Artifice V

[TranquillityBase]

Artifice V

The philosophers talked coffee on the way to the home
where the living slept deadly in shifts, 
blanketed in hotelroom art.

Basket-Case Artimus, the towndump of the organization
lay the introduction to the small selected group
who sat passively by the tv.

May moonlight casting its purple aura
through rich green limbs and shaded grass
with the scant scent of flowers and honeysuckles,
also once rich, before the bulldozers,
was the thought of one drowsy-drifty
old man.

Another thought of flying ships,
shapes he could not identify,
as the screen passed mutely
over old newspaper headlines
and b&w photos.

The thought-experimenters' lesson came to be
'Everything in its right place.'
As though this were something new,

the sitters all stood up from their seats.
Those standing sat and drew pictures on paper
strewn across their tables like carmine.
The novelty of the situation had one old woman
fold an origami karaoke machine
they'd later get up and dance to.

This is progress, one of the janitors said,
or at least art. A scientist took
notes, went home and recorded every-
thing that had been said and seen
in his handwriting innocent as goldfish.
He lived another 43 years.

Though I needed to read it several times to absorb it all correctly, really enjoyed this poem, especially the final 3 stanzas, but all of it really.