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Alan McClure Nov 2010
On the face of it, there isn't much about this bird
To stop me in my tracks.
             Brown, oblivious, busy with the ground
It totters along on stilted legs
Probing among the frozen fields.

It's the name that's the trouble.

Childhood hours spent copying pictures
From the Readers' Digest Book of Birds
Call to mind the name, 'Curlew'.
In my house, though, birds had Scots names
and my dad, a linguistic David Bellamy
Urged us to conserve these rare words
or lose them forever.
Goldfinch?  Gowdspink!
Starling?  Stuckie!
Blue ***?  Umm...

But the undistinguished gentleman before me
was definitely a whaup.

Curlew or whaup?
Which is it to me?
The English of books
or the fading Scots, maybe closer
to the bird's wild home?

Textbook reality
or romantic poetry?
Or both - can the creature sit
in two states at once?
"Schrodinger's Curlew", I think with a smile.
("Schrodinger's Whaup!" bellows the bit of my dad
that lodges in my head.)

           Here, under a cloud of my own breath
In the low winter light,
            Neither seems quite adequate.

And then, untouched by my musings
The bird spreads its wings and lifts,
Naming itself, with a long, pure note

          And my heart, in two states,
           Leaps
             and breaks.
- From Also Available Free
Lucia  Jan 2018
Schrodinger's Cat
Lucia Jan 2018
To me, I'm Schrodinger's Cat,
A peculiar feeling at that.
Both alive and dead,
My heart rate is sped,
But inside, well, it seems I am flat.
Third Eye Candy Mar 2013
Barbarians At The Bill Gates

Kings in a Nutshell of Plots,
Machiavellian; made Lords Of Infinite Beige.
a Workspace now a  Dead-Space in The Heart of an Artist... Scaling, Mount Dew, at a snail's pace.
Behemoth Logarithms,
Jammed in a hot box. with cigarette soot blocking die-cut vents
The cousin with the soft-spot.
Hair, Nobly Re-Disheveled  by Hit and Miss ads, like
crow's feet dancing on insomniac spines, in and around, the Yawning Cathode D-Rez
Of all Villages, M. Night. Ramadan, forged, into Code Soldiers
With No Code to reverse Schrodinger's Black Cat, Back in The Bag...
The Genie, from a corner apartment in Manhattan, to a bedroom in a Bottle of Lightning.
Only Reactive Jazz
Cosmonauts, embedding feathers in " White Hats "
A Moral Avatar.

Hack Lads in The Boonies of Way Ahead of The Curve.
An Unsound lack of Judgment, echoing by Proxy, like Mr. Hyde;
Passing for a binary Schizophrenic. Swallowing Blackberries, Seeds of Anarchy and All.
Crowd-Sourcing the wisdom of Crowds of People
With cup-holders, the Elite call CD-Rom
Stand-by.
A Quest For Firewire. A billion portals,, huddled in chaos.
In the lens of  The Camera-Obscura, hidden in the USB Port
In the Fuzzy Logic of Our Narcissism.
SQL that Ends Well \ with a Backlash To Pi Charts
Of Privileged  Information,
Cooling, only in The Windows, Facing a Social Network
Resting, on a sill of Approval by Market Share and -
Ad *******

An eye of  a needle, peeling onions in a brave new world, weeping for the pure, post-ironic
Joy, Of Threading a Nano-Camel
Through The Eye of a Needles' Parable.  To Aesop the gravy of grave doubt
and reasonable suspicions off
Teutonic Plates

To an Atheist. The Heavyside Layer of Bricked Phones
and Dissonance,
May Find a Contract, 'Comes with Astroglide.
And a toaster.

Floppy Disc-Figurements of Our Right To Privacy.  
Resurfaced By The Naivete
Of a Target Audience, With a Heads-up Display,
A 4D Hologram  
Of Steve Jobs,  
Exported over dark fiber optics;  
Silicons of Prosaic non-Existence
Overclocking the Swatch
On  a wrist

Banning Calligraphy

Ward of the State
Of the Economy
With a Cult
Following


A Hologram of Steve Jobs
To sharpen the bleeding edge
with a moon rock from The OtherSide of Billions of Dollars.
The After-Accolades with the Spanish moss From Taiwan
Where Dragons Of  Technology
Shed limits, that metastasize rapid growth
Of Personal Stock by -
adding a Touch Screen Feature to an App For Clout.
To Out-Monopoly with a Walled-Garden
Designed by Stanley Kubrick's 2001 [ Available Space Odyssey  ]
A Terabyte
leaving Half a Worm
In your Apple.

A Difference Engine, differently Desired

Dumped
On a Corner in
Your Circle
Of Confirmed
Friends.


rocking XP like an OG on Food Stamps and The Fringe.
Centered Better And Re-Posted.
a wasp flew a straight line
from its nest to me
cloaked in puny sunshine
it thought itself to be free
unheard was its buzzing
unseen its rainbow wings
untold was what it carried
i only felt it sting
the suspension like a drawn sword
cut through the silence within
the absence of feeling retrieved
was healed by the relief of loss
an epitaph if to be given
would affirm the infinity of the end
a promise given in portions
partitioned to satisfaction
make one see through the gloss
to the plainness within
that grieves in honour and truth
shedding tears of blood
it tastes the purest fruit
in the acceptance of its pain
lies the moral of our story

- Sneha Iyer & Vijayalakshmi Harish
   04.01.2012
   Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish & Sneha Iyer
Co-written with my friend and sister Sneha Iyer (http://hellopoetry.com/-sneha-iyer/)  :)
musings of a kook surfer
(kook: 1. Dork. 2. A new or inexperienced surfer. 3. Someone who says they surf but they can't.(waxboy)

Logic and Perspective  (a poem)

Quantum Imagination Rules.
What-Ifs equal What-Is
in this, a shared creation.

If         we are surrounded by what we can see,
            what we see is what we are;
Then   matter is perception of resistance,
            time is the persistence of opposites,
And    space is an Electric Universe;
            not lonely nuclear fires,
            but Twin Ribbons of infinite energy
            traveling through plasma that unites all.

The Earth
        a wonder of positive and negative,
        not solid,
        is the infinite slowed into harmony.
The Sun
        a focus of resistance,
        not burning out,
        Burns In.

No small coincidence that
equals means is
You Are and
You See so
I am and
                  
You are, you see, the I Am
...


No Chance for Chance  (a poem)

What is Serendipity?
Seen miraculous,
Some thing done there,
Something done.

What isn't Serendipity?
The unseen miraculous.
What miracles undone,
in time
in time,
as it never happened.

Everything?
Nothing?

It cannot be a good thing-
Fortunate for you is
lost fortune for who...
Self-fulfilling for Jungian prophecy
or prophecy fulfilled for Schrodinger's Cat.

It cannot be a bad thing-
In agreement
with yes...
Self-fulfilling for Jungian prophecy
or prophecy fulfilled for Schrodinger's Cat.

I think,
so I think I am caught between
a wave and a particle.

….

Between Worlds

Never turn your back on the ocean – the mantra of the surfer in my thoughts as I continuously scan the horizon.  There is just enough time to position for a wave; decide to paddle left or right or quickly further out to avoid the random pummel of a looming larger wave.  Between sets, the water gently bobs me floating half submerged.  Staring introspectively at the water, I am learning to interpret ribbons of upward-turning sparkles in the distance.

Dawn is an hour away; visibility is dim but gradually lifting.  Morning’s light is so flat and the water’s glassy surface so smooth that anticipating incoming waves becomes almost a matter of intuition.  The illusion of separateness from creation is breaking down.  The water is almost chilly, but still comforting. I forgo a rash-guard; the subsequent chest irritation from surfboard wax is a small exchange to feel immersed in the ocean.  The bay feels intimate yet expansive with only two other meditative surfers in the distance. Turtles swirl the water, heads straining up for a peek and a breath.  Sometimes they turn their shells so their fins feel the air; they keep three of us wanna-be-ocean-dwellers company.

Yesterday a southern Kona wind brings volcanic-smog from Kīlauea.   Vog is high in CO2 and fumes, giving sensitive people muddle-headedness, lethargy, and sore throat-  a reminder this is Pele's paradise.  This muting velvet feels almost smothering to the horizon.  Is it fog?  Yet a glance behind verifies the ***** of Mt. Haleakala is visible, from the shore to the cloud blanketing the world above the 10,000' peak.   Hale means "house" and the rest can mean either "of the sun", or "of a special raspberry-like flower". Either way the mountain was pulled from the ocean by Maui while he was roping the sun from the sky.  Usually, from this place in the sea, sunrise begins with a torch-like beacon of illuminated mist right over the peak, flaming brighter in the turquoise sky just as the sun coronas into a brilliant gold spotlight over the bay.  Yet this morning waiting for dawn, islands, water, and sky are all various shades of hushed mainland gray.

Half submerged and floating quietly, my back is to the mountain and I face the close but unusually shrouded island Kaho'olawe. It was callously blasted to a streaked surface of wind-blown dust by a military just for "training".  Recently reclaimed for pono, it represents the hope of nurturing a senselessly abused, irrevocably lost paradise. To my right is far-off Lana'i; to my left is Molokini, the sharp half rim of an ancient crater barely rising above the water's surface.

The world suddenly wakes, shedding gray. The sky's far reaching dome overhead intensifies, glowing in layers of rose, red, fuschia. The atmosphere I’m breathing becomes thickly permeated with color, as if one could breath lavendar-orange.

What planet am I on?

It feels so foreign, time stops.  The two other surfers are still as well, dwarfed by distance, and I am alone. Tiny in this red expanse, I become quietly centered.   I turn to see Haleakala where the sun is yet to rise, awed to distraction, forgetting incoming swells.  A bright sun smoked crimson is hidden behind the peak, shining horizontally through what I imagine to be some opening at the horizon.  Illuminated ridged undersides of the high clouds are streaked neon red to half the sky.  The atmosphere is hushed over the still water, the tangible copper light presses down, infuses everything.  It feels disarming yet comforting and surreal, floating surrendered to this other-world light; sky to water, horizon to vast horizon, the calm apocalypse the turtles and Kaho'olawe have been praying for.
Meenakshi Iyer Jan 2013
a wasp flew a straight line
from its nest to me
cloaked in puny sunshine
it thought itself to be free
unheard was its buzzing
unseen its rainbow wings
untold was what it carried
i only felt it sting
the suspension like a drawn sword
cut through the silence within
the absence of feeling retrieved
was healed by the relief of loss
an epitaph if to be given
would affirm the infinity of the end
a promise given in portions
partitioned to satisfaction
make one see through the gloss
to the plainness within
that grieves in honour and truth
shedding tears of blood
it tastes the purest fruit
in the acceptance of its pain
lies the moral of our story

- Sneha Iyer & Vijayalakshmi Harish
   04.01.2012
   Copyright © Vijayalakshmi Harish & Sneha Iyer

Co-written with my akku Vijayalakshmi Harish :)
I'm living but
I'm dead am I
Schrodinger's
cat in a box?
Maybe I'm just
a loose thread
unravels in time
world comes apart.
Neal Emanuelson Feb 2015
Atoms circulate between the nuclei of touch
Schrodinger’s laws exposing deceit and truth
Lamenting in the protons, electrons, and neutrons
Encircling the senses between the eyes and fingers

Particles flow between the elements of breathing
Of soul, of emotion, and memories worn thin
In terminal velocities of thought and contemplation
Barriers of consciousness and reality

Molecules of intentions, intricate and delicate
Bound together by ionic twists of fate
And strained into bent bonds of insecurity
Providing violent reactions of regrets

Ions, formed in this union, complicate the formula
Indifferent to the imbalance between the sighs
Requiring the impact, to leave a free electron of motive
Resulting in a positive change of heart and mind

© 2014
Stilgebore in afwagting op
'n môreson uit die legendes.
Die hoopswyg net voor aanvarding
, wanneer selfs vader tyd verboureerd bly staan.
Die onvoldoende doods-uur
Tussen die hap van n gifgoue appel
En die val van onskuld en skoonheid.
Die tingel in die vingers
van die Engel in swart,
nóg genoeg om te gryp
-Nóg genoeg om te los
, net genoeg om in die huiwer te dros
Dus dood wat geduldig
die venster bewasem.
Trek drogbeelde uit skadu's
Soos n laaste asem...
Dis nog hier, nog daar-
Nog vals, nog waar

En ons almal is n kat in n doos
- wandelend in beide lewe en dood
, want die verskeie dimensies
Is maar eintlik grensloos.

Die paradoks van einste bestaan
Word gekonsentreer in n tydstip
Van alles verstaan.
The odors of an open landfill rise up from my gaping mouth.
If fifty miles out, you smell it, stinking as it will,
one hundred lie that you must drive before, beyond the fetid
tickle of a foul doubt, your nausea will settle and will die
in shrinking throes. And then another one, and still
another comes and goes.  I sense the every stinking swath of bile
and swarming offering tossed into me from such passers-by--
but I feel nothing satisfy (ironically or otherwise)
the open landfill of my gut.  A hole no less am I when stuffed.
(c) K.E. Parks, 2012

Neither less am I a wound if sewn
nor any less a cake if cut.
No more am I a door when open;
no less am I one when shut.

— The End —