by Lazarus G. Barman
If poetry is the game where images tie with images— through images—, then psychosis is a revoltingly poetic state. With
[[[[[layers
[upon layers
[of nightmares
[upon nightmares…]]]]]
Sickly embedded bracketing of embedded images embedded in selfsame embedded images.
Xeroxes of xeroxes of xeroxes of Xeroxes.
Chuang Tzu’s spiderwebbed butterfly.
Image by Teona Swift on Pexels
Comments
3 responses to “The Syntax of Psychosis”
The words made my heart contract. I felt I was caught in a web.
Keep writing, Lazarus!
A.
I like the visual image of “Xeroxes of xeroxes of xeroxes of Xeroxes.” with only the first and last capitalized. Xerox is a brand name, but loses its capitalization in the middle of the sentence, only to regain it at the end. I have been recently thinking of life and the genetic code as copies of copies of copies…. How variations in the copying process cause failure and triumph… the failure of one microbe to accurately copy itself, leading to………. human poetry about the syntax of psychosis………