No More Robots

 

That Summer

It was always hot and 

It had always just rained

We played that CD by the Flaming Lips

Again and again

Drops of water on the leaves of bushes

Gleamed like disco lights in the sun

We listened to that album every day

Back when you might reasonably put an actual CD

On repeat. On purpose.

That silver disc stayed still while the world

Span and danced around it

We sang along and got the words wrong

And made robot noises where appropriate

We took the robot noises very seriously

Zaps and crazy electronic swooshes

Fuzzy shrieks that made us laugh

As empty bottles of beer threw

Lazy rainbows across the floorboards

It was a descent, of sorts

A deliberate collapse

Into something we knew wouldn’t last

Back in that brief, grainy, high contrast Summer

Back when albums were physical things

That came to an end

Far, Far Away

 

Lisa was in space, firing lasers at aliens

And by ‘in space’ I mean, ‘in the back street’

And by ‘aliens’ I mean, 

‘The side wall of an abandoned garage’

And by ‘firing lasers’ I mean, 

‘Throwing a tennis ball

And catching it on the rebound 

Because she had no friends’.

And by ‘Lisa’ I mean, ‘Me.

When I was ten.’

And by ‘No friends’ I mean, well,

There was Richard Cooper 

With his hair that went the wrong way

And his wonky NHS glasses

But this was Saturday morning and he

Was more of an afternoon friend

And anyway he had noticeably cooled on the relationship

Since he’d figured out I was only hanging about with him

To play on his ZX Spectrum.

But I was, you know, in space. 

Conceptually.

‘Maybe’, I would think, as the furry little green ball

Smacked off the pebble dash flat of the garage,

‘Maybe this is the dream,

And I actually am a space adventurer

For real

In space

Dreaming about how nice it would be

To have no cares

To have the vast blue expanse of Saturday to expore

Instead of the dead black chasm of space.

To be ten again

In a world before iPhones

And streaming

And Playstations

And whatever galactic calamity caused me to be

In space shooting lasers at aliens.’

Clang. Thwap. 

I catch the ball.

The morning sun in my eyes

Whoosh. Zap. 

Energy spirals around me 

And metal explodes as I twist through

The star speckled void

Massive starships shimmer against the moon

Whirr. Thunk. 

The printer flares with light

And paper judders through

As I stare at patterns of rain

Wandering down the office window

It’s quiet on the back street

And empty in a way I’ll never know again

Emptier than space

Warm sun on my face

Clockwork Boy

 

Inside the clockwork boy

The slow, soft thunk of wooden gears

Marks the passing of another year

A relatively simple set

Of cogs and levers give the sense

Of structure and sophistication

But this is mostly automation

All whirrs and clicks that, if you saw,

Would make you wonder what all the fuss is for

The same routines, the same behaviours

Take on different hues and flavours

Light up his mask like real emotions

Springs and gears work hard

To set this geometric dance in motion

The edges of these wood components

Worn soft and round by a thousand moments

That slowly teach this automated toy

How to be a real boy

Aorta Know Better

 

It’s hard to know what 

My stupid tiny heart is trying to say

After all these years you would have thought

I’d learn it’s tricks and rhythms

What it means and how it dances

Is this joy? Or just the edge of tears?

The tapping of a perfect offbeat to your song

Or the panicked, scattering sound

Of feet scrabbling on a polished floor

Trying to get a long, long way away?

You dumb heart

You inconsistent drum

You morse code messenger

You thump and strut and hum

You sing me half a song

And when I think that I’ve begun

To get the pattern of your beat

You kick backwards

Retroactive

Lose me in the asymetric bouncing

Of stacatto sound surrounding me

Losing me in polyphonic cacaphonies

I like to think I’m thinking logically

But after all these years

There’s mystery inside of me

Punctuated quavers fluctuating 

As I try to simply say

It makes me feel all funny

When you look at me

That way

The Rest is Silence

 

Bob and Sarah died and that was sad

But what came next was, for them

An absolute disaster

They went to Heaven, and it soon became clear

That the great and bountiful hereafter

Was perfect, yes, but also flawed

At a pretty fundamental level

You see - no amount of jokes and stories

Are going to give you things to say

When both of you are going to live forever

They’d done quite well, through years of romance

On a finite supply of anecdotes

Any reasonably funny soul 

Can get by

With the same few combinations 

Of structures for jokes

But that was predicated on the assumption

That one or both of them would die

And be gone forever

And finally their attempts to keep on having fun

Would be a game they’d finally, unarguably won

All that effort would have paid off

Staving off the day

When all the jokes and stories wore too thin

And they found that neither of them 

Had anything more to say

On those first nights together

Years ago

When they were young and quite, quite smitten

It seemed there was no limit to the clever thoughts

And quirks and whimsies they could keep on giving

But now, with infinity stretching away

Bob and Sarah found 

That they’d run out

Of interesting things to bring to the table

They’d made every conceivable sound

Here, in Heaven, with no end

To the days for conversation

Structure was rendered without meaning

Like a perfectly formed TV show

That suddenly gets a second season

Or a pop song that repeats its chorus

Way beyond the point of reason

Endings lend meaning to the things that come before

And it’s hard to keep writing the play after

The act three denoument

And Bob and Sarah knew this, now

And found one last thing to talk about

Remember

When it seemed like time might run out

When we were scared to lose each other

When the days we had were precious

And we held on like we both might die tomorrow