Form: list poem.
Stoned again,
Post-hasted doubting and raving,
Confused why I torture myself so –
Truer words never spoken as lies,
The dull, pumpkin-glow of the broken lamp casting ghosts,
Filling my visions with demons I’d thought excised.
Stoned again,
Alone in its tendrils again,
I travel –
Travel through ideas shattered and plexiglass melting,
Singing and burning as it covers my senses like a myelin sheath,
Conducting protons-only,
But my brain is slow and the receptors dull,
And the raw input manifests only as trails of spirits.
Stoned again,
The madness thick as bog sludge,
Stinking of scorched sulfur,
It kicks corroded and dead gears into spin,
Generating false ideas and wild delusions
That I know aren’t real but –
Nothing else here is, either, especially not you,
Disembodied you, listener.
Stoned again,
But not alone this time no,
Her idea ghosting simulacra,
Taunting me with her shortcomings and spitting like venom
Those thousands of details I’d always hated while
Refusing acknowledgment, but
Like a brick golem she’s got a core,
A conduit of last-year’s hopes, and I flee, panicked –
Stoned again,
The clouds high above the ruined October grass,
Laughing like spaceships, and returning me to boyhood fancy:
I’ll never be an astronaut.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
In Hoc Signe Vinces [In This Sign They Shall Conquer]
Title was commonly used in reference to Roman conquests. Wiki it, asshole. Form is Sestina.
From the corroded portal of his mouth erupted sunlight,
Spilling forth and poisoning the land; the mad god
Had spoken, and from his words issued only collapse,
Driving into frenzy his legions, and among those followers
He counted scores of angels and seraphim,
And not a figure illuminated in creation avoided the light as it had fallen.
Poised on a shrouded throne, the mad god set his chosen
Legions forward, those grim harbingers of dawn and sunlight.
At their head he appointed Lucifer, Champion of the Seraphim,
To press forward ahead of the voice of the mad god,
To secure for he and his entire coterie of followers
A new kingdom, ripe and wonting for conquest and collapse.
Thousands were smashed under the iron-shod boot of illumination, and the collapse
Of worlds and nations imminent: the forebears of man had fallen.
Reaping the glories of the coming dawn, Lucifer and his followers
Became drunk on the power and succumbed further to the grasp of sunlight,
And lifted high their praise of the almighty Yahweh, the mad god –
Thus it was that the taste of dominion developed in the seraphim.
At the very height of their favor to the mad god, that Champion of Seraphim,
Lucifer, had come to know those broken sons of man post-collapse,
And had come also to understand their mutual worship of the mad god;
That is to say, he had come to know that both he and they were fallen,
But he knew not where from – were they not the progeny of sunlight,
The very pinnacle of creation, he and all of his followers?
Some immortal truth was exposed to he as lie; that those followers,
Supplicants to the mad god, counting among them man, angel and seraphim,
Had been cheated by that enthroned and shrouded speaker of sunshine,
Cruelly coerced into exacting upon man an all-encompassing collapse,
And he, called now by Gabriel as Satan, dwelt on how far man had fallen:
Man must have a new dawn, he decided, and man himself should be god.
By even mere thought of this, Lucifer had maligned himself with god
And the challenge lay now in bringing the light of truth to his followers;
Over time, a full third of all the mad god’s kingdom had fallen
From his poisoned grace, but many enemies had he made among the seraphim.
They lusted now for little else than bringing the rebel sect the full circle of collapse,
And though the cost would be great, always high was the cost of true sunlight.
But justice is seldom conducted in sunlight, and anathema to the mad god –
For in delivering man’s collapse, he had forever damned his followers,
And Lucifer alone among the seraphim understood how far they all had fallen.
From the corroded portal of his mouth erupted sunlight,
Spilling forth and poisoning the land; the mad god
Had spoken, and from his words issued only collapse,
Driving into frenzy his legions, and among those followers
He counted scores of angels and seraphim,
And not a figure illuminated in creation avoided the light as it had fallen.
Poised on a shrouded throne, the mad god set his chosen
Legions forward, those grim harbingers of dawn and sunlight.
At their head he appointed Lucifer, Champion of the Seraphim,
To press forward ahead of the voice of the mad god,
To secure for he and his entire coterie of followers
A new kingdom, ripe and wonting for conquest and collapse.
Thousands were smashed under the iron-shod boot of illumination, and the collapse
Of worlds and nations imminent: the forebears of man had fallen.
Reaping the glories of the coming dawn, Lucifer and his followers
Became drunk on the power and succumbed further to the grasp of sunlight,
And lifted high their praise of the almighty Yahweh, the mad god –
Thus it was that the taste of dominion developed in the seraphim.
At the very height of their favor to the mad god, that Champion of Seraphim,
Lucifer, had come to know those broken sons of man post-collapse,
And had come also to understand their mutual worship of the mad god;
That is to say, he had come to know that both he and they were fallen,
But he knew not where from – were they not the progeny of sunlight,
The very pinnacle of creation, he and all of his followers?
Some immortal truth was exposed to he as lie; that those followers,
Supplicants to the mad god, counting among them man, angel and seraphim,
Had been cheated by that enthroned and shrouded speaker of sunshine,
Cruelly coerced into exacting upon man an all-encompassing collapse,
And he, called now by Gabriel as Satan, dwelt on how far man had fallen:
Man must have a new dawn, he decided, and man himself should be god.
By even mere thought of this, Lucifer had maligned himself with god
And the challenge lay now in bringing the light of truth to his followers;
Over time, a full third of all the mad god’s kingdom had fallen
From his poisoned grace, but many enemies had he made among the seraphim.
They lusted now for little else than bringing the rebel sect the full circle of collapse,
And though the cost would be great, always high was the cost of true sunlight.
But justice is seldom conducted in sunlight, and anathema to the mad god –
For in delivering man’s collapse, he had forever damned his followers,
And Lucifer alone among the seraphim understood how far they all had fallen.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Circle of Ash (Black and Grey Scarves version 2) - elegy
A circle of ash cascades down the column of cold air next to the stone-plaster ashtray,
each dead and grey particle entwining and encircling the other, forming and outfalling from double-helix sequences that nobody notices,
providing half-seen distractions for the one standing idly smoking a Camel – a Turkish Royal –, and he’s looking like he’s working something out:
Why bother waiting? He’s paused, waiting until the cigarette burns low, the addiction sated, ceased in action until the decision of the nicotine forces departure, and finally decides to reject life – but to slowly wither here in the frozen snows and devouring winds?
Standing, paused still, wondering at the ashtray now, and as the embers cool to ashes, questions of scarves and stones arise: why choose the half-finished, woolen-scratchy black-and-grey scarf?
For fashion and heat, possibly, although the nature of an unfinished scarf and colors contradictory to fashion sense dictate otherwise, suggesting another motive –
The same, then, as why he carries the wolf-stone from Minnesota, a reminder of failings long-past and futures impossible, and as my mind turns to wonder at such things, the burning sun of the Camel finally dies,
And he steps away from the plaster-stone ashtray, leaving behind wool, stone, and a broken double-helix of ash.
each dead and grey particle entwining and encircling the other, forming and outfalling from double-helix sequences that nobody notices,
providing half-seen distractions for the one standing idly smoking a Camel – a Turkish Royal –, and he’s looking like he’s working something out:
Why bother waiting? He’s paused, waiting until the cigarette burns low, the addiction sated, ceased in action until the decision of the nicotine forces departure, and finally decides to reject life – but to slowly wither here in the frozen snows and devouring winds?
Standing, paused still, wondering at the ashtray now, and as the embers cool to ashes, questions of scarves and stones arise: why choose the half-finished, woolen-scratchy black-and-grey scarf?
For fashion and heat, possibly, although the nature of an unfinished scarf and colors contradictory to fashion sense dictate otherwise, suggesting another motive –
The same, then, as why he carries the wolf-stone from Minnesota, a reminder of failings long-past and futures impossible, and as my mind turns to wonder at such things, the burning sun of the Camel finally dies,
And he steps away from the plaster-stone ashtray, leaving behind wool, stone, and a broken double-helix of ash.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Discs and Tigers
I got a pocketful of pennies and a mind full of lies,
ever-mindful that neither form of currency will avail -
I see there lying just beneath the surface a sort of beast
I've never yet slain, yet I fear the chase:
always the hunter, KI've lost my spear,
left it lying next to my shame,
and I assume flight -
Scattering pennies in my wake in desperate distraction,
they fail to attract it's attention, the copper approximations
slipping, falling, revolving about fruitlessly,
yet there, caught in the reflection lies still the beast,
snarling and ravin - but stationary.
Turning, ready to die with a thousand unruths,
I face the beast -
I face the befanged and hideously-mouthed monster, finding -
the lie projected before me and,
finding the thing now in flight, panicked at it's discovery,
the adrenaline engages, sending it and I into a fury
as the last of the discs cease revolving.
ever-mindful that neither form of currency will avail -
I see there lying just beneath the surface a sort of beast
I've never yet slain, yet I fear the chase:
always the hunter, KI've lost my spear,
left it lying next to my shame,
and I assume flight -
Scattering pennies in my wake in desperate distraction,
they fail to attract it's attention, the copper approximations
slipping, falling, revolving about fruitlessly,
yet there, caught in the reflection lies still the beast,
snarling and ravin - but stationary.
Turning, ready to die with a thousand unruths,
I face the beast -
I face the befanged and hideously-mouthed monster, finding -
the lie projected before me and,
finding the thing now in flight, panicked at it's discovery,
the adrenaline engages, sending it and I into a fury
as the last of the discs cease revolving.
22 hours
Click. Scroll, scroll. Enter search query:
1983.
Click. Scroll, scroll. Add to query:
blonde hair, blue eyes. Fair complexion -
No results found. Click here to pay $25
to be told again,
no records were found - you're a ghost
in our system.
Please wait thirty seconds between queries,
it says, - what are moments to decades?
Nothing, nothing:
Modify query: April 5,
Nothing, nothing: no relevant data found.
So must it be with we bastard sons of man; surely,
the result of some flesh union whose results
can be further yet called ghosts, immaterial
on this most organic of planes, slipping through
the pixels, emerging lost to the system that was claimed to
see all -
like most, however, deeply corrupt and flawed,
incapable -
although that's not fair, as for
a machine to effectively function, all parts
must operate effectively but
that most critical of components,
blood that begat further blood,
sower and reaper of bastard seed,
builder of false cities, that thing -
that cog and wheel and chain -
Those components critical gone, leaving not wont
but cruel, terrible want,
unable to even be characterized as need -
and yet I saw,
was witness to a system fully-functional and
well-maintained to such a wondrous degree that
it was a marvel -
a marvel that threatened to glamour mine eyes to blindness,
atrophying my good-intentions, shatter my self-delusion,
to realize that the machine-other has /extensions/
hunting and probing, searching out and connected -
but not my system, no -
Maybe it's my data-entry punch card, poorly translated from
early binary, maybe, but I don't believe so - no -
"You just can't express these things in yes or no sequences"
and these questions just can't be asked without feeding into the queries.
1983.
Click. Scroll, scroll. Add to query:
blonde hair, blue eyes. Fair complexion -
No results found. Click here to pay $25
to be told again,
no records were found - you're a ghost
in our system.
Please wait thirty seconds between queries,
it says, - what are moments to decades?
Nothing, nothing:
Modify query: April 5,
Nothing, nothing: no relevant data found.
So must it be with we bastard sons of man; surely,
the result of some flesh union whose results
can be further yet called ghosts, immaterial
on this most organic of planes, slipping through
the pixels, emerging lost to the system that was claimed to
see all -
like most, however, deeply corrupt and flawed,
incapable -
although that's not fair, as for
a machine to effectively function, all parts
must operate effectively but
that most critical of components,
blood that begat further blood,
sower and reaper of bastard seed,
builder of false cities, that thing -
that cog and wheel and chain -
Those components critical gone, leaving not wont
but cruel, terrible want,
unable to even be characterized as need -
and yet I saw,
was witness to a system fully-functional and
well-maintained to such a wondrous degree that
it was a marvel -
a marvel that threatened to glamour mine eyes to blindness,
atrophying my good-intentions, shatter my self-delusion,
to realize that the machine-other has /extensions/
hunting and probing, searching out and connected -
but not my system, no -
Maybe it's my data-entry punch card, poorly translated from
early binary, maybe, but I don't believe so - no -
"You just can't express these things in yes or no sequences"
and these questions just can't be asked without feeding into the queries.
Syllable nonsense 2
Fourteen
days this time I
waited, secure in my
hope that not merely might your eyes
alight onto mine, but
that there you might
find life.
days this time I
waited, secure in my
hope that not merely might your eyes
alight onto mine, but
that there you might
find life.
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