THROUGH VERY SHORT TIMES OF SPACE.
The red door of No.16
North Frederick Street
slams behind him as he
enters into this newly minted
morning
sunshine so thick
one feels like a fish
swimming through it.
Sunlight spangles
a tiny puddle
turning it into a jewel
that only the eye can cherish.
Ahhhh "...the ineluctable
modality of the visible."
He turns right into Upper
Dorset Street
pulling an "Ahhh...howya!"out of the man
who makes the false teeth.
Then turning left into
Eccles Street
giving the nod to No. 7
Bloom's house in ULYSSES.
Here in its run down state
though still shining in his fictionality.
Soon they will knock it
down and what will the tourists
do then
poor things.
Sure some bright spark
will rescue it from its rubble
and the door will live again
some streets away again.
Ahhh...." the ineluctable
modality of the visible."
I go to Quinn's gym
to get my Molly
( Philomena her name is )
a cottage cheese with pineapple
on a Weetabix base.
It is a 16th of June
somewhere in the 80's
as I retrace my own earlier
Joycean footsteps.
Rat-a-tat-tat on Bloom's door.
"Are ya there Leopold?"
But the bold Leopold
doesn't answer.
The 16th of
forever I am
"...walking through it
howsomever."
The sun smirks
as such Joyceisms.
"I am, a stride of a time.
A very short space of time
through very short times of space."
A horse and cart as if
from the past
saunters by
timelessly.
Ah "...the ineluctable
modality of the audible."
My Molly who is really
a Philomena
spoons the deliciousness
of the creamy dessert
into her
and yes she says
mmmm...yes....mmmm
Yes.
As the old woman on a bicycle so perfectly puts. . .
Ineluctable – that which cannot be escaped from.
modality– A condition like eyesight. Hearing is a modality. However, from each condition a limitation can also be implied. As eyesight is a modality, it also implies the limitation of not being able to hear, or being limited by the quality of our eyesight. A modality only offers a partial reality. Eyesight doesn’t give us reality in its entirety, because it can’t give us hearing or taste, both which add aspects to reality. Eyesight, hearing, and taste are all visible modalities, and all limiting, even together.
By its nature of being visible, it is an ineluctable modality. That which is visible is limited because it’s being observed by a modality which implies a limitation.
This is the entire sentence as it appears in Ulysses:
“Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that if no more, thought through my eyes.”
This means his current thought is only about what he is observing through his eyes. “at least that and no more” implies the limitations of eye sight and he is saying here that there is more. There is an old saying that goes “there is more than meets the eye.”
Now...imagination on the other hand. . .