The Purpling

a poem by Nick Montfort

Living on the coast is like getting diagnosed in a sawed-off MRI, or whatever they call those things. It's still living, that is — an intolerable procedure about which almost nothing can be done. The waves, which are fictions, lap at the beach, which is another fiction. Usually no woman walks by singing. How many dawns is an integer. Sure, you can secure various certainties in much the same way that an assiduous rock climber loads a new page. It would sound awesome if you could get there by hovercraft, but I'm told the ride is not so hot. Better to keep taking air in and pushing it out, using the legs and the fingers for what we've designed them to do. That's what I find, anyway; it's one of the few things I can really recommend. Technical challenges are good for entertainment, which is more than I can say about waging lifelong struggles against bureaucracies, however toothlesss. Find amusement in provoking sessile giants, if that tickles you.