My friend at Wal-Mart
let me into  the inventory warehouse
where they keep the products
people kept returning
and I found them –
the Quantum Binoculars
beautifully handcrafted
with seamless joinings
glove-soft leather grips
polished to a glisten
with a big red switch at the top.

Switch it left to Bourgeois View
and you see the world
as most people do
through lenses of logic and contradiction
happy and/or sad
right and wrong
young or old
rich and/or poor
but there isn’t enough room
in the field of view
to hold all this conflict
and when you look through it too long
everything goes fuzzy gray
and your eyes start to cross
and you get the headache of the century.
which is why
everybody who used Bourgeois View
wanted a refund for the binoculars
regretting their purchase
terrible product they would say
never having bothered to flip the switch.

Flip right to Quantum View
and your headache disappears
as every person, place and thing
pulsates with vibrant rainbow color
brightening, shading, winking
expanding and contracting rhythmically
in a hypnotic dance
and nobody has to purchase or sell
and the mountainous toy robot displays
and the Special Today Only neon signs
and the shoppers and greeters morph
and the milieu turns glorious.

Then you see
a tiny point of intense blue light
in the center of each object
and it grows and starts to spin
and the next thing you know
you’re being pulled into the viewfinder
first by your eyes
then your cheeks and forehead
and you think uh-oh,
what’s going on here
and you’re reluctant
to let the eyepiece
**** you in any farther
but then you hear angelic music
and the blue lights
crack open like supernovas
revealing the infinite molecular structure
inside everything you see
electrons and neutrinos spinning
atoms racing across the panorama
and you realize
you absolutely must
take this wonderful machine home.

Imagine the quantum universe
hiding inside Wal-Mart’s inventory chaos
calm and rhythmic
instead of razory and cacophonous
soft shapes with vibrating edges
scenes arising and passing away
and you watch entranced
mindful and equanimous
as the view transports you
past the electric sliding glass doors
into the auditory memory
of your mother’s soft lullaby
and the innocent tenderness
of your first kiss
and the smell of the grass
on the last day of school
before summer vacation
and images of big silver trout in clear water
and Jesus and Buddha and Mohammed and Rumi
drinking lattes
in the Wal-Mart coffee shot
and they see you
and wave you over
to come sit down and chat.

So you ask your friend
how much for the binoculars
and he says
you really don’t want them
because if you take them home
you’ll like it so much in there
that one day you’ll let them
**** you all the way in
and you won’t come out
in fact
we don’t know
how many people
are already in there
but Wal-Mart optical department shoppers
have been disappearing for months
and nobody can find them
and you ask
if he takes American Express.

“The atoms that comprise life on earth are all traceable to the crucibles that cooked light element into heavy element.”   —Neil deGrasse Tyson*


And up here we have Vega, rigged to a few older men,
Jupiter’s herd of moons. Look through its eyepiece,
convince us there is no such thing as reconstruction.
The right time to return light, the path to earth. Yes,
we are part, living or real. Such is the layout
of this cosmic ballet. A naked man and woman,
a map of earth’s location, unstable in their older years.
He spreads himself so wide, hard at the heavens
for two reasons. Fairly often, someone would call the police.

Handcuffs came from stars, next generation solar systems
quantumly entangled. Size is only development condensed
into a singularity, enriched guts against gears of war.
So what does this mean? The breadth of the actions
taken, meaning limitations, meaning sky was worth looking at.
He charmed the cops with conversational boom, dozens of people
crouching in the dark. Their common center of gravity:

darker barrel shaped streets with long rows of sold-out houses.
It’s not a lecture—how to calculate latitude, one neck cramp at a time,
an extension cord across Merlin’s Tour of the Universe
to satellites gliding in low orbit, nine years to work its way out.
The voice is deep and rowdy—from a man at the edge of the crowd.
The other reason is down here on earth, down the handle of the Big
Dipper. An artist will tell you—crank it some more, until it begins
to glow blue. Red-hot is the coldest among all the hots.

I watch our arms sew together
under gravity's needle.
Our fingers bloom roses
as our blood shines and spins
together on our now single palm.

Mother watches from home
through her crumbling telescope.
She sees us suspended
in half kiss. She waits for impact
of hips, her fingers moist,
slipping off her eyepiece.
She wipes the sweat from her lip.

When I feel her gaze on the soul of my foot
I know she is watching with
cataracts and bifocals.
I am the same age a when I left her
while she cries dust on
her cracking refracting lens.
She can't look away at my stuck body,
rigormortic, frozen and unfocused
in her left eye.

She sits down and dies.
I have just begun.

I tried to work out the back of your mind,
Through a microscope eyepiece,
But just ended up gazing through a kaleidoscope,
I wanted to feel your skeletal notches, &
I wanted the scent of your perfume in my lungs, &
To look into your eyes;
Dilating in a summer sun.

-Jamie F. Nugent

As I reach the last stair,
I discover a high rise shrine
When I stare at the peak,
I'm close to fall on my head

It has a large baroque door,
Not closed, so I enter
I leave all the maps outside
I'm full of spice and zeal

I see an elevator facing me,
push the illuminated buttons,
envelope myself in the dove,
and it takes me as a letter

Into the highest floor, I fly
When I land on the terrace,
the man made-day falls asleep,
and the night sky erupts

I find an abandoned telescope,
remove the dust mask,
put my brown seeing aerola
around the soft eyepiece

The silver optical tube
absorbs my golden vision,
takes it on a celestial mission
Delving into the cosmos in chroma

I see a lumen hanging
like a washing line
between two galaxies
An odyssey to discover my heirloom

Now I'm a brainbox,
I surrender myself to
this luminous flux
It looks like a feeder of earth

Everything turns anaerobic,
when Angeline and her siblings
begin to play trumpets along
A hymn for the Oxygen Crisis

I put all the aerobics in vitro,
in order to live in vivo
I'm in the S shaped column,
the centromere of the soma

In a blink of an eye,
an asteroid hits my lighthouse
My kernel explodes
I'm trapped in a series of epochs

My nom de guerre is Helios
The sun calls me Apollo
Driving a chariot of joy
with two racing horses

Until meiosis begins
A king is announced
when a stallion dies
Nucleus or karyon

And I drop back as an ****
Embryo into an egg
thrown in a steam
From Eve to a man sunk in debt

Well, it's weird.

But I'll try.

Because I didn't have a single freaking clue.

That I'd shoot up.

Alas, the woe.

For I'm no wider than a pole at twenty-two!

You know it's nice.

As I could shuffle through mobs

Like a stream of crystal clear water through all those rocks.

And yet they laughed,

Crammed them coins in my pockets,

Saying I'll drift away with the wind, and soar among the hawks.

I guess they were right, for I'm writing to you,

From the nest, those pretty hawks have dropped me into.

I mean, it's cozy, but I'm about to be made into a bone stew

As I'm no wider than a pole at twenty-two!

When they say, "You were an epitome of peace!"

That you left high school without a scar or a broken eyepiece.

Well they were right, quoteth the word of the cub,

"A stick can never hope to snap or even scratch a club"

But there's a side of this coin,

That tries to come up and shine.

The perks that accompany the curse,

So I can pretend to be gleeful that it's not all for the worse!

For instance,

There are guys.

Who strike off as pregnant when they eat a pack of fries.

Not me, duh.

I'm like a hose.

I'll let a platter pass through before I realize.

Say you're tired.

And see a chair.

But the catch, there's another girl who's cuddled in there.

Well, you'll pass.

Or force her to clear,

Whereas I'll just sweet-talk her and maybe get to share!

So you see, it's probably not that bad.

Except for some people,

who really try to make you feel sad.

But hey, at least you'll get to fly,

as the storm picks up and takes you up so high.

And remember, you can always try to jump the queue (like I do!)

For I'm no wider than a pole at twenty-two!

Above was a canvas, splashed with more stars than anyone could count, except Lorence. Stars shined atop the lavender and cobalt backdrop and encircled the warm glow of the Moon, with hundreds of thousands of eager eyes watching on as a blissful light danced across the sky. Most witnessed this display through their bedroom windows in the early hours of the morning, but some had different ideas. Some had bigger ideas.

The loud creaking was quickly subdued as Lorence, shuffling up the stairs on all fours, held a thick blanket against the aged wood and mouthed a quiet shush to the ground beneath him, as loud footsteps approached from above.  
“What are you doing awake?” Mumbled a lofty bearded man, still dreaming.
Lorence froze, like a prisoner caught tunnelling to freedom.
“It’s a full moon tonight!” He replied, far too energetically for this early hour.
“Alright. Well, get to bed.” His dad smiled. “And get that thing off of your back,” he gestured towards the bulky telescope.

After his dad left, Lorence’s mission continued as he waddled towards the balcony with his blanket around him and telescope clutched by both hands. The magnifying light from above entranced Lorence as he stood outside the balcony door, his eyes reflected the unspeakably stunning gig in the sky. A white light suddenly appearing in a nearby house broke the spell causing Lorence to rub his eyes dry and set the telescope down. He fiddled with it for a moment before peering through the fogged eyepiece. Navigating the instrument towards the window of the lit red-brick house, he spotted a white-haired lady comfortably lounging on the patio, fitted with a smile. Lorence then knew his mission wasn't yet over.

The friendly aged face grinned at the boy from her solitude, as she looked to the heavens, basking in the glory of Orion’s Belt as it wrapped around the sky like a bandage on a wound. She squinted, adjusting her eyes to the pits of black between the pearls of the night, and the eternal unease they brought on – the emptiness of her home a reminder of her perpetual loneliness. She dealt with these lingering thoughts through rhythmically snapping her fingers to some imagined tune in her head, her favourite at the time was Bobby McFerrin's 'Don't Worry Be Happy', which was always bound to inspire glee.

With a large yawn, Lorence darted his eyes around the woman’s house, observing the unkempt lawn resulting in excess shrubbery, the flickering lights almost mirroring her compulsive clicks and the unusually shaded mould growing on the side of her house like a festering wound. The lady, still smiling, still clicking, raised her left hand and signalled to the boy to join her in her stargazing. Getting to his feet, Lorence slung the telescope over his shoulder as he quietly navigated the dim hallway and tiptoed downstairs one step at a time.

Now outside, Lorence raised his hand to lock the door behind him, clumsily dropping the keys on the porch decking and freezing him in place. Realising the house remained asleep, he collected the keys and continued his mission.  As he approached the neighbour’s house, he followed the sound of the rhythmic clicking. Peering over the side gate, he saw the woman, still staring at the stars.

“There’s a better view from here!” She proclaimed, without turning towards him.
Lorence fiddled with the latch on the gate and moved to stand beside her.
“I didn’t realize I had a fellow stargazer living so close,” she grinned, with her eyes still to the skies.
“My dad bought me a telescope for my birthday last year. I try to use it every night, but he doesn't let me stay up late.”

Lorence, noticing the woman’s unbroken gaze, mirrored her as he looked up. The pair now stood, entranced by the astronomical splendour above them. For the first time in a long time, having someone to share in her love of the skies, the old woman shed a tear.  

The boy glanced and noticed the reflection of the bright display on the woman’s cheek.

In their moment of pure bliss, taking in the wonders above them, the world around them stood still, until a loud noise penetrated the moment, startling Lorence.

“Did you hear that?” His attention diverted from the sky.

Before she could respond, the noise intensified until it became deafening. The once picturesque sky lit up to a blinding white. And darkness followed.

The past casts light as a faint star on the edge of space
Reaching from the depths of depthless black
The Caretaker sifts fingers between  the soot
It’s my fault, He says.  And molecules can’t come back
It’s madness
The cobbler draws his eyepiece, selects a tack
History is a sheath of imagination tucked at the seams
Their words the clack of the planets on their tracks
Heaven is the never we forever grieve

The ******* stiffen against the gaze
by the eye that will project
skin revealed and rest promised
to a world thirsts for flesh
the camera driven to share so much
by the one that clicks the shot
with a goal less than pure
buying fame with lusting coins

the enterprise takes more than one
the subject seeking their renown
or a pittance for their part
expressing all to find their worth
it’s their face and body pressed
into service that angel’s dread
serving wants below the belt
yearnings itched by photographs

look not to Heaven for resolve
why the two feed a world
with one posing for all to see
the other hiding behind eyepiece
each with a reason to embrace
intimate natures most obscure
disclosing purest fantasy
shutter’s eye bears falsehood

that human nature to exalt
what’s not had near at hand
exploitation is firmly pressed
while the world looks away
then quick to gaze on the result
drinking in the honeyed taint
spun from flesh made *****
in response to snapper’s prompt.

© 2018. Sean Green. All Rights Reserved. 20180805.

the plastic lens
already scratched
popped from the frame

though in their day
this copper-colored pair of specs
was a marvelous eyepiece

but time
erodes even the finest
of instruments

and events
abrupt or otherwise
change things

and speed up
what was already
taking place

and whether we like it or not
what we love
and who we love

will always succumb
to the slow or sometimes
rapid current of progress

whit howland © 2021