Marcus Jahmal: Interiors
Word count: 360
Paragraphs: 7
A remarkable verdict, not long ago, gently contested
His idea of impermanence and transcendence.
In his eternal return,
Temporal suspense of human’s buried-long-ago predicaments,
He speculates, Is it too many to enumerate their fleeting auras,
As they peer at our gazes before penetrating our dreams,
Even when we are awake?
What is filtered realism when it calls forth all regions
Of his subconscious, accentuating these instances of immediacy?
Think, think again, watching, seeing, blowing whispers in thin air,
He sees women in high heels, fishnet stockings in vertical elegance
Symmetrical buttocks, legs up, legs down, legs across,
Falling chair, apples for an irresistible orchard, rhythmic
Collision seen on this peculiar crossing,
Prompting an enormous distraction for a musical prelude
In a remote colony without name.
She sees men in police uniforms, bullfighter attires.
They both see others in distress episodes,
In ecstatic social affairs, in unnamable circumstances like
Dancing above fierce bull dogs, eyes transfixed by a candle and a
Bat hanging upside-down, men and variety of beasts, bare trees in
Various configurations, green grasses, irregular and tilted floors,
Spatial disorientation, discrepancies of metaphors,
Platforms of earth, things that are dialectically in fellowship
On every singular mutability.
Indeed, for his next act, confirmation of characters is subjected to
THINKING WITHOUT THE BANISTER. It is all true for every backdrop of
Every performance, there will forever be a renewal temperature of
His unfiltered narratives that continue to haunt this side of our fragile dreams—
A fleeting return to however way
We may reconstitute our senses of ephemerality and prestige.
Phong H. Bui is the Publisher and Artistic Director of the Brooklyn Rail.