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NaPoWriMo 4.3: You Can’t Look

  • Writer: Caleb Parkin
    Caleb Parkin
  • Apr 3, 2016
  • 1 min read
peter_paul_rubens_-_hercules_and_cerberus_1636

“Let us get ourselves a pet…”


My, it’s getting late. Which might be why day three turned out quite so peculiarly (sorry not sorry). That’s my ‘excuse’ anyway.

I’d been meaning to write something about this news story for a while – and had the first couple of lines in my notebook. However,  I’d suggest reading this poem first, then looking at the news story – just to see what the effect is…

You Can’t Look*

In an instant, our faces became Bacon smears skyward; the low hiss of moon- sized fans on the horizon, kaleidoscoping in. Our limbs reformatting. Our skin more river than bank. These wind-up trainers running for the train our brains are on. Touch

will be the only sense we need. We will grow haptic trunks, feel the sky smudging. Why wouldn’t I want a burning tyre for a mind? For my body to slide out of resolution, the icon slipping from my swimsuit?

Let us take a holiday from our abdomens. Let us get ourselves a pet that is Cerberus with a third off. Let us be only half but the half which grasps beer. For our feet will no longer touch the ground, for neither is ours, and neither is here.



* NB: I asked the Jabberwacky chatbot: “What should I title this poem?” It answered “You can’t look you don’t have eyes…”

And just then, when I told it, “Thank you, that’s perfect”, it replied:

“Nothing in this world is perfect.”

So far, so Neuromancer

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