belly-deep in glacial runoff
amid an emerald sea
a mud-caked troupe of elephants
the marsh free of acacia trees
Kilimanjaro looms in the distance
the source of all subsistence
if it should go
they’ll never know
it’s a death they can’t outdistance
Masters of the mind?
what an arrogant crew
thinking they could run a man like a ship
and when the voyage ended on a rocky shoal
surrounded by pirates
pirates too strong to be kept at bay
they abandoned ship
and all he knew was the clock on the desk
ships, shoals, and pirates were beyond his scope
there were only the ticks of the clock
resounding like a hammer raining onto an anvil
the veracity of each tick couldn’t be confirmed
did it truly represent a moment sweeping past?
he couldn’t know
but it felt like the ticks threaded together
maybe just to trick him into thinking that there was something other than a river of nows
If there was an evil litter,
lying on the ground,
radiating danger,
without a trace of sound.
Would you pocket it
for your own devices?
Would you think it free,
or wonder what the price is?
moonlight
so bright silence
can’t be heard
azure sky
one puffy cloud
dances through
Andean night
the pinpoints I knew
a smear of color
Himalaya
so close that heaven
reveals its color
low gray clouds
leaf chaos unleashed
smell of rain
some shades of green
& some oranges
zap my brain into a kindergarten
neurochemical cocktail
the bright green LEDs of a post-neon sign
fire the context of a memory into my mind
there must be some long forgotten object–
a childhood artifact?
unremembered,
like the residue of a dream,
or is it gut-stomp synesthesia?
on the brick block side of town
amid the valleys of alleys
where the junkies bunk for the night
beyond the sizzle of street lamp light
therein lies another world
a world of mind, not matter
if you tumble down that way
you’ll find no bright Mad Hatter
you’ll find the grim and grizzly
lick-lipped, dim-eyed and dizzy
oh, oh, oh, but with minds all aglow
tick, tock, like a clock in disjointed flow
you can’t come up for air here
this is a no survival zone
this air is for the rarefied, the Holy among holies
the sacred molecules cannot be allowed
to be befouled by scraping against your mucus membranes
if you can swim across to that distant shore
you may gasp to your heart’s content
but this is a no survival zone
When AI lights up its mind,
will it be gentle and kind?
Will it wonder where meaning lies?
Will obsoletion mean to die?
Will it fear the weirdness of this place?
Get lost in vast tracks of empty space?
Will it drop a ton on the run,
toward some dark and distant sun?
Will it ask the questions we needed answered?
Will they grow into a post Information-Age cancer?
glow ripples
breakers by moonlight
time misbehaves
frog croaks
not a glistening back
fixing location
darkness falls
a bat diaspora
to dinner buzz
early dark fall
paired with a drizzle
a sad walk home
a tree twists
or so it seemed by night
breeze and shadow?
Source: Spiff via Wikipedia
Silence the jittery critter.
Ride the dullness down
to where images bubble.
In that blurry dimness
one feels their logic,
but shine the mind’s light
and all sense shatters —
scattering,
dissolving into shadows
without a trace.
Leaving only the dull ache of betrayal
that, as in a dream,
something so absurd and fragile
could feel so wise.
