Ascending the Breakdown

Anterograde amnesia
Opens a little window
So that we can peek inside
And get a glimpse of the source
Of our delicate lamplight
Encircling the whole of night.
One story starts with a man

Named Clive Wearing who woke up
To his loss of memory
Once every thirty seconds
And wrote down each fresh triumph,
"At last, I'm truly awake!"
Crossing out former entries
Claiming the same as he went,

Thousands and thousands of times,
Thousands of lines protesting
Against all those preceding.
There is no god in those gaps,
We think, no one and nothing
Other than terrifying
Loss of continuity.

Another story begins
In "the world with all the marks
Of antiquity" at birth,
So that continuity
Had a point of origin
Sometime before forever
And humans had a story

Starting with a man, midway
Through life and midwived by God
Needing no explanation
Prior to that fact, just so:
Omphalos hypothesis.
The first story was tragic.
This one was the comedy

Pursuant to eternal
Law of continuity.
The third and final story,
All the drama of science
Attendant, the heroic
Success of experiments,
Starts from confabulation

Revealed by the ease with which
We can lure the conscious brain
Into making up stories
Eliding contradictions
Stemming from selves assuming
Continuity of self.
We watch machines watching us

Make up our minds, and we see
Our minds don't do the making.
The waves below awareness
Move first, up from the deep dark
And heave the phosphorescence
That shimmers with the belief
That it stays on top of things,

And is, metaphorically,
Allied with the glittering
Luminaries of night skies,
When it is not. We are not.
At last! We're truly awake!
We see ourselves as we are,
Little liars to ourselves.

The mystery has been solved.
Or Mr. Wearing was right.
Awareness is always right.
Mr. Omphalos was right.
Every moment springs full grown
From deeps of chaotic night.
Imagine this reeling thought---

That the drunkard who blacked out,
The ordinary sleeper,
The victim of amnesia
Have all felt the well of truth
That is inverted lamplight.
We are only what we know,
And we know stories are lies.