Saturday, October 12, 2013

Speed Dating in the Large Hadron Collider (Jaap Stijl)

Tape library, CERN, Geneva 2


"Speed Dating in the Large Hadron Collider"

She is distant.  Two tables
away.  Roman candle eyes
verify what she might be
seeing; never directly
being observed, seemingly
electronically detected,
anatomically respected;
the ongoing autopsy.

I do not stand.
We do not speak.
We seek more precise
measurements with magnetic
attraction.

We must learn to travel in
opposite directions
at the velocity of life
in order to collide, drenched
in liquid helium to
ease our cryogenic hearts.

Thousands of strangers, who differ
in variety and size,
in knowledge and opinions,
tinker with our future and
refuse the coming Big Bang
hangover, dictate to us
the trajectory of dreams;
the contents of particle
beams as she, at a distance,
might verify that she has
gathered for the reunion
to witness the collision
in our ultra-high vacuum.

Tonight was a harrowing
week of courting.  Too much is
left to chance.  The outcome is
strictly theoretical.
We eat in a fractal of
candlelight protest, enjoy
nothing, silently chewing.

I do not stand.
We do not speak.
We seek more precise
measurements with magnetic
attraction.

We will not be the world's first
doomsday machine of black hole
self-sacrificing; two wholes
subdivided into one
lost calculus to protect
us from the dazed eyes;
fates and couples, finalised.



 —Jaap Stijl

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