“Johnny can’t read”
Why Johnny can’t read
Why, Jonny can’t read

is his crisis a crisis
that crisises on
for hundred years

we ‘solved’ intelligence in fifty
we mechanized learning in a quarter
we metaphored into machines any second now

think graduating as humans is a point
as compliance to efficiency,
grading as cheese on a linear scale

with its wisdom but a pattern
as pâté for purity and 1 solution for 3 bodies
grasping BMI computing of minds thinning

Johnny, be good
johnny Be Good
But Johnny, Johnny can’t read.

—animasuri’25

—-•
trigger

“Johnny can’t read” IN: Arendt, H. (1958, not 1954). The Crisis in Education. Partisan Review (Collected into 1961’s “Between Past and Future”), 25 (XXV)(4), 493–420. https://archive.org/details/sim_partisan-review_1958_25_index/mode/1up and https://thi.ucsc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Arendt-Crisis_In_Education-1954.pdf

“there is always a temptation to believe that we are dealing with specific problems confined within historical, [disciplinary] and national boundaries and of importance only to those immediately affected. It is precisely this belief that in our time has consistently proved false. One can take it as a general rule in this century that whatever is possible in one country [and siloed discipline] may in the foreseeable future be equally possible in almost any other“

“The sounds are’a changin’
What was vroom vroooom
Tuut toot honk, tchooky chooook
bang clang chug-chug

is‘a changin’ to fzzzzzsssst
Bleep bleep Ssssshhhhhht
Vvvvvvrt vvvrt vvvvvvrt
sssssh st st ft ft

Tip tip tap tap lookin’ down
Woooosh’n passin’ by
Bzzzzzzzzzzzz overhead
Tsssss delivered by”

Said ol’ Martha-
Gentle-Rockin’-Chair
“creeek creeeek”
warm-woodedly

listin’ in
on ‘er gran’son
play’in’
as she too ever did

—animasuri’25

With hooks, and ropes;
adorning harnesses and safety belts;
claiming base-camps, helicopters and Sherpas

With the latest theory tested to practice;
deep voiced solid narration and epic pep-talks;
tempered steel focus and hardened grit

With paving ways for caravans to follow;
circling the spoils of gained ground;
feeding the fire, trampling the grid

Water mountains they climb.

                —animasuri’24

I wake while sound sleeps
the pumping of blood
from an accelerating heart
trying tinnitus, buzzing into the brain

as far as an eye can see
no bathroom lights, kitchen lights
no late night living room brawls
nor a balcony staring back with a full glass

I wake while songs, sons ‘n’ Sun sleep
a physiological soundtrack underscores singleness:
gurgling interiors, rushing fluid
snapping joints, groans the still could hear

the acidic burn of last night’s dinner
reminds me in early hours: we carry histories
in organs, consequences in flesh;
or so I do. I do.

I wake while counting the rings and ribs
of a slice of tree and a trunk of life
it’s all there, drunken with memory

there is no serenity during one’s wake

                           —animasuri’24