I have a most frustrating friend, the quickness of whose mind
Does twirls and arahesques, and leaves me stranded far behind;
She leapfrogs conversations, till it seems somewhat absurd
To have my meanings grasped without a chance to say a word.
I blunder through apologies and labour explanations, .
To find she’s twigged already and is dancing with impatience;
How does one tell a joke to this exasperating friend
when before you’ve reached the middle, she is laughing at the end?
I try to speak in shorthand, but it brings me out in spots;
(I never could decipher those symbolic strokes and dots;)
She spots my inmost secrets {She’s is never known to fail)
By eyes and walk and gestures, and complexion flushed or pale
and so I introduced her — with my most transparent guile –
To a humanoid computer with a nicely, boyish smile,
l hoped that since his body gave no clues to what to say
She s conduct some conversations in a NORMAL kind of way.
But, they think each other’s thoughts
Before the other one has thought ’em,
And change their own before the other thinker can report ’em;
They state each other’s viewpoints with elan and erudition,
And fight each others’ battles, with themselves as opposition.
Their love is antiseptic — you can almost smell the Dettol –
For she is flesh and blood, while he is mostly glass and metal;
But though their bond’s unspoken – it is grasped before it’s said
They’d exchange each other’s vows if it were possible to wed.
They’ve turned into one entity; my presence comes amiss.
I feel that I’m intruding on their telepathic bliss
Such mental acrobatics being quite beyond my reach
l’ve returned to fellow mortale who communicate in SPEECH.
David Owen Nunes
David is many faceted, fascinating, fastidious, fair, fabulous and the other F word. He works in the Pensions Industry, plays occasional golf, and dreams of being able to write full time.
