Bildens Äkthet
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- after Melanie Challenger
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Ascend and the feel of air,
descend and the feel of air,
what turns the strobe light on?
In the dream I’m in the same room
the other me is sleeping in
and everything,
down to the light and shadows,
appears to be identical,
perhaps just slightly tilted,
as though refracted
through a pane glossed over
by half-heard subterranean rhythms,
and one of us is now
only a mirror figure
on a scale other than the original,
moved by an invisible hand
along a predetermined track,
a human breath collection apparatus
gliding in and out of walls
ushering life forces through.
When I speak, he
speaks:
I, who soar high into the sky
no longer subject to the laws of motion
but to their echo, across
the horizontal approximation
from where I can see
the four corners of the world,
and reach them, shall keep
a weather eye on everything.
descend and the feel of air,
what turns the strobe light on?
In the dream I’m in the same room
the other me is sleeping in
and everything,
down to the light and shadows,
appears to be identical,
perhaps just slightly tilted,
as though refracted
through a pane glossed over
by half-heard subterranean rhythms,
and one of us is now
only a mirror figure
on a scale other than the original,
moved by an invisible hand
along a predetermined track,
a human breath collection apparatus
gliding in and out of walls
ushering life forces through.
When I speak, he
speaks:
I, who soar high into the sky
no longer subject to the laws of motion
but to their echo, across
the horizontal approximation
from where I can see
the four corners of the world,
and reach them, shall keep
a weather eye on everything.
Note: Bildens Äkthet is Swedish for Authenticity of Image
Convention as Means of Repression
All warnings to guard or refill it ignored, what could restore it to health?
The living reservoir’s dried up to dust,
a residue that yields a different kind of time flooding the remainder,
an altered medium, circular yet hollow-bellied like a roof without a temple.
Algorithms may relax the nerves and muscle tissue through the body
but emotions are as dry as the salt mountain’s thirst.
You want to dive in and turn it to stream.
The choice lies in the act of measuring—is the product of some frank,
dispassionate inspection, a lucent audit of your standing
amid the same choreography of commerce and condition,
flowing as it does from one vanishing point to another, endlessly,
like a river of momentum, of contracts framed as the myth of getting somewhere
when in fact you fell upon it
and still your thoughts, like minerals that collect and boil away
along the far banks of your awareness,
drift inevitably toward that stream
and blur into the current so fully they forget their origin.
Alone on the water, the water reflects nothing back.
The small boat setting out from the large boat left behind
is less a metaphor than a decision. Because acute, transactive instead of gifting,
life stays blind and restless,
the loss of world inevitable, mere instrument
in the service of something lying on the wrong side
of whatever line is drawn--
a more complete view entails a center without angles or degrees.
Ashore you watch the morning light come in through the shutters.
To take back the world and know it in yourself
a stepping out into the open is required, a reaching beyond a paralysis of dances.
The ground shakes and moves under your feet, the edge is always now.
The living reservoir’s dried up to dust,
a residue that yields a different kind of time flooding the remainder,
an altered medium, circular yet hollow-bellied like a roof without a temple.
Algorithms may relax the nerves and muscle tissue through the body
but emotions are as dry as the salt mountain’s thirst.
You want to dive in and turn it to stream.
The choice lies in the act of measuring—is the product of some frank,
dispassionate inspection, a lucent audit of your standing
amid the same choreography of commerce and condition,
flowing as it does from one vanishing point to another, endlessly,
like a river of momentum, of contracts framed as the myth of getting somewhere
when in fact you fell upon it
and still your thoughts, like minerals that collect and boil away
along the far banks of your awareness,
drift inevitably toward that stream
and blur into the current so fully they forget their origin.
Alone on the water, the water reflects nothing back.
The small boat setting out from the large boat left behind
is less a metaphor than a decision. Because acute, transactive instead of gifting,
life stays blind and restless,
the loss of world inevitable, mere instrument
in the service of something lying on the wrong side
of whatever line is drawn--
a more complete view entails a center without angles or degrees.
Ashore you watch the morning light come in through the shutters.
To take back the world and know it in yourself
a stepping out into the open is required, a reaching beyond a paralysis of dances.
The ground shakes and moves under your feet, the edge is always now.
Notes:
Emotions are as dry as the salt mountain’s thirst - in reference to The Thirst of the Salt Mountain by Marin Sorescu
The small boat setting out from the large boat left behind - in reference to Under Pressure by Tomas Tranströmer
Emotions are as dry as the salt mountain’s thirst - in reference to The Thirst of the Salt Mountain by Marin Sorescu
The small boat setting out from the large boat left behind - in reference to Under Pressure by Tomas Tranströmer
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Daniel Carden Nemo’s work has been long-listed for the Best Literary Translations (Deep Vellum) and has appeared in RHINO, Full Stop, Magma Poetry, Sontag Mag, Off the Coast, and elsewhere.
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