What to Do in the Face of Trauma?
fiction
dreams
poetry
activation of desire
activation of anxiety
repeat
the
overwhelming Incident
with variegated plots
and when you
wake
the Incident will
still be there
like a coiled snake
unchanged
watching you unchanged
[Thanks to Freud, David Lynch and Haruki Murakami]
But
These words
This poem
This WITNESS,
this “retranscription”
Opens up
A new space,
A new relationship to
The snake or
The Incident,
Less viper,
And more
Sinuous
Tentacles
Floating in the air
[Thanks to Lacan, Cathy Caruth, A. Modell, Paul Celan, and, of course, my dear friend Marcel!]
Jon Little
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