Subliminal Syntax

by Wayne Mason

An 18 page feast of cut-up prose and syntactical deconstruction weaving a surrealist narrative through inner and outer spaces.

18 pages, Unbound

Published February 1, 2019

About the author

Wayne Mason is a small press writer whose poetry and prose has appeared in numerous magazines both in print and online. He has also been included in several anthologies, the most recent being ‘Cut Up! An anthology inspired by the cut-up method of William S Burroughs & Brion Gysin’ (2014, Oneiros Books)

He is the author of the online book ‘I Ching Jukebox’, a cut-up surrealist narrative centered on themes of singularity and industrial landscapes. In addition, He is the author of several chapbooks of poetry. His newest chapbook, ' More So... Disconnected' is available now from Beir Bua Press.

He has also been active in experimental music for nearly twenty years. He records ambient, experimental and noise sounds, both solo and as one half of the electronic project Blk/Mas.

Reviews

[C. Quabela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unlike most other experimental forms there is a pressing constraint of the world impinging on the structure. The narrator conforms to the syntax of convention yet fails artfully to falter at making sense. It is in fact quite cogent in structure which lends to the images an eerie pace like that of the spacing between moments of static. It is the words between the footfalls of a man determined to commit some unholy deed “…our feet stomp to pervert the silence.” There is the unforsaken hope of the actively failing artist written throughout. Not that the art was wrong. But that art itself was wanting despite being the highest escape. That the escape brought us only back to a deeper imprisonment. The whole work is wrought with tension. It is an ars poetica or even an edged ejaculation which becomes greater than the orgasm itself and wastes the individual in a pursuit higher than the satisfaction could ever encounter and turns an end into an infinite time of a wasted finite life. Time is pressing here. If art has no bounds there is no harnessing of our individual expression. Life ends up wanting out of a fatal flaw of an illusory completeness. It is a story about that tension between resolving our own desires amidst an irresolvable condition. Tears bleed out between the metaphors as already discarded tissues force us to dispose of past traumas yet to be resolved. The refuse of our trauma lives beyond our own mere existence and is still not eternal – just mocking. Heroes always die and so will we despite not coming close to where we so much as began. It is a fall by means of vaults that launch us beyond our own abilities and strand us amongst our own mediocre false starts.