Spekulatioun
(Text by Ognyan ‘Flame’ Darinov)
Foreword:
Why do we want to know the future? A senseless question, in a way. We might as well ask, why do we want to know anything at all? Yet the future is uniquely elusive, it’s a story we have to base on reality and yet it’s still fiction. It is, precisely, SPECULATION. And notice how it relates to sight: specs (glasses), specular (reflective of light), spectacle (awesome scene). When we talk about the future, we wish to make visible that which is not.
This endeavour, in a way, is also senseless. The future exists in our imagination, but not within our immediate grasp. Of course, we have control over it, but never as much as we would like. Since 2020, the world has felt more and more unable to imagine the future. It is concerning. This human faculty is what drives much of our actions. As a mentor of mine once said – in order to shape the future, you have to imagine it.
I do not write about anxiety; I do not find it useful or interesting. But recently, I have had much of it. In fact, it is why I became fascinated with wanting to know the future. That’s what this poem is about. A desperate attempt to foretell, to glimpse beyond the immediate self; a self-destructive obsession; a begging with the deaf…
Does it work out in the end? Yes, yes, a senseless question. It’s not about the end, it’s about the journey.
𓆣
Mirror, mirror on the wall,
Why not tell it to me all
Right now? Let me scry the future
Let me scan the past
So my prophecies may butcher
All that cannot last.
Mirror, mirror on the wall,
Who has let our scripture fall
Lower than the lowly books?
Is reading not just prophecy,
Is it not heresy
Against what is true?
Little lines of black and blue
Shape the fading future,
Yet can tell us of it nothing.
Mirror, mirror on the wall,
Speak to me of naught at all;
You cannot tell the future!
*
I want to see more, I want to see more;
Ech wëll méi gesinn, ech wëll gesinn déi
Wouer Zukunft, dee woueren Ufank
Vun Deeg: Si komme gläich,
Si komme spéit, si komme fir vun eis
Agelueden ze ginn.
I want the futures that dare to spin
New webs of truth, new dreams of youth;
Past or future, present or lost,
Through my fingers and nails
These threads will be flossed
No matter what it takes.
My soles touch the bottom,
My hands scrape the surface,
And my legs freeze in the stream.
*
Water, water weaving life,
With flow and stillness both so rife,
What manmade hole or bed alike
Can hold thy shapeless symmetrie?
Water, water, the killer of books,
Quencher of fire and stealer of thirst,
Consumer of cities and digger of graves;
Won’t you serve this prophet that aches
To know the future?…
Waasser, Waasser, firwat sees du näischt?
Deng däischtergro Faarwe sinn awer stomm haut,
Wéini wäerts du schwätzen? Dis n’importe quoi !…
Waasser, Waasser, wéi gesäis du mech?
Eng Âme-perdue verluer am Bësch
Oder dee wouere Soothsayer?…
Waasser, Waasser, schwätzt elo
Oder sief fir ëmmer roueg!…
*
My toes are now pebbles, my hips are debris…
Oh, must I scry the trees?
Must I scry the flowers?
What needs be done to grasp the powers
Of foresight, of vision? Of clarity and fission,
Of creation and destruction?
Why is the mirror blind? Why is the water mute?
Why can’t I tell the future to stop taking my time?…
*
The Moon is upside-down,
It wants to tell me something.
Speak, oh speak, Selene!
Speak, Luna, speak, Artemis,
Speak, Tengri!
Whoever you are, speak!…
The Moon is upside-down.
Divination is delusion;
Divination is like the sciences:
If we know everything, there is nothing to learn.
Nothing to scry – nothing to yearn.
The Moon has gifted me the curse of sight.
I am no daughter of Poseidon,
But the water is my scion.
Water, water, erupt like a spring!
Boil like the volcano’s king,
Like magma quivers when you touch it.
The water around me boils
And the rage makes me blind.