A Thousand Ways of Density
Null density :: We spun in after the 27-day spiral
sunwards on electromagnetic rails from the tear edge.
We’d been out on routine testing the termination shock
limning the subsonic, that glistening pane of tension
before the heliosheath teardrops away from the
interstellar wind. For slowtime days we combed and
wove the flux for density, braiding the tessellating
groove so that Sol’s coruscating field curled on. The
vibrant rayon-ionized and counter-rotating spheres of
our interstellar bodies dissolved into invisibility as we
crossed the threshold of Golden. Golden! We the
Delany’s golden, we who somehow could traverse the
edges of Sol’s radiation and live: he golden, she golden,
null golden, golden to the lost density of light and its
gardeners. Heliosurfers, solsailors and sundancers
came here to depolarize and we were no different.
One density :: And we were no different. Oh! We were
as different as anyone could be. We each rotated down,
we each dropped notches of dimensionality, and our
glowing unity fragmented and I am again. Everything
started with desire and I am no different, I’m at war with
my self on my body’s battlefield: subtle pushes and tugs
down at the resisting dense. The bar was dark, but we
were light, polarized, and individuated after our passage
through the aether gateway grid. There were humans
here, other golden, other species, and various energies.
The bar wavered in the collective light; coloured
shadows shifting like mandlebrot sets. We, the Oh and
the I, we sat, the three of us. No need to order in the
Golden. Our muscles ached from our tense weight. To
be golden is a curse and a blessing. Ionized water
sprayed around us and for a moment our stars showed
like diamonds in the mist.
One density :: Mirrors folded in upon themselves and
we stood at the bar, to amusement of multi-dees and
the consternation of the humans by whom we
apparated. Humans, hah, could never handle
downshifters to their dee. The condescension of
downshifting assaults pride, always; better to arrive
downshifted than to emerge from the very air in the
semblance of one of them. Us, we energies, must
become human to be visible on their dee. And the pilots
who drink at the Golden, they’re no mere human.
Sense hardened from thunder through silent space,
they, who endure the slow death of space because to
leave earth is to become the ance-spacer on the Galileo
run, returning every ninety-year to the grandchildren of
grandchildren, they’re the original human beings. I
saluted the valiant tragedy of their lonely centuries as I
sat at the bar next to a creased triplanetary, probably
the seer of a seven. Leaning from a high stool at the
bar and tall with a face like rainforest midnight, eyes
flecks of moonlight in the trees, and as his breathing
returned to normal through his broad nose, he said,
looking up at me, “you do that to me every ‘me
do you?”
Two density :: “It wasn’t that long ago when it was light
above, all around and in the waters-between.” Slipshift.
We were eating raw vegetables on a moon beneath an
orange sun and a bright star. A simple matter it was,
through a vesica piscis between twin orbs, to timeslip at
the Golden. Still looking, “waters-between?” he asked,
“need a singalong? See how dense I get on you?” And
surfing his countenance: why do you fly on thought
while we scar space why we so dense you subtle I see
nothing you up pushing down and my senses ‘plex the
multi intertwined in mine. Oh, to live so slowly, to
comprehend so little, every micro-expression unread,
and needing to brute the air to produce those clicks and
whistles as he spoke me and I listened him thirteen
ways but five only he shared.
Three density :: Bone, he archaeologies of a life
drunken with emotion. The cold expanses between the
planets shed whispers at shadelow. A stolen embrace
between two moist three-brained bodies become two
from within the nine. Deeper yet, Khushi sings under
the bluest sky, a brook joins her, and the trees tickle one
another. Falling; a wet crown pushes from her lips, pain
of the sun explodes in my eyes and burning air by my
heart beat. I gasp and scream as I fall free; now three.
Beat. Waters-between, heavy yet? Waters-between, o
that name flows through my hair as my arms pull and
push warm liquid as I swim with the Sirians. Float upon
the waters of my homeworld, golden. Castles condense
above the reefs and drift on the wind.
Five density :: He stood against the bar ignoring sounds
(singing angels, my Love, my guides?) and watched his
fleeting thoughts: I am that I am, seer, with my eyes and
ears and nose, with my math and jets. Here not
because I’m tall, not because I’m golden, oh no, but
because I waver with golden now. Never saw tell (?).
Here first, you see, now then. O how you golden avoid
the density of lightness. Then you wouldn’t be golden
and I wouldn’t be human. Katipos balloon from their
nest under the pingao grass. They drift over my face,
spiderleg shadows dervish round my eyelashes, and one
lands on my cheek. It tastes me with its tiny black
palps and I see fanged chelicera about to sink venom; I
slap it dead to the sand.
Eight density :: Bone taps a tailormade jane from his
pocket. Hark at the fool sucking on hot coal, eh watersbetween.
On the cornices, four circles imprint his palm
as he knuckles the Audi round a hairbend, rear wheels
skidding in the verge. White crystals spill from his nose
and he laughs with a blonde woman, her hand on his
knee as he shifts up a gear. Tullamore Dew on his
breath, hot red meat in his belly, and cocaine in his blood.
The wind rushes in his ears and he sounds like a violin.
The Oh and the I, we are sated now; how our shoulders
ache and our forehead flower’s afire. Thanking Bone, we
bade him farewell and the Oh and the I, we left. Thirty
four counterclockwise and twenty one clockwise and at
nine tenths of the cee it is all just light.
Thirteen density :: I saw her face float over my nicoflare
like a ghost in smoke. Pale gold and emerald quarks
whorled at me. She (?) shimmered and shifted; caught,
I blinked away the burn and peered into the bar, gone.
Talking I was to . . . (?) Oh, musa been angels again,
oheah, the Golden. Funny, lighting here’s shady
nowdark, brillig was when I inschooned. Shebeen type
of face to suicide for, a ko-omote, ah fib on the acci: on
the lip of the return to the one, end of mean loop cycles
back to thirteen, a one a three is four. Step it upout!
He scaled back up to one density :: as I, the Oh and the
I, rotated back to null density :: we saw (?) his wry
smile, the traceries of micro-expression and left with a
gentled sigh, . . . is all light.
a thousand ways of density . . .
A SF prose poem published in Foxymoron #3
By Peter Fogarty
Original titles included Fibonacci Density and Fibo-den-acci. I'm kinda glad that Georgie and Mel used the subtitle instead.
sunwards on electromagnetic rails from the tear edge.
We’d been out on routine testing the termination shock
limning the subsonic, that glistening pane of tension
before the heliosheath teardrops away from the
interstellar wind. For slowtime days we combed and
wove the flux for density, braiding the tessellating
groove so that Sol’s coruscating field curled on. The
vibrant rayon-ionized and counter-rotating spheres of
our interstellar bodies dissolved into invisibility as we
crossed the threshold of Golden. Golden! We the
Delany’s golden, we who somehow could traverse the
edges of Sol’s radiation and live: he golden, she golden,
null golden, golden to the lost density of light and its
gardeners. Heliosurfers, solsailors and sundancers
came here to depolarize and we were no different.
One density :: And we were no different. Oh! We were
as different as anyone could be. We each rotated down,
we each dropped notches of dimensionality, and our
glowing unity fragmented and I am again. Everything
started with desire and I am no different, I’m at war with
my self on my body’s battlefield: subtle pushes and tugs
down at the resisting dense. The bar was dark, but we
were light, polarized, and individuated after our passage
through the aether gateway grid. There were humans
here, other golden, other species, and various energies.
The bar wavered in the collective light; coloured
shadows shifting like mandlebrot sets. We, the Oh and
the I, we sat, the three of us. No need to order in the
Golden. Our muscles ached from our tense weight. To
be golden is a curse and a blessing. Ionized water
sprayed around us and for a moment our stars showed
like diamonds in the mist.
One density :: Mirrors folded in upon themselves and
we stood at the bar, to amusement of multi-dees and
the consternation of the humans by whom we
apparated. Humans, hah, could never handle
downshifters to their dee. The condescension of
downshifting assaults pride, always; better to arrive
downshifted than to emerge from the very air in the
semblance of one of them. Us, we energies, must
become human to be visible on their dee. And the pilots
who drink at the Golden, they’re no mere human.
Sense hardened from thunder through silent space,
they, who endure the slow death of space because to
leave earth is to become the ance-spacer on the Galileo
run, returning every ninety-year to the grandchildren of
grandchildren, they’re the original human beings. I
saluted the valiant tragedy of their lonely centuries as I
sat at the bar next to a creased triplanetary, probably
the seer of a seven. Leaning from a high stool at the
bar and tall with a face like rainforest midnight, eyes
flecks of moonlight in the trees, and as his breathing
returned to normal through his broad nose, he said,
looking up at me, “you do that to me every ‘me
do you?”
Two density :: “It wasn’t that long ago when it was light
above, all around and in the waters-between.” Slipshift.
We were eating raw vegetables on a moon beneath an
orange sun and a bright star. A simple matter it was,
through a vesica piscis between twin orbs, to timeslip at
the Golden. Still looking, “waters-between?” he asked,
“need a singalong? See how dense I get on you?” And
surfing his countenance: why do you fly on thought
while we scar space why we so dense you subtle I see
nothing you up pushing down and my senses ‘plex the
multi intertwined in mine. Oh, to live so slowly, to
comprehend so little, every micro-expression unread,
and needing to brute the air to produce those clicks and
whistles as he spoke me and I listened him thirteen
ways but five only he shared.
Three density :: Bone, he archaeologies of a life
drunken with emotion. The cold expanses between the
planets shed whispers at shadelow. A stolen embrace
between two moist three-brained bodies become two
from within the nine. Deeper yet, Khushi sings under
the bluest sky, a brook joins her, and the trees tickle one
another. Falling; a wet crown pushes from her lips, pain
of the sun explodes in my eyes and burning air by my
heart beat. I gasp and scream as I fall free; now three.
Beat. Waters-between, heavy yet? Waters-between, o
that name flows through my hair as my arms pull and
push warm liquid as I swim with the Sirians. Float upon
the waters of my homeworld, golden. Castles condense
above the reefs and drift on the wind.
Five density :: He stood against the bar ignoring sounds
(singing angels, my Love, my guides?) and watched his
fleeting thoughts: I am that I am, seer, with my eyes and
ears and nose, with my math and jets. Here not
because I’m tall, not because I’m golden, oh no, but
because I waver with golden now. Never saw tell (?).
Here first, you see, now then. O how you golden avoid
the density of lightness. Then you wouldn’t be golden
and I wouldn’t be human. Katipos balloon from their
nest under the pingao grass. They drift over my face,
spiderleg shadows dervish round my eyelashes, and one
lands on my cheek. It tastes me with its tiny black
palps and I see fanged chelicera about to sink venom; I
slap it dead to the sand.
Eight density :: Bone taps a tailormade jane from his
pocket. Hark at the fool sucking on hot coal, eh watersbetween.
On the cornices, four circles imprint his palm
as he knuckles the Audi round a hairbend, rear wheels
skidding in the verge. White crystals spill from his nose
and he laughs with a blonde woman, her hand on his
knee as he shifts up a gear. Tullamore Dew on his
breath, hot red meat in his belly, and cocaine in his blood.
The wind rushes in his ears and he sounds like a violin.
The Oh and the I, we are sated now; how our shoulders
ache and our forehead flower’s afire. Thanking Bone, we
bade him farewell and the Oh and the I, we left. Thirty
four counterclockwise and twenty one clockwise and at
nine tenths of the cee it is all just light.
Thirteen density :: I saw her face float over my nicoflare
like a ghost in smoke. Pale gold and emerald quarks
whorled at me. She (?) shimmered and shifted; caught,
I blinked away the burn and peered into the bar, gone.
Talking I was to . . . (?) Oh, musa been angels again,
oheah, the Golden. Funny, lighting here’s shady
nowdark, brillig was when I inschooned. Shebeen type
of face to suicide for, a ko-omote, ah fib on the acci: on
the lip of the return to the one, end of mean loop cycles
back to thirteen, a one a three is four. Step it upout!
He scaled back up to one density :: as I, the Oh and the
I, rotated back to null density :: we saw (?) his wry
smile, the traceries of micro-expression and left with a
gentled sigh, . . . is all light.
a thousand ways of density . . .
A SF prose poem published in Foxymoron #3
By Peter Fogarty
Original titles included Fibonacci Density and Fibo-den-acci. I'm kinda glad that Georgie and Mel used the subtitle instead.
posted by oga at
2:54 PM
