(You Are Here) The Book [a prose poem]

[Gene van Troyer]

Perhaps a preface is necessary. This is part of a series of poems. I tried to write it to stand on its own, but parts of it do refer to motifs in other parts of the series, most of which have been published elsewhere on line or are soon to appear in print magazines. I've included links to the online parts at the end in case anyone feels they need to take a look, and hope I'm not violating the rules here. I didn't see anything that barred prose poems...

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Here in the intranet jetstream you feel the typhoon churn like a rotary press spewing web pages faster than sight. They are thin as photons and shadows buffing you like tingles across your skin. You thought you'd shelter here, but guess again—you dance insanely as you snatch the pages up and hang them from your nerve ends like a crazy quilt of badly-fitted pixelated wallpaper. You're sure the Lurker there between the spin states of your quantum scrim is looking in.

Y: What's this! Tell me what we're looking at!
L: Don't we always see the here and now?

You Are Here! each page cries in marquee lights that flow around the borders like the river running red throughout your wetware. The links won't let you go. That's what happens when you want to get away—you lose all say in the part you'll play on the next stage. The coin in which you're paid is nothing to the tillerman who guides your boat ride on this stream of branching dreams. The leaves on the overhanging trees are pages unglued by silverfish spawned from your unbinding Book.

Y: So get us back to then! You know when and how!
L: Too late—it passed us by. You'd better grab that page!

The voices ghosting from the photos in an empty house haul you back like drift nets. Not that page, you think, those gloomy halls and whispery rooms are much too close to home. But they won't quite let you slip the moorings that tie you to the dock. You have to stay, the photo voices say. You have no place as a castaway in the closed-loop Myriad. You peer above the scrimshawed ivory gunwales and look down. In the surface of the red you see your face peering back.

Y: We just looked at them. You didn't back it up to archives?
L: That was then and this is now. We're playing on your stage.

The house is rising like a misty fold-out sculpture from the next page. Won't it ever quit? The doors become the gateways to your brain, the windows wrap around your eyes, the ghosts that drift from room to room won't let you come to join them. They're tyrants, they're cruel, they afflict you with the here and now. They pull you from your VR space to make you see the liquid crystal screen that dimly casts your shadow. It binds you like glue. “You are things to do,” they say.

Y: So when will then be now? It seems it won't arrive . . .
L: Soon. It's never far away. When here is now and then is there.

The wind blows you on. You're a book. You think it has something to do with quantum pairs. How else could you have so many versions of you? This is the book in the spirit machine, and your nerves are the links that bind it. They glitter like countless galaxies that form the sand of the beach where your tales are a spindrift of forking links that streams around your feet. The stories unfold from the heart of the heart, endlessly repeating, always needing to be told again: You Are Here: legends on the map.
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Links to other parts in the series:

1. Loch Raven Review: "Traffico Cognito" & "House of Morpheus"
http://www.lochravenreview.net/2008Spring/troyer.html

2. Helix Speculative Fiction Quarterly: "The Cruelest Month"
http://www.helixsf.com/poetry/Q3_vantro ... tmonth.htm

3. Strange Horizons: "Post-Material Lotophagi"
http://www.strangehorizons.com/2007/200 ... er-p.shtml

4. Strange Horizons: "Topquark"
http://www.strangehorizons.com/2008/200 ... rk-p.shtml

5: Poetic Diversity: "Square One," "Whose Who's There," & "Holo Tree"
http://www.poeticdiversity.org/main/poe ... 2008-04-01

[dedalus]

Wow!!!
Who let the elephant into the living room??
--Bren

[David]

Perhaps a preface is necessary. You're not wrong. In fact, I could wait for the reader's guide, but I'll just dive in. Certainly no violation of rules - do we have rules? - and prose poems are not barred. So here goes ...

as nearly as fast as light - three as's?

skrim - new one on me, as are wetware, scrimshawed, VR space.

Y and L - You and the Lurker?

I can't see the word tillerman without thinking of Cat Stevens. My problem that, Gene, not yours.

Well, that's a blow by blow account of my problems. As a whole, though, it is very impressive, although I don't think I've seen to the end of it yet. I need to spend more time with it, and the links. I can't say it speaks to me, though, but maybe it will.

Respect is due, as are apologies for the inevitable obtuseness.

Cheers

David

[Gene van Troyer]

Elephant, Bren? I tried to trumpet, but could only manage a pathetic snort that made me sneeze.

as nearly as fast as light - three as's?

skrim - new one on me, as are wetware, scrimshawed, VR space.

Y and L - You and the Lurker?

I can't see the word tillerman without thinking of Cat Stevens. My problem that, Gene, not yours.

Yes, I can't think of a way to say "at almost light speed" with out sounding awkward. Scrim is from stage craft: shame on me, a spelling error. Wetware, biological equipment, as opposed to "hardware." VR means virtual reality. Y = You and L = Lurker. Scrimshaw: adorn (whalebone, ivory, shells, or other materials) with carved or colored designs.

Yes, Cat Stevens seems to have appropriated "tillerman," but I liked the reference.

Ah-ha, "as nearly as fast as light" can be "faster than sight."

I was afraid this piece might be a bit too referential to other parts of the series to stand by itself...

Thanks, David!

[barrie]

Prose poetry is something that I fail to appreciate. I had a few arguments about this but I've never been convinced or converted. To my ignorant eyes, this is a piece of prose.
The following reads like poetry but is classed as prose - What is it?

The place became full of a watchful intentness now; for when other
things sank blooding to sleep the heath appeared slowly to awake and
listen. Every night its Titanic form seemed to await something; but it
had waited thus, unmoved, during so many centuries, through the crises
of so many things, that it could only be imagined to await one last
crisis--the final overthrow. - Thomas Hardy: 'Return of the Native'.

All I can say about your post is that it's a good piece of writing, but something that I can't appreciate as poetry.

What is quantum scrim? I know thar scrim is a a sort of green netting used for camouflage, but quantum scrim has me beat.

Sorry I can't be of any help here.

Barrie

[Gene van Troyer]

Thanks, Barrie. I take your point. Prose poetry is a debatable overlap. My generalized conception is that the rhythm of the language parses like poetry, and the language calls attention to itself through imagery and metaphor. Likewise, internal rhyme, assonance, and consonance may be a factor.

Scrim is a term from theater stage craft—a gauzy or even gossamer fabric that appears to be opaque until a light is shown from behind, when it becomes translucent or nearly transparent. Quanta are the basic units of physical reality. Quantum scrim is posited by me as an image of a surface that is very thin indeed, opaque or translucent to nearly transparent, depending on the "spin" of the quanta. You might liken it to polarizing glass that darkens or lightens depending on the intensity of the light (the frequency of the photons) bombarding the glass.

No need to apologize. I enjoyed your instructive example from Thomas Hardy!

[TDF]

I would personally consider this poetic prose, rather than prose poetry. If a piece of writing is in prose format, then it is prose imho.

But, rather pointless symantics aside, I loved some of the language you used here. I won't go into detail as most has been covered in the crits already. I am a fan of 'made up' words, or words linked that usually wouldn't be, that manage to define themselves. So kudos for wetware etc.

enjoyable read.
Tom

[twoleftfeet]

Gene,

There is definitely a rhythmic thang going on here - I think you need some slick music in the background.

Geoff