A lamppost named Mark: pt 3.2
read full Lamppost Poem, in order, here
III.
“If time-space’s the Atlas, is death the last pain?
Will bright lights ever shine on Earth again?
O, bid me leap, from off the battlements of any tower.”
The lamppost, dreaming,
jumps through the window, experiencing
weightlessness
for very first time,
L-7 L-7
L-7
L-7
L-7
L-7
L-7
Placebo of poison, distilling liquor vile;
only a gun that fired a flag;
a tessellating rose;
no serial number, no code of bars.
He swan dove
in the unknown.
How much time,
how much one-eyed time.
OO.
The Beginning:
NOTES to Lamppost Poem:
Muhammad the Prophet, Sura 87;
Shakespeare, William, Sonnet 106;
The King James Bible, Gospel of Mark, 10:31;
Poe, Edger Allen, Annabelle Lee;
Elliot, T.S., the Wasteland;
Keats, John, Hyperion a fragment;
Shakespeare, William, Romeo and Juliet;
Bugs Bunny, Tex Avery, creator.
A defense of the Lamppost Poem
Meaning is no Modern or Post-modern sentiment. That everything will make sense when thought about did not feature in these eras of literature. One reading of the Wasteland, and the Cantos of Ezra Pound, they give promises of overarching, underlying meaning, that ultimately dissolve. Since Derrida, even language itself, and all built with language, is meaningless.
However, if one believes theorists such as Lennard Davis or Jeffery Nealon, then we have moved past Post-modernism. I have argued the name for this new artistic era needs keep the Post and ditch the Modern: Post-humanism?— really not as depressing as first glance at the theory may suggest. This new era need develop some new aesthetic values: brand new, not reactionary; not the flip-side of Post-modernism; not a reversion to pre-Enlightenment moralities.
Since the mid-nineteen-nineties, applied mathematics suggests there is some degree of knowability to the universe; I happen to believe we will grow asymptotically closer to a unified theory of everything— hey, I’m an optimist. But whether or not we ever come any closer to understanding the universe, at this moment in history, we believe it may be possible. What a break with the traditions of Modernism and Post-modernism: Meaning. Hence, the Lamppost poem.
I view A lamppost named Mark as a sine curve. I filled the second part II. with as many meanings as possible: from numbers that reference, to Disability Studies, to importance in who speaks what, to escaping death. Both part III.s ask questions I consider elemental to existence. As for the significance of the window, well, it always stands for something more and different, but at this historical moment, the window is Post-post-modernism and our new century.
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