by Oren Shafir
Oren writes: I am a truly international person. My mother is American. My father is Israeli. And I am married to a Dane, which explains why I've been living in Denmark for the last seven years. I have two amazing children and am expecting a dog in the near future (we just bought a house.) I work as a writer/editor for a software company in Denmark.
Postmodern Proof
Let's not
pretend we're going
Anywhere.
Every place looks the same.
Empty
streets lead us
To empty boxes
Where we park our car
Next to
neon-colored numbers
That remind us where you are:
On shiny floors
amid electronic goods
Gone is the touch and smell of wood.
And every day is the same.
The cold wind
that howls over and over us
The cold wind that howls at my door
Huffed
and puffed and blew away a cloud,
And the moon glared in my window
Daring me
To come out.
And every day is a little bit colder.
We know
exactly how much time we have
We have proof.
We have the scientific
means,
It is written on the wall,
It's written on our video,
television and computer screens.
We have some time to save time
To
think about how much time
Is left
We have no time
To pursue
things yet unattempted
In prose and rime.
And every day is one day less.
At night, I
awake to pee
And I can't see
Any face
Of a clock
And I don't
know in the half-light
Whether it's morning or whether it's night
And
you stare back at me, unlovingly
Through the looking glass
Asking
what's the matter
Have you murdered time like the Mad-hatter?
And I
panic. And my stomach sinks
Like a nuclear submarine,
And number two
becomes number one,
Do you think I'm having fun?
Every day's a Cuban missile crisis.
I don't give a
shit about Michelangelo,
If I had any desire left
To see naked thighs
and arms and breasts
I'd run a search on the Internet.
I'm not
misunderstood.
I have no questions.
I am not Hamlet or even a fool,
Unless the fool is Yorick.
Oh where are
the mermaids
Who will tangle and entice me with Circean song
Then drag
me down
Never again to feel bereft
How much time is left?
