grammatological monster
Jef Safi, Toroidal trigonomorphosis of the centripetal illusion of Being through the n‑sphere of the centrifugal In-Between in-formation outlining a Vanishing-Line in the virtual lineaments of the Path (dào) half-opened by the Median Void (taìjítú) Breath (qì). [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]
Author’s note
I was feeling restless one morning, and while meditating got the idea to experiment with writing a poem that would openly break with objective grammar and even semantic meaning. I was inspired by our recent Cosmos Café on Jean Gebser’s 1941 essay, “The Grammatical Mirror,” which argues that subtle changes in language are evidence of a mutation in consciousness which he calls the “integral.”
During the call, I noted that since the time of Gebser, our ‘grammatical mirror’ has exploded (while remaining mostly mentally fixated) but that we might ‘update’ Gebser by finding evidence of the post-postmodern (integral) now. This text (and accompanying audio) is meant to illustrate that point. This might also be an extreme example of the ‘crytopoetic’ style. It’s also fairly influenced by recent readings in Peter Sloterdijk (i.e., ‘spheropoetics’).
if
as
were
to a-
light
in fine-like
for lake eyes turn
resembles
collapsing string quartet
deliver in
sync per containeresque
tear,
listening;
medicine sliver
boy-
fawn, dell-hollers, crow in-signifies
bottles, little
why
wave sign equanimous
sole
crustaceous skull crack, climb
c-
sector nyne time(s)
three whales
softs
calamity
alive—caught—a lips, a part
()
find me a fin, ye fall sunlappers, cry all a fine liner thru Cancer arc continued, form kind stranger, find me! define if i will (cram the finer) slide black blue bellower Calypso eye field a fill to fall with in turning-bind, triple-helix (spiral-O) sorrows—
as, as
be find me, kind stranger. remind silver moonson: penumbra doll, armed siren, illiterate sage. turn turn a-little, bedeviled; lava so, kissed-over, tucked away
beloved
.
Performed by Marco V Morelli
Music by Anna Thorvaldsdottir: Ró (excerpt)
This is extraordinary, but once again, the full impact is only gained while listening to the spoken form, and then reading the written version. Am not sure about the title though - it assumes the form shocks, and I think this undersells its value. I like « penumbra doll » or even « collapsing string quartet » better. These titles recognize that one has to wait to catch the sense, that the poem is more penumbra than umbra, or more post collapse than pre collapse. Still matters of form, perhaps, but your text does invite us to contemplate form, it’s just that I don’t find it as monstrous as you seem to suggest.
You could do more of this, Marco. The meaning seeps in around the edges, I love it.
@metapsy-editors: I was going through and doing some light organizational work in the Metapsy admin area, and re-discovered that I had created a draft post for this piece a few months ago, though never officially published it.
I think I would like to do so now, if there are no objections, while remaining open of course to feedback and ideas.
Here is the post, which I just cleaned up. It is visible by direct link but yet not on the home page:
(I would put it in the “microdoses” section; it is definitely on the experimental side…)
Hi, Marco–a quick look-over says this is fine to me, if you want to publish it. I haven’t had a chance to listen to the audio, though. – Brigid
Alright, thanks, Brigid. You might enjoy the audio—it carries a feeling that I’m not sure the text by itself conveys. In any event, this was really just a spontaneous experiment. But I like stuff like this, and would publish more of it, by others, especially in the Microdoses section.
Nice Marco!
Did you mean to say “crytopoetic” or “cryptopoetic”? Lil typo maybe.
Ah, thanks for catching that!