omégaville 1: delocation

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blind_nature_s

The normal dimensions vanished long ago,
and except for secrets covered in a skin
of words, we were left with only three.

~/~

Under every door in Marimbondo,
a letter of demand appeared, stamped
and indisputable.

By hydraulic decree, the Itaipu
catchment will expand.
Marimbondo will be submerged
and you must leave.
You’ll be rehoused in tents at Alta Vista.

And so it went. With resignation and mementos
in our barrows, all that’s treasured and worthless,
we said our wet farewells
to the amphibious ghosts
of Marimbondo.

~/~

Within a year, another notice, countersigned,
was nailed to a suitable trumpet tree.

Alta Vista’s landscape will be gouged
by great machines,
cut and opened up in a festering
of iron ore and bauxite.

We’ve built another home
especially for you:
a sloping shanty town
named Omégaville.

PS: Do not take the tents we loaned to you.

~/~

When its one and only summer was on the rise,
the Omégaville cats were climbing every tree.
Oxen, wild boar, and dogs were on the roofs
of every house,
some for shorter times than others,
according to the universe’s gravitation constant
applied to sheets of tin and cardboard.

Nature always seeks a balance
between us and her destruction.
She has no scales,
but like her sister-in-law, Justiça,
she wears a blindfold.

And so that summer,
no birds flew, they walked
or took the bus
and paid half price.

Inquisitive strangers visited,
airbnb’ed,* stole photons,
and conjectured with the internet’s authority:

The wildlife has sensed
the upper anomalies,
problems with a circular horizon,
the obvious facts that no-one states.

~/~

By season’s end, the general public had joined in too,
climbing fences, power poles and towers,
howling at the moon with hopeful expectation.

Only a single option remains,
announced the Delegado in a special broadcast
from the battlements of his imitation castle,
The government wants the best for you.

But he didn’t say what that option was.

to continue a little

*Airbnb™ has a different meaning in Omégaville.

about
Although “Omégaville” uses some real Brazilian locations and events, it’s fantasy, and not particular to that country.

selling dreams
My short story the dream seller will appear in the second issue of Weird City, from Weird City Press, and will be available at Amazon before the end of February 2018. Continues →

artwork
blind nature (detail above)

48 thoughts on “omégaville 1: delocation”

    • I think it’s a persistent theme, the empowered and the not. From your comment, I tried to think where Omégaville came from, or at least started, with little success, not anything I’d read or seen. Then I remembered a week ago at a lunch with family and friends we’d been discussing my deportation from Brazil. Not a problem after a visit with the local police (at least compared to Argentina 😜), but I crossed the border into Paraguay at Foz do Iguaçu, where the Iguaçu River flows. This is the river of the hydroelectric catchments that flooded several townships.

      It’s strange how the mind works, I didn’t think any of that at the time, but I suspect it triggered Omégaville.

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  5. congratulations on the publication Steve! so well deserved. I like this story especially the blindfolded Nature and sis-in-law Justica, that’s a very interesting relationship to quote, one that contradicts yet supports each other. I am reflecting on this today. Well done on making my brains buzz!

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    • Thanks Gina. And interesting to me that you commented on that relationship. For me, the sister in *law* Justiça deals with human law, and with her blindfold she is fair and impartial, unable to be swayed. But Nature/Gaia has her own laws, and she is also in a sense impartial …

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      • one seeing and the other unseeing yet creating a balance with the different senses they possess. I was intrigued by that symbolism. The irony of being blind and yet “seeing” and delivering justice. Being impartial is one way of looking at it and I also imagined being unaffected by visual appearance instead relying on facts and figures presented.

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  6. Boy, is that prophetic or what. I especially love your opening stanza. Pretty incisive ending too. Had to laugh at the poor birds riding the bus – glad they got a discount. Very cool about the magazine. Congratulations!

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    • Thank you BG. I hope it’s not too prophetic. It isn’t going anywhere good, as you probably guessed from the ending.😃

      I think the birds were ripped off actually, it’s not like they take a seat each. Once when I was working in Japan, I was taking the metro twice a day, and the turnstiles always said something to me in Japanese I didn’t understand. After a month, I asked, and it turned out I was buying children’s tickets. So polite over there.

      Thanks, the magazine sale is a reminder that I’m not writing enough for publishers. Anyway, whatever, I enjoy the blog. 😃

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  7. I wonder how many ‘normal dimensions’ disappeared, leaving us with only three. Omégaville doesn’t sound like a place I’d like to live (not that I would mind sharing the bus with birds). Congratulations on the publication!

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    • Thanks, Magarisa. Those are places where you live when you don’t have a choice.

      I can’t give you a precise answer on the dimensions, but the spacelike dimensions would take you to nearby realities, where your cup of coffee might be full again. And if you went further, it might be become a mango, or you might become a mango. The timelike dimensions still exist, but are not accessible. Although we have records and memories of the past, the actual past is quite different because our timeline wanders along these other dimensions. I’d better leave it at that in case I accidentally say something that makes sense.😜

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      Reply

  8. I like the idea of trumpet trees. How surrealistic much of your poetry is and what an imaginative writer you are. I am hoping this evening to read some of your short stories. Thank you.

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    • My pleasure, Margaret, thanks. To be honest, there is quite a bit of reality in there which I can’t take credit for (if credit is the right word). For example, although there is no Omégaville, there is an Alfaville in Brazil which I’ve visited.

      By the way, I just explained in another comment that I need to do an up-to-date web page with a list of my short fiction and poetry sold to publishers, with information on which pieces are freely available. I hope to do it by the weekend. Even if it’s a little incomplete. 😃

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  9. Sense of humour intact as ever. The poem reflects our current world of climate change and climate change denial which is not funny apart from in a bleak way. Well done again,

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  11. This is brilliant stuff, Steve, will be back to it many times. For some strange reason, I have a sudden urge to read Kurt Vonnegut again. Hope you see that as a compliment. Congrats on the publication! JIM

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