An ancient cave painting of a woman rendered as text.
The muse is fixed in time and space,
Pigment faded smile eternal,
She watches with one eyebrow raised,
And when she moves,
If she were to do so,
(Although that would be impossible)
It is merely the shifting of a leg,
Or a flick of a wrist,
Or a twist of her neck,
To glance back across her shoulder.
What follows is believed to be the first ever inscription of the recursive poem “Meandering Wastes” by the 21st Century writer, Michael Scott Hand. This fragment was recovered using the latest in digital archaeological equipment, wherein data can be extracted from the sedentary level of matter formed during that which we refer to as “Event X”.
beyond the far meandering wastes
an eager writer takes his place
scratching words with a fountain pen
when he ends each line he starts again
Combining this fragment with the only other known version of this poem (the so-called sixth recursion), we hope to be able to reconstruct a final “seventh recursion” representative of the author’s original intent.
Hearts are breaking
Pain that’s stored
Now enraged and flaming: soars
Skies grow dark
Spirits darker
The sound of fury
Turns to laughter
The sound of laughter
Turns to screams
Those screams now wake you
From your dreams
And skies lit up
Reveal the schemes
Police line streets
Their visors gleam
Smoke and water
Shattered glass
Remnants of society cast
Aside
Aside
The gulf grows wide
Soon you’ll need to pick a side
A side
Inside
Inside
You know
Reflected by the fires glow
That spark of revolution seems
So far away and yet it gleams
Like visors worn by armed police
In the eye of the protester and the thief
The light of revolution speaks
The light of revolution shows
And in the streets the fires grow
was that sound thunder
or just the rumble
of a heavy truck
on a nearby road
headlights flash like lightning
through curtains of rain
Don’t know what I’m doing,
Don’t know what I’m saying,
Don’t know how to jump,
In this game I am playing,
So many pits to leap over,
Instead I just fall in,
Descend into darkness:
The darkness within,
No Game Over screen,
No limited lives,
Just a life I keep living,
While something inside of me dies,
And somewhere: a memory inside of me cries,
The tears that won’t fall from my actual eyes.
Sand in the sky,
reflecting the light
so it looks like gold.
Sand in the sky,
grains like worlds,
slowly spinning.
Sand in the sky,
slowly spinning,
grains like worlds,
reflecting the light,
appearing as gold.
Early attempt to provide a transcription of Meandering Wastes Artefact One, using an experimental orientation and non-electronic (mammalian; optical) surveying techniques.
I’ll shake everything down to the ground,
With a whisper so loud it makes no sound,
As dust arises, fate transpires:
My thoughts ignite a thousand fires.
Hope I do entertain,
You,
Enough that you’ll,
Watch,
As I,
Chain myself,
To these pieces,
That make up my existence.
What if it rained a little
In the city
And you could hear it running
Through the gutters
But it was peaceful somehow
Splatters against the awning
The glow of streetlights
On wet bitumen
Buildings all around
Crowding out the sky
The night lit by
A thousand sparkling windows
Lives inside each one
Michael Scott Hand 