Maugre's Song

Maugre sang, plucking on a banjo:

"I'm so dumb, but yeah,

That's me.

The sky looms too large

And the ground too low.

But the accumulation of time

Like clouds, oh, thin air -

I am talking to thin air,

Peopled with a million voices.

The wind makes music in my ear,

In my year, never-ending, here on Earth."

Prolepsis

Imagine tomorrow:

And that tomorrow, imagined, will have already happened.

A mistake, many mistakes:

Once you have thought of them, you will have made them, learned from them, and moved on.

Memory works in advance:

You remember, in anticipation of tomorrow, which has already passed.

Heteronomy

Autonomy and heteronomy;

We live as we dream*, uncontrollably.

The self misfires;

The other is part of the self;

Boxed in, torn boxes, flapping in the wind boxes;

The wind catches fire, and burns;

Rain falls, and makes us cold.

* "We live as we dream - alone." Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness.

L'infini

L'amertume me consume

Dans le douceur d'un fruit :

La terminaison d'un aboutissement

Qui finit par finir, comme l'infini.

Sand

Sometimes, I do not know if there are tears in my eyes

Because I am sleepy, or

Because I know sadness, loneliness -

"Oh, it's just sand," Pyotr said.

Vote Woes

"What is the relationship between democracy and statistics?" Fuentes asked. She was not talking about statistics on democracy. Her question had to do with the underlying democratic assumptions shaping the statistical approach - i.e. include all 'individuals' by reducing them to tiny, equal units, and count 'em!

"Well yes," Fuentes said, "I know that's not real democracy either. But isn't that how it's practiced in actuality?"

Three days later, Fuentes was cooked by the democratic stove. The statistical machine counted her as 1 victim among 3,000,000,000,000 victims. "But she will be missed," the democratic voice recorder blurted out. The voice recorder broke after 2,999,999,999,999 times. The bell curve fell through the cracks. "Oh," Fuentes said from above with disinterest, "bye, statistics."

Eyes

Pages of your new book glimmer

In the way of snow

It isn't the color

It is the sparkle

Of your own eyes