The Purpling

a poem by Nick Montfort

You have so far failed to inquire about whether they listened to the whole symphony or watched the movie entire; nor if they heard every note or perceived every object that was photographed, or if they managed to somehow traverse the Tunnel of Love out of sequence. With rails gone for guns, the option of not expending the full cartridge is more palpable. You have been trained to assemble the story blindfolded in under a minute and sometimes do so for amusement at cocktail parties, being careful not to point it at anyone. But not these fragments, shored against ruin, please. I don't keep them oiled up properly. My social life took a sharp turn for the worse after I started contributing to a literary work which uses every word in the English language, some of them more than once. At this rate, one day we'll develop something that can read it.