Singularity Poem by Patti Masterman

The actors eyes talk beyond their lines
And their mouths seem to look far ahead of the moment,
Their hands playing restlessly in tiny movements,
as if the future were coming in way too soon to be able to react.

There is almost no movement to be seen,
but millions of things are happening invisibly now-
Besides the camera man thinking of how he really needs a drink,
The lead actress wondering about the spinach she ate at lunch break,
And if it is on her front teeth now, if it will show up on film.

The actors are all communicating without words now
Their eyes glinting with extra-normal meanings,
The boards flash more and more rapidly
with takes and outtakes, speaking in thick, chalky numerical tongues.
They seem aware the slightest gestures now can mean
either total annihilation
or exhilarating acceleration.
They are feeling a little woozy but can't recall drinking any alcohol
or taking pills. Everything feels just a little unreal.

They are beginning to lift off the ground, when they mouth their lines.
The sound people run about inanely, lifting the mics into the air
To catch their last sounds; the cameras from on high
having to back up, just to keep them barely in the sights.
It's no use trying to continue filming, but nobody has given the order
to stop; everyone is too surprised.

The actors movements are still perfectly in tandem;
they have rehearsed them so many times now-
though an opaquely flat blackness looms directly above,
an unknown factor among the shifting scenes,
where previously every minute detail was too familiar-
and there are small flashes of something like lightning, visible behind it.

Their lips still moving, but now forming into only soundless sentences;
or else, something is making the words inaudible,
something reaching out from above and sucking everything into itself-
even sound- even light-
even their memories, which are fading now
but they haven't had time to realize it yet-

Wardrobes of costumes are beginning to follow them up,
and props, and cameras; caught in a vortex, a strange tornado,
All of it spinning madly out of control now, picking up speed
At the edge of the singularity.

The director remains behind, too quietly in his chair, trying to figure it all out,
How best to profit from this new venue, aware of the challenging difficulties;
Of new cutting-edge science discoveries that might be required,
he finds that he is apparently thinking faster and faster
as if the brains brakes have ceased to work
as if the clutch of his mind is stuck in high gear-
and then he too is sucked upward without warning,
the last sight of him a shocked expression, as of falling off the earth-
into nothing- as if it were a destination in itself.

The set is empty now,
No one will drive the cars back to anywhere.
Above the buildings there is a slight popping noise,
And then nothing left- anywhere- nothing at all,
Nothing to show it was once an entire assembly,
a veritable hive of film-making activities and apparatus.

Nothing but the wind sweeping across the parking lot
and a story plot completely disappeared-
A story that was all too full, of latent possibility.