Rattlebox III
Mike Allen, Kendall Evans, & David C. Kopaska-Merkel
27 July 2009
WITHIN THE BOX
Skinner's daughter is or is not
within the box, a paradox.
Is she learning an algebraic maze?
Programmed with rewards that come
When she turns the gum-machine knob?
Bowing and bobbing repeatedly, inexplicably,
As if praying to an idol?
Is she alive or dead, or
In some meditative, existential state
Somewhere inbetween?
Is it a Skinner or a Schroedinger box?
Or is it Jack who is or is not in there,
While we
|
OUTSIDE THE BOX
Crank the crank madly to determine his state, Listening to the song about Going 'round the mulberry bush Or Robin's proverbial barn, Can you hear the weasel popping? Of course not! If any information escapes the box The waveform collapses And whoever comes to be inside If anyone, will know |
THINK INSIDE THE BOX
Make no sense of these thoughtforms Flickering from this being’s brain Electrified in its own mazemind That might be Skinner’s daughter Might be Jill or might be Jack Climbing the beanstalk down the Gravity well that’s a mere pore on an Asexual god’s n-dimensional skin In its multiple mind they go there But don’t they know |
BEYOND THE BOX
It's terribly important
To not lose sight
Of the real questions
The important question
Is not whether Pandora or Rapunzel
Or Sleeping Beauty
Is still in the box
Ever was in the box
Clings to life
Inside the box.
|
Holy crap, there may be no box But how do you know? What might you become When the waveform collapses? And if the box is never opened Can you get to what matters? Even so? Or maybe All that matters is to |
BREAK THE GLASS
In one version She’s been sealed inside that box since Before Big Bad Bang Though how she got in there That’s a whole ’nother when, even A whole ’nother (kind of) matter (or anti-matter) And what you need to do To spring her is to |
BEYOND THE COSMOS
Let your eyes be fragmented
As your vision clears through higher dimensions
Then no box is closed to you
Reach in, grab a fistful of anything
Whole universe your Halloween candy bag
But! What! Is this?
Go to rescue your ageless sexless gorgeous
Jilljack and you find four corners
And no way in!
And so you
Pick up the box and rattle it,
Like one of those Christmas presents
Hidden away on the top shelf
Behind your mom’s hatboxes
Or beneath shoeboxes
In the closet bottom or
Beneath the basement stairs
Or beyond the heavy brass-bound door.
Rattle it a moment or two
And you are convinced, by the distinctive sound
It contains a time machine.
You open the box, climb inside,
And travel back to confront Skinner
Ask him why he locked his daughter
In the Box. He punches your light out,
The time-travel paradox subsequently
BREAKING ALL WAVE FRONTS SIMULTANEOUSLY
So are you going to open it? The wave collapses.
Or it doesn't.
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