Questions Towards the Unconscious as Poetic Referent

Sean G. Meggeson 

Image credit: d. iseman

Why is the word

referent on my mind? Can I say prepositions are mind-altering in their arbitrariness? Or do I mean mind-bending? Can I say the word

altering sounds disciplinarian? Can I say prepositions are surreal? Can I say the word

surreal sounds intoxicated? Can I change my mind on that and get back to you? Can I say I know it’s unlikely I’ll get back to you as we’re not directly communicating? Can I say

directly communicating is an obvious oxymoron? Am I remembering correctly that Eliot said something like that much more poetically way back when? Can I say the name

Eliot has a lot going on in it considering how short it is? Can I say

going on is a spatiotemporally complicated concept? Or would the word

dense be more appropriate and direct? Can I ask you not to forget temporality itself is at best iffy? Can I say there is frankly no you whom I’m addressing right now? Can I say the word

frankly sounds much better than it looks? Can I go back a bit and say the word

iffy is the perfect stand-alone concrete poem? Can I ask you not to interrogate what I mean by

stand-alone? Can I say how pseudo-militaristic the word

interrogates sounds? Or, when I say the word

militaristic do I really mean the word

regimental? Can I say I am not, nor have I ever been a military man?

Can I thank Lacan for positing the unconscious is structured like a language? Can I posit the unconscious contains poetry as well as language? Can I assume language itself assumes poetry? Can I differentiate language in the unconscious as distinct from words in the unconscious? Can I blatantly ignore the question of dreams in the unconscious? Can I be honest and say most dreams are boring? Can I say blatantly boring? Can I say when I write the word

blatant the image of the Goodyear blimp comes to mind? Can I say I read

Godyear instead of

Goodyear? Can I say the word

blimp has now taken over top spot for the perfect stand-alone concrete poem? Do I need to tell you how often these standings will fluctuate? Why does the word

fluctuate remind me of the word

genitalia? Why are words like

genitalia divorced from connotative word images but other words like

oatmeal are not? Can I say when I write the word

oatmeal I imagine a mountain? Can I say I think I mean a foothill? Why, when I write the word

unconscious, does my mind automatically present to me the image of a tin bucket? Can I ask how poetry functions in the unconscious? Is rhyme a thing in the unconscious? Can the unconscious have a tin ear? Can I say rhyme is an automatic association I have towards poetry but obviously not a sine qua non of poetry? Can I say this is not unlike how Tin Pan Alley is not a sine qua non of New York City? Can I say Latin phrases in discourse present to my mind the image of an orchid? Can I assume there is at least one orchid specialty store in New York City? Can I surmise it’s called

Velvet Lips?

To put it another way, if my hair begins to gray and I have a counterpart in another city in another part of the world, and their hair starts to gray is that not unlike rhyming in the unconscious? Can I ask you to remember rhyming is not necessarily poetry qua poetry? Can I say there is something comforting in using the word

gray as a verb? Can I ask why am I thinking of the word

untoward at this point? Can I confess I thought the word

untoward was first used in the 19th century, but in fact it goes way back when to the 16th? Can I confess I did some research on the internet and discovered that Shakespeare used the word

untoward in Romeo and Juliet? Can I say what was I thinking, the 19^th century? Can I say how disappointed in myself I am that when I think of Romeo and Juliet I can’t but think of a Hollywood actor who shall remain nameless? Can I say that that last sentence strangely makes me feel like I’ve personally betrayed Shakespeare? Can I say what I’m writing only seems automatic? Can I say write what you know? Can I trim my toenails right now as you read this? Can I say

eww? Can I say the unconscious doesn’t hold epistemological cause-and-effect? Can I say what I really wanted to say was   

the unconscious don’t know? Can I go back a bit and say I used the word

epistemological primarily because it contains the phonemes

pɪs.təˈ? Can I say I suspect there is not much that’s automatic in the unconscious? Can I say I’m not an expert on automatism? Can I say I loathe the term

automatic writing? Can I say I consciously used the word

loathe instead of the word

hate? Can I say I’m perfectly aware of the meaning of the word

hate? Can I say how satisfying it is to say

perfectly aware when I know I’m not? Can I say how the phrase

perfectly aware presents to me the sensory experience of being inundated by obnoxious perfume that usually has one-word names like

Nocturne?

Mirage?

Tempest? Can I say the word

obnoxious is perfect to describe perfume?

To put it another way, if language presents itself as a mouth without lips to be kissed, is that like rhyming in the unconscious? Why would there be no lips on a metaphorical mouth? Can I say they were literally

blown off? Can I be more neutral and less punning and use the word

removed? Why does the word

removed seem more appropriate in referring to the unconscious? Can I say it just seems more appropriate? Can I say I wanted to use the word

clinical instead of

appropriate? Can I say the words

clinical and

appropriate are connotative of one another and add how wholly deadening it feels to point that out?

When I think of language as poetry in the unconscious, am I thinking of something more like assonance and/or alliteration and how the unconscious codes its connections in repetitive like-sounds? By assuming sounds connect via like-sounds in the unconscious could I be suggesting something like repair occurs in the unconscious and that this psychic mechanism is facilitated by sonic particles that emanate from word utterances? Can I say when I write

sonic I have a tendency to want to write

sub-atomic, but I do mean sonic? Can I write

sonic and not foreclose the possibility of sub-atomic? Can I say the word

foreclose is sadistically pleasurable to use? Can I say repair never happens in the unconscious? Can I say the unconscious is not a place? Can I say it never grays of repeating, therefore negates repair? One might ask, repair of what?

Is it okay to say the unconscious is

a lipless mouth un-asking? Is that too poetic? Paradoxical and metaphorical? Can I go back a bit and ask what in this world of impermanence is repairable anyway? Can I suggest the word

repairable doesn’t sound like a word? Can I say I want to write the word

pear instead? Or

perishable? Can I say repeating the words

a pear for over one minute is hallucinogenic? Can I ask you to try it? Would that be kooky? Or would the word

loopy be better? And can I ask what if my dog’s barking were distant? Like in the same way for me New York City is geo-emotionally distant, but also, like the title of that ’80s song, the city is Always on My Mind. Can I say I stand corrected—the song was not from the ‘80s, it was remade in the ’80s? Can I say I don’t care for that song? Can I say in an act of surrealism

care is connotative of

a pear? Can I say the word

surrealism means less than nothing to me? Can I say surrealism is like an alien spacecraft sighting? Can I ask, does New York City really deserve another song? Can I say

deserve has nothing to do with it and trust you know the reference? Can I say I wanted to say the word

assume and not the word

trust.

Can I say poetics is and always has been centripetal? Can I soapbox about how good the word

soapbox sounds as a verb? Can I say that whenever I write the word

good I have an urge to write

cool but hold back? Can I ask at end of day if the unconscious cares about sounds? Can I suggest the word

soapbox sounds better verb-ally than the old-fashioned image it represents? Can I assume you know what I did there with that first hyphen and further assume I can risk being superficially clever with you? Can I say the word

clever reminds me of the word

cleaver and

cleaver is a word whose linguistic-sonic aesthetics remind me of

soapbox? Can I say I have a mysterious bias for two syllable words? Can I say I want to assume the word

mysterious is synonymous with

unconscious? 

Does the unconscious have a temperature? Isn’t that where poetry comes in? However, am I correct in remembering Pound said

poetry is a barometer of something and a barometer is not the same thing as a thermometer? Doesn’t the word

thermometer sound dramatic? Can I confess I want to find a way to use the word

prefigures right now? Can I ask if my desire to use

prefigures is to be found more in my ego than anywhere else? Can I confess that that last question was not a question, and that when I see

that that in a sentence, it reminds me of concrete poetry trying to represent two tongues touching?

Can I ask if the unconscious cares and be okay with silence? Can I say instead

there you go? Does that sound aggressive? Can you forget I ever said it? Can you ever forget? Can’t you be a

you when I need you? Can’t I use the words

say and

write interchangeably? Can I say I don’t like the word

interchangeably because of how it sounds and how it’s spelled?

Can I go back a bit and ask, does poetry forget? Can I claim it both does and doesn’t? Can I say we would like to cover all the bases because we’re dramatic, you and me, and feel alive at being caught between destinations? Do you judge me for using a sports metaphor? Can I say that it’s okay if you do? What are you thinking? Can I say thank you? Can I say I want to say

thou instead of

you?

Can’t you hear? Isn’t that a song on the radio? What else would be on the radio? Can I say that prepositions are the antithesis of exacting and are devoid of sonic relevance? Can I be John Cage for a day? Alive on the dial for a day can’t I say? Alive like a language dream lost of a poem? Does that sound too abstract? Why does loss invite abstractions? Why isn’t the word

invite more aesthetically frowned upon? Isn’t metaphor the ultimate abstraction? Can I be metaphorical and write the words

loss is the language of distant barking sounds? Can I be metaphorical again and write the words

leaves of a oak tree storm dance? Can I say trying to be metaphorical gives me spatial anxiety? Can I confess my love/hate relationship to the intransitive? Can I say how satisfying it is to say the word

confess but acknowledge the word is much less satisfying in print? Can I say the same thing about a word like

oatmeal? Can I just say

a pear?

A pear?

A pear?

A pear?

A pear?

Sean G. Meggeson lives in Toronto, where he works in as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist with his dog, Tao. He has been published in Antiphony, aswirl, Die Leere Mitte , The Queen’s Quarterly, The Trinity Review and others. He won the League of Canadian Poet’s Spoken Word Award in 2024. Meggeson has published three chapbooks, Cosmic Crasher (Buttonhook, 2024), ta o/j , and soma synthesis (both from lippykookpoetry, 2025). Forthcoming: a chapter on poetic symbolism and its use in clinical practice in Paul Ricoeur’s Impact on Contemporary Psychoanalysis: From Analysis to Synthesis (Lexington Books, 2025), and, j: poems (primitive press toronto, 2026).