Art: Do you know what your neighbor did last night by Riikka Fransila, @vintageart_originals
GLUXOXGLUXOXGLUXOXGLUXOXGLUXOX
I was at an intersection of historic proportions
(it had appeared in three sci-fi novels I had read
at three different times in my all-too-earthbound life)
when the all-too-human-looking female robot
leaned in my car window
and I thought I’d seen this in a hundred films.
Expecting a clichéd proposition such as
You want a date, sweetie?
or, You in the mood for a good time?
Instead she utters with automated sensuality
Gluxoxgluxoxgluxoxgluxoxgluxox
and I think, What intersection am I really at?
Where in time and space?
I don’t recall time travelling recently
but here is the most beautiful all-too-human-looking
female robot repeatedly uttering
Gluxoxgluxoxgluxoxgluxoxgluxox
Gluxoxgluxoxgluxoxgluxoxgluxox
Gluxoxgluxoxgluxoxgluxoxgluxox…
I have no idea what to say
something lustful or erudite
and she says, Erudition isn’t called for tonight,
as if she had read my mind
suddenly I realize maybe it is her poem
I want to voice authorial protest
to take command of my thoughts
instead the automatic sensuality of
Gluxoxgluxoxgluxoxgluxoxgluxox
Gluxoxgluxoxgluxoxgluxoxgluxox
Gluxoxgluxoxgluxoxgluxoxgluxox…
I take out my wallet
offer everything I have
to leave me alone
and just then she smiles
and I see teeth
a colour I could not describe
my car turning into something else
a small futuristic spaceship of sorts
and I fear I will be rearranged next
it is, after all, her poem
this all-too-human-looking female robot
and all I can do is go along for the ride.
About the author:
Fiction writer, poet, and playwright J. J. Steinfeld lives on Prince Edward Island, where he is patiently waiting for Godot’s arrival and a phone call from Kafka. While waiting, he has published eighteen books, including Anton Chekhov Was Never in Charlottetown (Stories, Gaspereau Press), Would You Hide Me? (Stories, Gaspereau Press), Misshapenness (Poetry, Ekstasis Editions), Identity Dreams and Memory Sounds (Poetry, Ekstasis Editions), Madhouses in Heaven, Castles in Hell (Stories, Ekstasis Editions), An Unauthorized Biography of Being (Stories, Ekstasis Editions), and Absurdity, Woe Is Me, Glory Be (Poetry, Guernica Editions). Over fifty of his one-act plays and a handful of full-length plays have been performed in Canada and the United States, including the full-length plays The Franz Kafka Therapy Session, The Golden Age of Monsters, and A Television-Watching Artist, and the one-act plays Godot’s Leafless Tree, The Waiting Ends, A Question of Eternity, The Entrance-or-Not Barroom, The Word-Lover, Laugh for Sanity, Back to Back, More Than Money, Imaginative Drinking, In a Washroom of a Prestigious Art Gallery, A Play of Disbelief, and Memory Sounds.
Art: Do you know what your neighbor did last night by Riikka Fransila, Helsinki, Finland, @vintageart_originals
