Direct link to video on Vimeo.
A Facebook friend linked to a website with instructions on how to make a thought shield to protect oneself from space aliens with telepathic powers. If I don’t link to it, it’s because I don’t want this post to become crank-bait. All I’ll say about the troubled people who take such sites seriously is that they are only more haunted than most by an angst about the nature of thought and scientific inquiry which seems endemic to our civilization. Here’s the text of the videopoem.
Thought Shield
There’s nowhere to hide. Ever since
the first abduction, I have felt them
sifting through my thoughts,
pinpoint headaches never in
the same spot twice.
Other times, something almost
imperceptible, more felt than heard,
like a breeze so slow there’s only
one moving blade of grass.
But I know it’s their doing that
I find myself questioning who I am.
When I start to doubt my
own memories, I know it’s time
for action. I will line a swim cap
with eight sheets of carbon-
impregnated Velostat, attach
grounding wires for when I sleep
& the silver-fingered aliens slip
through the walls like fish.
My mind will appear in their probes
only as an absense, black
as any hole that used to be a sun.
Love the poem. I think the fear of alien abduction is the modern day version of fear of devil possession. Or maybe it’s the “gay agenda” that’s going to take us over, or Obama’s agenda, or any of the myriad scary things out there we have no control over and seem like threats. The power of the unconscious and of the imagination is amazing.
Yes, that’s true. Just think of all whacked religions that have been founded over the centuries, and all the people who still take those fevered visions as literal truth.
Holy crap.
Fabulous found poem; startling for its source material.
I like the calm images that you’ve paired with the poem. Accentuates the disquiet; creates an echo of normalcy. Reflected.
Thanks. I’m glad to hear those images worked for you. It’s actually not a found poem, just a persona poem based on some of things people were saying online.
Nice work. The images are great with this… those reflections of sky with all that earthly debris moving across it.
Oh, thanks — that’s especially good to hear coming from a former film major. My lack of sophistication in cinematography and film composition does make me rather unsure about the success of some of these videos.