Gene Frumkin

Escalator                 The escalator       is a dangerous enemy who could trip you                 one step at a time. This is how the mind works, synthesizing dream with substance.                      Or as Jung                      alternates            with Freud.       The substitution of ground for holiness       claims voice as a reason       for old tribes locating                           the sun                      as figures in the act, at the window.            The future derives from sleep, evolves into gods                           and animals.       This is a process       that F. chilled into                 vintage prose.            Jung warmed to the blooded world, not alone. The human collective       describes the enormity of a single voice. How the                           minotaur                 poses like God in his mystical cellar.       Yet F. too brings the good news that deciphers time in focus, traveled by a map,                 as if one could say            there it is! now is as good                      as anywhere.       Everything is abstract            in its origin almost                      as if Plato            believed in the verity of his good republic. The escalator goes flat by            steps. It continues            as breath does:                 two men in blue suits with vests.       The moving sidewalk is                      no less. It slows into watchword, and if F.            abhorred the occult,            Jung compared sexuality       in the psychic order to a hidden grammar,            dogma on the harpsichord.                      Organized            mystery, lens-defined                      hyperbole. A science rises from obsession, shaped like the Golem of Prague, but who remembers                 his song?            Jung catches flies                 instead of fish. F. hangs his briefs                 on the line.                      The world is all                           alone,                 all there is            to imitate. Time limps behind the escalator, F. stands            with a stopwatch,       Jung with a camera. Mind in slow motion, caught in breath. fr.  Freud by Other Means [Albuquerque: La Alameda Press, 2002]