Long Count Codex (mind the gap) (2nd rev.)

[Magpie Jane]

*

Long Count Codex (mind the gap)


There's a hole in the wall. There's a hole
in the world. What happened to the difference
between eschatology and escapism?

Cloaked in a cloud of erupting debris,
Mad Mollycule speaks: What you say we go
to my place and make bouncy-bouncy?
And after that, how do you expect to come
away? If the lassie slips you a true map,
would you argue which way to hold it?
Pass it down the line. Quick, slow, quick.
Observe Kosmos, eye its claws and fangs.
Consider the ebb and flow of randomity
in the universe as every heirloom, fixture,
all your stage props warp, flicker and fade.
The space/time continuum (as we believe,
hope, and pray we know it) will turn out
to have developed an unexpected eject feature.

(the fractal waveform. the thoughtform.
the delusion of progress. the singularly
truncated calendar, its dormant stowaway.
the half-life of secrets. the acceleration.)

Molly whispers, just a wee parrydime shift –
you'll hardly notice until you try to get away.

The ringmaster's gold tooth: how its gleam
collapses the void between naught
and afterthought.

*

Rev. 1: S2L5-6 edited.
Rev. 2: S2L9-11 edited.

[Antcliff]

Magpie,
hooray for the Eject Feature. Wonderful.
Magpie...she opens all the tins of paint at once.

Seth
keep em coming.

[Antcliff]

Jane,
I am taking this as a displaying a delight in a certain kind of language
and expressing a playfulness in the face of...perhaps the question at the start?
Seth

[Basnik]

Hi,

I liked quite a few ideas in this - the eject button, the half-life of secrets. But it's a bit too clever for my taste. The ludic tone interweaving with the physics just feels overdone to me. The lines are really irregular, and whilst there is some nice phrasing, it feels a bit loose and prosy - could another draft do more with form to reflect content? Is it trying to say too much in one place? Perhaps it is to me. But then, my brain is perhaps not expansive enough!

Regards,

Richard

[ray miller]

I was daft enough to google Long Count Codex and discovered that the world might be ending just before Christmas this year. But it might not. What's the wary consumer to do?
I thought this was shaping up nicely up to bouncy-bouncy but too much of the remainder of that section is lost on me. I liked this, though

Molly whispers, just a wee parrydime shift –
you'll hardly notice until you try to get away.

I catch the relationship between the beginning and the end, it's the stuff in the middle I don't get, out of whack, do not adjust etc.

[Arian]

my brain is perhaps not expansive enough!

Nor, apparently, is mine. Because, while I liked some discrete sequences* none of these sequences seem to cohere into any kind of whole. At times, I had the feeling that it was output from one of those "poem generators" which string clever-sounding phrases together in a syntactically acceptable, but totally meangless, way.

Still, I've probably missed something.

Oh, and randomity? I think the more usual noun is randomness.

* That eject feature is great, but the real highlight for me is the half life of secrets, which you should copyright! Sounds like a great title for a poem!

Cheers
peter

[Magpie Jane]

Seth, Richard, Ray, Peter, thanks for taking a look at this, and for your feedback, which is really useful and much appreciated.

This is merely a piece of play, and doesn't even claim to be serious stuff.

Yes, I have an unholy fondness for opening all the paint tins at once, and fling them about, trying to say everything at once.

The main trigger for this poem was all these weird theories about the coming end of the world; I've encountered them everywhere and found the usual treatments of the topic a bit tiresome. So I tried to cook up my own version (like any wary consumer would prudently do).

The "adjust" part will definitely have to go, since it refers to a passage that I kicked out of the poem at an earlier stage. I forgot the missing link here, very sloppy of me, but shit happens. I'll replace it by something a tad more sensible.
Coherence? Well, miracles are said to happen occasionally, and I'm still hoping to be touched by the Spirit of Coherence.

"Poem generators"? I believe I've heard of them, but I'd prefer to pretend they don't exist. What if they actually work, what then? (Oh godalmighty. Will someone please, pretty please, write a poem about "poem generators"?)

Thanks again for your good ideas! It's joyful to hear what parts you like; it's helpful to hear what parts don't work for you.

Jane


PS: Now I have (hopefully) infused S2L5+6 with a modest modicum of logic.

[Wilcken]

you'll hardly notice until you try to get away.

There is a definite word-playfulness about it. Mollycule and Parrydime are cute names, even if far reaching for cosmic meaning. I read the original and have come back to this. Still like the opening and close the best, and can't help but want a little more of a path through all of the images. Not that I would suggest you be less playful so much as maybe help me keep my feet on the ground as I make my way through. It's one of those poems that I'm surprised I like because it seems like one I wouldn't typically be drawn to. Whatever sort of odd compliment that is, I hope you receive it as a compliment.

Wilcken

[Arian]

"Poem generators"? I believe I've heard of them, but I'd prefer to pretend they don't exist. What if they actually work, what then?

Oh, they exist alright. You can get generators that attempt to emulate any area of knowledge (such as science, hence my commnet), many poets, language...etc.

Is there any wonder that there's cynicism about poetry when so much of what we see is trumped by, or at least indistiguishable from, auto-generated nonsense?

here's a sample from just one such site....

Poetry - the state of the art?

poetry generators.JPG (107.62 KiB) Viewed 257 times

[Magpie Jane]

Wilcken, thanks for the compliment! . . . which I gladly receive as such. I, too, have felt that unexpected attraction to stuff that I would normally just read and promptly forget. Like 'good taste', preconceived ideas bring nothing but filthy luck.
Myself, I like the opening and close the best too, and I do realise a path through the wilderness will make everything clearer. Believe me, I'll be working on it; may take some time, though. Now, where's my machete?

Peter, thanks for that! When I saw the first part, I said to myself, 'ey, stick to formal verse from now on, magpie'; and then I saw there's a generator for metre and rhyme as well. *sigh* . . .
At any rate, if it has to be nonsense (as sometimes it has to be), I prefer my own home-brewed nonsense. If only because it's fun. In an utterly un-cynical way. (O, but this was an edifying insight.)

Jane

[Raincoat]

ah lovely couldn't find anything random in this apart from the "randomity". the only bit I got stuck on was:

of newsprint peels, fuming, from your walls.

I felt like I was up in the universe before this bit, then i come crashing back to earth between humanistic walls which is ok (to give the reader some familiarity) but the image of newsprint on walls just didn't connect with me so I had to double read and still couldn't take any pleasure from it. i love how you interwoven science and imagination and come up with something totally original. really great read. and yes this was gold: "the half-life of secrets."

[Magpie Jane]

Hi Raincoat, thanks a lot for the read and your very apt observation! - Now that you have pointed it out, I realised I wasn't particularly enamoured of the newsprint myself. So I changed that, hoping it makes a bit more sense this way.
I'm glad you enjoyed the ride.

Jane

[Antcliff]

Hi,

Lassie? Was there a lassie in there before? I don't remember that. Is my memory faulty?

Seth

[Magpie Jane]

Seth, whether your memory is faulty is not for me to decide; but as far as the lassie with the map goes, you remember rightly. She is a logical replacement of some silly rubbish about adjustments (that referred to a passage (quote by Robert Anton Wilson) I had removed from the poem at an earlier stage, so it made no sense any longer, probably not in the initial version either).

Sorry about the confusion. My own memory is not only faulty, it's shot.

Jane

[Antcliff]

Jane,
O good. I had not missed the lass with a map after all.
I like her appearance...from nowhere, like Brigadoon.

Seth

[Magpie Jane]

Seth,
This is the sort of place she comes from:

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap101030.html . . . . . . . http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120416.html

Jane