Aubrey Lieberman Selected Poems and Essays

Why Humans Can Fly Created by Aubrey Lieberman in collaboration with ChatGPT 5.3 turbo — March 2026 Human beings cannot fly. We have no wings, no hollow bones, no feathers, no aerodynamic body plan. Compared to birds, we are poorly designed for the air. And yet we fly. Not by anatomy, but by mind. The origins of this paradox may lie far above the ground, in the trees. Early primates lived in a three-dimensional world of branches, an environment defined not by stability, but by uncertainty. Every surface had to be evaluated: its strength, its flexibility, its angle, its motion under load. To move through this world required continuous calculation. A leap from one branch to another is not simply a movement. It is a prediction. Distance, trajectory, compliance of the landing surface, grip at the moment of contact, the body as a projectile in space. In this setting, intelligence is not abstract. It is physical. The brain becomes a modeling system for forces. Torque, bal...

  Magic Created by Aubrey Lieberman in collaboration with ChatGPT 5.2 turbo March 2026 A magician steps onto the stage lights dim coins vanish a woman floats in air a deck of cards complies with the impossible The audience gasps The magician appears to have violated the laws that govern the universe But everyone knows deep down that all of this is an illusion An illusion they are usually incapable of explaining Hence the applause Outside the theater in the desert southwest a lizard’s venom contains peptides so precisely shaped that they lock molecular switches in another animal’s body The fight ends and the prey succumbs This predator will need to eat again next month Inside every animal cell mitochondria burn oxygen according to a choreography of proteins inherited from our bacterial ancestors which learned this trick billions of years ago The immune system recognizes enemies it has never encountered and remembers those it has Atoms become galaxies and then become us on their jour...

Snowdance Created by Aubrey Lieberman in collaboration with ChatGPT 5.2 turbo February 2026 ⸻ Olympic mogul skiing is magnificent But certainly unnatural The bumps are machined The spacing is precise The fall line is straight Rhythm is controlled, rehearsed, exact The skier moves like a piston in a cylinder Compression, extension, compression Astounding choreographed aerials Occur at predetermined intervals From predetermined launch geometry The symmetry is imposed The geometry repeats The terrain is periodic The performance is measured Flawless consistency wins gold When this became an Olympic sport Thirty-five years ago It was called Freestyle At that time it seemed That the athletes were Simply jumping for joy Because the skiing was so much fun But freestyle skiing lives on At ski resorts With steep ungroomed terrain Open or gladed Plenty of snow And many skiers And many passages The moguls are unnatural A consequence Of the passage of humans Unlike sand dunes Shaped by the wind The...