autonomous bodies

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by the sea

We’re squeezed like toothpaste into wires,
an atmospheric phantom network
bouncing off the sea bed and the sky,
and if we don’t pay the bills:
discontinuities in reality.

They’re deep, best not to fall in.

I remember burning forests in the wind
when the air was thick as a roast chicken smoothie,
when nature, lightning and amino acids
made single cells in starter packs,
ever changing, revisable.

But now each heart is pizza sliced in four quaternions,
one alone, the other three—
an irresolvable triangle of love.

Ada was unimpressed.

Come now, Albert, no need for drama,
let’s stroll down to the beach
and watch the moonfall.

It fell and bounced and bounced again,
a game of lunar ping pong
that ended in the Mariana Trench.

I wonder, Ada—do you really care for me?
And if you do, how much?
In metric units, please.

She opened up the left
side of her chest,
revealed a dial,
a needle of affection
that quivered in the red.

But did that mean a rosy future?
Or was replacement imminent?

It might be best to call an Uber catamaran,
no doubt a wave of weather’s on the way.

about
From Wikipedia:

Ada is a structured, statically typed,
imperative, wide-spectrum,
and object-oriented high
level computer programming language.

I so wish I’d written that.

artwork—by the sea, possibly with Ada

24 thoughts on “autonomous bodies”

  4. that Uber catamaran doesn’t come by these parts, might make the taxi drivers nervous, which i am all for, the mad buggers.
    i think you’d best copyright the ‘single cells in starter packs’ that may just keep you from being devoured by post apocalyptic cannibals when all that definitely happens. smashing poem again Steve, appreciate the nonsense. maybe you’d be interested in writing a poem using my libraryofbabel.info process, you have a knack for the absurd & i am sure you’d churn out something of nonsensical value.

    Reply

    • Thanks, Daniel, glad you enjoyed. I suspect we’re going to see a lot more of Uber everywhere. My current plans for the apocalypse are to go out in comfort, possibly with a good book and a bottle of Pinot.

      Rather liked the Library and I could have a go, but the catch is I can’t really do writing prompts (I’ve tried many times). What I write just appears in my head and if I try to force it in any way, I get nothing. If I had any control over my writing I’d probably be doing NaNoWriMo :).

    • that’s what works about the library, it isn’t so much a prompt as a means of mining a collection of words. you could search swear words, then what words came from that search you’d have to use in a poem. you could limit it to using 14 words, one in each line perhaps. you’d have to tailor the parameters to meet your needs not my prompt so as to make the finished product uniquely your own.

    • Thank you Mairi. When this poem popped into my head, I thought it was too disjoint, but being gullible, I convinced myself it made an obscure kind of sense :).

    • Yes, fantasy weather is safer, although I imagine a tsunami caused by the moon landing in the Pacific might be problematic

      Getting a bit randomly technical, I wonder whether the Pacific Plate subduction is being affected by global warming, eg ocean temperature and density change. This is the type of thought that makes me write apocalyptically (should be a word) but anyway I wish you calm sunny days and blue skies :).

    • I imagine global warming is doing all sorts of things – I wouldn’t discount it.
      Thanks for the good wishes – they worked – today calm and sunny – big blue sky 😊

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