Nihil

Smokin' ~ Dan Wheaton

Chance ran the numbers – the odds came up as 50,359,288:1
He crossed the exposed clearing, hunched his shoulders (despite the calculated odds) anticipating a sniper’s attention.
Nihil was waiting on the other side; ill-defined by the shadows cast on pock-marked yellow walls by the unfettered red sun.
“D’ya geddit?”
Chance nodded, guilt circuits aching, he handed over the package.
“’Bout time you got something right nanobrain” Nihil growled as he turned into the dark doorway leading to the building interior, unwrapping the parcel as he went.
Chance ran the insult across his soul pattern, trying, unsuccessfully (for the 745th time) to integrate it into his pain circuits.
The black rectangular doorway through which Nihil had disappeared lit up bright white and red and Chance’s audio system cut out momentarily in self-defence; the shockwave that followed 0.o5 of a second later caused him to step back to keep from falling.
Chance pulsed his aura-field to remove the flecks of Nihil’s blood and gristle from his body.
He ran the numbers again – the odds had been 2:1 against at the time of retrieving the parcel
He detected some damage to his guilt circuits.

Days Between Stations

Spark


Sleep dust shed from eyes like sand from the cannon cast
The light dispels the shadows of night
You rise to face the day’s charade

Sunrise


Sunspots on your astral shirt induce the drawing of aurora curtains across your mind
Thus occluding the view afforded
By sleep’s access to the vaults of memory

Morning


Mourners gather to line the streets pale witness
To the black crate bearing wagon passing, parading the town’s inability to feel,
Only to whisper grey with knuckles white clenched behind backs

Noon


Monuments in the square corrode in silence unconnected to the day’s events
Verdigris veins forming on the ticking bronze of yesterday’s glory
While inner statues reduce to dust in anxious anticipation of tomorrow

Afternoon


Insects boil in the electric tension of the impending storm,
Alive in the sunshine furnace calling
Nihilist grist for tomorrow’s underfoot crunch.

Evening


Storm passed, cooking smoke in the evening, perfume on the wind
Distant stars gather to blister the sky with acrylic splendour
Teenagers gather on the quayside to smoke their anxious longing to the quick

Night


The veil of dreaming spikes the guns of daylight’s last delusions
A vain attempt to stem the deluge
Poured from long breached reservoirs of real time nightmares

The Void


Gaze back into the open mouth released by sleep’s submerging
Wonder at the beauty brought to the surface teeming
Plankton for the soul in daylight soon forgot

The Prisoner

Here at the belated funeral
Of your overrated youth
Where a million mourners lean
Ever closer to the edge
Laced they leave their flowers
And obituaries untrue
And the stars collide chaotic
Above the writhing hedge

This hole agape in blue landscape
Lies fecund and yet uncovered
Encircled now by estranged friends
And lost lacklustre lovers
You see them now as crystal clear
As from your teenage perch
A tame time traveller stranded –
Left here in the lurch

From the withered roses strewn
Across the golden room
Barefoot ambush thorns await
On broken stems to bloom
Eros and Psyche there raising heat
Whipped up a sensuous storm
Combined, conjoined, divided
Took on a different form

You left your empty baggage
at the point where pavements end
The luggage tags offered up your life
To destiny bedevilled
And walking on you trusted fate
The bullet-holes to mend
And the grooved soles of your stolen shoes
Were by association levelled

Onward to where the fountains
Tread water in the corner of your eye
While compensating clouds obscured
That familiar alien sky
To the echoed halls where pictures
Perfectly framed and hung
Are bathed in solid amber light
From a distant prodigal sun

And now the looming shadows mock
Your future they belittle
And laughing smear your twisted past
With blood and rust and spittle
This ghost ship’s decking danger creaks
And insects black leg crawl
Across your eyes and silenced heart
That teeters yet to fall

For you are the frightened prisoner
Behind panes of frosted glass
Faithful but forever shackled
By the chains of seasons past
So you watch this waning world rerun
A trillion raw refrains
And feel the rain fall cold upon
Your smouldering remains

Pause

Cue Fanfare

Jester ~ August Hall

Are there voices loud enough
to break this stubborn silence?
Are there words to overcome
this inarticulate violence?
Will the flames of power games
occlude these azure skies
Over subterranean, cowering heads
filled up with corporate lies?
Will these unconscious astral maps
ever help us fly away
While this collective docile herd
continues to hold sway?

No one wants to be a part
of this diabolic deal
But everyone knows
just how they’re meant to feel
Perhaps the Left and Right
are not the only choices
When all you hear from dawn to dawn
are these corrupted voices
Lift up the books collecting dust
in forgotten warehouse corners
Sweep your keys for electronic rust
And employ as thought-transformers

Title lifted from the Prefab Sprout's beautiful debut Swoon

Spirit Level

Astral Body (Asleep) ~ Abdul Mati Klarwein

Ellie Gants was sure she’d been this way before:
The footprints leading forward in the ash were almost the same as those she’d left behind her – almost… smaller and somewhat distorted but with the same distinctive sole pattern.
She checked her pulse and, finding it elevated, decided to rest against the trunk of one of the trees least blacked by (and still warm from) the last firestorm.
Ellie checked her reflection in the mirror of the full moon and pronounced herself presentable.
She re-ran her soul-pattern, checking for flaws and brown spots that might mar her progress through the forest.
Somewhere some anomaly was disturbing what should have been a perfect sine wave – something needed to be fixed.
Ellie rose quickly from her seated position; her left arm had begun to vibrate without her consent; from behind she could hear something approaching through the haze.
“It’s happenin’ again darlin’,” said the man from the warehouse, “I’m gunna have to reboot you”
Before she could think to object he had reached into her exposed left armpit and touched her where nobody should touch another.

Feathers

Plumes et Dragons ~ Anne Bachelier

In your headlong flight to deny the night
Its pound of sleeping flesh
You bypassed the gates where love awaits
your pounding heart enmeshed

You forsook too soon the waxing moon
And drowned yourself in stars
To grapple free of your family tree
And spend your life on Mars

But here below where time moves slow
And workers toil in torment
We were left behind in salt to find
Those dreams you never sent

But promises made and loyalties fade
In the monsoon of mystification
Leaving you high on the equinox tide
Without access to apt medication

But who are we to set you free
From the path of least resistance
When all we know may rot below
In the scrabble for our subsistence

For days will come and days will go
In the rush to reach the prize
And through journey slept, slow and ill-adept
Will we arrive surprised?

View from the Treetops (15 Jan '09)

It's Time for War

The 51-year-old, you may have guessed, has little faith in the conventional democratic process and its capacity to effect change, believing it merely lulls people into a complacency. While he concedes that Barack Obama's recent victory is a major achievement, he nevertheless sees Obama, too, as just part of the machinery of the capitalist system. "It's great he's got in, cos everybody can feel better for a while," says Cope. "But [Obama] won't do anything about the things I'm talking about because he had enough money to run for president and that makes him a cunt. Albeit a far higher quality of cunt."

Last Sunday The Independent published a rare interview with black sheep Julian Cope.
Read it here

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Wishful thinking?

Since 1948, if we want to draw a curve of Israel’s progress, do you think that this curve is still heading up, or maybe is at a plateau, or is heading down? I believe that the curve is now in descent. And today, the military might of Israel is not capable of concluding matters to Israel’s satisfaction. Since 1948, you may notice that Israel has defeated 7 armies. In ’56 they defeated Egypt. In ’67 they defeated 3 countries: Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. In ’73, the war was somewhat equal in both sides between Egypt and Israel, if not for Nixon’s airlift to Israel’s forces at that time, the map of the world would be different. In ’82 Israel defeated the PLO in Beirut.
But since ’82, 26 years ago, Israelis has not won any war. They did not defeat the Palestinian resistance, and they did not defeat the Lebanese resistance. Since that time, Israel has not expanded but has contracted. They have withdrawn from southern Lebanon and from Gaza. These are indicators that the future is not favorable to Israel. Then today Israel, with all its military capabilities – conventional and unconventional – are not enough to guarantee Israel’s security. Today, with all these capabilities, they can’t stop a simple rocket from being launched from Gaza

Counterpunch's Alexander Cockburn puts forward the theory that Israel is losing ground:
Israel's Onslaught on Gaza: Criminal, for Sure; But Also Stupid

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Ask a Stupid Question...

The EDGE Annual Question 2009 is: WHAT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING?

One sensible man stands out amongst the plethora of technology fawning drivel spewed out by the great and the good in answer to this question:

ROUNDING AN ENDLESS VICIOUS CIRCLE
"I find it hard to believe that anything will change everything. The only exception might be if we suddenly learned how to live with one another. But, does anyone think that will come about in a foreseeable lifetime?
Evidence from the past seems to point to our becoming increasingly dangerous pretty much every time we come up with a new idea or technology. These new things are usually wholesome and benign at first (movable type, pharmacology, rule of law) but before long we find ways to use these inventions to do what we do best — exercise power over one another.
Even if we were visited by weird little people from another planet and were forced to band together, I doubt if it would be long before we’d be finding ways to break into factions again, identifying those among us who are not quite people.
We keep rounding an endless vicious circle. Will an idea or technology emerge anytime soon that will let us exit this lethal cyclotron before we meet our fate head on and scatter into a million pieces? Will we outsmart our own brilliance before this planet is painted over with yet another layer of people? Maybe, but I doubt it."
ALAN ALDA
Actor, writer, director, and host of PBS program "Scientific American Frontiers."

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At The Drive-in ~ Invalid Litter Dept

Knots

Arnolfini Wedding portrait ~ Jan Van Eyck

For desire she lifted her skirts to him
For duty she followed him out on the limb
For hope she bore his children screaming
For life she lived her days in dreaming

For power he took what was offered him
For duty he ventured out on the limb
For peace he left her with the children screaming
For hope he lost himself in dreaming

And with children gathered she revealed the child within her breast
And with children following he laid their childish fears to rest

And as the day broke through with gathered light
In love they stood for what is right

Domestic Bliss

Prava se Muka ne da Sakriti 1 ~ Petar Meseldžija

They came upon his upturned frame, cogs and flywheel spinning, amongst the cindered undergrowth.
Axiom proposed they leave him where he lay, he was, after all, she reminded Reflex, the reason they were in this pickle.
Ignoring all protocol (as was his want) Reflex extended his hand to return the troublesome creature right-way-up.
Curtail, oblivious to good fortune but once more upright, emitted an electro-magnetic-pulse to evict all manner of dust and soot from his works.
This careless action caused Axiom to jump back sharply covering her chip-cavity and ejaculating an ancient curse involving family lineage and interlaced sexual congress.
Curtail attempted an apologetic whimper and rolled doleful eyes in her direction (he did know which side his bread was buttered).
Reflex slapped him across the head causing another (less practised) whimper and a metallic echo from the surrounding charcoal forest.
“Shoulda got a fuckin' cat” muttered Axiom as they made there way onward.

Night Sights

Bagan of Bagan ~ Patrick Arrasmith

Under deadened leaves and clockwork eaves
With janitorial duties done
Concerning childhood dreams and playground screams
And trips around the sun
Behind the rusted gates of long dead estates
Where foxes feral run
The dusted grass has grown green to pass
The sights of hunters’ guns

Now shadows loom and lunge too soon
To catch the passing light
Their fingers clasp but fail to grasp
The goal that’s in their sight
Beyond the realms of rotted elms
And colonies in flight
For who would rue the targets true
That glow in emerald night

These beating sticks; these politics
Are euphemisms for lying
scientific death and faith-based breath
And novel ways of dying
With nothing left in the niche that’s cleft
In the corners where we’re crying
But seeds of hope and miles of rope
On which to hang our sighing

Beneath the hangman’s sleeves where deadened leaves
Rustle on nature relying
There am I recycled and my future self entitled
To another aeon trying

Blind Faith

The street shudders through the glass as they grind their way past
En route to the core of the flame
With steel and mirage and in headgear camouflage
They’ve come to release us again
From the arms of the beast so be thankful at least
For the temporary loss of our freedom

Fire shatters the glass with sonic-boom pass
En route to the heart of the game
With napalm and greed and all the money they need
They don’t come in any god’s name
Nor does the beast with a thousand year lease
Own the right to our lives and our children

The Flickering Light

Teresa in Ecstacy ~ Kris Kuksi

She lifts her eyes from the coiled core of the knotted finger trap
Casts her gaze across the filament of the faded lightning map
Wraps a thought in filigree spores of all her future ghosts
And breaths a sigh concealing causes and heavy heartbreak hosts
Where secret speed limit signs and restricted breathing lies
Between the blue iris lensed apertures of upward casting eyes
She knows the future lacks the haunting howling of the past
Leaves the skins of shed lives for predators their spells to cast
Upon the brows once pearly knitted now expectantly arched
On baited hooks past which the lines of martyrs marched
Anticipating nothing lest the future disperses hopes like dust
Leaving tongues untied and ears of corner lovers loitering distrust
For who is she to cast these pearls opaque with peppered pain
Before the lines of faceless foils and sheets of seasoned rain
She lifts her face to face the coming day unprepared
For all the blows and grey rainbows
For all the smiles and warm reptiles
For every note uncomposed
For every king deposed
For every insect mind
and every deal declined
Decomposed
Indisposed
On pages bled unread for lines of text unrhymed
She raises her hand to stem the tide of image streaming
Lunar candela eyelids flutter incandescent dreaming
As if her smile could raise her spirit gleaming
Above the peaks of all her dark nocturnal scheming
To leave her hanging hopeless stripped and screaming
Alone upon the shore where wavelengths stretch all meaning
Attributed by her faith or empty academic towers leaning
The future knows not its name when shouted into canyon’s echo
The past its weight in gold won’t even entertain the thought of fingers let go
So she closes eyes on all she cannot control or feign understanding pretence
And marks the page where last the words she read made perfect sense