Order Of Magnitude
a love poem
Ten to the power of zero
One click of the longest hand of the watch, the hero…
…is floating between two cesium 133 atoms hyperfine
Oh, the taste of her lips is like wine
I seek freedom from the tyranny of time
I seek liberation from the oppression of schedules on a dime
I seek to escape the criminality of the clock
I unclasp the pink brassiere’s simple lock.
Ten to the power of negative three
One blink of the eye of a beautiful girl, seductive and free
A tear drop’s surface reflecting what I must have
Lactoferrin and hydrophilic coating on the cornea of love
I wish to walk through the Leica lens
And walk out the other side un-developed, men’s…
…obsessions are simple, conditioned like Pavlov’s dogs to a bell
I want autonomy in a single megapixel.
Ten to the power of negative six
Four machine cycles of a PDP-8 mini, what a fix!
Can I cycle the circle and make it back alive?
Or am I trapped for eternity inside of the machine hive?
I yearn for the liberty of a blank piece of paper, white
A dance of light before the CCD sensors are hit by light
An undeveloped photograph suspended in an instant
I know what she’s willing to give, and she knows what I want.
Ten to the power of negative nine
Light has travelled a whole foot, the universe is fine
I am standing at the precipice of her fulfillment
We are radio waves swinging upon a pulse laser sculpted filament
I demand a reckoning of imprinted heart beats
A tally of the time stolen from me by the modern world’s defeats
A receipt I can cash in for wasted Polaroid moments
I will invoice the World, for all my torments.
Ten to the power of negative twelve
Half life of a bottom quark, is there any place left for the self?
Thank you Gell-Mann and Zweig for all your hard work
She got on top, anti-quark leading to a champagne cork
I wish to collect all the missing Kodachrome pi mesons of my life
Shuffle them like the dreams of car accident patients under a knife
Febrile children with overactive imaginations
Watching men and women on uncensored Technicolor TV stations.
Ten to the power of negative fifteen
Scandinavian numbers intrude into our world almost unseen
A transition from light to ultraviolet, what a blast!
She kissed me and inhaled me to make it last
I want her love to be a desire out of the system, non-linear
Is that possible in a world of mirrored measured filtered fear?
Cruelty born of the automated ringing of the self-timer alarm
Like cattle we are all led to slaughter away from the farm.
Ten to the power of negative eighteen
Of all the Danes I admire most, it is Hamlet, in-between…
…his words “to be or not to be” I wish to hide
On one of those twelve attoseconds let me ride
We embraced and retraced all the steps that led us here
Our shattered single-lens reflex illusions, our hearts beating near
I confessed to her an isotope of beryllium so rare
I took a whole two hundred measure to make her care.
Ten to the power of negative twenty one
Double down on the card table I am a one eyed jack out for fun
Vingt-et-un brings in the cash and her leaf-shutter hand on my arm
All it takes is seven of seven in a half-life of helium to cause harm
The outer neutron in the second nuclear halo of devotion
She is ready for another round and her close up, so strong is the potion
We tumble down like spilled cards from a stacked deck
She surrenders and I play my winning hand while kissing her neck.
Ten to the power of negative twenty four
Quark emits a gluon, doesn’t that sound dirty in the arms of a whore?
I have no idea where I am, the purpose eludes me
Freedom has been grafted onto a pile of mathematical debris
Negative or slide, we have been reduced to ones and zeros
Wake up, there are no more lovers, no more heroes
She disentangles herself from my telephoto embrace
Today, I can’t even remember her powdered face.
Ten to the power of negative forty four – Planck time.
This is the moment in which I wish to commit my crime
Here I will make my final stand against the despotism…
…of the machine, I will demand that humanity engage in nepotism
I am a man, not a contraption, favor me over the clock
She walked away before I could close the film lock…
…of my heart, to forget that a moment is an eternity
As long as love is timeless and men and women are free.
Konrad Tademar – 2006-2011
