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He thought he kept the universe alone;
For all the voice in answer he could wake
Was but the mocking echo of his own
From some tree-hidden cliff across the lake.
Some morning from the boulder-broken beach
He would cry out on life, that what it wants
Is not its own love back in copy speech,
But counter-love, original response.
And nothing ever came of what he cried
Unless it was the embodiment that crashed
In the cliff’s talus on the other side,
And then in the far distant water splashed,
But after a time allowed for it to swim,
Instead of proving human when it neared
And someone else additional to him,
As a great buck it powerfully appeared,
Pushing the crumpled water up ahead,
And landed pouring like a waterfall,
And stumbled through the rocks with horny tread,
And forced the underbrush–and that was all.
When all Earth’s seas shall Levitate,
Dark shawled within the skies,
Upon our eyes will Starfish dance
Their waltz of Blind surprise.
The sun will Rise within wine Dark
As Argonauts imbibed,
Whose drunken arms embrace that sleep
Where Phaeton’s horses Stride.
Upon all of Earth’s wind-sanded shores,
As dolphins Learn to soar,
All we once were on the land
Shall be sealed behind the door
Of Ivory and Chastened Gold,
That the Mystery solved complete
Shall never til the seas’ Long fall
Wake mariners from their sleep.
— Van der Leun
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
— Walt Whitman
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
— The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot
Gerard Van der Leun
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Back in the Sixties, when I was a wee sprat, my brothers or myself were the remote. French kings had human chesspieces, Ottoman caliphs had human footstools, and Mom and Dad had us.
Is it also a death ray?
Most modern remote controls use infrared, though I suppose some may be migrating to bluetooth or something similar. But I recall that back in the day I saw a remote control that worked on an audio signal. The remote had something like small tuning forks, rods of metal that would vibrate when you pressed one of the buttons. I can’t remember what brand of TV they were for. They were probably black & white sets.
Our first remote control TV was also our first color TV. I’m talking about the one my dad bought in 1970, one of those big wooden floor jobs by Magnavox. The remote was big, maybe 8″ x 8″ and it had to be pointed right at the TV, no bank shots allowed. Funny thing was that the wheels on my mothers vacuum cleaner squeaked and turned the TV on and if you dropped a dime, not a quarter, not a nickel, a dime, on the terrazzo floor the TV would turn off. Of course, as Monty described above, my parents had remote controls for everything from the beginning.
Bonus round: About 10 years later (1980) I was living in Redondo, CA and a friends wife worked as a receptionist for Magnavox in Torrance. She said Magnavox was developing an inter-office newsletter and they wanted the employees to come up with a name for the newsletter and whomever’s name they chose would receive a 100 dollar bill. Off the top O’ my skall I told her, “Video Sentinel” which she liked and submitted and won. When she got that C note her and her husband (an army buddy) and me and my skweez at the time went and chowed like big Dawgz at the 94th Aero Squadron. Nom, nom, nom. So there ya go, I have sort of a detached connection to Magnavox.