By Charles Harper Webb
The artist—call him Janus—means to comment,
with his implant, on “the inaccessibility
of time,” which Einstein said is part of space,
or linked with space, or flows by relative
to space as, tears flowing, relatives flow
past a coffin, thinking, “He ran out of time”—
time like a theater you can run out of
if the movie bores—a bedroom you can run out of
if things get too bad. See that escaped hit-man,
enraged because you cut him off
on the freeway? (Of course you don’t.
That’s why you cut him off.) The gun he waves
quivers and shakes with held-in tears.
If you offered to grieve with him
the inaccessibility of his lost years, the startle-
response you caused, his primacy
of place that you shot down . . .
Thank God you don’t have Janus’s backward-
facing eye. Hey, someone else just
cut him off. You’re off the hook,
off the freeway while he roars ahead, roaring.
He’s lost you, while you’ve accessed more
time to admire the Pollo Loco, Arby’s,
and Burger King that bloom beside the road,
the Exxon and Arco signs bright
as Indian Paintbrush that still can’t paint
the Onondaga, Chumash, Chiricahua adequately
back. Here’s your chance to mourn
the once-proud Humble Oils and Conocos,
the blacksmith shops and wickiups, woolly
mammoths and triceratops. (Could Janus’s
camera have elegized them as, on time’s
Gatorade-dark sea, they sailed away?)
In Vietnam, a type of shy green snake will climb,
if no one’s looking, to the top of a high tree
from which it hurls itself, spreads its body
the way a cobra spreads its hood, whips its tail,
and writhes forward as if air is solid ground.
Janus’s subscribers gasp to see green lariats
leap from the boughs behind him, space-time
come alive with writhing no one dreamed
was inaccessible, till now.
Charles Harper Webb, first published in The Gettysburg Review
The Importance of Arts, Culture & The Creative Process
The creative process has been at the center of my life as far back as I can remember. The arts on which I've spent the most time have been music and writing: poetry, fiction, and essays. For me the creative process and the life-force are one. I'm honored to be a part of this project.
What was the inspiration for your creative work?
For the poem included below, I read a story about an artist with a camera implanted in the back of his head.
Tell us something about the natural world that you love and don’t wish to lose. What are your thoughts on the kind of world we are leaving for the next generation?
I love the natural world in all of its magnificent variety: rivers, seashore, deserts, ice fields, mountains—you name it. I also love the many wild creatures that live on our beautiful planet. My wife Karen celebrates birds with her photography. (Evidence below.) I wish to preserve, and if possible, expand the wilderness.
