Inner Time (Adorno 126)

Adorno (page 126): What appears in the work of art is its inner time . . . . The link between art and real history is the fact that works of art are structured like monads.

This is beautiful thinking. But does time really pass in a work of art, even in works of duration like music and literature? Can a work of art refuse to be a unity and still be structured like a monad? Answer: It can only be a monad by refusing unison. Is a monad’s sense of time eternity? Yes. The monad in art has nothing to do with history and sociology; it is prophetic and hard to comprehend, like prime numbers. Which is more monadic, the nomad or the townsman; the boulder or the butterfly that lands on it?

The Windows (The XYZs of Reason)

Here are three items of 24 (so far) abecedarian works; also an example of rolling liponymy (no word may repeat). The Windows series seems at this point to contain eccentric and/or formalistic "one-up" works. It grows as a sidebar to other recent work which seems largely to consist of lyric proceduralism. Surface and depth are aspects of intention, but which yearns more? The surface.

A

American boys can distribute equidistant forks,
grant hieratic inflow, jack Klansmen, labor
many noons. Oases parody queasiness
rarely; smitten teenagers understand vacuous waiters,
xenophobic Yankees, zealots.

R

A babysitter, capacious, droll, eats fatigue,
glares. Hackneyed icons jostle knockwurst, lacerate
Machiavellian nannies. Oblivious parents question
reactionary sinners’ taboos. Ugly vulvas wince, while
x-rated ying-yangs zigzag.

K

Alone, bathysmal, certainty doubts each feeling,
gives heart its jasmine kiss, loves
madness, narcissism. Often people quit
reading sad tales until violent wastelands,
xenial, yikker zazzily.