Dead Worlds

we called them dead worlds

they were fashionable for a while

a blank slate where colored birds would roam

at one point I figured out how to cross the threshold

and I did visit a small one

before the end

it was simple enough,

I took the escalator and walked to the double doors

beyond I saw the flatlands

I shivered when I saw the monkey cages

the millions of shoppers

the modern architecture that held a promise of headstones and weeds

I made a conscious choice and shed the resistance

I became smaller

more proper

I was a consumer

and I dipped my hand into the fish tanks,

swallowing minnows whole

I surrendered to the oblivion

and pretended it was simple

a spiral of want and fetish and desire

I abandoned my hopes and silver dreams

I walked with the rest of them

drawn with restless blood

over the winding streets and promenades

I exchanged my vitality for the promise of something else

something held out in front of me like gold on a string

visible and intangible

I moved in a lucid haze

my fingers turned green

I was carried for a time

then I carried others

I learned how to sing a dozen different songs

later I awoke

on the other side of the double doors

I saw the flatlands

the crumbled headstone

the red and blue birds

Golden Sphere

The golden sphere rolls over the floor and the sound rattles all of us. A delighted laugh is heard but no one is smiling. Not that I can see. I look at each of the guests for a clue but nothing is revealed.

A woman with red hair is looking in through the window. The sky behind her is black and full of stars.

The golden sphere does not stop. It rolls between our feet, bumps against the walls, gaining speed with each collision.

My fingers tingle. I move them over my head and they leave colorful streaks through the air, traces of my thoughts, left unguarded; my suspicions laid bare for all to see.

There is a wet scent of earth and trees, the subtle sound of old men talking, a taste of herbal tea in my mouth. Nothing makes sense, nothing fits together. There is no pattern, no sense of purpose or cause.

I have forgotten nearly everything by the time the golden sphere hits my foot.

Now the time has come. I need nothing else. Just my breath, the sphere, the stars outside, and my thoughts, colorful translucent shapes slowly fading over my eyes.

Divide

The candlelight

was weak,

about to fade away.

The winter had laid us bare,

but the trees

encircled us,

made for us an

unassuming home.

In his arms

there was a tenderness

something unusual.

I sensed a seeker

that had dropped

old attachments

and penetrated the

thousand-year divide

between lives.

In his words

were ancient whispers,

an electric promise

radiating through the ocean

and flowing to the stars.

The journey

was about to begin

fresh and new

ancient and arcane

ageless and eternal.

Hunger

We were the seventh group.

Our goals were open and limitless,

Our bodies made of red clay,

red blood, blue lightning.

Our souls without tether.

We had prepared for the voyage

through strict discipline

as instructed.

We had taken the ritual baths

in the mountain temple

for 5 days in a row.

We had been covered in dust

and blankets

and beaten with leather.

Once rising, finally free of dust

and forgetfulness,

they told us we would climb

like a winged bird

towards the sky,

our minds would open

into endless unimaginable landscapes

without the shrouded mist

of our homeland,

without the desolate frozen lakes

of our dying land.

Our newly formed blood

would adapt to the synthetic nutrients,

to the dark brown soil

of the astral ship we were now forming.

For those left behind

we would become part of

the golden rays of sunlight,

a piece of the distant sky.

But certain elements

in the network engineering

began to change our nature.

My companions

hungered for old blood

and I felt waves of a hunger too

even if I couldn’t name it.

We found within ourselves

a desire far greater

than our preconceived nutritional needs.

Somewhere over the horizon

we became creatures of darkness

shadow killers of souls,

and we turned the ship around

and placed within it

the seed of a new message.

We would find a way

To merge

Our desire for flesh

And our wish for the stars.

Rise of the Old King

When the new sun was born the impulse to kiss his remorseless, deathless face had to be held at bay. Slumbering peacefully, the lightest touch would rouse him, incurring the violence we feared and longed for. In our shinning world of straight edges, mirrored glass, blue screens and open source, it was easy to lose track of the other thing, that which lurked in the places we had avoided for so long, the real animal brutality of our own deepest subconsciousness. Emerging from the depths, and not from the skies where we raised our dream machines towards the stars, the old King returned to us from the realms of myth and shadow.

He came from the caves, from the hollow center of our world, a kingdom we had forgotten in our infancy as a race. Somewhere through the ages, in our race for distant suns, we ceased to look down at our own root. The memory of the inner Kingdom faded as the last pages of the world’s most ancient books turned to dust and blew into the cracked walls of crumbling libraries. When the first star was born in a magnetic bottle and its power was harnessed to make the world a fantasy of unending light, we shed that old skin of memory, of dream, shadow, and terror and began the expansion beyond the terrestrial.

In our quest to drink in the light of all the stars our universe could offer, in our dance with infinite space, and a newfound command of movement and time, we found worlds like our own. One in every thousand had the potential to raise life from its mineral rich soil, and on some we found the evidence of civilizations that had flourished and fallen before we had ever even mastered the use of fire. Thus, we learned that there had been life in the universe, but death had won over it.

Among the ruins of tumbled citadels sunk in grey sand dunes beneath the faint glow of a red star we wept. There would be no meeting with the alien other, no exchange of ideas or culture. Our archeological work began. Countless dead worlds came under our scrutiny as the expansion continued. For our biologists there came a few worlds where life was present as rudimentary single celled organisms. We would have to wait and see if our cosmic brethren might someday grow from one of these worlds.

Eventually, the expansion lost its appeal. Our songs had grown cool and calculated, our dreams had flown back to us empty handed. The age of our enlightenment was coming to a close. Our own star was near death for the second time. We had mastered the art of reviving it, yet it was upon this reoccurrence of imminent stellar collapse that we ceased to resist and plunged into darkness. The door to the inner world had been re-discovered in our arctic desert. Perhaps we had forgotten and remembered it many times during our evolution. Now we remembered it again. As our star shone small and white, its planetary nebulae dancing red and blue in the vacuum, the ancient seal was broken.

There would be no brotherhood among the stars, nor any great conquest there. No friends to keep nor enemies to vanquish, until the seal was broken, and the Old King rose from our hollow core with a fearsome bellow. His legions were loosed, his appetites awakened. In the moment of our most supreme boredom, we were catapulted into reckless, euphoric terror. Our Council was crushed, our infrastructure demolished, our stranglehold on light loosened.  The shadows grew longer, music roiled, wild and discordant, as the Old King showed us what it meant, that old word: vanquished.  He walked amongst us once more, drew us into the inner world and gave us gifts both beautiful and terrible. Upon the surface he ruled as he hadn’t for an eternity.

When the new sun was born the impulse to kiss his remorseless, deathless face had to be held at bay. The old King grew weary as it grew strong and we returned him to his sanctuary, singing our farewell. We were naked as we bore him back, our skins stained with the fruits of the vines, the soil from which they grew, the blood and sweat that had been spilled in our orgiastic remembrance. His legions followed and folded peacefully around him like fallen leaves upon a forest floor.