Marrie Lightman suggested an irrational robot prompt, well this is irrational, and it has a robot in there somewhere...
The day science fiction is obliged to save the world
The day science fiction is obliged to save the world
the alien fleet decloaks, apologises; says—
it isn't us, it's them—
and takes their vinyl collection back into hyperspace.
The day science fiction is obliged to save the world
a mutant traffic cop applies penalty notices
directly to the psyche of every boy-racer
from Kathmandu to Watford gap.
The day science fiction is obliged to save the world
the powers that be discover a new minority
but disagree on how to disenfranchise
the unbearable little freaks.
The day science fiction etcetera etcetera
a giant robot strides through the panicking city
with notebook and a magnifying glass;
placing each foot with exquisite care.
Because science fiction has stopped faking it:
no more hints and portents
no more signs for shops that don't exist
selling products you don't know how to use
and no more shapes for things that are not yet yet to come.
It's a day to mark in history
although possibly not ours.
The day science fiction comes into its full powers
the day the sky opens
for casual visitation,
and a day without
the city walls where we spread our picnic rug
on the grass of a hill that is being destroyed
at precisely the same rate it is being created,
is the day science fiction stops taking prisoners
my ex takes the biggest step of her life
from the top of a tall building
up, onto the top of the next.
On this day of which we have already spoken
a brain in a tank imagines a real planet
where minds on experimental drugs dream
the feedback loop completely closed
and change the bag on its nutrient feed.
The day science fiction is obliged to save the world
is the day that my pencil breaks
in Applied Philosophy 101
and the patterns of interference
between the answers I can't now give
and questions they didn't dare ask
tell me everything I need to know.
The day science fiction was obliged to save the world
was a day like any other day:
it rained in the morning;
cleared up later;
I bought myself a cake.
Showing posts with label picnic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label picnic. Show all posts
2017-05-01
2017-04-23
NaPoWriMo - 2017 - April 18th - Possible taxonomies of the 1957 Yorkshire coast
I went to a writing workshop, some years back now. One of the exercises was to watch a "British Transport Film" similar if not identical to this:
-and write a poem in response.
It's the "poem" part that may be dubious here. Sometimes my response to something is more to its style than its content and seeing this I was struck by how much it was unique to the period. So I started thinking about how people might present the same information in other styles... and I hit on the idea of an overly abstract and academic study.
So what I am saying is that there may be nobody else in the world except me who gets this...
...but it is a list poem and you could imagine it came from the introduction of some dry-as-bones volume that a tweed clad professor has been labouring over for the best part of a decade..
Possible taxonomies of the 1957 Yorkshire coast
-and write a poem in response.
It's the "poem" part that may be dubious here. Sometimes my response to something is more to its style than its content and seeing this I was struck by how much it was unique to the period. So I started thinking about how people might present the same information in other styles... and I hit on the idea of an overly abstract and academic study.
So what I am saying is that there may be nobody else in the world except me who gets this...
...but it is a list poem and you could imagine it came from the introduction of some dry-as-bones volume that a tweed clad professor has been labouring over for the best part of a decade..
Possible taxonomies of the 1957 Yorkshire coast
- those involving sun hats
- those involving beer
- those involving knobbly knees
- those involving simple foodstuffs : apples, sandwiches, cheese
- as above, but also fish and chips
- those involving model ships or boats
- those involving racquets
- those involving balls
- those involving young ladies
- excluding the most popular of all
- those involving sand
- with buckets and spades
- with towels
- with sandwiches
- those planned a year in advance
- those involving dance with various degrees of skill
- the subset involving omnibuses
- those involving ice cream
- the subset with also small children
- and the subset of those in which a seagull features
- those involving other creatures:
- donkeys
- crabs
- minute fish
- those in which you drink too much, and wish you hadn't
- those featuring special boys or girls
- appearing at just the wrong moment
- or where they don't arrive at all
- as yet to be categorised:
- sea temperature
- sunburn
- chilblains
- lower back pain in the context of luggage
- all the grades of rain
2015-04-29
E pluribus unum
I have a half memory that somebody may have raised a challenge but whether it was to write in the plural, or to bend the rules of grammar I don't know. Possibly it was to adopt an alien persona of some variety...
So anyway, herewith the aforementioned poem. It's not exactly a puzzle, but you may get some way through before you figure it out...
E pluribus unum
like really you say that
as if it were a clever thing
and I (plural) am watching
your picnic from seven hundred
viewpoints in the long grasses
and there is only one of we (singular)
and it's not our queen
because, OK, there's only one
in here and we're organised around her
but she's still only a part of the machine
and I (plural) am the machine
and we (singular) are all the parts
and I am watching you
and I am already
in
the
sandwiches
Note: the first sentence of this posting is grammatically correct... "whence" means "from where."
So "from whence" is arguably tautology, although apparently it has also been in use for a long, long time...
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