A Basket of Petals

Adynamia

The problem with delegation is that power, if devolved, cannot help but devolve into incomplete insurrection; the boss knows this, which is why she’s the boss; if she were ignorant of the fact, she would not be honoured with honours and preside over life with unquestioned prestige—she’s a cat held aloft by a seething sea of rats that keep their predator alive so as to blame her belly for their problems and look to her familiar animalism and distinguished bearing for solutions.

The problem with seeking solutions is that it is ridiculously easy to forget that the belly keeps the being alive—that overthrowing your boss means no more calls that drag into unearthly hours, no more false and actual threats of demotion, no more living with a misplaced sense of fidelity to a waggish lady who wags her tongue for wage, and elicits sympathy by pretending to have held on to happiness by the skin of her teeth—when in actuality, she’s digging her teeth into your flesh which you do not mind because she seems to be paying through her teeth.

The problem with paying through one’s teeth is that saliva does not take well to cashed cheques that spontaneously lose their value like agglutinated beliefs that stick too fast to be unfastened from cemented casts whose figures are independent of their figurative moulds either way—and yet it is far easier to believe that belief can destroy what it sustains.

—

(Behind the) Scenes

backstage is squeaking clean
(I had mice for breakfast/ they’re still encased/ in the folds of my tongue)
I am encased in breaths with metallic constitutions
(to familiarity i clung/ so as to mask novelty’s taste/ should’ve known it wouldn’t last)
asked for a taste of the unknown; was handed heartbeats in costume
(now my fingers are/ streaked with epoisses/ mice turned up their noses)
I find that animation feeds itself like listeria, on epoisses
(richness closes/ in upon what seems a gastronomical fault/ a cultural war)

laying faults out in bulging columns
(wrinkled carnations / against marigolds held abloom/ picked & pressed in parchment)
I wait for them to bloom into white walls in a dark room
(petals dissected in enlightenment’s/ name shredded & spun in looms/ doubting all of creation)
complete ignorance diminishes looming fear
(indifferent to pain/ that cannot afford awareness/ or decipherable expression)
I am aware that in-betweens make room for equilibrium
(deaf to silent questions/ posed under stress/ every vine a bursting vein)

stressing that religion and reality could be intertwined like spaghetti
(if it is true that energy/ cannot be birthed or eliminated/ god is little more than a chemist)
I eliminate brine in an attempt to see the sea
(zebras dragged from schist/ into earthen beds/ chains shaping semblances of synergy)
stripping the sheets off every bed to catch the loose ends
(reasoning had infinity for breakfast/ upturned eyes questioning/ the power of the sun)
I ran in circles like a hamster on wheels before running errands for life
(it has been decreed that one/cannot be revered without everything/ on a sling that could never last)

drew everything into strings and syllogisms
(ensconced in a cave under a hill/ a dream within a dream/ till the dawn of inquiry)
I cannot tell which the bigger dream is or if it’s closer to truth
(gender no more than a question of degree/ hatchlings held by sensitive seams/ behind fate’s grills)
scanning shorelines for seams of gold sheltered amid sand
(looking to the moon/ for directions & making sense of vague/ maps etched in froth)
I grapple with the knowledge that I may no longer grapple with vagaries
(spread across the beach like cloth/ curling tips of waves/ segueing into watery runes)

regularity waves to meaning that gallivants with the unpredictable
(raised to fear maybes/ and what-ifs that take/ away from certainty)
I took off old ideas and pinned up new ones like dead butterflies behind glass
(spectres spread thinly/ over windows that wait/ for the past to disentangle its weeds)
yet the wait between ages waits on the music of ideological waites
(sewing gaps in materiality/ with parallel lines/ in pursuit of fantasy that thrills)
I see a line stretching onward knowing it’ll circle in on itself eventually
(resting on frills/ and making believe they are sine/ quibus non for devilry)

—

Seeing is Believing; Can’t Play to the Gallery

‘seats, red; a million rows, two million columns’
humanity spread out, rising tides of vision–
that rise till they lap the stage.

‘gallery, faux gilded; detached, winding sideways’
fabric studded with hints of stars–
on stony figures, hinted smiles.

‘balconies, exalted; sixty thousand scattered, chainlike’
philistines too far out of sight to prove more than–
ornamental; too far out of earshot.

‘stairs, velveteen; still, facilitating motion’
heraclitus said, the road up–
is the road down.

‘curtains, transparent; transient, slim partitions wavering’
glass blurring, by sole virtue of its unwavering motion–
sole discernible through rippling seafoam.

—

Upon Reflection

in summary, she says breathlessly pacing down avenues of wooden packing boxes choosing every word like a bouquet—the kind you’d get cheap from a friend who couldn’t think of a better birthday present to save her life—what if this section of boxes right here is backstage and this here is stage and that there–she gestures to an invisible audience– is where I shall sit along with so many others so who then {WHO! tu-whit tu-who a merry note}– she whispers– is real, her voice sliding and gliding with inflection bracing for collapse from overuse.

it is painfully obvious, she reasons, that the audience is the more real entity being in possession of both of the two things humans treasure the most—she gasps for breath while her dry fountain pen gasps for ink and promptly bursts into a messy blue burp—knowledge and numbers, she pauses once more to consider her enervation {VIVERE! memento vivere}—of course an audience being the majority in addition to their exposure to two realities—rationalism is the most draining of isms—augments their perception as valid beings in spite of their inherent passivity.

if she piles answer on answer and links metal till her limbs dangle with reams of chains perhaps she will remember not to exclude herself from the sculpture she so painstakingly assembles—perhaps she will learn that art is inherently shaped by assemblages of human experiences—and perhaps she will discover that not all that is rational is real.

***

a/n

I’ve always spent more time than I should analysing my dreams. Over the course of the past few months, I seem to have gotten better at it. Case in point: just this January, I dreamt I was part of a great play—except, I didn’t quite seem to be aware of it until an explosion onstage left me fleeing— and all of a sudden, curtains blurred into view, and I found myself behind the scenes and in a dilemma. Why is it that when a narrative is placed on a stage, its reality is inevitably undermined?
This poem attempts to explore the paradoxical intricacies of the stage as a platform and tool, and how its power is drawn from the existence of viewership—what it means to see, and be seen. The first step to finding answers, I decided, would be tracing questions to their sources. Upon brief reflection, I discovered that I was primarily inspired by Jaques’ Seven Stages of Man monologue from Act 2 of As You Like It. The paradox itself is my take on the idea of a ‘stage within a stage’, or, to quote Poe, ‘a dream within a dream’.
The very idea of a play begs an audience; this one is no different. At this point one might well wonder as to the difference between the underlying concept of my piece and that of, say, the Truman Show, or the Matrix. The primary difference lies in the fact that in my piece both realities are both organic and discrete. One cannot really say this of the Truman Show, wherein there's only a single reality that has been split in two, with Truman's reality being significantly inorganic. The Matrix, on the other hand, explicitly states the precedence of one reality over another, which is fair, but topples the logical intrigue of the question posed by denying the realism of one reality (the inner one/ human life as is) by placing it within another world– the real world.)
The question posed here is, again, Matrix-like, but stripped of categorical realism: which is the more real party– the audience, or the people on stage? The seemingly logical conclusion is that the audience is the real party because they are party to more than one reality, (i.e. in possession of more knowledge collectively), and because they are assumed to be greater in number, as both explicitly stated and logically implied by the setup. Besides, if the audience is unreal, the people on stage must be too because the two are implicitly connected by the act of watching– in which scenario, nothing is real. This conclusion is puzzling to me because the audience's role is inherently passive– at least in comparison to that of the players. Following this line of reasoning, does validation of the act of living not hinge on the act of living (i.e. activity) so much as it does on knowledge and sheer numbers? I find this conclusion deeply disturbing. To soften the blow, therefore, I took it upon myself to question the very basis of my deductions—my rationale.
It was only when I began outlining my ideas that it dawned upon me that nothing can be undermined all at once, that rationale cannot be brought down at a buffet, but disassembled gradually, brick by brick. And so, striving to simultaneously destroy and create, I have tried to piece together a meditation on the human experience that simultaneously denounces and praises the human tendency to pick apart the universe. It does this from different angles, assuming different perspectives—moving back and forth, turning truth on its head over and over again, till it rings truer than it ever did.

many thanks to both @moonlitseas and @–tranquility for their detailed critique <33

but what of matters of the heart?

aside,
stone image,
contorted rock—
form that i sought
promises of;
hungry, mutinous
in quest—
for folly.

dearest verity,

when I spilt lemonade on your last collared shirt last evening you told me it— wouldn’t last. you dusted off sugar an hour later, and said that lemon scoured no stains. I’ve been wanting to see you since, because the dish soap I use sports a spotted sun on its label, but when was the last time I had it my way?

'perhaps the wind laps aside veils o’er’hanging
souls of stone that conceal their forms in pale puppetry,
by whose image i place thine blinding
brow— contorted in askance at my mutiny?'

you asked to borrow my cycle a day ago and I assented because I couldn’t see beyond your good humoured irony—ironic, that you returned with chain in one hand, brake-clasps clasped in the other. you spoke of slopes and physics leaving me flaying under foam from tilted planes but I couldn’t pedal to or back from school today. pulled everything apart this evening and scraped my knees against missing nuts that I’d undone the night before trying to paint circles on the ceiling, but when was the last time I was right?

'i need move fire, to lay upon rock my sorry
sight, to form an image of truth that cannot
tell that hunger moves it from far out sea—
while moving naught but spectres i never sought?'

if I had known better I’d have caught your hand as you strummed a hymn on the hurricane but I was blinded by rising dust, you dragged me inside and asked me—to pull the blinds. when I took your hand in mine to clean your gash, you called it watermelon juice, and my bluff. learnt to write poetry last week, lost my pen when I tried to weave you into a ballad, but when was the last time I ran tape around the tonal breadth of your laugh?

'please tell me styx’s waters are but string-less promises
of pain, that motion will not render me undone, hungry,
blind to lies— balm to mutinous curses—
uttered in agony ceaseless, in abject misery.'

you knew the moment I mentioned that I liked plants that I’d planted myself in a tight spot—observing that I lacked the ability to lend life to leaf. you’d bring me geraniums every weekend hoping I’d place them in a vase, I never failed to disappoint. see, I pressed them in parchment so you’d never leave, but when was the last time I held you back?

'the quest for bitter truth—a paltry apology–
is surely, like mine abode, a glorified folly.'

I haven’t shown you all my jars yet, I know preserves jar on your tongue, so you asked me why I—didn’t store butter by the jar. I mailed you all the jam as a joke, but now your door seems jammed every time I ring the bell. If I tried again and handed you a glass of lemonade garnished with dry flowers, with a detached pedal for a coaster— maybe you’d take it, and perhaps—just perhaps—you’d hand me clarity on a saucer, without a straw, and prove me wrong.

***

a/n

omg so emo

this here thingamajig is roughly based off plato's allegory of the cave. the piece as a whole attempts to describe, in both form and content, the reach for truth as described in the allegory. it addresses confusion to do with the naming of things, finding the distinction between truth and shadow, and unquestioning love

glossary

forms - concept that has its roots in the greek eidos meaning ‘idea’. refers to the ultimate, categorical truth. represented in the allegory by passers by beyond sight.
images - shadows of aforesaid passers by projected on the walls of the cave
verity - truth ;)
folly - fault/ ornamental building