FOUR SONNETS FROM CRYING IN EARLY INFANCY

40. THE AGE OF MECHANICAL REPRODUCTION

FOUR SONNETS FROM CRYING IN EARLY INFANCY

40. THE AGE OF MECHANICAL REPRODUCTION

FOUR SONNETS FROM CRYING IN EARLY INFANCY

40. THE AGE OF MECHANICAL REPRODUCTION

If we laugh and photograph ourselves
which is difficult but not impossible
we create a system for analysing humour
and days later we are stuck with it
like Marxism too quickly understood
and thus betrayed. Is a smile a role?
The snapshots make a guess, and unavoidably
a complex answer is building up inside us

conditioned by empiricism. We love and burn
just for a year or so, then take those photos
and lose a precious ability and a sweetheart
and nothing seems the same, ever again.
This dogging loss chews at my heel and soon
years later, we are less than what we knew.