poetry by Sofy Yuditskaya
1.
I have flown over America in the middle of the night
ate endless sprawls of cities,
left left left behind the all-right
like slime mold their scintillating networks
they have consumed the voids between
long stretches of darkness
lakes of fire connected by highways
burn until the sun obscures them again
circling around my destination
a swarm of planes over the central store
trapped in the dream of flight
the children of the gods
have made a burning bubble of their home
2.
from Here
to There
sound waves waft and spill
as they will
my will
your will
How do you calm the will of man Mother Nature?
he says “I don’t want to come in for dinner-”
“Mother Nature!”
“I will have none of your pacing
ill placed–solicitations
you can take that trash outside”
and I hope
because faith
because love
these waves
of electron ocean swells
we crawled out
and criss cross double crossed
the streams of construct and creation
Please be sure to hit” R” as in Roger, between turns, it resets the game 🙂
3.
one day I was walking through the woods
backwards
and as I looked up past the leaves and branches I noticed a flock of birds flying
there was a wall of birds at the front
and behind each row of birds
there was an increasingly smaller row
until, at the very end,
there was a single bird
flying alone at the back
and I thought to myself
how strange
for this time of year
4.
let me tell you how to tell stories
how to weave a tale
the legend of Scheherazade is watered down
to say she was weaving the yarn of fate to keep the chance of an unkind from murdering her is too trite
the art of the tale is seeing the other
the ultimate other
man
and tell him something he wants to hear
something real
something he can believe in
or be enchanted by
something on that spectrum
the affairs of women are about creation and destruction
life, madness, and love, and death
hedonism and sympathy
5.
The Present, presents—
prepped for your participatory pleasure: a puzzle
a puzzle to solve
the puzzle of the present
gifted to you by right this moment!
here here here what she says
putting up everything around her
like she owns the place
no matter how hard i try to close my ears
snippets of the tale she spins seep through
worrying and spinning up towards the future
the past
perfect
frozen in forgotten time
i expend all my effort on pulling focus on The Present
she seems to be always slipping to the future past
so fast,
swirled in burning drags of time
whirling towards worry
falling back on better days
The Present has some infuriating ways
of showing me she loves me
but the key to a good relationship
is patience and tranquility
6.
how to be happy
how to be happy I want to know
how to sit back and let it all go
relax those cramps around your shoulders
from years and years and years of bending over
from those you thought could tell you so
how to be happy I want to know
to float through time without a care
that dream of so so, long ago
maybe I will get there still
by scratch of nail and iron will
through hunger and with no remorse
I’ll get there if I stay on course
a happy place where I could stay
I’ll see you there today today
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sofy (@horusVacui) is a media artist and educator working with video, interactivity, projections, code, paper, and salvaged material. Her work focuses on techno-occult rituals, street performance, and participatory art. Sofy’s performances enact and reframe hegemonies, she works with materials that exemplify our deep entanglement with petro-culture. She has worked on projects at Eyebeam, 3LD, the Rubin Museum, the Netherlands Institute voor Media Kunst, ARS Electronica, Games for Learning Institute, and has taught workshops at GAFFTA, MoMA, and the Guggenheim NY. She is currently working on her PhD in Audio-Visual Composition at NYU/GSAS.
