicing.

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Analogies for Time

stuck in the sacred hoursomos la muerte recién podadaque florecerá muertes y más muertes hasta hacer un inmenso jardín de muertes

—Joaquín Pasos

the script rolls out unpaginatedand without punctuationso all you can do is read it and get out of breathand pauseand rotate your field of visionto alignwith the sense you feel as avid readerdevoutsilent. Again press pauseand marvelthunderstruck— the radiant cutout contoursmellow soundtrackof the jungle. And beneath you,gaping chasm. O Wanderer:Which path will you choose? Relaxand let me tell you a story— at least an epigraph.Let me read to you from Kafka, let me readthe cryptic annals of some untranslated scribe.We'll bribe the night watchmanat the libraryand slip into rare booksat the stroke of midnight— your sultry glancedirects me to a slim, forgotten chapbook of Josner Ávalaopen it and read the linesthe gnomic epigraphal notesthe scribbled entriesfrom the journals of some madman.We cleavein sudden passionate embracegorgeousdesperategaspingfearful in the moment of climaxAlarms are ringing now,it's time for workbut we're paralyzedcompleted

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The dead of 9/11 are photographedand silentand the crater they fell into long since filledwith detritus of 21st C. dreams in Americaand ragged strips of newsprintwithout any columns of ink,they're blank and they're torn. and thenames of the deadscroll by beneath the imageof America.

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Analogies for Time

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My father's languageis my mother tongueand the tongues of those around meare not my ownnor their teeth

my mouth it movesand forms the wordsthe moving pen has left behindnor all your Piety and Wittoo late to say

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Mute UnfoldingVoy soñando y lo que sueño no me parece tal sueño.

—Josner Ávala

his story still untold, it's full of silent fury and significance and void mute like some magnificent android, and so the idiot recounts, he counts he builds up poetry and mountainscrumbling pottery shards of steel, silent fountains distant voices see him stuttering and pale and seeking shelter from the storm of sorrow shattering, resonant, freaking out about the null tomorrow and his idiotic legacy comatose, potential inside the eyelids snaky purple patterns weave all hectic and the syllables shift and merge electric inside the idiot's eyelids

the idiot wind-up's found his tongue, his sound, he sighs and hesitant at first he tries to flesh out some good story and his wound-up spring uncoils, relaxes — listen to him now, now listensee how surely in the end, this cravingcraving for a narrative, an order which we've agreed for now to call consciousness is nothing more than slow decay a gradual unfolding into languor, into entropy the words tumble out of his wind-up mouth of his mouthhis wind-up mouth, and he pries, he tries, inquires, seeks out the void of inner meditation, gleaming immaculate clockwork — but the automated web of narrative unravels in the telling, thread caught on some miscalculated bearing point—: meaning's left without a structureevaporatesin the noon-day sunin the sun

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Analogies for Time

but clockwork speech gives way to patchwork song, we hearthe idiot nattering on and onthis wretched plain bursts forth in song! a mournful minor wailing tunereverberates across the arid pampa of the afternoonangelic idiotic voicewe join, we sing along, we have no choicethe anger set behind the chords, the pain and fearwould move a statue's stony countenance to tearsuntilthe final note rings outand its reverberations peter out, and stone turns back to stoneacross the pale dry sands where no tree standsa thin dry breeze is blowing us towards home

the idiot's sleeping now, his story told, and old, forgottenand his android body sleepingwhile its clockwork spring ticks out the yearsunwinds relaxes, basks in its entropic destinysilent not out of frustration now but of contentmentrelease

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Dream is poetryDream is not a revelation. If a dream affords the dreamer some light on himself, it is not the person with closed eyes who makes the discovery but the person with open eyes lucid enough to fit thoughts together. Dream — a scintillating mirage surrounded by shadows — is essentially poetry.

—Michel Leiris

If a dream affords the dreamer some lucidity,some poetry, some regal slumberwhy forget it then, why discardthe glittering shards of irrealitythat pierce your consciousnessless reposethat hold your dreaming branelike pushpins on the void

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Analogies for Time

Eternal present/in memoriamwe mortals are present, he said: we die but once.

we mortals are present, and die but once,I hear you say, and die a bit each day.we mortals are present, we die but once,and half the time it is in vain;our ticking hours and years crawl past usmarked with Adam's stain

we mortals are present, we die but once and God's outside of time and there's a linebetween the mortal and divine, outside of time."God's presence" (is) our mortal past and futurewhich do not exist, oh let them not existwe pleadand let us die but oncewe pleadand pass outside of timeour meter, rhyme connecting memories and ashesand our second nervous passage out of this connective sibilance eternal disenmomentedreflected crashing echoes dieand dust and endlessness

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The thin shrill whine of creeping hearing lossThe noises on my evening porch on Meeker Street divideinto infrequent spots of sound — the quiet cars and trains far off and sometimes getting closer — and constant streams, these further classifiedinto degrees of variation:cicadas' incessant, homogenous roarmuffles (but listen closer)the babbling brook of excited birds:the quiet fizz of soda in my glass.

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Analogies for Time

Not a sonnetThe path to understanding versemust lie through repetition —well,that's where my thoughts are leading me,internal iteration linkingletters on the page to solidconsonants and sibilationnothingness, annihilationpausing where there's punctuation—Write the letters large enough,inscribed inside my skull, retraced,and give my mind no choice exceptto follow where they lead, to paintthe pictures they express, to putmyself inside the poet's psyche:See what he sees, maybe, or self-consciously be made to seeexactly where my failure liesto get across what's bugging memy fault as reader or as writer,guilt external to the page, the page can feel no guilt, it's paper,blank until I taint it withmy thoughts, my visions, my regret,my happy-ever-after longing;Strike a key and watch the letterprint itself, its inky formlaid down forever with its partners.Sing in silent chorus from theblankness of the page.

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Waking PoemI wake to sleep, and take my waking slow

—Theodore Roethke

He dreamt of his distributed weightlying hair's-breadth by hair's-breadth this side of collapseon the springs of his mattress; his linen-clad pillow,the thousands of hairs on the nape of his neck; dreamt ofcovers and sheets and the million thread count, themechanics of sleep, of the pale thunder moon, of the

gasp from his lungs as his body escapesthis cold matrix of wakefulness, bitterness, playfulness:memories of nuzzling close in the arms of the

black grinning spectre of night.

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Analogies for Time

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My shadow has no memory of that frantic, panicked, pell-mell flight —No pain or expectations, craving, dying to escape his bondage.Look, he's crouching, vibrates with desire that only shadows feel;He's poised to spring, to pounce, as if the shadow of some predator,Some dusky, fleeting contrast on the sidewalk of my consciousness,Some ragged blank impression on the sand dunes of my memory —We move, the spell is broken, sliding frictionless along the gardenSeeking our reflection in the pools of last night's rainfall,In the golden machinations of the sunlight from the east.

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Fuzzy PunctuationThe dreams which I was just insidecome back to me, they give my dayunasked-for structure, so the friendlystranger walking by on Broadwaysmiling beatificallyis in some sense a page from last night's dream-book(though he doesn't know it)and he'll stay with me: besmiling through my day's transactions,follow to my office, he'll bewatchful as I give my notice,end another chapterof my life-book, and his visagein my dreams and in my waking dream,illuminates this bland transition,lifts me up — his dark brown moustacheserves as fuzzy punctutation,marking off this minor epoch,leading on, betokeningthe job search that's to come.

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Analogies for Time

MentorYou can't escape your dreams, the old man said,and I was not sure what to counter with,I smiled shyly, hemmed and hawedand joked, I don't imagine I'll be needing themwhere I'm bound, I was going for a referenceto film noir, but it came out more sincere than I intended,piss-poor irony, the old man said Don't worry,I remember what you're going through,indeed I do,I'm sure that you'll pull through until tomorrow. —Then what? Felt a chill, to hear him use that ugly word,tomorrow never knows, I thought, and shivered as I wrapped my handaround the card he'd given me,I slipped it in my pocket, shook his hand and smiledand said I'd see him soon.

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Amplitude

It doesn't need to be that long,a few choice phrases will suffice;just plainly tell them why you've comeand what you need to bring back home,and quietly get it and excuse yourself.

You don't need to go very far,a few blocks or leagues should be enough;enough to get a new perspectiveand to understand more fully the dilemmain which you find yourself.

And please don't stay too long on stage,just sing a few sweet verses and be silent.

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Analogies for Time

Old Friend (for Graham)

That's odd — I can hardly remember the last time I knew where you wereor had any contactand yetI feel your far-off presence by my sidea chuckle when I make a jokethat doesn't quite come offand glad tolisten to the twisted theoriesand share a pipeand grin and I rememberwhen we used to talk aboutwhat would come and little did we know of courseI hear your name sometimesand wonderwhat's become.

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Act out this savage pantomime in the distancecricketsin the distancethe voices of yoursubjunctivesaviorsand you stumble thru the stepsof some long forgotten sceneof some brutally ironicforgotten scene.

and sometimes it can help to be brutally honestto tell the truth I meanand to deceivedeceive with honestyso to speakdeceive with savage apathypassivityliquidity and self-congratulation:conflatingto seed the pasturesof some chaotic Babylonimagined.

and the insect hum behind the melodypervasive rhythmic ambianceNot a form of beauty but of void, this binarynow, so what—Void is imperceptible when it's cloaked in a mask of beingVoid here should be taken to mean Nullityand our Reality/ is riddled throughis torn asunder by infinitevoid and void and voids/ impossibleto pluralize this empty heartof being.

and the minutes are like hours, like idle, carefree hoursforgotten as they pass.Forgotten as the second handticks by on some imagined sundialas streams/ evaporateinto desertas protostellar nuclei condensevolcanicintrinsic to our nature/ evenas the void repulses us

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Analogies for Time

¶ and the insect hum behind the melody pervasiveand basic to natureintrinsicto meaning.

to say the minutes pass like hours predictable creeping byo verminous horde, to sayto say you've said all this before, to call the riddlemeaningless and pettyTo get behind the riddle to its source, to its creator/interact for God's sakeand call it growth, and chalk it upto destiny

so sliding frame by frame by these episodes and episodic memoriesof our ill-spent youths

and current circumstances

different pathways and strands of meaning surround youencroach on your experience of the momentyour sense of realityso to speakyou've come unstuck in time and out of luckso walk your pilgrim's pathso celebrate your misfortunegrinat the indeterminate slicesof subjunctive structurethat enframe you.

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Discipline

The optimal discipline consistsin self-awareness, self-negationin a parody of cleanliness.The optimal discipline consists in self indulgence, self-correctionin a parody of obedianceobeisance,and the optimal level of disciplinethe one we seekbut never quite attaina balancecalm condolenceover situations we never asked forwere taxed foravoided all semblance of disciplinein meditationlike a form of recreationresurrectionand ultimate truth.

AND IT'S NOW! sowhy not do it? With a howl you pounceinto the fiction before youteeming fiction where you're jostledcheek by jowl they crowd youlouder now they're grumblingand muffling you with their scowlsnow you're struggling to escapeto leave this sea of narrativeto lift your glanceto glance awayand break your concentrationand not worry about the implicit snubto your host the author.

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Analogies for Time

Prufrock

Let us go then, you and I,the evening sprawled across the skyjust like a drunkard, passed out in the gutter.The patrons scowl, and mutter.

Let us go then, you and I the night is falling in the sky like a drunkard, falling in the gutter let's walk down empty streets past darkened shops that mutter follow other streets in argument increasingly apparent to a foregone conclusion but one which we can never call by name no word

but enough talk, come on.

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DisplacementUno no es de ninguna partemientras no tenga un muerto bajo la tierra

my perception of duration and of sequence of eventsis growing weakerdislocationfading slowly into timelessness, displacementsense memory of objects I displaced, dispersedso,

I rubbed against the floors I walked onand they do my thinking now

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Analogies for Time

Lullaby for LauraMidnight's oil is inky black, it shimmersin the orange glow of the match you've struckMidnight's oil is an inky puddle in your cerebellumThere is no wick in midnight's oilbut will it burn? Hesitantyou drop the matchit hisses and diesin your moist consciousnessand you feel the dark embraceof midnight's oilmidnight's oil swells, becomesitselfthe fabric of your consciousnessno claustrophobia here nor displacement, indeedthe oppositea warmth one might say, a carnal pleasurein the closeness of midnight's oilyou get a pleasant contact high from midnight's oilindeed in its glow you sense a new pathnew visioncome quickly to love the way it burnspale blue flame, dim flame, warm flameilluminates you, passes through the membraneseparating self and your surroundingsAnd so you're out there now and everything's burningburning in quiet joy, in dim blue ecstasybut what can you do when everything's on firebut fiddletake your cuethe camera pans in close on Nero's graying braided hairand the hair of his bow slides quickly sometimes sloppy on the stringswhich are burning tooand none of it consumed like Rome wasand from this ubiquitous burning bush hear the voiceof midnight's oil deep and resonant asemichear the syllablesneither skatting nor as they might appear some ancient language dead and never tracednor yet a new inventiontimeless nonsense tripping from the nonexistent lips of transcendent midnight's oilwhat madness will this incantation work?

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Opportunistically Present

Opportunistically lying in wait and grinning, giggling lamelyat the ashy glow of the painted wall in the streetlamp and suddenly hear a dead man walking round the corner and the dying fall

You're making up your mind and nervous, humming inanely snatches of the anthem of your good old school out west; forgotten the words and meanings subtle meaninglessness, your time has not yet come so you play the fool

And suddenly crumpling and falling, lifeless, playing a wrinkled fool, to an audience of jaded friends

You're running now frantic feel the rhythmic paceand all the scenery's the same just one repeated shot flickers pastand you could swear you've been out here before Mr. Hitchcock; and this stupid mistake will not be your lastnot the last of such creatures entrusted and painted and linedwith precious gems, heirloom for a generationof bureaucrats —you switch back now and look him full in the faceand suddenly you find you cannot recognize this familiar caricature, this crudely sketched archetype of disquiet, or you do not want to (and so you fail to), unfamiliar expression you know so well, could trace it out in the dark you reckon soft ivory fingers on imaginary skin and so you stare into his absent eyes and identify yourself with his absent character and longing

And you so long to be there, to be present.

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Analogies for Time

**CAUTION**the automatic CAUTION door swings open and my heart beats faster panicked panting racing down the corridor I know not where I'm headed what I'm fleeing whom I'll see if I look back behind me emptiness of ignorance and fear and pain and nervous sound

the automatic PANIC switch engages and I'm climbing up the walls I'm falling paralyzed and endless should have seen that coming no way back tonight my friend the waterfalls of history are soaking me I'm sweating broken searching for the path to bring me home

the automatic wicked bolt of FEAR slides home and punctures my resolve I'm quaking trembling feverish looking in the mirror what I see is sending waves of manic pity through me tell me truly help me I can't find a hand to hold a charge of hope and love and weary resignation say you'll keep me in my pit of fear and solitude and quavering frustration help me turn toward these scaly walls and understand my history my saving grace my destiny my almost unrequited FEAR

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The Tin Man's Lament

Cut me up, divide me I plead, slice me just precisely down the middle and use your hands to strip off my skin and pluck out my bones with your fingers, it's my body, eat of it, I say, but please, please just leave me my blood.

Cut me off, I mean it from everything I knew I'll carry my blood in buckets, my stinking blood while I search for a heart (but — how are you carrying buckets without your bones? I hear you asking and I'm begging your leave) we'll journey and go on adventures across the obscene, ridiculous continents

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Analogies for Time

ButchersPoetry which may perhaps defend my shadow some time, in days to come some time when I'm just a name not the man with empty pockets, wandering and working in the butchers of the old and of the new continent.

—Roberto Bolaño

My dreams, my not-so-easy dreams, my dreams with antecedent in some unknown trauma some nightmare long gone by I drop them and they fall there's no external reference to hold them up, to slow them down no parachute, to where? and when will they stop, will they find some resting place?

Dreams fall of the old and of the new continent, they fall without end; dreams of friendship macho friendship: rough homoerotic self- sufficiency, published privacy. And in the butchers of North America may no dreams work but shadows.

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Analogies for Time

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