Read a poem by another poet written
on the same day:

How much change in a second?
This is the subject of the 2001 summer school
but it's a repeat
and though you can see them
they can't see you
so press the buttons
and get on the line in the dark
till your brain lights up
and the novel takes on the plot again
wrestles gritty characters
down to the bone
the moment where noise explodes
into the room
and before lightning strikes once more
you escape into the crowd
march along the tunnel
singing songs of Mesopotamia
to the wink of light
so many messages you'd send
later from the trenches
already forming in your mind
little dancing lines
you get across on wires
tightropes of the heart
that are strung across the chasm
of solitude
a lifetime that changes in a second
in a thought of Professor J.
at the University of Amsterdam
that group identity encourages you
to think of yourself
counter-intuitively
and when the children came
they grew to show you the hidden corners
all cobwebbed and cluttered
with the surface tensions of centuries
the more bubbles burst the better
and when your powers of communication
have been perfected
into a talking head co-locating
with choices and chances
to get on and do what you want
boundaries blurred then abolished
till space is no question
let's have the choice you'll say
since it's there

Vienna