Notebook: 10/22/03

1. The present seen on a movie
screen in black and white: close
up of a table. The rhythmic uncertainty
of temporal progression sequesters
the expected chronology. The
direction is never doubted, never
questioned. Memories reside in
the hands. Viewing them as
centered on the screen, then
"this must be your favorite montage."
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers
spliced across the dance floor. No
regrets about the fingering, no
second guessing what passed. Variations
on a scream. One direction back
to circling the first generation of
pain. Hide the trigger words.
I don't want to think
about what the "objective correlatives"
were. They remain, they must
remain, disguised at all times.
Seeing them in someone
else's clothes, understanding them
as dressed in a costume, listening
to all their speeches as if
they were prepared dialogues. Of
course they were- of course they
were not. Transcending both
categories. They appear as
part of a masque, part of a
remembered and lovingly repeated
ritual.

2.
I am pleased about deleting
a word. You won't be asked to guess it
or think about it. They exist
only to give you permission. But
why must I be given
permission to think. I can
only assume that thinking has
been forbidden, as I am quite
sure it was, very long ago. The
particles that filter down,
that drift, are the only
evidence we have that
thinking ever existed. This
film has been repeating so long we have
long ago forgotten there was a
time before reruns (letters
in the public domain). Intermittent
messages from the time before. These
resonances were sporadic from the
beginning. They appeared
like glittering reflections on a lake.
From time to time they arranged
themselves in recognizable patterns.
These would be suggested by
sequences of words. For example:
forest, insignia, slope. The
words settle like particles
swirling around in water.
Brownian motion, a message trapped inside
a rock for eons.

3.
Prescience

Before there was a before,
at a time when the present was
far more urgent than it is
now, someone had an inkling.
Someone started to remember.
"Time" began with this moment.
Looking, looking around anxiously,
anxiously searching. What, or who,
remembers? Running in terror,
searching fearfully, and keeps its
close relation. I want nothing
more than to forget it. To
foresee, to understand time's
odd qualities, perceive its human aspect.
Time and being, circling around each other like
two curious, hungry, searching,
fearful animals. What can we
do with each other, so far apart?

How can we understand each
other, one completely non-human,
the other vulnerable, but seeing
time, feeling it run through,
watching it, moving, thinking,
playing within it, like a child
romping in the ocean, feeling
the strong waves, playing in its
changing currents, regarding its
vastness, its inhuman responses,
its hidden expressions.

10/23

In poetry, prescience and
relevance are the same thing.