Threaded Chronologies of Longing

Summary

"Threaded Chronologies of Longing" is a prose-poem exploring the depth and sensory experience of long-distance love through digital correspondence, drawing parallels with historical and mythological figures and emphasizing the timeless and transformative nature of love.

Abstract

The prose-poem "Threaded Chronologies of Longing" delves into the intimate connection between two lovers whose communication transcends physical space via the digital realm. It likens the digital threads of their messages to Ariadne's mythical thread, weaving a narrative that suggests their words create a tangible presence in each other's lives. The poem reflects on the transcendence of time as the lovers' words shape their shared reality, suggesting that their epistolary romance is as rich and literary as historical examples. The author muses on the idea that their digital missives could metaphorically stretch across continents, forming a pathway that leads directly to the other's heart. The piece concludes by acknowledging the alchemical power of their words to evoke physical sensations and the synchronistic magic that binds them, despite the miles between.

Opinions

The author equates the intensity of their digital conversations with the romanticism of traditional love letters, elevating the modern form of communication to a literary art.
Clocks and timepieces are personified, emphasizing the lovers' disregard for conventional time in favor of their own shared temporal experiences.
The poem suggests that the act of writing and receiving words can create an embodied experience, almost as if the lovers can physically touch through their textual exchanges.
There is a playful allusion to the roles the lovers take in their shared fantasy, with references to performances and the idea of taking their love "on tour."
The author implies a deep connection with another writer, J.D. Harms, indicating that the poem is a response to his work and the inspiration it provided.
The poem concludes with a nod to the endless possibilities of their love, suggesting that it can manifest in various forms and places, transcending the limitations of physical distance.

Word-flung reveries: A Prose-Poem

Like Ariadne, I’m holding a finger to the humming thread of us. In the pre-dawn dream of my misted cup of the sky, the thread vibrates — winding words from you, unravelling through your keyboard, permeating sleep’s hazy labyrinth — I wake with the pull of your textual desire … think, from the hedged pathways leading outwards from sleep — you’ve left the room, just for a moment — you seem so close, but —

Is that Hermes, hovering outside my window, the scent of singed wings like the toast I’ll burn later, lingering over your lines, lifted from the blood and arteries of your longing? Love tastes like charcoal this morning — my mouth too full of your words to care.

All the clocks in all my rooms are drunk. Not one of them can tell the time of us. Pick them up, shake them, turn them upside down — but they never tell both sides of the story. Mark the morning, midday and midnight of us in the translations of missives via digital discourse — no less literary than if they’d been inked on the finest vellum.

We descend from the lineage of epistolary lovers. I sip from china teacups as I write, swooning over your words as if my heart was corsetted. You spin words like a Renaissance dandy in radical disguise — tattoos over your chest instead of silk kerchief in breast pocket. But we cultivate amorous subtexts in flaming font on the sheen of a screen. My nod to our Romantic heritage — electing ariel over verdana — to fly mine to you faster.

If we were to fell forests for our discourse, love; lay the pages end to end across land, river and sea, would they span the country of us? Not yet one moon’s turning, but if I was light enough, I could place my feet upon these luminous pages; follow them like a fairytaled moonlit path, leading to your door.

Words fall between us like seconds. Sentences our minutes. Pages our hours. Time flows differently here, amongst our word-flung reveries for the senses. Flung at the speed of ether, as if velocity, frequency could increase our proximity — and somehow — we’re the the ultimate time-space magic. Manifesting multitudes of synchronicities — secret codes affirming this ardent alliance — over and over again. Invisible touchings — constantly renewed and re-invented.

Words lift off pages, off screens, return to our mouths —we’re evolving in circles — drinking the elixir of our uttered incantations, these transmutations — once word-bound in one dimension — enact embodied alchemy, erupting distilled essences of desire, from our tongues to everywhere. I’m drowning in the textures of you.

And we’re not revealing the turn.

We could take this on tour, love. Let’s not argue over who wears the top-hat, or who lies in the slicing box of trickery, to be reborn at the end of the act.

You’ll play one role in Venice. I’ll play it in Prague. Between we’ll thread the warmth of fingers together, ethereal guises discarded — and walk the late-night cobbled streets under a shared moon — creating new chronologies of longing.

These words — in response to J.D. Harms & his enticing Get Romantic prompt.

More Venusian Prosetry:

Threaded Chronologies of Longing

Word-flung reveries: A Prose-Poem

Venus on the Turntable

She knows where desire ends and art begins