Blackout poetry 2

Further to yesterday’s blackout poetry fun, I thought I’d do another. Took a while to find a book I was willing to let go off, but finally settled on one.

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Role Play

Shuffling papers shakes up memories

into cinematic strips

that play on auto after every introduction.

Arranged this way,

how do we know they’re real anymore?

Morphed over time, nipped and tucked,

folded, welded, enshrined and entombed,

buried fast or brought forwards by warm words

from different perspectives.

We are made of stories.

We are stories.

Every Once Upon A Time

threaded into our minds through and through.

Set aside

There are rocks at my feet,

all folded and crumpled,

fossilised words of untold errors.

Lists filling scrolls lie about the room,

checking for correct procedures

and slips in elegant form.

Tirelessly, I work through the night

organising scores

to serve as light music to others

who dream

of shelves of paper notes

holding keys to doors

hidden from most.

The Tower

The tower

is an island

all of its own.

 

The tower

is a needle

in an embroidery pattern.

 

The tower

is a hand waving

both hello and goodbye.

 

The tower

is a tree,

branch-less yet sturdy.

 

The tower

is a central pole

in a big top circus.

 

The tower

is polished crystal,

mirroring the stars.

 

The tower

is just a tower,

when all’s said and done.

Brunch.

In my eggcup is a blackened stone vaguely heart-shaped. If I touch it, beads of red rise to the surface to greet my skin. They retreat at the same time I do. The lady across the street hires out coffins. Thirty pounds a day, one hundred pounds fine if said coffins are accidentally buried. Uplift charge, you see. I tap the stone in my eggcup with a teaspoon. Charred pieces splinter off, revealing a soft, pink inner. I dig in.

Dust and dreams

Staying alive as a whole person

when we are all made

of glowing particles of expression

straining

to break free

is quite a wonder, really.

 

All these dreams, all these thoughts

of bounding off into the depths of

 

of what?

 

The image in my head

is a great plain of grasses, rivers,

books, wildlife;

everything I love.

But that is not the depths of anything.

It’s only little me.

Book review: Around the Universe in 10 -43 Second by Manu Breysse

A few weeks ago I was sent a copy of this book by the author as a prize in a draw I’d entered by offering my opinion on which cover he should use for the English edition (which mine is), as the original was written in French. Now, sci-fi isn’t one of my go-to genres, but when I do read it, I quite like it. And I liked this book. A lot.

The basic premise is that Earth (or Terra, as it’s called in the book), mysteriously vanished a loooong time ago, with a few surviving humans still lurking about elsewhere in the Universe. However, on a very small planet, there is a country similar to Ancient Egypt, which is home to a humanoid species. In fact, their King, Sareth, is very much like a Pharaoh, and is not the nicest guy around, due to the fact that he’s very quick to put people to death.

Anyway, just as Sareth’s about to have someone killed, a portal appears and he’s transported to another planet, where the technology is much more advanced – in fact, they have an enormous library which has the history of just about everything, including how his species came to be. But Sareth, knowing nothing of science, simply can’t get his head around the fact that it was a stray food container and not God, that started life on his planet. Then he happens to see a button claiming to take him to the meaning of life. He presses it – and error 404 pops up. Their is a bug in the library database, and all knowledge of the meaning of life has disappeared. Depressed, Sareth stumbles into a bar where he meets Jah, a memory-less alcoholic, who later introduces him to his psychiatrist, Sigmufred. Sigmufred is appalled that the meaning of life has disappeared – after all, most of his clients come to him for help after they’ve learnt what it is. So, to stop himself going out of business, Sigmufred, his daughter Straecia, Jah and Sareth all get on board the Flamboyant, an old ship with an occasionally sassy on-board computer, to travel around the Universe in search of the meaning of life.

As my not-so-brief synopsis might allude, this is a rather crazy book that in no way attempts to take itself seriously. However, it does touch on some quite philosophical questions and there is a lot of subtle (and not so subtle) political and social commentary. What I really enjoyed is that the narrator is treated as a character, and as they directly address you to explain the details of how things work, there is a lot of fourth wall breaking going on. This made all the info dumping (there’s lots of space-time continuum, pandimensional and 5th dimension explanations) actually relevant and interesting, and didn’t interrupt the flow of the narrative (because a narrator can’t really interrupt themselves, I suppose…).

Now, there was one thing that made me stumble a few times while reading, and that was the dialogue tags – in this case, there is a distinct lack of them. And with a big group of characters as Around the Universe boasts, there were times when I had no idea who was saying what. Whether in the French version, it’s made clear who’s talking by the vocabulary and style they use when speaking and that that’s simply been lost in translation, I don’t know, but it was definitely a setback in my enjoyment of the story. There were perhaps one or two characters that could have had a bit more development, but it was such a whirlwind of a story that I’m not sure how that could have been achieved.

Overall, I am glad that I had the opportunity to read this, as I probably would have passed over it otherwise – as I said above, sci-fi is not normally a genre I think about reading. Now I can say that this book has certainly inspired me to widen my scope. The whole thing was fun from beginning to end, and as this is the first book in a trilogy, I am absolutely looking forward to the next book.

Great job, Manu!

Into reality, my book will burst

Soon, the womb inside my head

will birth the worlds I dream of nightly.

The inhabitants, newborn

will look upon reality.

I know they will seek meaning.

I know they will want to carve

out their place among elders

from families where resources

and soapboxes are far from scarce.

Their voices will be a bawling, weariness inducing

cry. I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.

With time and hard work, they will

mature. I have found my place.

I am here. I am real.