Discontinuous Reenactment While Reading
“So
We Have Been Given Time Or” by Sawako Nakayasu
Verse Press, 2004
CHARACTER: Ñ eyeOre , a.k.a Derek White, reader.
interpreter, reviewer.
reprocessing the effect the writing.
had on this particular being, inevitably
DIRECTIONS: write or reenact, revisit.
in same form.
as what’s being
RE: viewed.
mimicking the effect of
CHARACTER: Sawako Nakayasu, author
TIME: subject to variation.
in initial conditions.
December 12, 2004.
2nd attempt at reading, or reenactment.
of what cannot be reenacted.
(1st attempt was observing the author herself auto-reenact at
SETTING: St. Marks Church, October 4, 2004), page 12:
IRONY: cathedrals everywhere
DIRECTIONS: listening to the words (en vivo) in a continuous stream.
at times riddled with Japanese.
or maybe it was my imagination, stirred.
though none in textual
SETTING: within pages, various trains.
in motion.
various geographies, a snowy Mexico?
border crossings form the absence of
PLOT: the words speak.
for themselves, page 4:
TIME: encapsulates itself or is wrapped, flea-bomb or christo.
dead-ring circus
METHOD: the break down of thought.
reducible and irreducible elements.
subject is to action.
as object is to verb.
as particle is to field.
thought reduced to senses, page 10:
SOUND: a mouth full of food
inverted umbrella.
kindness of old friends.
kindness of old people.
getting wet at the wrong time.
drinking in.
a long
or on page 15:
CONFLICT: blanking on memorized eye chart
WORDS: tinged with immediate reticency.
“fevered with resentient beings”
latency mimicking natural discontinuity of
REALITY: mine, not in pages.
a man outside my door.
pays another man $211 dollars.
to unlock his door.
yet another man “Jimmy.”
is 4 feet on the other side of.
the door. unable to open it.
from the inside.
causing me to digress.
I hold a glass to the wall.
through the peephole for
CLUES: “make displacement permanent” to
INTERPRET: Sawako’s voice is a train.
pulling this reader into her reference frame at a page 33:
SPEED: of thought.
of intention.
the speed of no intention moves
slower than heavy.
and sounds like nothing no nothing at all.
END QUOTE: by this time we are no longer
SETTING: on trains.
but in cars with broken timing belts.
along for the ride.
the pace quickens or encroaches.
as you become accustomed to her train of language.
as you become absorbed in the scripted
SENTENCE: is broken down to discrete thought.
the rhythm flows.
not sentenced (loose scripts sink ships).
page 39, at
WORST: a
case of scenarios
BEST: case scene river flowing.
Zen parables, parsing, compiling, reducing.
non-linear residual elements.
to a concrete play ground.
hockey, of course.
or any sport with rules of engagement.
INTERPRET: self-referential, page 51:
BREATH: can’t
hear it.
can’t feel it.
can’t see it.
READ: not able to reenact the actual sensing.
but the processing of perception.
and scripting of ritual.
or passages that lead nowhere.
except into the beautiful unknown, page 76:
IT: on.
fish butcher’s head.
mouth full of salt.
tongue full of ch’i.
REREAD: under different circumstances.
a totally different read.
subject to environmental conditions.
and individual interpretation, page 78:
CAUGHT: another
whiff.
another passing intuition.
WORDS: to live by.
vicariously.
your “cracked windshield expanding.”
your thought molded.
the residual effects.
lingering.
what does it mean? Page 98:
IT: what it never meant to be.
what it tightly tried to mean.
what it hoped it would never mean.
SUMMARY: a play.
not a play.
a story.
not a story.
a poem or not.
it is what it is.
forever beginning.
with no “exit stragedy.”
DIRECTIONS: buy this book right now
READ: it.
RE: act to it.