Every year, C.M. Simpson gathers up the
short stories, flash fiction and poetry she’s written, published, or prepared
for publishing, and puts them into a single volume. This year, there are two
volumes. The second volume consists of all the work produced, prepared for
publication or published in 2013.
As C.M. explains at the beginning of each
volume “poems and short stories form the
playground I use to explore ways of putting words on paper to create different
effects” and each volume contains a variety of styles and subjects,
accompanied by what it was that inspired her at the time. Sometimes, the
inspiration comes from trying to write a poem in a new genre—in this case,
post-apocalyptic.
Written on October 4, 2013 for this anthology, using ‘Virtuality’
as a theme, this poem came to mind in the darkness of a Canberra spring
evening.
The cyborg
carried a world in its mind’s eye
It carried a way
of forgetting
At least while
the stories were spun
And when it slept
There were a
myriad of eyes to watch
A myriad of
invisible beams to keep it safe
But we were
content to let it sleep
The longer it
rested
The more we could
play
In gardens that
smelt of growing things
On grass, soft
underfoot
Such was the
power of its projections
The illusory
sensations spun by its memories and the power source within
The holographic
projections
Powered by memory
For a long time,
it stayed
Letting us enjoy
the places of its childhood
For as long as we
could keep its powerpack charged
It was a small
price to pay
To forget the
apocalypse for a while.
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