Wednesday, February 01, 2012

Monday, January 30, 2012

Take a Picture Here, Take a Souvenir

Photo by Greg Moran
The Dogs of Summer Passing
~ Pisces Iscariot circa 1985

In the headlong rush to consume the moment
To capture it in megapixels bits and bytes undigested
Overexposed
We commit those very moments to misinterpretation
Perhaps we should sometimes abstain from action
And allow the world to be

Friday, January 27, 2012

Tears in the Rain

penumbra . 12

In the Leviathan’s slipstream, like tin cans on the rear bumper of a ‘just married’ car; like rats on the mooring lines of harboured ships; the sun catching their edges; are the hangers-on.
Denied access to the Mission by rote of their class and without sufficient power to gain access to the quantities of material required to make their own Leviathan, many citizens had banded together to make their own plans, refusing to be excluded from the life-raft. Launch pads were constructed at a million different locations, and since all of the Bureau’s attention had been focussed on the task of creating the Leviathan; many of these privately funded efforts had succeed in creating suitable vessels and indeed launching them in the correct trajectory at the correct time. Having successfully hitched a ride they now trail in orbit around the planet, they are glittering tears in the Leviathan’s wake.
Perhaps we may give a moment of silence for these most desperate of creatures – unlike those suspended within the Leviathan’s womb, these travellers are conscious. Furthermore, since it is reasonable to expect many scientific minds to be of their number, we can assume that many of them are aware of their decaying orbit; their imminent, and likely fiery, return to the planet’s surface.
The planet ripples red, reflected on the Leviathan’s shiny hide. A child watches from an observation window ten Tears from the Leviathan’s tail.
Her life is wonder.
Her name is Phoebe.
She has disabled the smoke alarm but is hesitant to light the cigarette – the old man will beat the shit out of her if she’s caught. No pain no gain – she once heard someone say – it echoes in her head like a chant to mischief – she lights the cigarette, takes a small puff, holds it in while she extinguishes the orange coal before exhaling a pale green cloud which she ionises with the subroutine that Knut had programmed into her com-unit.
Keep your cards to your chest and your eyes on the prize,
Keep your own council in the kingdom of lies.

She’d read that somewhere and now she whispers it to herself as she reactivates the smoke alarm.

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Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Glory


CACI
Titan
Bechtel
Custer Battles
General Dynamics
Nour USA Ltd.
Chevron
Halliburton
Veritas Capital Fund/DynCorp
Washington Group International
Environmental Chemical
Aegis
International American Products
Erinys
Fluor
Perini
URS Corporation
...and so on

Monday, January 23, 2012

The Seed Beneath the Snow

Lisette Talate

It is as if writers as watchdogs are extinct, or in thrall to a sociopathic zeitgeist, convinced they are too clever to be duped. Witness the stampede of sycophants eager to deify Christopher Hitchens, a war lover who longed to be allowed to justify the crimes of rapacious power. "For almost the first time in two centuries", wrote Terry Eagleton, "there is no eminent British poet, playwright or novelist prepared to question the foundations of the western way of life".

The world war on democracy by John Pilger