Robin Ouzman Hislop is on line Editor at Poetry Life & Times at Artvilla.com. His numerous appearances include Cold Mountain Review (Appalachian University, N.Carolina), The Honest Ulsterman, Cratera No 3 and Aquillrelle’s Best. His publications are collected poems All the Babble of the Souk,Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals & Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems. A translation from Spanish of poems by Guadalupe Grande Key of Mist and Carmen Crespo Tesserae, the award winning (X111 Premio César Simón De Poesía), in November 2017 these works were presented in a live performance at The International Writer’s Conference hosted by the University of Leeds. UK. A forthcoming publication of collected poems Off the Menu is expected in 2020
The spotted hyena aka the laughing hyena both male and female genitals are strikingly similar
Natural History Pliny the Elder (A.D. 23-79) ab uno animali sepulchra erui inquisitione corporum
– it was more jackals that were prone to digging bodies out of shallow graves and eating them Robert Graves White Goddess – The Jackals, sacred to Anubis, Guardian of the Dead, because they fed on corpse like flesh and had mysterious nocturnal habits.
the hyena is of feline descent
hyenas were hermaphrodites bearing both male and female organs Aristotle declared in the Historia animalium “this is untrue.”
medieval bestiaries drew a moral lesson from the depravity of beasts excluded from Noah’s ark in 1614 God had only saved the purely bred hyenas were reconstituted after the flood through the unnatural union of a dog and cat
female hyenas virtually indistinguishable from males their clitoris enlarged and extended to form an organ of the same size shape and position as the male penis can also be erected
high foetal androgen levels responsible for male sexual facies in adult female spotted hyenas
an unfair stereotype of hyenas in reality fascinating intelligent even beautiful creatures
Disney animators sketches for The Lion King the trio of hyenas in the movie reinforce the common stereotype of hyenas as cowardly skulking lowlifes
Ernest Hemingway, – Fisi, the Hyena, hermaphroditic self-eating devourer of the dead, trailer of calving cows, ham-stringer, potential biter-off of your face at night while you slept, sad yowler, camp-follower, stinking, foul, with jaws that crack the bones the lion leaves, belly dragging, loping away on the brown plain –
“Hyenas” movie an urban legend account of human encounters and attacks by a sub-culture of predatory cryptohuman hyenas shape-shifting human-like creatures prowl the rural back roads and forests of North America thought to exist by cryptozoologists
folklore and sightings persist even as mainstream science denies their existence
Rudyard Kipling: The wise Hyenas come out at eve to take account of our dead,… they know the dead are safer meat than the weakest thing alive… and tug the corpse to light, the pitiful face is shown again, an instant ere they close in.
UK Teaching Resources TES Edwin Morgan enters the mind of the hyena English National 5 Poetry he describes its patient menacing personality Morgan adopts the persona of a hyena I sing and am the slave of darkness, my place is to pick you clean and leave your bones to the wind.
a hunters poem from Lesotho description shifts to the first person singular to give the hyena’s own words I growl being a poor body, I am small, I am hunched up like the elephant…
hyena of the Mmankala of Kone-land a group whose symbol is the hyena when it says ngou! it devours even man
a Yoruba hunting poem the hyena is regarded as the ultimate scavenger there being nothing it won’t eat oral poetry from Africa Hyena who is there when the mourner buries the corpse eats fat and bone, scabbard and hide
spotted hyena strongest jaws in proportion to body size across the entire mammal kingdom cunning hunting tactics nocturnal nature nefarious reputations frontal cortex of their brains thought to regulate social intelligence
the largest of the other three species brown striped and aardwolf spotted hyenas are among Africa’s most vocal animals
All the Babble of the Souk, Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals, Collected Poems, and the recently published Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems, as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande´s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mistand the recently published Tesserae, a translation of Carmen Crespo´s Teselas.
Author’s comment: this is a technically constructed work from texts both edited & derived from Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens & Homo Deus with interpolations and additions made by the author (2017)
*
we invent them to serve us controlling our existence
to create virtual worlds with hells and heavens
myths domesticate science
fiction and reality blur shaping our reality
an assembly of biochemical algorithms flash fade flash fade
*
spinning
*
epidemic is business economy grows
human experience as any other item
in the supermarket a designable product
intelligence mandatory consciousness optional
individuals = dividuals
in carbon or silicon
*
owned by imaginary gods
who what you are how to turn you on and off
*
beyond control
beyond
the opaque wall
algorithms can command empire
or an upper class ruling the planet
if words could make dreams come true
a simultaneous instant in the brain of seven billion
emerges the beautiful androgynous face of the serial killer
wheat eater bread winner
*
& the deluge of data
millions of nano-robots coursing humankind’s veins
an Orwellian police state
splits into
the chosen hi-tech Noah’s Ark
a new religion information flow
Datism
A Brave New World
*
to merge or not to merge
the human genome as a digital processor
where overwhelming data
garbles the message in dystopian double talk
will the defeaters prevail
or cometh utopia from outer space
our post human descendants
*
do as you would be done by Datism
as we condemned the mammoth to oblivion
your every action
but where no human can follow or need to understand
in the matrix the inter net of all things
*
where has the power gone
the cosmic data God draweth nigh
the great flow
to maximise to plug you in voters of the world unite
a colossus astride this narrow world
free market big brother
watches over every breath you take
invisible hand that flies in the night
*
between laboratory & museum
voice of a million ancestors
a ripple in the cosmic data flow
shifts homo centric view to data centric view
knowing us better than we know ourselves
*
forager
scavenger of carrion follower in fear & flight
big brained
Neanderthal Denisovan Sapiens
what drove you for 2 million years
a big bum?
*
what bound
small divergent groups of differing tongue & taboo
into the framework of humankind
but fiction
collective myths woven into our reality
from money to the nation state
imprisoned
by the archetypes
we’ve identified them with a virtual reality of cartoon molecules
All the Babble of the Souk, Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals, Collected Poems, and the recently published Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems, as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande´s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mistand the recently published Tesserae, a translation of Carmen Crespo´s Teselas.
Author’s remark: edited text extracts for Circuitry are derived from Super Intelligence Chapter 9 The Controle Problem Nick Bostrom, & Paul Mudoon’s Poem Side Project & based on the thematics from Impressions of Africa by Raymond Roussel
Circuitry
The notion that information being about
a certain topic is problematic
the equivalent to a smiley-face sticker xeroxed
trillions upon trillions of times
and plastered over the galaxies any piece of information
can in principle be relevant to any topic whatsoever
depending
on the background information of the reasoner
~ ~ ~
a unicorn
may graze in the dunes
in all their vagaries and never
quite grasp the point
a given datum set contains information
not only from the domain from which it was collected
even orange and lemon moving in their own sphere
who hasn’t woken up screaming in a four poster elephant herd
but also from various circumstantial facts
such that
one might infer from a nominal knowledge base
a variety of a wide range of topics
~ ~ ~
that same Hungarian dance music by Brahms
on the Orient Express
at least everyone in the circus crowd
accepts he’s no more than part
of the rank and file
where the fact that some information is included
whilst some information is not
i spotted the Norwegian bareback artiste
with one foot on the unicorn sire
in a figure eight of the elephant folio
could tell about a fabrication that conceived
any knowledge based designation
like your run of the mill Fegee Mermaid
or Pickled Punk malformed in his formaldehyde
as the workings of its own psyche
~ ~ ~
it’s that same Hungarian tune played
on a cornet from a unicorn
that once grazed the dunes in all their vagaries
the design choices reflected in its own source code
and no less proven in battle
the Missing Link Frog boy
the human chimera and the human alligator
the characteristics of its circuitry
which also allows us to remake ourselves
~ ~ ~
that same Hungarian dance music by Brahms
allows us to remake ourselves
as information not only from the domain
a unicorn may graze in the dunes
on the background information of times
plastered over the galaxies on the Orient Express
a bareback artiste with one foot
on any piece of information
which in principle once grazed the dunes
in all their circumstantial facts relevant to
any topic whatsoever
it’s that same Hungarian tune played in battle
the Missing Link Frog boy four poster elephant herd
but also Mermaid or Pickled Punk
malformed in all their vagaries
and never quite a variety of a wide range of topics
~ ~ ~
he’s no more than part of certain topic is problematic
the equivalent to the rank and file
where the fact infers from a nominal knowledge base
a characteristic of its circuitry
also on a cornet from a unicorn
the notion that information being about
an information is an information
~~~
i spotted the Norwegian and lemon moving
in their own sphere a unicorn sire
in a figure eight of fabrication
that conceived any knowledge based designation
its own source code and no less proven
a smiley – face sticker xeroxed
trillions upon trillions
the elephant folio could tell about
your run of the mill Fegee
a given datum set formaldehyde
as the workings of its own
human chimera and human alligator vagaries
the design choices reflected in that information is included
whilst some from which it was collected even orange
at least everyone in the circus crowd
~~~
i spotted the Norwegian and elephant herd but also Mermaid
or depending on various circumstantial facts
such that one be relevant to any topic
whatsoever vagaries such as the Orient Express
vagaries
the design choices reflected in its about
an information
an information plastered over the galaxies
plastered over the facts
inferred from a nominal knowledge from which it was collected
that same Hungarian dance music by Brahms
whilst some tell about your run of smiley- face sticker
xeroxed trillions upon trillions
that allows us to remake ourselves
as Frog in the circus crowd
in the circus unicorn the notion that information being
a psyche screaming in a psyche
it’s that same Hungarian tune played in battle
the human alligator vagaries
a unicorn may graze in the dunes
sire in a figure eight a fabrication of malformed Pickled Punk
in his all a background information of the reasoner
~ ~ ~
lemon & Orange on the Orient Express moving in their own sphere
Fegee grasps the point a Missing Link Frog boy four poster
who hasn’t woken up screaming conceived in that knowledge
based designation of their own vagaries
a never quite variety of which is also on a cornet from the galaxies
~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
galaxies bareback artiste with one foot on topics no more than given datum set as the workings contain information not only from the domain elephant folio characteristic of its circuitry the wide range of topics the human chimera equivalent to the rank and file any piece of information can source a code no less proven
Robin Ouzman Hislop is on line Editor at Poetry Life & Times at Artvilla.com. His numerous appearances include Cold Mountain Review (Appalachian University, N.Carolina), The Honest Ulsterman, Cratera No 3 and Aquillrelle’s Best. His publications are collected poems All the Babble of the Souk, Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals & Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems and translations from Spanish of poems by Guadalupe Grande Key of Mist and Carmen Crespo Tesserae (the award winning XIII Premio César Simón De Poesía). In November 2017 these works were presented in a live performance at The International Writer’s Conference hosted by the University of Leeds, UK. A forthcoming publication of collected poems Off the Menu is expected in 2020.
Solstice winds, rain return in spells
a moon waxes full, dogs howl as well.
All the babble of the Souk
men over there, over there women.
All the life of the planet
so little part of it that i breathe.
Weather beaten highlands, once passed through.
The river bed, no more like a parched bone
its late autumnal river meanders as a vein
past four reservoirs
a quest that will end in winter´s flood.
Between them are momentary mists
where brightly clad figures of the north, suddenly dim.
On the frontier’s beach taxis come, go
only the stranded remain, together with the seagulls
four men huddled, drenched in pouring rain
dead once more, again, all pathways home
washed away, again.
A broken song
remember me, sung in a doorway
brings the world at large together
as suddenly as it narrows.
Water runs on marble
nakedness revealed, nakedness concealed
form water words, water memories, mists, fates.
Veins wrestle the marble into mangled knots
blemished pearls on an implacable skin
shards leaving fragmentary traces
empty spaces awaiting faces.
Lights dance in the night, picturesque
“casas blancas del pueblo”
appear through the darkness
as the brush strokes of my mind steal the action of the shadow.
Mists cordon the mountain tops
guerdoned crowns like wreathes.
Ancient fields’ still colours surrounded
by burgeoning new lead to the valley below.
Old women, old as aglow, so slow they go
poised aloof in an untouchable world, trapped.
High in kiln firelight they cowl night’s shade
to oversee goats on the hill beneath.
Daughters of necessity naked in the rock
unleashed in white trefoil in the marsh
swamp of night rain, stark where epochs
sleep in their shadows
replication of memories, where the old
becomes the new, a world splits in two
with Morpheus in the breach.
Beyond control, beyond reach the erratic butterfly
flits bloom to bloom, the intrepid stalker with net
both captured in the mimic mould.
A knot is tied, a knot that wrestles
embraces, that ravels birth
unravels death & binds its existence.
Her face is as if a moon glazed over
with a less serene ceramic dust that in the end
after its perplexity contains its surety.
She draws her forefinger laterally across
under her eye lid in a smear
nor can you change the image of what you are
in the pupil of her eye.
Babble bodies blur
voices with their echoes down the street
sky high, prices fly
a bird song breaks, a splash charade.
Faces in the rain thin
weakness of watery years.
A winnowing canvass tosses corn
as fireflies in the blazing day.
The hag in her rags begs her bag
holding all shadows to account.
You sit in the solitary corner
at the empty dice board
to throw, as the music swells, as strings play.
On the washing line clothes of all shapes
sizes are waiting to be filled
suspended between earth, sky, where white sheets blow.
A twinge of nostalgia flashes
a link between a fluttering curtain
an open window frame, a sun shadow game
a flickering apparition pattern leaving only – strands.
A breeze flutters an open foolscap on the table
as though a phantom reader
should flick with regard through a score of notes
then stops at the first blank white sheets
stays, the moving hand that wrote, wrote no more.
On record, old honky-tonk goes on
amidst the heaps of consumer city sneakers
in the same dust where faces
turn from their spring red lustre to a sun soiled wear
through a beehive of alleys
names, aye to fetch them home again
as if where the countless dead resided, you’d said
in a market of women shrouded in shawls.
Berlin falls, Baghdad falls
all the years turn to further tears
further fears to merge with your voyage
the shape of dreams to come
to be only endearments of what has gone before.
A flower opens after a thousand years in a shell of tears
indifferent to its beholders’ sight
who paint it with the colours from the waters of their night
on an unknown shore, to whose sight it opened once before.
Children’s faces like radiant imps
play carefree in the streets below
overhead on red tiles, fat pigeons bicker, coo.
In an internet cafe, an Arab girl discrete in headdress
plays with cartoon molecules of Mickey Mouse
Koala bear
nubile women’s faces dream of nudity in their shrouds.
Wonky pinz nez specs, jumble sale clothes
bad teeth, unshaven grin
looking a faded duplicate of a down
out James Joyce with the come on
are you Irish, he asks
perhaps he was once upon a time.
They came through the cleft of the mountain
– where the river ran
to swim as a blur in the naked purple of the eye
on the mountain face there is a scar
once a sacred place, now extinct, as they are.
Yet wild still she runs, amidst the sheep, goats
toils at the hearth, dutifully bears children
yesterday she knows but not tomorrow
where she hides her sorrow
even as he ploughs the hillside
a photo will steal his soul, but his beasts will do.
Twilight’s girls, girls, girls
throng the bustling street corners eating caracoles.
By day the olive tree green in the blue sky of the window
seems almost immortal enriched with the blood
it’s enriched, now at its roots.
Costa de la playa, white beehives in the sun, all money, no honey.
In the broken lights of the bazaar
the dusky eyes of the beggar sunk in their sockets
maze in crooked cul de sacs embargo amidst
the furls of silk that foil the flickering lantern niche.
In the gloaming a solitary reaper reaps its shadow.
Streets packs ravage carcasses
at dawn, the city wakes to the city’s obedience
to obey its disappearing shadows.
A ghost city of watchers
watched as shadows by a memory that has outlived them
now fragments in an admixture of old, new
– amidst a junk yard of rubble
watcher shadows phased captive to their fading stories.
The street’s mechanics of the day
obey their limits, patterns of parts
where we end only to start in a series of nows
post mortem of the world at large
an autopsy of ghosts on the slab.
Born to see, in the boutiques people seem
like their own mannequins
existence is a mystery with no purpose
only we endow it with a destiny, it does not seek from us.
Robin Ouzman Hislop is on line Editor at Poetry Life & Times at Artvilla.com. His numerous appearances include Cold Mountain Review (Appalachian University, N.Carolina), The Honest Ulsterman, Cratera No 3 and Aquillrelle’s Best. His publications are collected poems All the Babble of the Souk, Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals & Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems and translations from Spanish of poems by Guadalupe Grande Key of Mist and Carmen Crespo Tesserae (the award winning XIII Premio César Simón De Poesía). In November 2017 these works were presented in a live performance at The International Writer’s Conference hosted by the University of Leeds, UK. A forthcoming publication of collected poems Off the Menu is expected in 2020.
