Le Penseur

Written and Directed by Shomit Barua

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Animation by Nayt Keane

Cello by Topu Lyo

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The Thinker

 

No life should last this long

petrified, feeling around in the mind.

 

I remember only inequities,

like how others get to thank Rodin

for their forms’ suggested levity,

                                                          for his suspense of the certain

weight, the persistence of memory.

 

The other statues always seem to fall

in love, unaware of themselves;

                                                        they find laughter.

I try my hand at humor—

 

               A serious joke walks into a bar, and the bartender asks,

              “What can I get for you?”

              The joke replies, “There is nothing to get.”

 

              What’s the point?  I have

an ornamental mouth.

 

I watch a poet wander the garden

like a feather.  He has a hunger

for bronze, thirst for the sculptor’s marble.

 

I am unable even to scream

at the mass of what I am not,

but the etch of his pen

makes my silence

not silent at all.