Still dust in the air after the Dust Storms.. hmm.. or is it my imagination.
Dust layered like fine sands of time
Desert in my mouth
Wasteland in my chest
As blinding as the truth
Where is the source?
Storms have passed
Martian days gone
Is it the remnant of futures yet to be?
Or a symptom of the emptiness
That resides in the mind
Battle of Mylae 260 B.C.E
Praetor: Consul wasn’t there supposed to be a sticky outy thingy with ropes and planks and stuff on the front of our ships?
Consul: You mean the Corvus boarding bridge which will give us land lubber Romans the ability to best at sea the maritime superpower Carthage?
Praetor: Yeah that’s the one.
Consul: What?! I’m sure I had it on my to do list.. here it is number one “Don’t forget to attach Corvi”.. Oh dear this could be bad..
Carthaginian Admiral: Eat my ram Roman scum!!!
Consul: Eat his lamb???
Praetor: I think he said ram. The pointy thingy on the front of the galley heading towards u.. (crunch. crash. gurgle)
I have decided to detach this from my previous poem so that it can stand on it own (tiny) merits.
Future shock yesterday, techno slavery today
Unnatural bonding of the living inanimate and dying animate
Exquisite engines of bio-mechanical symbiosis
Unity of the virtual and the illusory
The new alchemy, the old quest
Digital dreams under the harsh gaze of reality
Cyber metamorphosis of mind not body
The immutability of change
Juggernaut Standard Bearer of progress
Always have been frustrated by the fact that I can only recall a tiny fraction of the interesting things I have read (I am especially bad when it comes to recalling dates which is kind of ironic for a history student). What if my brain was a pc? A vast storage device with all the advantages of a pc (less the annoying quirks). Wrote this poem with these thoughts running through my head. Just a hint of technophobia in there as well. What else do you expect from a child of the eighties.
I wish my mind was a pc
486 running on Pentium dreams
OS running smoothly virus free
Purged of corrupt data blocks
No defrag necessary for emotions
The clean intoxicating purity of data
Sailing a on a bit stream through Gibsonian cyberscapes
Perfect retrieval of all input
Garnered by a locust-swarm hunger for information
Infallible database of all that was
Date driven queries never crashing
Web cam eyes streaming daily moments
Capturing the play of colour and shadow in low res video
Visual treasures haphazardly stored jewels
Pattern recognition in the matching of random gems
The blog of the inner self uncensored and uninhibited
Future shock yesterday, techno slavery today
Unnatural bonding of the living inanimate and dying animate
Exquisite engines of bio-mechanical symbiosis
Unity of the virtual and the illusory
The new alchemy, the old quest
Digital dreams under the harsh gaze of reality
Cyber metamorphosis of mind not body
The immutability of change
Juggernaut Standard Bearer of progress
Thin Skin
These ancient eyes pierce the thin skin
Flimsy veneer of civilization and certainty
Which conceals mandelbrot infinities of detail
Ocular illusory visions sweep across untouchable horizons
Tapestries of universes
Wrapped in rough weave
Warps and threads of endless multitude
And dream defying design
Heady intoxication of senses
Emotions and passions vice-like
Yet ephemeral uncounted incidents in time and space
Wave riders of a tsunami of motion, colour and sound
Lifetimes of wondrous mystery
Eternal puzzles sauteed in delectable complexity
Yet poor fare for the un satiated and unquenchable mind
All things brought plummeting to earth from Himalayan heights
Caught in crude nets of words and an inadequate prison of thought
Suffocated victims of comprehension and conception
Breathtaking vistas of beauty and dark pits of the grotesque
Splashed across a thousand bright, cold unfinished canvases
Incomplete artist standing awestruck before the splendour and terror
Okay i will admit it.. I am a technophile. I have invested a huge amount of my time into my pc writing, creating, ideas, photos, video etc.. Well recently my pc crashed and, mainly due to a lack of back up measures I lost helluva a lot of stuff. PC technology is a boon, but you need to realise it’s limitations. It fails occasionally and takes everything you have invested in it to digital purgatory. Oh well.. lessons we learn. Anyway off to get a brand new shiny pc on the weekend. Wrote a poem about the anticipation of new pc ownership.
New metal pet
Skin is red
PC needs met
Gadget lust fed
I like all sorts of poetry from all sorts of cultures and times. Tang and Sung Dynasty poetry is elegant, brief , full of allusion and symobology. Seemingly simple and short verse can be a thinly disguised criticism; a reference to another classic poem; refer to a historical event or legend; or even be a mini philosophical treatise.
The poem I have selected by the Sung Dynasty poet Ch’eng Hao (1032-1085) is a bit more straight forward, but has some nice imagery in it:
Visting Crescent Pond
We circle the shore of Crescent Pond
to the north is a tower that touches the sky
the world has changed in the autumn air
we pour a cup for the evening chill
the image of a cloud pauses on the water
the sound of a stream lingers beneath the trees
our tasks are endless there’s no need to count
let’s meet again our next day off
Ch’eng Hao Poems of the Masters 205, (trans.) Pine, R. (2003) Washington: Copper Canyon Press, pp. 422-423
Okay had a dream the other night in which I was fighting off Zombie hordes led by Bruce Campbell aka Ash from the Evil Dead films. I admit the poem is a tad weird and all over the place.. but so are dreams.
Zombie haunted sleep
Packed doorways, broken windows
Space contracting, life on threshold
Shambling hordes closing
Hackneyed plot, mono-syllabic script
Undead Bruce Campbell leading legions of living dead
While Iggy Pop warbles in the background movie score
Singing for Brraains!!
Soft shoe shuffle of Doom!!!
Unfazed by falling from bone maggot ripe flesh
The only thing I fear is the death knell click of an empty shotgun
Holding my own in lurid dream carved rooms
Never winning, not losing
Metaphor, symbol and Freudian nuance
What moments are being trawled by the subconscious
Sitting staring blankly at a thought-leech screen?
Automatic pilot everyday life?
Or mundane routine monster of the known?
Eyes suddenly flick open
As morning smashes night fed shows
Memory switches to backup before the virus of the now corrupts all
I awake amused and bemused
While my muse groans in her grave
One of the things I do like about Brisbane is the climate. Sure when it’s humid it is not so great, but autumn and spring are fantastic. Cool weather always revitalises me.
Cool air passes over me
My body seems to glide through it’s freshness
Smooth cold fingers caressing
A frosty lover’s gentle touch
The city whispers with a background hum
Empty streets pulsing with white noise
Within all the voices against me
Pause to take the affirmative
Shadowy trees bring no menace
Only shelter from clear skies
Stars hang in dark ceiling
Dimmed yet radiant in brilliance
Southern Cross balanced above forms an infinite arrow
Pointing all thoughts to the Middle Path
These little guys have become the bane of my existence, dancing in my head and jumping into emails.
Minute prancing simians
Many caricatures
Frenetic performance
Cacophony of sound
Fuzzy heralds in chaotic motion
Agents of distraction
Thieves of purpose
Squatters in my head
Stupid monkeys!
