Artifact 16: The Life Within

by Robert Kloss

Ah, the hiss and seethe of man, of man no longer man, of man enclosed in brass and gold and steel. This man who will not rot, nor sag nor droop nor gray. How we cut him open and found the life within. How his gas fled into our vessels at the last incision. How the flesh unfolded and our red scalded hands.

Finally how the life of man extends beyond the flesh of man, the vapor once locked within a house of meat and sinew, now freed into our architecture, polished and shined. Finally, no more eyes but what eyes our science paints. No more mouths but what mouths our science sculpts. Finally, no more the words of man but the seethe of mans’ mist, finally, this language older than the oldest teeth and tongues.

Ah, to lean close and hear the counsel of the wisdom beyond, to scald an ear and know the bloom and light of the world we discovered. This world older than all worlds. Now all men may know the infinite, to speak a language of steam, to fill the shapes of swords and lutes, ducks and phalluses, dogs and tigers. To beautify bedrooms and clock towers, courtyards and country homes, common areas and reading rooms, to bloom our lives with the life beyond life, to fill our habitations with moon-shaped men of copper and brass, of diamond and tin, the language of the infinite, the life of all lives within.

Robert Kloss is teaching too many classes this semester.

posted by Amber Sparks