COPERNICAN SYSTEM REVISITED
tellers of tales
doctors of spin
can get smothered
strangled in
all that
yarn
this
how the world demands
we do not
turn
eschew
revolution
history freeze
take
everything as it
comes, it falls
without (us) and
out of the blue, within
GLUE, CHEWING GUM, STICKY TAPE
glue, chewing gum,
sticky tape
its so fragmented now
how do we
stick it all
back together
without trying
to condense and collaose
one truth, one tale, one
way, a
single narrative
rammed down throats
with incredible pressure
(have
to go to
Sci Fi horror classic for
best available metaphor)
glue, gum
sticky tape
liberal application of
extraterrestial acid
NEED FOR GREED
you thought
it would be free and fait
and open and competitve
not that all these pinprick
brain heads
were attached
to the same
organism
metastasizing bigger than
the big bang
until it couldn’t
until big crunch comes together
and singularity sucks down
a hole
through which, who
can say
the mind of the universe thinks
up an infinitely better option
or slightly better one
for for humanity to
evolve again
of course
you will need greed
BIRD
bird asked me
about human intelligence
wondered how
when we got wings
we became
such murderous beings
dropping two thousand
pounds of ultra high explosive
on a child lest
she grow up
not having been
denied the experience
to think for herself
speak
the truth and other
incalculably bad things
SPECIES
time travel back
to ancient Athens
they made Socrates
drink hemlock
on the grounds
of corruption
lucky for us
the charge did not stick
we saw
through thst
slander, laughed
at that spin
not that we have
the capacity to do that today
when we revere our leaders
for the lies
that they tell us
buy into the fake narratives
as our matter of
life our death
refuse to believe anything
that is not illogical
and ittational
as testament to the devotion
with which
we contrive our decline
time travel back to Ancient Athens
like an alien planet now
so distant in
space and time
MACHINE
sometimes I slip
into a bad
philosophical space
lose it in
my psyche
flirt with
falling off the rails
when it
comes to my own humanity
thinking
if you other,
you alien
no way
you think, feel like me,
we never
can
agree
our speech
never intersect, no
coincidence
within belief
shame on me
shame on me
I bleed, I desire, I want
I need
I fear
and Oh, my God, how
much I fear
and yet as you look
wonder
what you see
it could well be alien
I may be just machine
SQUIZZ AT K2
I am digging through
rock and concrete
searching
for secret gospels
in the ruins of a bombed
out city
who can say there is not
a pitcher buried deep
or just
beneath
the surface
as it was in ’45
under the sand of Egypt
six feet
tall filled to the brim
with the voice of God?
searching hard around the farm
maybe through the mine dumps
beneath the Colosseum,
Acropolis or
great temple of Mars
failing which
we should explore
the death zone mountains;
Annapurna, Everest,
or tip it over
on its side and take
a squizz at K2
LOVE DUST
came across
a speck of love
dust
in the Universe
travelling at, near,
or beyond
the speed
of light
in slowed down
approaching Earth
like the alien
mother ship
in Independence Day
which became an issue
of global security
national concerm
world waiting with baited breath
praying it would
burn up
in the Earth’s atmosphere
failing which
there is always the
nuclear option
deflect the trajectory
or vaporize entirely
for if that speck of love
should touch anything human
could go extreme viral
wreck our civilization
the one we have spent
decades
building and
re-building
love bringing
the extinction
of all we love
FAIR PROPORTION
they bring the hybrid
to his cell
she needs to talk to him
since species-wise she
has a fair proportion
of his genetic makeup
here she is
for what it’s worth
I agreed to meet her
hard to figure out
exactly what
is human
but one must
presume
it is there
so this is it
this is in me, embodiment
of what I am
capable
the likeness is
there but everything
about him
seems guarded, hidden
as if he instinctively realizes
all that is terrible in
his capacity
all that
can be wrong, go wrong,
and he did terrible wrong
she aaked to talk to him
get answers to questions
she felt she needed
answers to, for her
crucially important
so she could figure out
for herself what is them
what is us
we talk
She is so insistent in
going over things, knowing details,
minutiae, everything
exactly
I look at him one lsst time
try to see through those eyes
(I do not have human eyes
to me they
are untrustworthy,
thoroughly upsetting)
I want to tell.him.
he might have, ought to,
have sought forgiveness
for his crimes, these
humsn crimes
senze
a moment– out of nowhere
of grace
and dignity
so I leave with a wish
that he finds courage and
composure at his execution
having killed so many of
my people, pure and hybrid,
so different and yet
who knows how close
in what is felt inside.
She leaves the cell. We
ask no questions. What
hopes she has, what
reassurance she found
is hers alone. We
should not enquire.
FAR FROM IT
far from it,
we did not
get rid
of them
as vicious and
insufferable
as they had become
we just let them
fade into nothing
embrace
non-being
going nowhere
we simply allowed them
to reach
that destination
perhaps ushering them
a little
but it was for
their own good
genocide?
no that is their
much contested term
and yet
habitual practice
such actions
lie beyond us
this word
not in
our vocabulary
but see
look here
admire
what we have done with
the planet
how we have integrated
everything, biological
and technological
organic
and machine
everything flourishing,
renewable and recyclable
this
our mandate terrestrial
and cosmic
in equal aesthetic and
intellectual measure
ours
is the new spirituality
to take
across the galaxy
theirs a
contempt for themselves,
the sacredness of being
and life
of every living thing
poems 2 die for