this poem walks the line between two worlds and asks me to do the same.

this poem is a reminder to myself to make weapons. not weapons like knives and implements of violence, but knives like kill gameplay, transformative implements, weapons with no point. to remember to wield them and enact change in my world. the tradition of language would demand that i call these tools but i have a knife for that too and i'll do what i want, thank you.

"to cut the universe of your world take shape
 though it naturally rounds and slides still
 make weapons every day and second
 by second dreaming of knives turns
 to dreaming of each round and slide
 rounding and sliding right through
 uncaring of perpetuity
 cosmic or existential cutting
 like knives without knives."

"which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

"in programming, state can be explicit or implicit
 that's a too-simple way of putting it but
 it will work for the purposes of our game.

 when state changes, does the code actually
 keep track of the new state, storing it some-
 where? or does it merely announce change
 and immediately forget?

 as a person, you contain directions. thoughts.
 states.

 do you store your states
 implicitly or explicitly?"

game 8
 
"when processes change, ask yourself
 this one question:

 am i storing this state change internally
 or announcing it and then forgetting?"

game 7

(i can't make a simpler game 7.)

"it is simple
 to make the meaning plain
 but it hurts
 revealing my own plainness."

"it is easy to eschew
 seeming oversimplification
 in favour of learned complexity.

 it is easy to break words in-
 to parts in-comprehensible masking
 meaning beneath the shade of end-
 less device."