The Trouble with Sentient Beings, and: The Time Machine Paradox

144 DALE SMITH THE TROUBLE WITH SENTIENT BEINGS They decline at a rate that is rapid Compared to mountains, lakes, or Transient soul migrations Over distances inside a softness that Breathes and bleeds and stains They are wanting in patience and calm Like faces on Mt. Rushmore Or the Sphinx grazed by dusty wind Unwinding its riddle on those Dying generations, etc. They are troubled by little slights Sad-eyed, indignant, hardly coping With resentments, unlike gold In the golden calf, that idol Of pagan worship, the marble Facades in commiserative features Cut on the Lincoln Memorial They are too often weird and feel Easily betrayed when surprised By what can’t escape The simplest thing, little rock In the creek bed, like other Brute stupefactions Of endurance 145 DALE SMITH THE TIME MACHINE PARADOX 1. The Secret Agent Of Relativity Steps through a magnified Wormhole Into a moment of time One minute behind Where he began Like the sandy molecules Of a beach Spread on the surface of a hand What if looking back He took aim with a gun Blasting through familiar Identity traced By genome and zodiac? 1.1 O weary Time Traveler Your eyes form both edges Of that brief distance And folly As the bullet presses The corridor between you The you in the other Room drops dead 1.2 What would happen In this scenario? Might you not as Wittgenstein claimed Remain forever outside Our eternal present 146 And thereby be condemned In Time’s boundary? Who might weep for you there Alone as the interstellar Dust of galaxies Congeals? ...