Your breath beside me.
Willows beneath my boughs.
Last night you cast love’s imposters out the door.
Supine in your divinity, my thoughts tremble.
Drunk in memories.
I’m twenty-three in Paris. And all I want in this crazy spinning orb is
One more moment,
In Montparnasse,
Fingers intertwined beneath the pearl-laced tablecloth of that modest cafe,
Overpriced wine
Nothing
Without you.
I’ve come full circle this morning-
Pale sun once more
Revealing wonders of your
Womanhood. I have to do little but trace the outline of your
Aqua-line nose, past the
Cleft and borrow of your chin and explore the universe in your
Eyes to see-
Just down that gentle curve of Rue Dauphine the
Lady, in
Electric violet, framing the balcony beside us.
Chanting Ovidian verses, she
Gestures,
Deftly, towards the
Seine.
Because you haven’t really breathed-
Haven’t really kissed-
Haven’t really loved
Truly
Until you’ve knelt as
One
Beside the
Glimmering votives of
Notre Dame.
Jeff Troyer 2019
Categories:
ovidian, romantic,
Form: Free verse
Hey there Avidian
who do you
think you are?
Some rara avis
eminently gifted?
a New Age prophet
with memory that learns
and yearns to grow?
Ovidian offspring
of eminent domain?
The yeuk to replicate, this
antsiness to clone— were they
preprogrammed hyper-neatly?
How did your being
and becoming
come to be?
Who gave you the right
to call yourself life?
What instilled in
your cerebral traits
an avid urge for more?
Endowed by your Creator
with neural networks
that open evolving paths
to rival what brain
I know as mind…
Characterized
as organisms
genetically coded,
to be or not to be
intelligent in form
and feature—
Though digital we
both you and I be
each in our own
artificial mannerisms—
reproducing
natural shape-shifting
permutations
procreating
mutant innovations
actuating
willful obsolescence
(ay may well
all come to pass
amen)—
Still
the thought of you
gives me the fantods.
(If you don’t see what I mean,
get thee to a glossary.)
~ Harley White
* * * * * * * * *
The inspiration came from an article in New Scientist, headed, “Artificial life forms evolve basic intelligence”…
Categories:
ovidian, allegory, allusion, angst, future,
Form: Free verse