Jordan Davis, p.1
W
How monsters feel
About definition changes
From year to year
They’re always eager
To seem determined
They like to let
You know how
To give them a thought
They are, then,
Somewhat adaptive
Generally monsters
Prefer to hollow out
Some category—
Shapeshifting—
Category elision—is often
Given to monsters too
The holographic
Side of monsters
Betrays us into
Imagining they
Are our own creations
This is the leading interpretation
Of monsters of course
Paralyzing anxiety
Monsters and déjà vu
Love as a form of projection
Analogous to the
Invention of monsters
Monsters, resemblance, love
Monsters
And horror as attachment/loss
Problems
Monster as agent of retribution
(angel-monster)
My head turns automatically
To the left
You don’t want
Aesthetics to be
The only one in the family
Knows how to drive
Don’t aestheticize
The monster’s habitat
Monster and conscience
—a kind of lay theology
Along the lines of
Bad thoughts will kill you
The failure of the impulse for tact
To be a strict monster
Is any apparently
Single-minded design
On oneself
They excrete gold that smells like flowers
Freud’s attempt to
Show that the monster-instinct
Is a kind of equilibrium
To treat the everyday
Acquaintance as a monster
And to perceive invisible monsters
Are different disorders
Is it better
To anticipate fear
Or to disregard it?
Monsters suggest: to anticipate
The monster has not yet
Chosen to argue
Although this should be
The greatest fear—
That the monster will
Persuade us to destroy ourselves—
Or is that the devil—
Single-minded and unreasoning—
But success is also associated
With single-mindedness (American buddhism)
Waves of purple in the green
Shape-shifting—fear not
So much of the object as of
Depending on the object—
As with the categories
Nature, gender, age, race, machine
The reasonable pursuit
Of patently fictitious characters
(Loch Ness?)
Teaching can’t be only
Feeling-transmission
Can it?
The monster could, theoretically
Exist independently of
The complex systems that
Put people in its path
But then it wouldn’t serve
To teach about
Those systems
Monsters and debugging
The appearance of a monster
Are telltale of what?
Panic at error
Crossover grossout
Singularity v. swarm-panic
For the German romantics
There could be no not-I
No other
Unless there could be
A being that couldn’t
Know itself
Do not eat the baby monster
This dogged insistence
On the unmistakable, unique
Singularity of the body
Comes at precisely
The moment when philanthropists,
The disciples of Proust,
And psychoanalysts assure us
That all possibilities dwell
Within each of us, and that
Nothing could be more
Out-of-date and philistine
Than the belief in the unity
Of personality. What can
Be behind this? (Walter Benjamin)
Well, for one thing,
Fear as a calibrating tool
In society we have the
Power of the friendly hello
However in the city
This power is (mainly) suppressed
By the open air
Leave, but go where? Build what?
Fear of the monster-makers
“The expression on the monster’s face
is always one of fear”
Electrified with concrete ties
Causes thunder in the overpass
Desire for a good life
Paralyzes thought—
Thus freed, the brain creates value
In the form of cartoons
Fear as a protection (conservatism)
Budget your fear
To have enough energy
To get what you want—
Careful not to damage anything
How monsters feel
About definition changes
From year to year
They’re always eager
To seem determined
They like to let
You know how
To give them a thought
They are, then,
Somewhat adaptive
Generally monsters
Prefer to hollow out
Some category—
Shapeshifting—
Category elision—is often
Given to monsters too
The holographic
Side of monsters
Betrays us into
Imagining they
Are our own creations
This is the leading interpretation
Of monsters of course
Paralyzing anxiety
Monsters and déjà vu
Love as a form of projection
Analogous to the
Invention of monsters
Monsters, resemblance, love
Monsters
And horror as attachment/loss
Problems
Monster as agent of retribution
(angel-monster)
My head turns automatically
To the left
You don’t want
Aesthetics to be
The only one in the family
Knows how to drive
Don’t aestheticize
The monster’s habitat
Monster and conscience
—a kind of lay theology
Along the lines of
Bad thoughts will kill you
The failure of the impulse for tact
To be a strict monster
Is any apparently
Single-minded design
On oneself
They excrete gold that smells like flowers
Freud’s attempt to
Show that the monster-instinct
Is a kind of equilibrium
To treat the everyday
Acquaintance as a monster
And to perceive invisible monsters
Are different disorders
Is it better
To anticipate fear
Or to disregard it?
Monsters suggest: to anticipate
The monster has not yet
Chosen to argue
Although this should be
The greatest fear—
That the monster will
Persuade us to destroy ourselves—
Or is that the devil—
Single-minded and unreasoning—
But success is also associated
With single-mindedness (American buddhism)
Waves of purple in the green
Shape-shifting—fear not
So much of the object as of
Depending on the object—
As with the categories
Nature, gender, age, race, machine
The reasonable pursuit
Of patently fictitious characters
(Loch Ness?)
Teaching can’t be only
Feeling-transmission
Can it?
The monster could, theoretically
Exist independently of
The complex systems that
Put people in its path
But then it wouldn’t serve
To teach about
Those systems
Monsters and debugging
The appearance of a monster
Are telltale of what?
Panic at error
Crossover grossout
Singularity v. swarm-panic
For the German romantics
There could be no not-I
No other
Unless there could be
A being that couldn’t
Know itself
Do not eat the baby monster
This dogged insistence
On the unmistakable, unique
Singularity of the body
Comes at precisely
The moment when philanthropists,
The disciples of Proust,
And psychoanalysts assure us
That all possibilities dwell
Within each of us, and that
Nothing could be more
Out-of-date and philistine
Than the belief in the unity
Of personality. What can
Be behind this? (Walter Benjamin)
Well, for one thing,
Fear as a calibrating tool
In society we have the
Power of the friendly hello
However in the city
This power is (mainly) suppressed
By the open air
Leave, but go where? Build what?
Fear of the monster-makers
“The expression on the monster’s face
is always one of fear”
Electrified with concrete ties
Causes thunder in the overpass
Desire for a good life
Paralyzes thought—
Thus freed, the brain creates value
In the form of cartoons
Fear as a protection (conservatism)
Budget your fear
To have enough energy
To get what you want—
Careful not to damage anything