Worldbuilding While U Wait:

The Story of the Formation of Our World

Told in Poetic Form

By Sally Morem

A perfect Hindu?
What a laughable proposition
Let me tell you
The minutiae that man laid on me
Drove me crazy

He would go out
And amble along the seaside boulevard
While I hacked away
At the red tape hamstringing his projects

ButBeing There
No, I really mean
Really Being There
Now thats the trick

The Buddhists call it mindfulness
Something that holds no attraction for me at all
Drive your mind as hard as possible
Go pedal to the metal
Burn rubber
Peel and stick karma
On your rear window

But Judgment Day had come for Shakuhachi
And I was glad for him
Are we wild, we Americans?
I asked him once
He gave me one of his
Impenetrable answers:
Shells curve to infinity.

Yeah right, I said
From There to Finitude
He didnt intercept my cinematic joke
But he caught my meaning just fine

The galaxy is big, really big
Bigger than America, or so it would seem
Nome, Alaskawouldnt you love to go there?
Dearest me!
Hands office!
(Off ass, wouldnt you know?)
I will if you wont

Shakuhachi told me that in another universe
Our cousins faced the 1968 Moon Disaster
Made our own 1968 look like the proverbial
Sunday School picnic by comparison

Listen, he hissed
Do you want to know a secret?
No
Neither do I

The Daughter Skald Satiety Society
Was very busy trying to put civilization
Back together over in the previously
Mentioned universe

They established the Geography Cat contest
To help get the link-minds off of their
Self-induced malaise

Their New Jazz Quartet helped some
By playing Sole Music Moderne
Throughout their officially sanctioned
Government managed bandwidths

A spotless Dalmatian asked the Cat
How would you know?


Runic characters explained how
Those other Vikings
Visited that other Minnesota
At the very spot where the other Germans
Built Nuremberg Lake Catholic Church
Some 900 years later

The Cat asked the Dalmatian to play
Cloak-Dagger-Twig
The Cat lost by drawing Twig
And returned those mutilated
Borrowed spots

The Skald Daughters remind us
That even in our universe
Precisely = Exactly, with somersault
And
Quasi = Winter
Useful things to know

Snapfinger is my favorite flower
Whats yours?
Do you keep it on your stormdeck?

Before we get carried away
Shakuhachi reminded me
I say old chap
Get the ball right back
Theres a dire opening in our offensive line

Shieldlaw is firm
In the alternative universe
Linklossing, Groundnurse, and Peppersnow
Will remain
With but a rosary fragment between them
Blessed above all others in that Church
The rest of you may go



And now, lets all form a long, long, long
Line for commencement
You are all ready for the Real World Now
The Real Universe is ready to received you
Whatever it takes

Worldbuilders, dream on
The cynic
The gardner
The designer
The romantic
The clown
The sage
The beginner

O, brave new world
That has such people int.
I like that line.
Can one of my characters steal it?

They muse and grumble and mutter
Creatively of course
Arguing over the history theyre fashioning
Spewing forth important dates:
1945
1776
1861
1917
1989
2001
2029

The blue pale scaffolding
Of what once was
And still is hovering
Overlooking Shakuhachis Judgment Day
He failed to impress his masters

Damocles sword
Slowly
Descends
Over his neck
The worldbuilders tell him point blank
Youve got to get the coastlines right
Or our design simply wont work.

Dont forget the fake fossils
Or the fake cosmos
It wont do at all to let on
About Real Reality
And cattails
There must be cattails

He scurries to work
Repairing the damage of his inattention
Attention must be paid after all
It earns $5.37 an hour

Please please me and settle down
Commencement commences now
Your graduation project is deemed
Fully acceptable
Highly artistic
Wholly original

Glide along now
Accept your diplomas
Your parent worldbuilders
Are pleased at how well
Youve learned your lines
The fore-ordained picture-taking session
Will occur in 15 minutes
At the reception in the foyer

Shakuhachi
Fades from my sight