A NOTE ON PERMUTATIONAL ART. I am bringing in permutation, a math term, as a way of thinking about the biographical relation between the author and the work. The term “permutation” refers to all the possible combinations of a set of numbers. For example, if you had the numbers [1, 2, 3], then there are five other permutations of it: [1, 3, 2], [2, 1, 3], [2, 3, 1], [3, 1, 2], and [3, 2, 1]. What the mathematical permutation does not allow for is any change in the ultimate outcome. No matter how you arrange the set of numbers, they are still the same numbers. However, the part I am interested in is the process in which the numbers are rearranged. How the numbers are arranged, I believe, can change the perception of those numbers. A permutation in a creative sense is the reorganization of existing events in order for there to be a new outcome. Permutations exist not only in poetry, but in other artistic forms as well. I believe these other art forms can be looked at as a text. Film, for example, is in many ways the modern equivalent of the mass produced lyric voice because film attempts to address many of the same issues as the lyric has historically covered by giving us the sense of experience versus only being a list of events. Permutational art is an offshoot of the idea of an author's surrogate, which of course allows the creator to exist in a work as a character or narrator. I believe that taking this a step further is a permutation, the manipulation of that character to fit the ideal of the creator.
I.
In the distance, there is
nothing in particular,
depending on which direction
you face. In my
next example, I’ll be using
metaphor to show
how I’d rather lock myself
in a room than be
surrounded by other people:
a stationary wheel
won’t rust if you don’t spin
it. As if first eyes
touching could be repeated,
if you’re going to
be there, I’m not. Dear you,
I lust you, but I’m
better when loathed. Feet
make up only small
percentages of bodies but
carry so much
pressure that mine have
dissolved from a
desire to move, but with no
target in mind,
they ache for compression.
II.
Tell me a lie so I can rub
it into my skin:
moving slowly is the only
way to avoid picking
up direction. Your
scopophobia gets better as
minutes wear on. I’m afraid
to admit I haven’t
looked you near long enough
to see a real face.
People appear one way to me
immediately, but
then I see them: a look in
the eyes to indicate
a passing feel, a curl in
the lip that shows disgust
or mutation. Don’t fear your
shamefacedness
as a peak in terror arises.
III.
Admit you’re more willing to
look down than
meet my eye. We’ll say this
amounts to a fear
of crossing roads, of being
or going anywhere.
I assume being washed is
being stabbed, but
with no sensation that gives
us an antecedent.
These are not sexual
questions, but a desire to
know how twists of wind
become disaster spaces.
In making up my mind, I
ignored all advice to
stay and reimagine myself as
a direct descendant
of people who lined mass
graves. I don’t have
a hard time getting to
sleep, but a hard time
waking up. Going unnoticed
is no punishment:
to go seen and ignored is
real hell, though. To
go is a verb that implies
motion, but
directionality is ignored.
IV.
As we walked through
hallways, our figures
were pressed into service as
figments in a novel.
My greatest pleasure comes
from failure and
my euphoria levels are
topped off daily. You
were waiting in a lobby and
tapping on glass to
signal me. If someone has
their brights on, look
to the white stripe at the
edge of any road for
a sense of boundaries and
closure. This is my
emotional conclusion: I
cannot be happy when
I am supposed to be, only
when everything
around me is becoming dead
cells. Nothing
matters in this measure,
only notes which lead
us to the next space, even
if there’s no ending
in sight.
V.
We need only to know where
we are at, not
where we’re going, to feel
secure in absolution.
I’m not Catholic, but I play
one on the cross.
The only difference between
you and me is the
words that we use and in
which order we place
our sighs and
discontent-laden notions. We
could bring a sense of
sultry admonishment to
our work if we only knew how
to draw the letters
that make it. At times we
look out and at times
we see, but most often, we hear
edges of our
space before we can sense
it.
VI.
I’ve been in denial about a
great many things
and I know that your eyes
upon me is just one:
across tables, behind backs
we imagine there to
be someone who can complete
our form of
language. In the first few
seconds, contact is
made only by temperature and
sensing heat, we
move closer but when our
eyes meet, we move
back to our positions at the
start and try to
conquer again. Send your
queen and let me cut
her and admit to nothing at
all. “Don’t doddle,”
you’ll say, “we’re heading
nowhere and we’re
late!” but all street noises
have ceased and all
lights are off and the
people who were rushing
before have stopped to look
at us.
VII.
Even in a somber moment,
with my retinas
detaching, I can make out
the outline of your
hair on your shoulder or a
way to say my name.
Rods and cones are a form
answer to why I can
no longer find edges in the
room or on our faces.
The world for the blind must
be the sensation
of a dream and flying
through it but then finding
themselves at the funeral of
a friend and reading
an ill-prepared eulogy to
mourners gathered
because of their need.
VIII.
We imagine death as God
looking back at us
from an abyss we’ve reached
into, but nerves
don’t stop firing right at
the last signal: they
fire as they degrade into
soil or immolation
clears us. These sensations
are just body
fighting evolutionary
return. As we begin
again, we see adoration and
want it to be
every day, but you end up
nostalgic for
silence. [Extracted from Amish Trivedi’s Your Relationship to Motion Has Changed, a work in progress. The first six sections of “A Thousand Years of Staring” are forthcoming in The Laurel Review's issue of prose poems & are posted here with permission. Trivedi is also the principal contributing editor to Poems and Poetics.]
1 comment:
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