READIN

🦋 Analogies for Time

(Note I posted a revision in comments that I think is a much better poem)

by Jeremy Osner

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, abiding
that's an action to be taken. Swim upstream.
The analogy here is imperfect. Swim
upstream/ float/ swim downstream/ bob
in the current.
The surface of the river.
The landscape here is reality
in its spacial dimensions
as they may appertain
picking a scab
Reality cannot be---
analogized because the analogy chosen
must of necessity itself be a part of reality
cannot get a foothold, perspective
outside it
Picturing reality
mapping reality
Map is analogy
Cartographer/ poet. Poems, their varying
degrees of realism, they blossom forth:
construct a universe immaculate
in conception
corrupt in execution
a map
which deconstructs/ creates the world
around you reader, "pulls you in",
so to speak. You scratch your head
and look up at the clock,
your eye zooms in
on a fly that's buzzing around the 7.
It's half past 8 and down the street
a dog is barking.

posted morning of Saturday, September 21st, 2013
➳ More posts about Poetry
➳ More posts about Writing Projects
➳ More posts about Projects

revision

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
any pearl that you accrete
complete
and coterminous. 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.

posted morning of September 21st, 2013 by Jeremy

stuck in the sacred hour
the script rolls out unpaginated
and without punctuation
so all you can do is read it and get out of breath
and pause
and rotate your field of vision
to align
with the sense you feel as avid reader
devout
silent. Again press pause
and marvel
thunderstruck-- the radiant contours
mellow soundtrack
of the jungle. And beneath you,
gaping chasm. O Wanderer:
Which path will you choose? Relax
and let me tell you a story-- at least an epigraph.
Let me read to you from Kafka, let me read
the cryptic annals of some untranslated scribe.
We'll bribe the night watchman
at the library
and slip into the rare books
at the stroke of midnight-- your sultry glance
directs me
to a slim, forgotten chapbook
of Josner Ávala
open it and read the lines
the gnomic epigraphal notes
the scribbled entries
from the journals of some madman.
We cleave
in sudden passionate embrace
gorgeous
desperate
gasping
fearful in the moment of climax
Alarms are ringing now,
it's time for work
but we're paralyzed
in this moment of truth
and completion

posted morning of September 29th, 2013 by Jeremy

The epigraph for this series should be "Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time."

posted morning of September 29th, 2013 by Jeremy

Respond:

Name:
E-mail: (will not be displayed)
Link:
Remember info	Send