April 20 – Hats

Prompt: what will future archeologists think of us based on what we leave behind?

Initial findings:

They had strange taste in hats:
clay and plastic, occasionally
glazed ceramic, some painted,

others a boring grey or
terracotta.

There were many different sizes,
perhaps to denote importance;
some would have covered

the whole head, others were tiny,
and would rest on the top of their
skulls; they’d have to have good balance.

Some have holes in the top;
perhaps these are summer hats,
to let some heat escape.

There are small disks that seem
to fit on top of the hats. I believe
this to be a fitting for winter,

or perhaps formality. More
research is needed.

They seem to have displayed
them on windowsills, perhaps to
show wealth or preference of style?

They have so many hats.

We see that there was a large
uptick in the collection of these
particular artifacts when the humans

were likely home-bound due to
a widespread contagion; they would have
worn them at home (though

I can’t imagine that they were
very comfortable!)

Some are more round, others square,
some cyllindrical, others wider at the
base and narrower on top —

speaking of which, they all have
flat tops! Fascinating.

I wonder if they will ever come back
into fashion. Still, I think there is no
need to have had quite so many.

(C) JS 2023

rising

National Poetry Writing Month, Day 9
Prompt: write a poem in the shape of something

 

Come, stand here and admire

the view. It is endless, even the distant, hazy horizon

 seems a falsity, an illusion we trick ourselves into believing to

allow ourselves limits; but we have risen so high, filled ourselves

to the brim with wild imaginings and ten-thousand lifetimes,

we are bursting at the seams with dreams so fantastic we

make Phileas Fogg misty-eyed; we will create whole

nations from omniscient love, paint masterpieces

from prismatic wonder, fill pages with

healing tomes of bright

despair, and learn

to rise

and

rise and rise

even higher.

 

JS 2020

8-bit

When I was born I saw the world in 8-bit,

nothing rounded as smoothly as mother promised,

nothing as defined as binary,

seams were lost in low definition

as colors ran into each other, sunsets

made of building blocks, each with letters

of our names carved upon them;

we had to sculpt them into skyscrapers,

make them giants just to tell

ourselves apart.

 

Spacebars told us we could only jump so high,

keys that once unlocked only moved in four directions,

data limits limited levels we could reach; we became

masters of deleting our pasts to craft our futures

in hopes we would reach ranks high enough to fly from,

even though our landing strip was just the sound of static.

 

Time defines as well as freshly sharpened pencils,

that reek of burning bark and molten lead:

smells defining the future for a generation of

8-bit babies.

 

JS (c)