Gordian Not

For the transhumanists-

Lessons learned, and lessons lost-
neither can dispel the frost
accumulating on the pane
that looks in on this 'grieved quatrain.

The future is only logic and experience extended beyond the capacity for memory. Prediction is ridiculously easy in general terms: there will be oscillating periods of unraveling punctuated with oases of relative stability followed by calcification, fracturing, and the sound of broken glass. Magic touches are notoriously short-lived, frustratingly counter-productive, and while the pursuit of golden goose eggs is always temptingly close at hand, we often find ourselves dipping our heads into wells full of mirage water contaminated with reality. In other words, I wedged my hat down over my ears for eight hundred years, and when somebody finally managed to pull it off for me, what did I see?

A graveyard of flying cars in a desert of old, abandoned avenues.

Liposuction performed through easy access zippers with sharp teeth and very tight smiles.

Gluttonous bi-weekly reappraisals sweetened with almost universal lactate intolerance.

Shrines dedicated to Bostrom the Conqueror erected on endless plains of dragon guano.

And, of course, a reanimated Jack LaLanne towing five gross of corpulent corpses still in their berths for his 892nd birthday party.

Men in hats, running; the dream in anticipation
of the nightmare. A second sun swallowing yesterday’s

taciturn whimsies. No one looking, legs a blur on the treadmill
of prescience, without heroes or helmets big enough

to contain insecurity’s eruption. No standing up. No standing
down. Only a teeth chattering recollection of tidal pool

simplicity, and corporeality’s urge to return. The melt runs
far and deep, eating time, eating salvation, vomiting up itself

within itself, covering itself with thoughts of exceptions, and
redemptions, and little plans no larger than this. Transcendence

was never the motivation, always the excuse for patience. Men
die again. Others take their places while sunset beckons, unheeded.


I die, you die, we all die for the white lie! You know, a sleigh ride on a carpet of snow on Christmas eve, up on the mantle but tossed out on the 26th to make room for the bills and Aunt Sadie's urn (Wasn't it a shame? She had so much to live for!). Cordwood selling cordwood to cordwood, splinters being just the price of doing business, right? We learn our lessons and learn them well, eventually learning to ignore the smell. The cadaverous rot of fuels sequestered just below the surface, venting off the seepage to power the turbines of progress. But we need fucking gears, people, and THAT MEANS YOU! Have faith, and someday your leftover teeth will grind THRICE as long, and isn't THAT a comfort and recompense?

Entropy? We don't need no stinkin' entropy!

The Last Men

Icebound, savage,
waving tattered remnants of national identity,
hunkered in their bunkers,
monkey division army men
playing Anarchy by Milton Bradley
until somebody steals the dice,
then howling for the National Guard
when their compatriots aren’t looking.

Just imagine Gilligan’s Island
without the Professor.
Who’s first on the spit?
Or, with the last vestiges of
civilization left to them,
hand in hand,
walking into the lagoon,
the geographically misplaced chimps
and screaming pihas
bidding them a fond farewell.

Or a comet!
Maybe Robert Frost was wrong for the right reason.

Indulge me, it's been a long morning :)