“I wait for you to recognize me
it is a ploy
a measure of my extension
that I evade I change as you near
where I was but where I am not”
memo undated
to: the human race
from: the creator subject: addressee
i wait for you to recognize me
it is a ploy
a measure of my extension,
that i evade i change as you near
where i was but where i am not.
i do this because i seek
protection from your gods.
to be protected from not by them
and from the images
they hold of you.
i shall not be bound by them.
i wait for you to recognize this.
i await your recognition of me in this.
though my ways are ways that have never
ever been cognizable by you or your god/s.
the one/s with whom you wait
at the bus stops at crematoriums at airports
at cemeteries at hospitals or fairgrounds and other
designated places of departure or significance or
arrival creating signs and journeys where none exist.
or the one with whose words
your hands wash the dirt
off your hours and your ways
the one whose body wastes
for you.
whose promises infiltrate
the innocence of your hopelessness
the facility of whose books
can be rewritten according to the availability
of your words.
or the one who embraces you
as a knife embraces its edginess
with sharp nervousness
of design.
they who live in your breath
kneel in your desire
turn in your pain
then leave everywhere you arrive.
until you recognize this
me and me alone in this
i stay threatened
but yours truly.
the poem tree
it was always some distance away.
he could always see it.
a tree with numberless leaves.
periodically the leaves would fly away,
all of them together upon a hidden signal.
at least hidden from him.
it was impossible to tell if the leaves
coerced wings into existence
at the intensity of this secret bidding
or if the tree had grown
birds in place of leaves.
even though it was some distance away.
he could see in it all ways.
yes, he had always been walking towards the tree. that is the way it had been all his life,
but no, he was not any closer to it now
than he had ever been before.
when the leaves or the birds flew away
the tree would be just branches awhile.
the branches would still retain a semblance of the flight.
he was never quite sure if the branches too would not fly
away on a sudden. it had never happened.
but what if the branches too.
then the trunk.
the root remnants then.
till he would have to think
that the tree
had flown. away.
this had not happened yet. each time he had thought thus
the leafbirds had come back as if at some hidden signal
or at least some signal hidden from him, the leaves had
flown away
and the birds had flown back. or the other way around.
or ways in between. always.
as he kept on walking towards the tree.
he was never, ever any closer nor any farther. thought the tree as it flew away.
that was his life.
that is how it is.
Report. Abstract. Undated. Creator Anon.
- no one knows exactly when the show began
- characters come and go purposefully
- there is no discernible pattern to these entries and exits
- sometimes the stage is empty
- except, that is, for the illumination cast by an unseen light source. sources?
- the beings under the light are called players
- the ones in the dark are called viewers
- frequently they exchange places
- their primary language is called time
- speaking it is their only evident, existential justification
- misunderstanding it is their only area of expertise
- that is until any empirical evidence to the contrary comes to light
- secondary languages include violence, regret, repetition
- tertiary languages include dissimulation
- no one knows exactly when the show will end
- interim recommendation: disinvest. #soonest
- redact upon reading
Image credit: A Golden Tree: A Phad Painting by Kalyan Joshi