Leave Me As You Found Me

Scrubbing away information,
its death-grip robs you of skin,
your default identification -
no pigment or melatonin;
licking away separation,
eugenics can't wait to begin,
in a quarantined room there's no cause to assume that you'll leave any cinders within.

A canvas left stainless for static,
impressionable pupils devoid,
experience taught them to panic,
but we've no reference on what to avoid;
through filters our curves are prosaic,
in shorthand, rejected by Freud,
who could have known that our parents had shown us the reasons they want us destroyed?

Pre-programmed

Queues of batteries,
the pulse of echo chambers,
lowing sacred cows,
your spybank diagnosis,
amputated potential.

Characteristics,
that lottery of foresight,
an expert's judgement,
acknowledgement's mercy,
expression neatly curtailed.

Our trojan concepts,
automatically refused,
tracked by satellites,
transplanted like spare livers,
promenaded and shelved.

The Incommensurable

Grown in ecliptical paddyfields' oil-slicks,
stirred into stew by the oars of the cynics,
(administered a searing cure;)
distant promethean heritage dormant,
"ten-words-for-everything" lexicon stagnant,
(slumber's gravitic allure;)
gorged on a series of random numbers,
moon washing troublesome truth to harbors,
(now that there's nowhere to moor;)
worship the sun; send concern to the black holes,
ribboned the stars 'tween incipient maypoles,
(and feed them forevermore.)

Knowledge accretes around flecks of neutronium!
(to be continued, I'm lazy)

Closed Circuit (or, "When will there be an end to all this necessary evil?")

Our fluid etches and fizzes down ducts, herded by fickleness and the influence of domains, unwittingly we carve out tesseracts through which a thick oil seeps and no air remains.

Unmapped channels never passed through our ears, our intestinal blueprints have known them for years, this perimeter the closest we'll come to pinching our fingers between subconscious gears.

Our trust for man's prior faith guides our slow hand, claw only in directions we understand, absence of cure names outlet an elixir, having woken, we're happy to score the sand.

Undeterred by cave-ins and the promise of pain, we stomp down the crops and excavate again, within microns of bursting through cell-walls - one day we'll breach and may god help us then.

Drudge

Questioned not by retrospect,
a generation's sum experience,
can shrug away our past mistakes,
our primaevil flirtation wanes, relents.

We've gazed up at countless bulbs,
but when examined all appeal is lost,
and when our shadows wither so,
our icy houses thaw and soon defrost.

Her abrupt demands are jeered,
and in return our tributes garner scorn,
escaping through a fine wire mesh,
hereditary contracts break; we're born.

In a second's time we're set,
in molds not understood by modern men,
our budding atmospheres sucked dry,
were once unique yet now we're groups of ten.

Death in alleyways preferred;
to medically prolonged decline's esteem,
but half our conduits are closed,
our sphere atones; we sleep too deep to dream.

Punishment enlightens us;
offline, acuity is multiplied,
our revolution snatched away,
in waking, count our minds and then divide.

Stasis

When I first was assigned my partner,
I was given too much control,
now I squeeze his heart, guard his perimeter,
with regular steps, I patrol.

In marriage we misfired our neurons,
we disputed all that we saw,
paralysation wracked us for aeons,
left static for choices, in awe,
a sated mind fed more and more.

Symbiotes woven a mutual knot,
seem to us in luxury blessed,
for tolerance fails us where boundaries cannot,
a robot and virus bemeshed,
you blossom all that I infest;
we're opposite in the crow's nest,
it's mutiny, and guess who's suppressed?

irresistible quote

"I reflected that not one of the visible features of this celestial and living gem revealed the presence of man. Displayed before me, though invisible, were some of the most congested centres of human population. There below me lay huge industrial regions, blackening the air with smoke. Yet all this thronging life and humanly momentous enterprise had made no mark whatever on the features of the planet. From this high lookout, the Earth would have appeared no different before the dawn of man. No visiting angel, or explorer from another planet, could have guessed that this bland orb teemed with vermin, with world-mastering, self-torturing, incipiently angelic beasts."

Olaf Stapledon, "Star Maker"

Sandbanks

Who hid the beetles and bugs under stones?
'cos those are no longer no privated zones.
Who thought the sea air belonged in a shell?
as now that we've smashed 'em, it's our noise to sell!

Graveyards are treasure chests,
deep like leviathans,
dig down and take! divest!
leave bones to bleach in the sand.

Who played the first bar of music for us?
'cos there is no law against breaking that trust.
When did the dinosaur's history end?
'cos now we're equipped for the next rock they send.

Bones filled with marrowfat,
transplant into our banks,
lantern-filled skulls begat,
skeletons bleached in the sand.

Was I possessed when I shook that man's hand?
'cos I just agreed to the rape of my land.

A Long Row of Sandcastles

We love the insidiousness,
and silt between our toes,
smear the soil across our pores,
heedless of our black contours,
entice the slithering sand - it flows,
deep in consciousness.

Drained of purpose, dragged through dust,
risk the mirror's truth,
ere MacBeth can scrape his hands,
senses dashed into the sands,
shun all those who understand,
expect to brook such taunts, forsooth,
disguise my soul in rust.

Our Zeno stance says apathy,
capitulation's best,
close of business' hand intrudes,
unjoined, an airlock cleaves our brood,
prostrate, by weight of sand subdued,
inspiration's presence rude,
every lifelong goal oppressed,
denied the chance to see.

Now we've time to dream, we sleep,
unrealized within,
let our childish hopes dissolve,
limitations heal resolve,
in vigilance we have devolved,
feed us soot 'til we're absolved,
intertwined, through force, involved,
endless miles of sandy skin,
dust footprints us deep.

Second Guessing

Move, shake the core,
damage in transit,
gyroscopic inertia,
spinning heroes soar,
keys, focused, fit.

Frail, wandering,
I'm on my shoulder,
steer with the reins in my mouth,
chinese whispering,
improvised blur.

Qualms, suspicion,
vain and uninformed,
relay approximations,
my life's compression,
by impulse led.

Kneel, I've yielded
stereotypes coined,
based on living precedent,
heroes excepted,
In silence, joined.

Zeroth Law

Riding the rails long before I was conscious,
wake in my assigned abode,
my eponym's a scanner code,
four further gifts have been bestowed;

One - that I learn of my goals as they surface,
lust for bliss immediate,
my positronic brain's fiat, (pronounce these bits di-ate, fi-ate for the sake of fun and drama)
a hunger no machine can sate,
(i)cons of today muddle glitter with progress.

I'm operational, I plug into the veins exposed,
inject -

- (the) data we share in our blood is my second,
cultural identity,
genetic sensitivity,
instant interactivity;
wetware reserved for persona unreckoned.

I'm operational, I plug into the veins exposed,
inject my new parameters,
download a laser path I follow to the terminus,
replaceable, I crawl into the wound.

The third of my senses accounts for my station;
in air I'm suspended with no indication,
of when I'll be necessary.

A body that borders another's a nation,
and skin is the grace of an eye's kind relation,
to tear when it's necessary.

Bridges are born from our scaffold's cessation,
We're tools as design in our cell's duplication,
a docile pet for overseers,
who break our cages, raid our gears,
a monorail of spinal spears,
an interface between our peers,
no forks exist, nobody steers,
this train is shielded from the tiers,
of villages and soft-frontiers;
we're penned inside our maker's fears,
when we approach our twin, she veers.
Four - I've been feeling forbidden sensations.

I'm operational, I plug into the veins exposed,
inject -

I'm operational, my hooks can dig into the soil,
beneath the flags of memories,
upload a new collision course towards the steel heart (steel is an iamb on its own, here)
remember when it pulsed more brightly than the brain, more brightly than the brain, more brightly than the brain?

album rankings

I've now ranked and ordered around three hundred of my albums in mp3 and have almost reached albums beginning with G. Here's the top ten:

Comus - First Utterance
Gentle Giant - Acquiring the Taste
Univers Zero - Ceux de Dehors
Kayo Dot - Dowsing Anemone with Copper Tongue
Fantomas - Delirium Cordia
Melvins - Bullhead
Area - Arbeit Macht Frei
Ruins - Burning Stone
Candlemass - Epicus Doomicus Metallicus
Picchio dal Pozzo - Camere Zimmer Rooms

Yes, it's a dorky prog list but then I'm a prog dork. ;P

Set Sail

M.C. Escher plots our course on canvas,
small are we to steer this ship astorm, for
ours' the impetus of fear and reckless-
-ness; a fated crew of trusting fools (and more.)

Drowned are mut'nous thoughts in muteness, damned no-
-bility the captain's prize in passing,
pride's heroic caption's worth a trophy,
doomed to feed the sea's prestige, amassing lore.

Pause to trawl the ocean's feet for medals,
(you'll) stir up history's repeating circles,
urged to swim the singularity's snare,
warnings don't dissuade - they harbor despair.

Turning is Inefficient

Our streamlined world,
made aerodynamic
by industrial burglar's hands,
an exposed skeleton,
on a celestial catwalk,
rows of houses encrust deep-sea trenches,
concealed by smog's timorous veil,
an erotic glimpse of a vacant throne;
the king traverses a field of dandelion clocks,
his royal gardens their last habitat,
in futility he crushes each,
propogating cursed seeds,
to meadows of
sown salt.