The Persistence of Memory

There is nothing surreal

about Dali. Everything’s run-of-the-mill,

like a day at the Quickie-Wash.

The clocks are merely socks

& a pillow case, limp as legless

fishnets—from the doubling up of

Downy—a sentry on the counter

with Rebekah’s underthings,

little Zach’s suspenders, and a collar

as stiff as the bro with

washboard abs,

flaunting his shirtless bod.

 

Penelope will regard him like

the seep & froth of bubbles—

which speak of too much Tide.

Everything’s doomed to pop

so what’s the point? These are all

beyond the frame. What’s in

is not as crucial as what is out—

 

Salvador on a stool

while reading Hugo. He’ll get half-

way through Les Mis, since these

Whirlpools are second hand.

Watch him tally quarters,

the sag of a barren branch—

which has somehow made the cut—

after all, a painter cannot daub

of everything.

It’s the art of pick-and-choose.

The kid who eats the burger not the fries.

The ketchup which dribbles over—

to Genevieve’s wedding dress.

It hasn’t fit her anyway—since

nineteen hundred and six.

 

The 24-hour neon continues to blink,

like lashes hit with grit,

 

making you wonder what has happened

in the time before & hence—as if moments

can be measured by

two hands like rubber bands,

stretched beyond the taut,

a slingshot like the one that felled Goliath—

 

or that very first trip on acid,

where the hosiery’s

learned to stitch its

fraying holes, run off to a cliff

on some horizon—you in

hot pursuit—amid the spin of

ground & sky, naked like a sapling

sound asleep, bereft of its

green pajamas.

 

 

 

 

Andreas Gripp

August 24, 2026 

The Persistence of Memory, Salvador Dali (1931)