Monday, July 25, 2016

Erasure

Sometimes I think I don't mourn things that are gone,
I mourn absences-- the empty spaces between words,
graveyard of nowhere, only the gut-cold stomach-fall
remains, each time I panic for evidence of anything

ever being in that space. That it ever was nameable as
"hunger" or "promise" or "that touch I knew you by".
When I told myself words were not worthy of you?
We both know that's not true, but also, probably not

in the way we think the other imagines. I still look
for the right un-word for you: that perfect sound
of words being taken back from the air, if I could.
Words get caught on paper. I used to think that was

so they could last, so they could stay in one place...
no, it's so we have something we are able to erase.





Saturday, July 2, 2016

The Only Machine You'll Ever Need

There were fascinating details; that's what entranced everyone about The Machine, when they
first encountered it. Endlessly resplendent with small craftings, and layers of appreciation, it  made the very clever feel clever all through their bones, while not making anyone feel stupid, the way some people feel, when facing mechanicals.

Whoever made it had a deep love for hidden riddles, clever double meanings, and details so breath-staggeringly gossamer, you could scarce exhale for fear of interrupting a moment. Different people will tell you they absolutely heard what they heard (it doesn't matter what anyone else claims, even were they in the room at the same time) and they would swear upon what ever what most important to them as proof. And everyone of them would be right, or at least honest.

Because The Machine makes the noises you need it to make. It appears in shapes it hopes you like, as long as that happens to be cube-like. But it can touch-interface, or if that's too presumptuous, too modern, it can fine meshed-gear clockwork, it can piston and hammer, it can simple lever; it wants to  you to be satisfied.

The architect, with heart of Bauhaus, the Steam-Punk hipster with their Victorian wish, the Futurist with the wired smile, they would all be pleased with what they saw. Lovers would weep, and the Terribly Alone would follow its humming (they hear it as a kind of melodic humming) and discover themselves impossibly found.

The Poets wait until everyone else is gone, before gathering up the words left underfoot, with their fingers busy listening. When they are done, each goes home and attempts to knit soup for everybody.