Pretending To Be Human
by a neoandertal
Time stands still-borne in all-black free space. Then, in a whirl
Fat colourful letters chase cloudy words but careen off grey numbers and greekletter-thingies,
Like a tetraplex of billiard balls each with their own spectrum
Of stickiness and deference and smile and fear and curiosity,
Or lifeless thunk..
Space is empty…except for us billiard balls. Then
A dark fuzziness grows in my amygdala
Pulling the hairs on my scalp from within.
A stark fuzziness takes my mind from without,
Where white is black and she is he and life is,
Life is only marginally better than not-life.
Seeing is bedeviling.
When is reality now?
Is it only real after we put it into memory?
What I see is not what you see, so whose reality is real?
Should I jump into the trembling tomorrow,
Armed with knowing only that I know little?
Should I smile at this stranger,
Leading with a heart on my open sleeve,
As she gazes with doubt below my eyes
At my heart of fearful smiles?
To jump? Or to sleep forever
In the safe gauze of youthful certainty…
A beginning for her starts with an event.
Time for him is relative,
Part of the whole,
Pulled out by a pointing finger,
To be analyzed.
Entangled, the probabilistic string between them sings a tense inframelody.
He cries, she cringes, feeling a cold breath on her fifth dimension.
“In the news today”, said the radio,
“Rosanne fights and beats Super Mario;
The pope has an audience with Vincent Rosario;
A new wave of riots in a latin barrio;
Guards shoot teacher stringing rainbow display;
And inclement weather claims new victims, today.”
Disentangling, the probabilistic string between them flops discordantly.
He cringes in pain.
She brushes her hair,
Hopping randomly between dimensions,
Wondering why there is a loose knot
And who wanted it tied, anyway.
- Dreaming in a coma
- Reaming in a comad
- Eaming in a comadr
- Aming in a comadre
- Ming in a comadrea
- Ing in a comadream
- Ng in a comadreami
- G in a comadreamin
- In a comadreaming
- translated from Neoandertal
by George Opacic
You
- Through the abyss of indigo blue
- Plowing into the dawn of the world
- You
- Just a tiny tinkling bell
- Filled with incandescence of youth
- Growing in the boundless churning ocean of humanity
- After a pause of blessed tranquility, a flash
- Gone back to your hearth and fathers, Simion
- The memory of your presence, shining an eternal blue white
- Carrying me through the fog of sorrow
- Spurring me on to the vibrant stage of my own being
- There is no time to wail
- There are no more tears to waste away.
- I will plod on to see what you could not see
- I will leap to touch what you were not able to feel
- I will proceed through the darkness of creation
- To ring your bell throughout the cosmos
- I will.
- translated from Japanese
by Fumie Fukuda
See Who
Crystal glass in buildings sit, mirroring.
In our city, which glass has not captured your face?
Is there a window which has not framed your smile?
You are. Beautiful. You draw all eyes…
Oh, the full moon shimmers and glints in your deep pupils!
Is your face still framed lovely?
Blame the moon.
- translated from Persian
poem and caligraphy by Bashir Rahimi
