Neil Aitken
Binary
0000 : Absence stretched to extremity, nothingness in all quarters.
0001 : At the far reaches of the void, a glimmer.
0010 : How it doubles in size, moving closer, leaving a silence behind.
0011 : And how, out of that silence, an echo appears, an afterimage.
0100 : What to make of the torch raised in the cavern of night?
0101 : The faint flare of the one trailing far in the distance.
0110 : Now together, the two side by side, mirrors--encompassed by darkness.
0111 : From the open mouth of the universe, one sees fire everywhere.
1000 : But from within the fire, the world outside is death and extinction.
1001 : Banked by flames, there is only a hollow space of worry.
1010 : One at an open window. One at an open door.
1011 : Everyone gathers around the grave.
1100 : Two trees at the edge of a wide plain.
1101 : From here, we watch someone crossing over the fields.
1110 : The three of us standing beneath the moon's white wound.
1111 : The stars crowning the endless limbs of trees.
Neil Aitken is the author of The Lost Country of Sight, winner of 2007 Philip Levine Prize, and the editor of Boxcar Poetry Review. He was born in Vancouver, British Columbia and raised in Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, and western United States and Canada. His poems have appeared in American Literary Review, The Collagist, Crab Orchard Review, Ninth Letter, The Normal School, and elsewhere. A former computer programmer, he is presently pursuing a PhD in literature and creative writing at USC. www.neil-aitken.com
Return to September 2014 Edition
0000 : Absence stretched to extremity, nothingness in all quarters.
0001 : At the far reaches of the void, a glimmer.
0010 : How it doubles in size, moving closer, leaving a silence behind.
0011 : And how, out of that silence, an echo appears, an afterimage.
0100 : What to make of the torch raised in the cavern of night?
0101 : The faint flare of the one trailing far in the distance.
0110 : Now together, the two side by side, mirrors--encompassed by darkness.
0111 : From the open mouth of the universe, one sees fire everywhere.
1000 : But from within the fire, the world outside is death and extinction.
1001 : Banked by flames, there is only a hollow space of worry.
1010 : One at an open window. One at an open door.
1011 : Everyone gathers around the grave.
1100 : Two trees at the edge of a wide plain.
1101 : From here, we watch someone crossing over the fields.
1110 : The three of us standing beneath the moon's white wound.
1111 : The stars crowning the endless limbs of trees.
Neil Aitken is the author of The Lost Country of Sight, winner of 2007 Philip Levine Prize, and the editor of Boxcar Poetry Review. He was born in Vancouver, British Columbia and raised in Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, and western United States and Canada. His poems have appeared in American Literary Review, The Collagist, Crab Orchard Review, Ninth Letter, The Normal School, and elsewhere. A former computer programmer, he is presently pursuing a PhD in literature and creative writing at USC. www.neil-aitken.com
Return to September 2014 Edition