There Is No Now

A time-perception poem

La Desintegración de la Persistencia de la Memoria, Salvador Dalí, 1954

Some say there is no future— only anticipation.
Some say there is no past— only memory.
But, what no one tells you is:
There is no persistence of memory, 
Only badly drawn traces.
And, ultimately, there will be no traces left: 
Only death, endless and barren.
There is no anticipation, 
Only imagination, self-delusion.
But, ultimately, there is no imagination either: 
Only fragility, recurrent and empty.
And, neither will any one find an ultimate self.
The past is real— but there is no present.
The future is real— but there is no now.