The Linear World
by Derek Godin
The linear world is still the linear world,
necks braced one way as if broken, damnation
to one-point perspective. A third dimension
can exist without being developed or
implied. The driest, direst riverbed in the
desert still has a depth, though you'll strain
your eyes looking for it.
The cracks in the creasing dirt become
Mother Nature's Magic Eyes; cross
oculars, patron saint of carpal tunnel vision,
and tell me what you see. A bowling alley?
A drinking fountain? One of those pink
Cadillacs the Mary Kay ladies used to drive?
I want clarity in more than one direction.
If I try to crane my rubber neck, my back
spasms out. I only see about seven colours,
and four of them I can barely tell apart.
Whatever fills my peripheral vision is
streaked like paint in an August fog.
I can't tell if the dots are speeding up or
slowing down. Couldn't tell you for sure if
they're dots. They were dots once, information,
coordinates splotching the grandest graph.
Formulas mutate into indecipherable strains.
If I reach out for them, they just smear and burn a little,
wicks of data dodging being snuffed by
the greasy fingers of the observer. Beyond
chaos, beyond entropy, the experiential present
shakes everything into place. The knock-on effect
is being strapped to a perceptual gurney as long
as you draw breath. There are advantages.
You can still conceptualize, theorize,
evangelize, and the whole mechanism, covering
you head to toe in dander and down, does not
weigh appreciably more than your average
human soul. You don't even have to get
up off it to stretch your legs.
