Late Friday coffee.
It’s time for me to go.
Haven’t you seen the news?
The Venusians are invading.
They’ve been studying us for years,
collecting all our confidential thoughts.
Their conquest of the earth is under way,
with their gaudy starlit tentacles,
their stellarators and imitation science.
You’d be safer here with me.
Estrelinha sighed.
Alright then, tell me more.
The Twitter version please.
Beyond their skin, they’re just like us,
cloaked in optical illusion and stroboscopic light.
But underneath, they’re galaxies in glass,
spiral arms and silver watercolors,
diamond flames from time’s beginning.
I’ve seen them gliding down the highways
in Toyota Starlets, two-tone, blue and grey,
and they’re occupying mountain tops and Starbucks,
planning global terraforms and media hallucinants—
two hundred football channels,
Huxley one, Orwell zero.
Although I’d made my point in several tweets,
Estrelinha was unimpressed.
On the streets outside, random wild behavior
is well within a Friday evening’s standard deviation.
There’s no sign of an invasion.
The astute are watching Netflix
in secure basements,
silicone sealed against Venusians.
I’ve done a bit myself.
You and I were never miscible:
balsamic vinegar and oil.
A garden salad, a blueberry muffin,
another coffee perhaps?
All the famous antelopes and ants are on TV,
but I am here.
My life is waiting beyond your gravity well.
I’ve made measurements in vacuo,
dropped a bottle and a feather:
the bottle floated through the window,
the feather weighed upon my thoughts.
Streets and streetlamps, starfish in the square,
silent letters and raucous seagulls.
Do they serve a purpose?
What’s the use of poetry and pot plants?
Of crystal beaches, Beowulf in winter socks, the blue electric?
When I’m with you, I wonder.
Every time you open your mouth,
reality books an Uber.
We’re only real when we’re
unwritten, unrecorded.
Here’s what the wood ducks have lined up for the coming issue: there won’t be a table of contents or a table or contents, a cover story or a cover or a story, and as a temporary cost-cutting measure, I’ll be accosting strangers in the street and warning them about Venusians.
background
Stellarators are magnetically confined fusion devices
shameless plagiarism of Shocking Blue, Venus.
Twitter, Toyota Starlet, Starbucks, Netflix, Uber are trademarks of their respective companies. Probably.
artwork
upon my thoughts (detail above) this visualization was generated from six minutes of EEG (more info with artwork)
Pop culture reference central here, Steve. Wouldn’t misc it for quids, but I was very taken with your eeg work. Caught my attention right off. Good job.
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Thank you, Frank. Absolutely, I realized when I finished and listed the brand names. I spent some time at Sydney Uni this last week, and I saw how rapidly things are changing, everyone talking to their phones or on their tablets. Me too, mind you. 😃
Glad you liked the EEG, I hope to do some more, although my experimental subject is whingeing that he doesn’t have the time.😃
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I look after some people that I have to persuade to swallow their tablet on a regular basis. Talking won’t do the trick, I’m afraid.
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I can see that, Frank. Apples are probably okay.😄
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I keep being transported to some other world each time I come by your page. It’s like your words are a passageway to another etherealm (is there such a word? I don’t think so, but hey), wonderfully weird yet true and relatable.
That last couplet though—didn’t someone say they could see their thoughts only once they written on paper? Writing it down (or spilling it, whichever method preferred) would make something more real, visceral.
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Were* written. 🙄
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Great emoji.
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One of my favorites, actually.
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This is paradoxically beautiful, Steve. The “Beyond their skin” stanza gets down down down to the bone. I feel like a silver watercolor when I read it. Gracias.
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De nada, BG. I’m glad you feel like a silver watercolor 😃, and I have to admit I have no problem at all with the Venusians and their invasion. 👽
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I’m good with etherealm. It should be in the dictionary, and it sounds like I should be doing some work on magic travel spells. It wouldn’t have to be far, even the local supermarket would be okay.
Thanks, Annie. You always get me thinking. I agree, writing things down can help us to understand ourselves, and sometimes interpretation is needed because we are complex, multilayered creatures.
The protagonist here has had his conversation made public, recorded on inconstantlight. I think that a lot of people aren’t completely real in public (I know I’m not). We project images, and we might even have a self-image which isn’t wonderfully real. But in private, there are times when we are as real with each other as it gets. 😃
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I completely agree with you, Steve. I don’t think we are our real selves in public, not 100% anyway. If we are lucky, though, we will find people or someone we can be real with. Isn’t that a scary idea, though? Being so real with someone that you become vulnerable.
You’re doing great with etherealm and your magic travel spells. Each piece always takes me someplace new and weird, in a wonderful way. (I’d love to see what you can make out of the veggies section in Woolies.)
And you’re welcome. I always look forward to tagging along on any journey you paint.
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I’m not particularly concerned about that one, Annie. I soon as you care, you’re vulnerable in so many ways. It’s just one more, that’s life.
Thanks, but my culinary skills range from zero to non-existent. You don’t want to know. Vegetables or anything else.😄
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Hahaha, okay. I’m not an expert in the culinary department, either, though I’m sure you could write about a trip to the grocery store and make it sound like an adventure. 😁
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“We’re only real when we’re unwritten, unrecorded”… and hence relationships are so special when the unwritten and unrecorded are understood. Beautiful. Brilliant. Will there be a part 2? 🙂
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Thanks, Sobhana. Yes, that’s true, so much is unsaid, yet perfectly understood.
I’m guessing there won’t be a part 2, since whatever the two characters get up to will be unwritten and unrecorded 😃, but who knows?
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agree, top truth, dude – We’re only real when we’re unwritten, unrecorded.
great work, stream of sub-conscious…
don’t worry the word real is just a symbol not the thing itself, or maybe the dynamic… as Hegel inferred 🙂
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Thanks, I’m glad the protagonist came through at the end, I thought he was heading off into deep space…
I know what you mean: “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” — “This isn’t a pipi.” I wish it was a pipi though. I like pipis. 😄
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Shocking Blue are fantastic – thanks. and for the rest – the bottle and the feather, the starfish in the square – and that fine final couplet – unwritten indeed.
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Thank you, Peter. Yeah, I like them too. They happened with the usual random chain of thoughts: starting with Friday coffee, and then because Friday is the day of Venus, the Venusians, and Shocking Blue. Perfectly logical, ha ha.
I was grateful when the ending appeared in last minute fashion, glad you liked it.
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I agree with so many of your followers this fine day.
The bottle and feather did stand out for me. We are sent on this trip with no seatbelts, for in your world we are encouraged to float about in the atmosphere, to become anything. Hugs to your creative mind ehehhe.
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Thank you for your beautiful comment. Who needs a seatbelt? It’s a pleasure for me to write as well: it lightens my load and helps me to float a little. Abraços to you, Tamaya.
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What a clever idea to meet for coffee at a place other than Starbucks! After all, the Venusians are far too busy occupying all the Starbucks on Earth to bother with other coffee shops.
I also wonder about the use of poetry and pot plants…
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That’s true, but I do worry about undercover Venusians. They can use their cloaking technology to look like anyone. We’ve probably met them and not even realized.
Yes, I find it can be confusing. Put them in the sunlight, water them, and often all you have left is the little plastic tag with the name in Latin. And it’s much the same with pot plants.
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i enjoy how you incorporate brand names so seamlessly in your writing and make them a part of this new landscape we are living in. like drawing a new paradigm with words that conjur up instant images.
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Thank you, Gina. I think it happened because of the week I’d had, and yes, that and more is the new reality. I sometimes wish I could go back to before it all, but there have been so many benefits as well.
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Well done, Steve, keep shoving reality into that Uber! Also, I hadn’t thought about Shocking Blue in a long time.
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Will do, Jim. Reality’s always hanging around, whispering in your ear, “You have to be a me-ist, “That’s not me-istic.” Who cares?
Shocking Blue just appeared with Venus thoughts, I’m glad they did.
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Very engaging, nice piece!
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Thank you for the feedback, glad you enjoyed.
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As always, fantastic imagery! Venusians, Starbucks, even my personal favorite (Beowulf)! A reading pleasure, Steve…
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Thank you, Clarissa. It was time for Beowulf to make an appearance, I thought. 😃 I would never question his usefulness, like the protagonist, but I wanted the list to be broad. Sort of.
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Ah, Venusians. No wonder an unnamed president wants to start a space fleet with no mention of light sabers. The Venusians are coming!
Love Beowulf in socks. 🙂
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I am unsure about the historical accuracy of the socks, but yes to light sabers, wielded by alligators. I am concerned sometimes that various nameless people cannot distinguish fantasy fiction and human reality.
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I am concerned about the number of said nameless people. On a happier note I am all for light saber wielding alligators. The question is: should crocs be allowed to bare arms? 😉 (run with it)
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Mmm, I’m not up on crocodile fashion, but better bared arms than bared teeth.🐊
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hehe…maybe crocs wear….crocs….
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