Originally published on May 8, 2010 on the now-defunct Best American Poetry blog. Republished in The Trouble Clef.
Archive excerpt: the supplied archive preserves only part of this post.
The mechanism of memory is complex. The Time Machine–a dream of dreamers–was created long ago. It is human memory. And I am certain that we have been granted the power to remember everything; that in the depths of the human brain are preserved imprints of every moment we have lived in past and future lives. The only complication lies in the ability “to find” them in the labyrinths of memory. To find them by secret guiding signs: smells, a familiar place, a certain refraction of light, everyday trifles.
To unwind the ball of string as I make my way to my beginnings.
I am my memory, the sum total of all the moments I have lived. Moreover, my "I" divides and multiplies: I am an infant, and an elderly person, and an artist, and a thief, and a murderer. All of these possible past incarnations of mine swarm past in my subconscious like phantoms, and when I begin a monologue in my own name (as I see myself at this very moment), I inevitably put it into the mouth of a phantom from my own midst. And that which seemed to me to be sincere and the only true thing when I was writing is only one facet of a thousand and, like the crooked mirror, does not reflect the features, but distorts them. Although who knows, perhaps only crooked mirrors tell us the truth. I see crowds and crowds of people. Among them are artists, captains, artisans and kings, musicians and circus performers, milkmen and murderers. And all of them are me. And every time I begin to wind the thread that leads me out of the labyrinth toward the light, instead of exiting I fall into a new labyrinth. In each of the labyrinths a Minotaur lies in wait–sin that arrives from my former incarnation. And my goal is to kill the Minotaur.
Here are several characters from my spectral retinue:
Madman
Gambler
Robber
Adventurer
Wise Hermit
Skeptic
Child
Artist (Odysseus)
His Muse
Apollo (Rational Force)
Dionysus (Elemental Force)
Gaia (Primordial feminine, fertility, the mystery of birth passed on from mother to daughter)
Savage (Mowgli)
Nymphette
Homeless Wanderer (The Wandering Jew)
Martyr Hero (for whatever you like: faith, fatherland, ideas)
Clown
Whore and Nun
Don Quixote
Maniac Murderer
Joseph, sold into Egypt
–Well, who else is there, come out into the light!
The characters are wearing masks, one transmutes into another. A mirrored hall, where the mirrors reflect one another, fracturing the reflections. A carnival of phantoms; bifurcation, disorder, division of my self.
…In his own likeness and image…
A crowd of mirror werewolves. Welcome to the theater of the absurd.
Abel = Cain.
And so, ladies and gentlemen, let's begin.
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