Jakob Ryce
Bio:
Jakob Ryce is a freelance writer and teacher from Melbourne, Australia. He has a B.A. in English Lit, and his work has been published in On The Premises, Drunk Monkeys, The Fourth River, and the Wyndham Writing Awards. Jakob recently released his first book of poetry titled A Perfect Orbit available on Amazon, and he is currently working on his debut novel. Visit https://jakobryce.com/2021/08/15/a-perfect-orbit-out-now
We Call This Confluence
We call this confluence, yet we do not converge,nor do we vibrate—instead we animate money. The world requires us to sing yet we have sung the song of industry of impetus of rule
And now we wait with wrinkled uncertainty. The impassive shrink from the weight of wanting, insatiable appetites that defy gravity.
The abstinent grow from wanting nothing. The banquet is prepared but they do not eat while the rest of us cannot stop feasting.
The old world asked for nothing—
it was alone with its insects and fire it was boiling a stew for humanity it spoke in murmurs to the centuries
And now we are here, and it isn’t enough.
And now we wait with wrinkled uncertainty. The impassive shrink from the weight of wanting, insatiable appetites that defy gravity.
The abstinent grow from wanting nothing. The banquet is prepared but they do not eat while the rest of us cannot stop feasting.
The old world asked for nothing—
it was alone with its insects and fire it was boiling a stew for humanity it spoke in murmurs to the centuries
And now we are here, and it isn’t enough.
Sieve of Eratosthenes
You built your house too close to the shore—too close now at least; now that the floods have arrived. Your children’s hands are splayed upon a wall of glass; eyes wide, mouths slack, making lines with their fingers where the watermark has risen. A small fish explores before darting away. ‘It is not something people planned for,’ you tell them in a broken voice. They gaze at you a moment with sincere bewilderment, then turn back to the water lapping softly against the window. ‘We will have to move,’ you explain, beating them to the question. ‘Your father and I have discussed it.’ Your daughter begins to cry, her gaze fixed to the magnified world. You want to comfort her, but her brother is already stroking her back. Your son starts now—his brain adding and subtracting, multiplying and dividing the odds; forecasting a future that is almost certainly full of seawater. He says he has worked out an equation based on a calendar cycle of rising sea levels. You listen with horrified fascination. You don’t know where he gets it, this mind of his; certainly not from you. ‘It’s called the Sieve of Eratosthenes,’ he says, ‘an ancient algorithm used for locating prime numbers.’ As he speaks his eyes grow bright. He tells you he’s worked out the cycles, that the watermark will dip back during the next eclipse. Behind him, a lock of seaweed drifts by like an emerald crown. ‘If we wait it out, the ocean will stop rising.’ But it sounds like a myth. What next, a cycle of locusts? You try your earnest to hide your hardened dubiety. You see the hope in the boy’s face; hope has a way of clinging to children. But hope lacks logic. For you, it slipped into the esurient sea long ago. You force a smile as he talks. But you are no longer looking at him—you are gazing at the fish tank transforming your home, and with each kiss of the sea you feel the saltwater nibbling at your bones; a perpetual tide that refuses to fall away; a wave that will eventually devour everything.
