The Experiment with the Air Pump by Joseph Wright of Derby
Rodrigo V. Dela Peña Jr.
After Wright of Derby
The boy raises the velvet curtains to let
the silvery moonlight into the study,
a stuffy room now filled with spectators.
Towering above a table, the scientist poses
in a magician’s stance and squeezes the air pump
to aspirate the air from the crystalline bell jar.
Two brothers, a barrister and a schoolboy,
try to appear amused by the spectacle
while holding a yawn deep in their noses.
The insistent father persuades his wife to look,
his heavy hand wrapped around her shoulder.
With her dainty hands she screens her face
and anytime now she feels she might faint.
Her daughter tugs at her tight, itchy frock
and stares at the set-up in wide-eyed innocence.
The bachelor and the lady eye each other,
unmindful of the ruckus around them.
How handsome he is, she thinks. What a fine
wife she will make, he thinks. Their eyes sparkle.
Unblinking and stolid on a Shaker chair,
the philosopher, forehead creased, head pedestalled
by his arms gripping a cane, is lost
in dialectic contemplation. Opposite him
the Newtonian displays his newfangled invention.
In the middle of it all—illuminated
by the moon, deprived of oxygen by the scientist,
the object of amusement for two sleepy men,
pointed at by the husband, mourned for
by the wife, the neglected pet of
a neglected child, invisible to the lovers,
existing as pure idea in the philosopher’s brain—
is a dove, trapped in the vacuum, fluttering
its feathers and gasping its last breath.
The Foster-Miller TALON Robot Examines A Body in Baghdad
(with permission from wikileaks.org)
Jim Pascual Agustin
TALON Robot Examines A Body
1
They are too backward, the dead.
They get in the way
of technological advances
such as this.
Imagine
The time it takes
to whirr metal arms,
tank-like tracks,
gears, hydraulics
The patience it demands
to focus and refocus
hardened eyes,
in order to position
A single robot in place.
To poke and prod one body,
certify it is dead.
No longer considered
A threat by those who own
this piece of armory
worth more than a village
burnt whole.
2
Apart from special lenses,
heat and movement
sensors, other less known
devices built into these
roaming machines
There is a person
who has to monitor the scraps
of rendered facts,
someone who has to stare
at every shard of flesh.
This person remains on the verge
of conflict throughout the whole
operation, armed with clinical
precision, making certainties
of random targets.
No information gathered
in scenes like this
will reveal anything
useful to the surviving
family of the dead,
Even if there were any left.
3
This one body alone demands
to be examined in detail:
minute facts irrelevant
to strategic reports.
Who gave permission
to touch his remains
this way, with a mechanical
hand, distant?
But this body will not surrender.
It is beyond the reach
of the most powerful
tools of destruction.
When there were so many
faces of strangers emptying
the marketplace,
whose did he seek?
Of those who clothed
him as he emerged
from childhood, who did
he remember most, last?
Will anyone know how carefully
his young fingers treasured
the very first feather
in his hand?
1
They are too backward, the dead.
They get in the way
of technological advances
such as this.
Imagine
The time it takes
to whirr metal arms,
tank-like tracks,
gears, hydraulics
The patience it demands
to focus and refocus
hardened eyes,
in order to position
A single robot in place.
To poke and prod one body,
certify it is dead.
No longer considered
A threat by those who own
this piece of armory
worth more than a village
burnt whole.
2
Apart from special lenses,
heat and movement
sensors, other less known
devices built into these
roaming machines
There is a person
who has to monitor the scraps
of rendered facts,
someone who has to stare
at every shard of flesh.
This person remains on the verge
of conflict throughout the whole
operation, armed with clinical
precision, making certainties
of random targets.
No information gathered
in scenes like this
will reveal anything
useful to the surviving
family of the dead,
Even if there were any left.
3
This one body alone demands
to be examined in detail:
minute facts irrelevant
to strategic reports.
Who gave permission
to touch his remains
this way, with a mechanical
hand, distant?
But this body will not surrender.
It is beyond the reach
of the most powerful
tools of destruction.
When there were so many
faces of strangers emptying
the marketplace,
whose did he seek?
Of those who clothed
him as he emerged
from childhood, who did
he remember most, last?
Will anyone know how carefully
his young fingers treasured
the very first feather
in his hand?
Marjorie Evasco
Aqualligraphy of the 10,001 Paths
It is autumn in the gardens of the empress’ summer palace
On your first visit to the imperial city. On your way in,
A slight, white-haired woman snags your attention towards
The quiet corner of the courtyard away from the crowds.
She holds a long brush at an angle above the cobblestones,
And dips it into a pail of water. Then, she brings the tip
Onto the stones and writes a T’ang poem from memory,
Of Tu Fu bidding Li Po goodbye under a wintry moon.
Like dragonflies, the characters dip and rise, one moment
On the stone, and in the next becoming mist in the slant
Of sunlight. Soon, she finishes the poem and pauses to view
The last glistening line of words fade into nothingness.
She straightens her back, goes back to the stone she first
Started from and begins yet again. It is said that she knows all
The poems of the T’ang masters by heart. And everyday now,
This is what she does: writing each one lovingly with water
Until the first snow falls
Aqualligraphy of the 10,001 Paths
It is autumn in the gardens of the empress’ summer palace
On your first visit to the imperial city. On your way in,
A slight, white-haired woman snags your attention towards
The quiet corner of the courtyard away from the crowds.
She holds a long brush at an angle above the cobblestones,
And dips it into a pail of water. Then, she brings the tip
Onto the stones and writes a T’ang poem from memory,
Of Tu Fu bidding Li Po goodbye under a wintry moon.
Like dragonflies, the characters dip and rise, one moment
On the stone, and in the next becoming mist in the slant
Of sunlight. Soon, she finishes the poem and pauses to view
The last glistening line of words fade into nothingness.
She straightens her back, goes back to the stone she first
Started from and begins yet again. It is said that she knows all
The poems of the T’ang masters by heart. And everyday now,
This is what she does: writing each one lovingly with water
Until the first snow falls
