Day for Night
in Marienbad

i

No shared past
has ever existed

save through a love

that defies the literal.

All else are but
painted shadows.

Inconsistent ones at that.
Obsession encompasses both
sun and moon
simultaneously. 

In Marienbad,
discrepancies co-exist

corridor by corridor
in gradations of glorious
black and white.
Here, it is
always
day for night.

Would that there be

a right way to navigate
as I am no tourist,
nor am I a guest.

In Marienbad, we are
either beyond time

or hopelessly beholden to it.

Don’t expect clear answers.

Instead, look for clues.

This is not a game
if we can never lose.

 What pleasure can be found

in incomprehension?

For instance, in Marienbad,

narration is likely to
take the shape

of incantation;
one's own artifice of memory.

We return to the same details

as to a wound 

that has metastasized

into an immaculate scar.

We are allowed

to witness
its steady manifestation,
like a rose exploding
in slow motion,
petal after petal,

corridor by corridor

of baroque emptiness,

an architecture of mind

in service of a wild heart.

Eerie tracking shots

reveal speechless stilted actors,

chess pieces with statuary faces,

lifeless tableau vivants

having fallen silent
in unison.
We are either

X or A
as we
wander these halls;
as if we were

the only two
people of significance

amongst extras in
someone else's dream.

ii
Sometimes in the night
I turn over in bed
and my body gives
off subtle sparks
in the dark
as though I were
dry kindling
or a bit of flint.
Would that they were
signal flares,
though there is
no such thing
as rescue.

In Marienbad,
unresolved desires
long to resolve.
Victims and perpetrators
have been known to
swap places
for a better chance
at understanding each other.
Discernment is deferred
until light of day.

We are our own
narrators,
disembodied voices
willing to take on every sin;
inner voices
that lead us on
through labyrinthian passages
of both construction
and destruction.
This place is for
getting to the bottom
of me, you, us.

On this night,
my first love
returns to accuse me
of destroying his life.
Knowing my way
around
will help me
negotiate release.
How else could I live
with what I know?
That is,
I, who am versed
in the Marienbadian
language.
I take the offering
of pear nectar
and slowly
return to the
other light
of day.

Peter Valentyne
August 21st, 2019