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Dream Pool Essays
Lifted from an ancient Chinese astronomical text, the title Dream Pool Essays hints at Gil McElroy’s interest in cosmology: always a construct made visible between the elements of chaos.
These poems constitute an active multiple streaming of sources usually considered quite disparate: the physical sciences, particularly astronomy, theoretical cosmology, and quantum physics; the literary arts insofar as they are concerned with re-imagining the world—the imago mundi of Charles Olson, the transformations of Jack Spicer, the incantations of Robert Duncan, the deconstructions of the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets like Ron Silliman, Clark Coolidge and Bob Perelman; and, as a crossover into McElroy’s participation in the visual arts, the great cosmic draftsman, William Blake.
The overriding imperative of these poems is the priority they afford the constructive act of reading. They are there as occasions for reading, and are incomplete, signifying nothing, and are without meaning outside the presence and active engagement of their reader(s). Just as in quantum mechanics, in which all things exist merely as potentialities which achieve their presence, their “being in the world” only through their interaction with an observer or observers, these poems are catalytic fragments in the presence of which the reader constantly re-imagines the world and its processes.
Each of these poems is an astonishment of form which perpetually lies in wait to be awakened by the reader: “I am in a light I can never be out of.”
These poems constitute an active multiple streaming of sources usually considered quite disparate: the physical sciences, particularly astronomy, theoretical cosmology, and quantum physics; the literary arts insofar as they are concerned with re-imagining the world—the imago mundi of Charles Olson, the transformations of Jack Spicer, the incantations of Robert Duncan, the deconstructions of the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets like Ron Silliman, Clark Coolidge and Bob Perelman; and, as a crossover into McElroy’s participation in the visual arts, the great cosmic draftsman, William Blake.
The overriding imperative of these poems is the priority they afford the constructive act of reading. They are there as occasions for reading, and are incomplete, signifying nothing, and are without meaning outside the presence and active engagement of their reader(s). Just as in quantum mechanics, in which all things exist merely as potentialities which achieve their presence, their “being in the world” only through their interaction with an observer or observers, these poems are catalytic fragments in the presence of which the reader constantly re-imagines the world and its processes.
Each of these poems is an astonishment of form which perpetually lies in wait to be awakened by the reader: “I am in a light I can never be out of.”
128 pages, Paperback
First published February 15, 2001
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January 21, 2022
The world
it was at first only possible,
& even the most deadpan of geologies
ripped its thin crust
& outdoor past.
But
the sampling techniques of its smaller mammals
were finger short,
& now, with things like fiction
drooped all over our language,
we swing axes
& decide in a manner than can only be described
as cutting.
The potatoes of such lives
are terrible & overheated.
* * *
We were both, of course,
something. Aroused
& genuinely believed, to the point
of cast iron. Names
like tiny abundant beings. Like brilliant populations
of the least-fluffy trepidations.
In virginal water fleas.
In the amoeba manner.
* * *
I make of it
a quantity,
& so live
with my fingers. But
the doubt of the present case
ebbs & flows
between instances.
It is
not enough
to leave it
at that.
Every finger
has a friendly side,
&, together,
sufficiently-excited
hands. The ablest
scratch some such itch, find
the deeper-down
button. But
the signal motion's
a by-product
of consequence.
The same imprint's
on my spacious stairs.
* * *
An afternoon
of large & calm
The ebb & flow
between instances talks up
a pretty picture
with the possible exception
of a pronoun
Yet
the heart is intact
for tens of meters
'round
a nuisance to the atmosphere
* * *
Love is enough for you.
Quiet is good.
Sometimes speaking is better.
Things may enter by affection,
& in the smallest possible measure.
Discernments may be called for,
now to eat, now to wear
ordinary clothes.
A childhood is acquired
early in life.
& unidentified boots.
* * *
Cattle sun. The same
of the soul resolved & re-
inforced. Like deadpan
feet muffled to bed.
He was mugs, hunting
by parts. A secret, safer, spoken
in a well-marked sequence. Boned-for, now
next.
You get a pause.
Tooled cumulative, just before
longer debts.
* * *
The flesh, of course.
That figurative feeling.
The body political & all of light & desire.
But judge just how pretty.
Select, he said.
Select, he said, & it was done with his hands.
So he went & was converted.
He died, small but separate.
So-called anecdotes animated by the privacy between.
And, possibly, the persuasions of certain instruments.
Voila!
A knowledge of bark & secret cartels.
The is & how privy to device.
Like fiction, just before equation.
Thence to meanness.
it was at first only possible,
& even the most deadpan of geologies
ripped its thin crust
& outdoor past.
But
the sampling techniques of its smaller mammals
were finger short,
& now, with things like fiction
drooped all over our language,
we swing axes
& decide in a manner than can only be described
as cutting.
The potatoes of such lives
are terrible & overheated.
- Fourth Echolocation, pg. 27
* * *
We were both, of course,
something. Aroused
& genuinely believed, to the point
of cast iron. Names
like tiny abundant beings. Like brilliant populations
of the least-fluffy trepidations.
In virginal water fleas.
In the amoeba manner.
- The Carefully-Compared Body, pg. 37
* * *
I make of it
a quantity,
& so live
with my fingers. But
the doubt of the present case
ebbs & flows
between instances.
It is
not enough
to leave it
at that.
Every finger
has a friendly side,
&, together,
sufficiently-excited
hands. The ablest
scratch some such itch, find
the deeper-down
button. But
the signal motion's
a by-product
of consequence.
The same imprint's
on my spacious stairs.
- Some Julian Days, 2448839, pg. 45
* * *
An afternoon
of large & calm
The ebb & flow
between instances talks up
a pretty picture
with the possible exception
of a pronoun
Yet
the heart is intact
for tens of meters
'round
a nuisance to the atmosphere
- Some Julian Days, 2449148, pg. 51
* * *
Love is enough for you.
Quiet is good.
Sometimes speaking is better.
Things may enter by affection,
& in the smallest possible measure.
Discernments may be called for,
now to eat, now to wear
ordinary clothes.
A childhood is acquired
early in life.
& unidentified boots.
- Some Julian Days, 2449377, pg. 57
* * *
Cattle sun. The same
of the soul resolved & re-
inforced. Like deadpan
feet muffled to bed.
He was mugs, hunting
by parts. A secret, safer, spoken
in a well-marked sequence. Boned-for, now
next.
You get a pause.
Tooled cumulative, just before
longer debts.
- Concave When Breathed, pg. 73
* * *
The flesh, of course.
That figurative feeling.
The body political & all of light & desire.
But judge just how pretty.
Select, he said.
Select, he said, & it was done with his hands.
So he went & was converted.
He died, small but separate.
So-called anecdotes animated by the privacy between.
And, possibly, the persuasions of certain instruments.
Voila!
A knowledge of bark & secret cartels.
The is & how privy to device.
Like fiction, just before equation.
Thence to meanness.
- Carbon 12, pg. 88
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