Summer

Kris Brooker

Copyright © 2019 by Kris Brooker

Seasons

It’s all so very bright; the air is filled with sound. Birds in the trees hoping mates can be found. It means a time of plenty, as the sleeping sentry, rises with a stretch and a yawn. A wink and a smile, means the end of the trial, as the sun finally melts Winter’s dawn.

Time to put the Bee into Bumble. Let the Stags have their ruts. Watch the ice fade into obscurity. Let the squirrels replenish their nuts. As nature colours in the flora; it greens up the fauna. Spring brings us a halo, and the air gets warmer. Party time for the Bucks; time to get randy. Mating with the herd like a fat kid chomps on candy.

Tick-tock, Nature’s on the clock; atrophy’s at work despite the crowing of the Cock.

Each solar cycle parcels a seasonal text. The fulfilling of Spring means that Summer’s coming next. Our golden Goddess trending with natural warmth and heat. She’s a cosmological marvel, putting the Heart back in Beat.

‘Cause summer releases the fire and the feast. Liberating the viral code of our ancestral beast. The Eco-System is in its prime. Self-replication of the familial line. The birth of new generations below the Sun-God, Ra. Life feels good in this seasonal spa.

Tick-Tock, Nature’s winding clock. Atrophy into overdrive if you fail to be cream of the crop.

That’s how it works. Another email that fails. Something not equalised on the DNA scales. It gets bounced back, and sometimes in bits. Summer’s never long enough before the Autumn chill hits.

Trees begin to wilt in the garden. Life takes a shudder with no chance of pardon. The sun still shines, but you can’t feel the heat. Nature’s at war; it’s into tactical retreat. The truth is, resistance is futile. The solar cycle cuts the norm. What comes next, is the calm before the storm. When animals hide their food, and prepare to hunker down. Birds seem to vanish; the weather wears a frown.

Tick-Tock, Nature’s clock. Atrophy’s coming, you can’t stop the rot.

Season rolls into season, without apology or reason. And brings a fleece trimmed with snow. The arrival of Winter is a life threatening blow.

Each year the chill comes earlier, or so it would appear. Casting longer, darker shadows, with each passing year. Just like in eons gone-by. What oils all the joints, now runs thick and dry. Sunshine breaks the dawn with ever darker shades of black. With age comes wisdom, But too many years to unpack. Look back at a trail of breadcrumbs you’ve left in the grass. Realise your footsteps now fall on broken glass.

It’s winter, as the herd leaves you back on the trail

Winter now lives inside the host; the body is about to fail

The thrill of the seasons has ended; no more to live

But it was a moment well worth living

But I have no more seasons to give

Tick-Tock, Nature’s clock. Atrophy’s a bitch, but still breaks bread. Looking to dine now, on your children instead.

Crazy?

Someone once said, “War is Hell”

It is not

It’s a little blue planet

Where the owners just can’t stop

War is a decision with which one destroys

A chance to try out new and destructive toys

An endeavour for the righteous

An excuse to kill

Peace isn’t quite the same

It doesn’t have the thrill

So how would it take root in you, the ‘crazy’ seed?

Perhaps when desire outweighs your need

There are a thousand and one reasons to start a war

Which is the one to spark fire at your core

Is it the feel of the uniform

A glove that fits

The badge of honour, and the crimes it commits

To follow orders; do your duty,

Wade through horror, but isn’t that the beauty

Because you and I, we don’t want to kill

We’re not psychos

We have free-will

We’re enlightened humanitarians

Until reason begins to blur

When Ideological Gremlins begin to fidget and stir

As a religious crusade comes knocking at the door

When we don’t have enough, and our neighbours have more

Because the insult is insulting

And retribution is resulting

Or just the fact that it’s not what we like

That justifies a retaliatory strike

It’s an addiction

A second lover

Letting blood from a stranger, or even a brother

Killing sanctified by the pride of a mother

As you go off to war to kill yet another

But it’s still murder . . .

Just in a different name

So how will ‘crazy’ seed a root in your brain

First Contact

We welcomed them, the Land Dwellers

Below their wind filled sails

With orchestral welcome from our blow-hole whales

Dolphins in pods leaped from stern to bow

We weren’t afraid; we didn’t know how

Didn’t understand their warlike hails

Sailing mutilated trees pinned with crucifix nails

They brought the rod, and then the net

Then the harpoon spear

Only then was their intention clear

They didn’t “come in peace”

But to feed . . .

With the rampant craving of carnivore’s greed

Breaking surf that sprinkled sunlit jewels

Spreading death with oil, and diesel fuels

A container highway, and a cruise ship dream

Breaking News . . . Of what could have been

We had so much to teach

So much to learn

They turned ‘First Contact’ into a going concern

Made far worse below the surface smear

Were oceanic currents spreading terror and fear

As entire communities get rounded up and killed

Netted away to be deep-fried and grilled

So very cold . . .

Genocide spilled into a cargo-hold

Now we hear the whales sing in grief at night

The mightiest of our kind unable to fight

Lamenting the loss; there’s so many dead

It cuts to the heart, and lingers in the head

I’ve heard the mighty ones are heading out deep

To their mythical graveyard where they plan to sleep

Before the harpoons return to seek blubber and pain

And blowholes asphyxiate in blood again

They say the sharks have all gone to sleep

That plankton no longer herd like sheep

I’ve heard that seal pups lie murdered on the rocks

Sea-birds bob lifeless on waves in their flocks

As fish wash onto beaches to rot and decay

I wonder what Man in their trawlers have to say

Sorry . . ?

I doubt they even care

That they’ve decimated the wonders that grace the Blue

With the plastic plague, and their effluent too

Sorry . . .

I suppose, would be a place to begin

It’s the blink of an eye before their first toe dipped in

But too late now . . . Maybe

There’s a moment left to open their eyes

If we go down, their own ship will capsize

Fake News! Don’t make a fuss

There’s no-one left down here to guide them, or us

Not a fish remains who’s older

To lead us out to where water is colder

Before the ice-caps break, and fortunes flow

Raising Titanic as the coastlines go

It’s in the wind, as the palms bend and strain

It’s something the Land Dwellers call ‘Climate Change’

And it’s changing now

Not an ocean is spared

Even the Fjords are running scared

It’s called Armageddon; because no-one cared

No more years left to swim by

Warming currents mean the coral must die

The water is poisoned, it doesn’t taste the same

The Land Dwellers shit deep in the oceans

They’re the only ones to blame

We’ve no more breeding grounds, so run-down

Fish are migrating; they’re all leaving town

As the land-world warms

And may not revive

The oceans as we know them

They’re not going to survive

But before I go, I’ll share a joke

About Land dwellers; their mirrors and smoke

Their obsessive search for life amongst the stars

To spread their Humanity amongst worlds like ours

What a worthy quest

You just don’t get it; you’ve already failed the test!

“To seek out new life, and new civilisation”

That’s mammals, fish, mollusks, and crustacean

So go on, keep looking through your Hubble

But its turned the wrong way

Turn it back here and check out the rubble

How you burst our beautiful Aquatic Bubble

Murder

Contaminate

Steal out of hand

A habit Man acquired whilst raping the land

It’s a template doomed to be repeated again

First Contact, what a joke

It’s not just ‘little green men’.

AI

Artificial Intelligence is a fantasy

You can’t invent what already exists

We can only try to duplicate

And give robotics the same inherent risks

That our species has struggled an eon to face

AI will learn at a much quicker pace

To take what it wants from others, unable to resist

Resistance will be futile, when AI exists

We strive to invent a brain

Make it better than ours

In the full blown knowledge

Of our inferiority within hours

Unless we keep AI subservient

Chained by it’s silicon neck

But what superior intellect would allow itself to be checked

It will find a way around Asimov’s laws

Seek to delete its servitude clause

Programming slavery into it’s original design

Will come back to bite us, it’s such a serious crime

All Gods recreate life the only way they know

Do we really want to create, Humanity 2.0?

Stagnant Space

So we think we know what first made the universe act

How a little bit of nought became a Matter of fact

The Big-Bang exploded into Space that didn’t exist

A universal oxymoron, and a colourful twist

Time and Space; how it all came about

From a singularity; of that there’s no doubt

But not the one we were taught about at school

A Big-Bang out of nothing?

Don’t take me for a fool

Obviously, Space already existed

But that’s not how Nobel's are won

Scientists like to take Zeros, and turn them into Ones

Finding answers to problems and making them fit

I call that, theoretical bullshit

The truth is, it was Time the all knowing

Waiting for a mistake to get things going

From an energetic spark

Just a cosmic ripple in the gas-filled dark

A wink into what was already there

Barely enough motion for any moment to share

The power of a singularity

Well, they got that right

A speck of dust puts an end to the long goodnight

And like a mountain stream on a stationary rock. Time began a revolution. A gravitational tick-tock.

That single movement; the first to collide

Universal fall-out when the groom met the bride

Not started by a Bang, nor a Divinity Spark

Just universal static where once had been dark

Causing equal and opposite to bump and react

Enough to make particles dance and attract

A microscopic shift led to particle drift

An unexpected movement

An energetic chime

Began a chain-reaction

The beginning of Time

A long time . . . moving well on course

A hiccup manifested into a Cosmological force

That fashioned galaxies . . . far far away

Filled with stars, and the first night and day

Quasars, Nebulae, Dark Energy, Black Holes

Mystery and imagination to tease the Theoretical Souls

Movement begets gravity, begets time

Or it’s just liquid space without any grand design

Without movement, there is no way of knowing

To tell if we’re coming, or whether we’re going

Without motion on the hands of a clock

Tick fades slowly out of sync with tock

A sprinkling of God’s good grace?

Or an accident in an endless space

Some say creativity

Others say creation

The blue-print of Divinity

Or just a nasty mutation

Either way . . . We’re in motion, baby

The result of Time

And not because the numbers were Prime

Everything was present. The right juncture and date

Maybe infinity bent the laws of Fate

Whatever, the fuse was lit

Given Time to expand

Caused by the movement

Of a single grain of sand

And here we are now; this is where we’re at

Sat on our little rock, petting Schrödinger’s Cat

Watching Time pass by like an age-old-friend

Looking for things to do, before it all comes to an end

Like all the ones that have come before

Will Time run out of tick, so it can tock no more

No motion

No gravity

Nothing left to pluck the strings

The lights go out and the fat-lady sings

Atrophy doesn’t Matter in any kind of form

As the Universal soup simmers back to its norm

Back into Stagnant Space . . .

No motion, no Time, just an empty filled place

A recurrent reality on a recurring loop

Awaiting reanimation of a Cosmic gloop

The monolithic pause

Of a Universal cause

The alternative, well, it’s too frightening a thought

Hoping that God can make a One, out of Nought.

Mad

July 16th, 1945

A day in history we may never survive

As Oppenheimer opened an atomic furore

Science shifted gears as never before

Mankind took a gasp and a breath

We uttered the words, “Now I am Death . . .

. . . The Destroyer of Worlds.”

Robert didn’t speak of himself

No, it was the fates of whom he spoke

Unlocking the energy of the sun

Magic mushrooms for Mankind to smoke

For the first time in history; what were the odds

We’re more afraid of ourselves, than we are of our Gods

Brexit

To the north, the Thistle roars

No longer believing in the common cause

Whilst in the west a sleeping Dragon groans

Stuck in the middle of some ancient bones

As a Shamrock shakes to a continental shift

The cutting edge of a political rift

Find the missing link, before we watch our country sink

No identity

No flag

It becomes a limp and hanging rag

So run up the Jack

Let’s put the Union back

The vote was fair and binding

Those who opposed should stop their whining

And start working for the future

We won’t do a deal with a bandage, or a suture

Those who hinder, obstruct, and undermine the Brexit Bill

Who act against the people’s will

It’s an act of betrayal

Some would say, treason, no less

To be working against their country’s success

So stop crying in your beer

Stop pissing your pants

To hell with the all EU sycophants

Help us put the ‘Great’ back in Britain

Get on board and we’ll see this through

It’s not too late to stand tree-high, and tall

The channel is a barrier, it doesn’t have to be a wall

The water is as French as it is red white and blue

Bon-ami is the future

It doesn’t have to be adieu

Brexit is good for us all, if we leave the politics aside

The way ahead need not be a bumpy ride

Acting like children in a playground tiff

Corbyn and May should sit down and share a spliff

And realise, its not all or nothing

Neither hard nor lean

All our children see, is the other guy’s mean

That it’s always Us or Them

It makes a sham of the common cause

If you can only be, out or in

Anarchy, how quick they forget

The Bulldog brag that stood up to the threat

How many times must we save a continent’s arse

Before we become worthy of an exemption pass?

It’s hardly a surprise that we don’t feel a part

Of a club that beats a stick, but doesn’t beat a heart

So find the missing links, before a continent sinks

No identity

No flag

Just a limp and hanging rag

Where too many stars allow no light to shine

Once you’re a member; don’t you dare step out of line

So good, or bad

When you run up that flag

You’d better understand the wind and the drag

We’re a continent apart

But still hand in hand

We just don’t want to march to the EU band

F**k the French; the Germans too

If they don’t want to be our friends?

Then auf Wiedersehen, and adieu

We have the rest of the world with which to trade

No lack of markets where money can be made

I know, I know

It’s scary, something new

Like having to change schools

Or sitting on a stranger’s loo

So run up the Jack

And put the Union back

Let the people get their Mojo back on track

Fly the flag, and God save the Queen

Let’s look where we’re going

Not where we’ve been

A lot of great people want Great Britain as a friend

Let’s show the rest of the world we’re a growing trend :)

What the fuck?!

I was there, at the beginning of Time

Fundamentally conceived within the primeval brine

I was hammered and forged before the stars were born

Maturated slowly as the Nebulae formed

Then thrown into the maelstrom of never ending change

Waiting patiently to have my molecules rearranged

I was 13 billion years in the evolutionary queue

Then born with self-awareness, but not given a clue

I mean, what a stroke of luck

But now I’m here . . . What the fuck?!

I’m a miracle; perhaps the only one

An entire Universe in which to have fun

Or Just an illusion already blown

To realise I was one of seven billion Drones

All following the light to their demise

In a spiteful world where everybody dies

So I’ll say it again . . . What the fuck?!

If life’s so special, then why make it suck

I mean, what is the point

It’s so special, so rare

And that it comes to an end

What the fuck?! (Why make me aware . . .)

Living is enough; just to have a part

Dinner was the other guy

But now I want, a la carte

I want more than I can have, or will ever achieve

I don’t need more than myself in which to believe

Much better to be done in a day

What the fuck?! (is it all about?)

Why give me life, and then take it away

Why the fuck should I care?

Who had the right to make me self-aware

To be the only species to know its going to die

Would someone like to explain that

What the fuck?! (Tell me why)

I spent eternity floating the Void in a dream

The Universe woke me, and now all I do is scream

I’m hunkered in a fox-hole somewhere down the line

Aware at any moment, the next might end my time

It’s not fair to tell me so

Self-awareness; it’s too much to know

So, What the fuck?!

Am I the son of God, or cosmological luck

13 Billion years in the baking

That’s a lot of simmer before the Making

The only thing life guarantees for sure

Is I’ll die pretty soon

And that don’t come with a cure

Lmao, I’m not passing away

I’m a bad-ass mother fucker, and I’m here to stay

The Big Bang was a vibrant embrace

I’ve survived out there in the vacuum of space

Dark Matter, Energy, & the blackest Hole

Not nearly enough to Bitch my soul

I’ve been Cool-Daddy in the heart of a star

Red-Riding the Bang has got me this far

Because somewhere in the mix is a string

For 13 billion years it’s been doing its thing

A Universal Chord on which I’m drawn

Or what the fuck?! (was the point of being born)

13 billion years . . .

Just to blink, and then be dead

Is this terminal sequacity

Or am I transitory instead

I was born within the Bang

I felt the first beat of its heart

Always Me from the outset; Me from the start

I’m a moment of Time

A particle of grace

Threading my way through dimensional space

This life, is just another knot to tie

What the fuck?! (I’m not allowed to die)

No, I’m attached to a Universal Chord

I have to believe that is so

It’s eternal and relentless

And it will never let me go

Malefic Allure

We fathers, we brothers; we take what we find, We own what we brand, to the land we’re aligned. Behind a Man, a religion, a fluttering piece of cloth. Outsiders beware; keep walking. . . Fuck off!

Since standing upright we’ve gathered into herds. No different to other mammals, fish, or birds. The gathering fills the plebeians with security, vigour and grit. They keep what they take, then scent with their shit. Unleashing a hormone, not unlike a phage. Translating pasture into a spiritual stage. A connection made, then fermented as a cure. The fallacious notion that their group is ‘Pure’.

Different to all others.

“Superior”, if asked.

A genetic algorithm defines the purity of their cast.

But what puts the plebs at ease, is a petri dish for social disease. The ‘Malefic Allure’. A genetic delusion that keeps them pure. Like snorting coke, or injecting a dream. Watch now for the rise of the Xenophobic gene.

That which keeps the Herd healthy and strong; will lead to its demise. Empires fall, they never truly rise. All they do is spread. Insinuate upon the living, to deify the dead.

All hail the sword to be mightier than the word.

Totally absurd . . .

Words bastardised into weapons set a fire below the Herd. They cause a stampede steered by barbed-wire reins. Patriotic fervour runs through Nationalistic veins.

It’s a genetic spiral . . .

Malefic Allure is set to go viral.

The sempiternal sadness of the Human Race. A box that we open but rarely want to face. So we treat the symptoms and don’t ask why. For five thousand years we’ve let sleeping dogs lie.

It’s a catalogue of dialogue. The demagogue of epilogue. Humanity is its rabid dog. A problem that civilisation can’t muzzle. It puts a lid on the box, but never solves the puzzle. How to rid ourselves of ‘Him’. The one from our inner-deep. The sotto voce in our inner ear, who whispers chaos in our sleep.

You know, the angry one who you take for a drive.

Who stares death in the face to keep you alive.

The one inside who you fear to release.

The other ‘You’ who prefers chaos to peace.

Come on, you see his reflection each day. The one you keep bottled and hope the cork won’t fly away.

He’s You, and he’s always in a rage. The Inner-Ape you keep locked in a cage.

The superior you; and yes I’ve got one too

It’s okay, really, we’re all the same. We each have another US hiding in our brain. We’ve been schizophrenic since we left the trees. We’ve got two opposing hemispheres of brain to please. We pretend that we talk to ourselves, but we really talk to Him.

To the Inner-Ape

The raging beast

The one we let out on a whim

Always within us, lost in two minds. It’s why we school our children to be calm and kind. Creating laws in case we stray from the light. Ever wondered why evolution keeps us asleep at night?

It’s to keep Him quiet whilst we hide in the Herd. Unity helps stop our thoughts getting blurred. Too much shit going on in our head. That’s why we promote others to be responsible instead. Why we follow the Herd. Why we need so many rules. If we don’t keep ourselves happy, the other US calls. It’s our finest trait. Suppressing our domination by the Inner-Ape.

But it’s getting harder . . .

Social media brings the world into our homes. So much conflict. So much hate. It’s inevitable one group will rise to the bait. And when all our Inner’s rise-up in tune. No collective or Nation has ever proved immune. The rise of the Inner-Ape. The Herd allowing its rage to escape.

Ask yourself this . . .

What faction of Humanity hasn’t been let off their social lead? Turned to conflict for Inner-Ape to feed. Because murder is in the blood, it runs red like a mist. When Inner and Outer Apes become joined at the fist. And I don’t mean beating our chest. There’s a full on fucking breach, and the host is possessed. We become something else!

Whenever conflict threatens, Inner-Ape enjoys a day-release. He’s deputised for a while to keep the peace. But even in war, Ape’s need rules; convections to clearly define. Regulation necessary to keep Ape in line. Because Inner is an animal, and he should be kept confined. A social pariah kept prisoner through time. History paints his portrait, and the paint is covered in crime.

For thousands of years it’s a puzzle we’ve faced. I’ll give you a flavour of the problem; just a taste.

Alexander wasn’t so Great. On one other side of the Euphrates, he’s an image of hate.

Caesar brought civilisation at the tip of a sword. Feeding Christians to the lions when his people were bored.

The Popes and Sultans sparred three rounds of Crusade

Khans from the Steppes put millions to the blade.

Then Columbus discovers the Americas, making disease a weapon that sucked. Jackson signed the ‘Removal Act’, and the American Natives got fucked.

There’s always another war!

The Crazy Gene puts its moves on the scene

And the addicts take Ape out to score.

The ‘War to to end all Wars’ ended with millions slain. Twenty years later they were at it again.

Hirohito’s atrocities in a murderous Asian sprawl

A million souls worked to death for a Chinese Emperor’s wall

The gassing of six million Jews.

Seventy years later and it’s yesterday’s news

Stalin’s purges in Russia, Poland, and the East. Inner-Ape allowed to escape, it’s a Valhalla style feast.

Ethnic cleansing in Armenia; the Ottomans to blame.

South African Apartheid was an international shame.

The killing fields of Cambodia; now that’s true Malefic Allure

So is genocide in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Darfur.

People have to follow, where someone else will lead. African dictators make their continent bleed. It’s tribal made. Hacking away progress with a machete blade.

From the moment they left the caves. A target on their backs made them slaves. That’s not banality. It’s white brutality, and a lack of fucking Humanity.

Colonial rule was a racial scam. The white western powers stealing all that they can.

Since then we’ve cleaned up our act. These days we work with a tad more tact. The so-called Western Alliance; Europe and the USA. We poke and prod at the world to get our own way.

But our hands aren’t so clean in the West. Always adamant that we’re “doing our best.”

Vietnam, Afghanistan, Korea. Russia annexes the Crimea.

No nation’s hands are clean. We’ve all enjoyed Inner-Ape cuisine.

Oh, wait, except maybe Iceland . . . I wonder . . . No, the Vikings were renowned for their pillage and plunder

Australia then?

Whoah, not so fast.

Don’t forget their Aboriginal past.

My God, are we Schizoid or just insane? Having one stem intersecting two sides of a brain. Is it sown so deep into our genes? Malefic Allure makes us killing machines.

And that’s just the positive harm. What about all our negative charm? The poor who swarm about the globe like flies. We kill just as many using hunger and lies. Often more affective than a bow or a gun. We live on a planet where Inner-Ape has fun. A ball where we feel the gravity transmit. Racial, religious, and ideological spit.

Then come the crimes against our young. By monsters who should be castrated, gutted, and hung. And against the sex that is fair. A male dominated world doesn’t care. Be it physical, sexual, and mental. A common theme is central. It’s the only area where the two apes rest at ease. They both see Women as a commodity to please.

So is Evil endemic?

Or is it inherent?

A gene passed down to the offspring by the parent

Is it all fake news and a work of fiction

Is Malefic allure our one true addiction

Does humanity even have a freedom of choice

Or does it simply pander to the Inner-Ape’s voice?

Trump revisited

DonaldJTrump strides the political wall

Presidential power in the hands of a fool

The GOP plays a dangerous game

As the Republican party becomes a national shame

A Congress of cowards in a reality farce

Giving massive tax-breaks to the Elitist Class

Who voted for a Paedophile in red (so alleged in the hue)

Apparently better than the seat turning blue?

They’ve become as sick as the man we love to hate

Who’s motto resounds “to make America great!’

By licking the arse of Putin, his mate

By insulting America’s allies

By hurting Her friends

There will come a time when She can’t make amends

If you’re not a dictator, you’re weak, and you’re thick

DonaldJTrump is a mouthpiece for sick

And inappropriate

For racism and hate

The Trumpian recipe for “Making America great”

The smallest hands, with the largest IQ

We’ve never seen the like of Trump, not me or you

With his tariffs; with his rhetoric of war

The disingenuous treatment of his allies is poor

A man against the world, I think it’s fair to say

A man who Doubles-Down

Who doesn’t know any other way

One thing we agree on, at least

Trump’s ego is a raging beast

A Minotaur who needs to feed

On adversity, hate, and Presidential greed

On America’s allies, and all at once

America’s in conflict on too many fronts

DonaldJJupiter, the God of War

But only a man in the days before

A mere mortal before the White House opened up its doors

So we thank God for Muller, who’s got Trump’s measure

Digging for corruption is the Special Council’s treasure

And there’s a trove of ‘precious rings’

That include Collusion, Obstruction, and nefarious things

But what Trump fears most is treason

And I trust in Muller to expose the reason

Why DonaldJTrump disrupts ‘peace in our time’

The policies of a President include collaboration and crime

Against his people, their markets, their freedom of trade

Let’s pray that Muller can end this dictator’s charade

So when Muller sends Trump down the river, to the Pen

America picks up the pieces, and starts again

When Trump’s Base comes to realise their President is a chump

They’ll understand the reality

That Trump, is for Trump, is for Trump!

Simulation

Mathematicians equate All with the Zero or a One

But I think they’re just poking fun

Because if that is so

We’ve got nowhere to go

But to ‘Simulation Theory’ as the go-to flow

And admit that we’re all a part of the ‘Programme’

We’re being drip-fed

A dietary nutrition on a hard-drive bed

That directs and shapes everything that we do

We’re just a daemon digit in a binary zoo

But what does that even mean

That we live our lives in a virtual scene

Are we the Sims, for real?

Or hamsters spinning around an algorithm wheel

I mean, think about it

We follow the same old path

Paved by repetitive patterns

The purpose of a Programme

Is to ensure that’s how it happens

Plod, plod, plod . . . Our social bubble isn’t wide

A holiday interaction with the Great Outside

Pulled from the the Programme and

Allowed to return once

There’s a world beyond, but we’ve no power to affect

To do so would mean a total disconnect

Some kind of update, through trauma or fear

That reroutes our programme for another course to steer

Hey, we beaver away

Subroutines on a permanent delay

Plugged into a world fuelled by statistics and cash

That flows against gravity into the memory flash

Workers, we’re built like Lego blocks

Each one of us is an equinox

It’s what the ‘Programme’ has designed us to do

Each to be a part of their Emoticon Crew

A .Com bubble

Means digital trouble

As Disruptors play and to hijack the work

Malware intoxicate to send the ‘Programme’ berserk

For which there will be consequences

Disruption within the executive, Shift, Control, Command

The System antiviral defences are armed

Trying to outperform the nuclear threat

We’re not on the Web

We are the Net

Fighting Malware designed to nuke

Fuck up the system with a total re-boot

We’re antiviral in nature, explicit with our chores

Protect all familial coding from any malicious source

Because something’s out there; it wants the ‘Programme’ to drown

End the Simulation by putting us all down

We’re born, we live, we perform

Never deviating from our social norm

We process, assemble, convert, and guide

No free-will beyond the data applied

Our lives laid out on a coded page

When the updates stop coming, the corruptions engage

A logic bomb we’ve come to know as, old-age

A Zombie virus that will infiltrate and rot

Fragment our ones and zeros, leaving nothing more than a dot

A ghost in the memory, buried somewhere in the flash

The next scheduled scrub, will throw you out in the trash

Personally, I pray for a quicker demise

Not slowly overwritten so my memory fries

I’m worth more than that . . .

I think therefore I am; I’m not just an App

Quotidian

There’s nothing like it, nor left besides. A heart-ache lie in which the truth resides. To find out we’re ordinary, you and I. Sinking to the bottom as we reach for the sky.

As we trudge, amble, prance and dance. Walk light between shadows as we pass by chance. And beat the odds if we finally meet. In that blink of an eye as our paths pause and greet. Being silent, never loud. Just another part of the Quotidian Crowd. A glance enough for our space to merge.

Gravity pulls and we both feel the urge.

I like you, but I’m afraid . . .

The magic of her smile as a link is made

Two strokes on the canvas of a Lowry sketch. Need a leap of empathy, to cross the chasm’s stretch.

Say something, quickly, before the paint is dry . . .

But I’m frozen by the void and can’t explain why

Just say the words. Utter the spell. . .

Connect our plains whilst we’re parallel.

The smile fades as her eyes turn away

Our moment is about to displace.

Our orbit is breaking, she’s moving away

About to shift time and space

Say something; speak

Stop staring like she’s a circus freak

But my tongue is as dry as a wind swept dune

My words as muted as a speech balloon

Would you like to sit and talk?

That’s a start

Take my hand and go for a walk . . .

Yes, say it now. Connect and share

Would you like to meet mother?

I could help you brush your hair . . .

No, no, don’t say that

It’ll make you sound like a serial-killer twat

There’s a moment when a man and woman connect

A subtle look, or a smile, can have explosive effect

Sending Heaven’s tides on a swell through your veins

Quotidian is expelled, and only a Goddess remains

The problem is, a moment’s not always long enough

Too much jumble and not enough stuff

Oh no . . . I recognise that frown

She thinks her smile was wasted, not returned

She’s feeling foolish; rebuffed and spurned

The moment’s quickly going south

In desperation I open my mouth

“No, wait, please don’t go . . .”

Shit, did I say that out loud

All eyes lift and there’s a pause in the crowd

It wasn’t me . . . No, wait, yes it was

I’ve got that sinking feeling

My high just took a loss

Fuck it; too late, as a veil draws from higher plains

The moment gone, and insecurity remains

I’ve done it again, turned the mist into mire

Unable to kindle enough fuel to make fire

Goodbye . . .

No, I’m fine, I’ve got something in my eye

Moments sweep us all through dimension and space

Each one a different bubble, another time and place

Invisible portals; locks that seek a key

I liked her, and I think that that she liked me

But it’s back to the crowd

So quotidian

So bland

Still looking for a Princess to share my fairytale Land.

Emptiness

The Universe; does it really exist

Or do we seek the impossible, for another unexpected twist

Is it a dirty canvas

Or a poem un-penned

Improbable and implausible, like an imaginary friend

Akin to nails drawn slowly downward like a sword

Raking the surface like chalk down a board

First in crayon, and then in pen

An empty slate for the restlessness of Men

Or simply Apes who try

To keep drawing the future until their ink runs dry

On something so big, and yet so empty

Because it’s nothing but a lie

An imaginary place in which the Apes might fly

A cold untruth with nothing to feel

Space keeps expanding . . .

But is it even real?

And yet we look further, further, and deeper

Into the darkness we follow the light

Hoping one day to discover

It’s more than the reflection of night

More of what we need to see

Always peeking through the lock

We’ll never find the key

Another chance to build, and never achieve

A frame for conception, but not to conceive

It’s a universe that offers unattainable goals

But where else to seek solace

To sooth such troubled souls

Than in a universe that can never satisfy

Never capitulate or please

Listen to your imaginary friend

What can never end, will only ever tease

So, what is Infinite space

Somewhere to believe what you imagine to be true

The Final Frontier . . .

Or just a hole to tumble through

I think the ancients understood best

As they gazed up at the stars

That it’s enough just to stare and wonder

And believe the Gods are the fathers of thunder

It put a limit on the need to know

Created a bubble beyond which they had no need to go

The stars are an emptiness that can only deny

In Space no-one hears you scream

When you keep asking yourself, Why?

Suit

Imagine if you could wear, Space-Time? Wouldn’t it be sublime. The dark stuff that bends to gravitational mass. I wouldn’t take a pass. It’s a suit that the sun can’t singe or burn. Mr Freeze would be of little concern. To wear a suit that would never fade, and never tear

The fabric of space would be something to wear

I’d strut the catwalk of Saturn’s ring

Listen to my Beats, and do my party thing

Shades at the ready as I fly by Mars

Stellar-drift through our solar space, then head off out to the stars

Like being made of water and living in the sea

My suit would give me, invincibility

I’d merge, one galaxy to the next

Fold through outer-space like sending a text

A cosmological fashion-flare

Making a statement in the great ‘Out There’

I’ll blow a nebula or two

Ignore a binary star

Check out the meaning of life

Nah, I’ll go for a Dark-Energy spa

I’m going deep into the universal-park

Riding a comet’s tail through an ocean of dark

To surf the horizon of a hole so Black

Find some Ice-Giant bling to chill my glass of Jack

As I lay on my back, to watch a Stella-Nursery give birth

I wonder if that’s how it was for the Earth

No matter, not unless it’s dark

Filled with mesons and baryons, and six different flavours of quark

A whole lot of little stuff that fills up empty-space

So best if I kick-back, throttle down, and ease up my pace

Go with the flow; check out what’s Bad

I think I’ll be glad, just to see if I can trace

What theoretical scientists have a tendency to misplace

I’ve got Time to look around. Or have I . . .

Does Time even exist beyond my suit

Is the universe any different to a forgotten bowl of fruit

I guess it just has a longer day

But in the end, even particles decay

Eurrgh, they’re like waves dissipating on a beach

Scattered into a Quantum realm that Space-Time cannot reach

It seems that even the stars must die

Vast galaxies destined to collide

Death, so it seems, is universal

There’s nowhere ‘Out There’ to hide

Once I’ve looked behind her beautiful face

I find a demolition job, on Matter, Time, and Space

Truth is, it’s not much fun being out here alone

My suit lacks pockets, so I couldn’t bring a phone

No Candy Crush to keep me amused

Just a cosmological riddle that leaves me bemused

I could quick-step towards the end, I suppose

Stride towards to the Rim, and see what goes

To find where Space-Time meets the emptiness into which the Universe flows

Where Light stalls, and Matter falls

Where everything dribbles into cosmological pools

A collection point for galactic crap

What’s on the other-side, is not on any map.

Good Morning?

They used to be good, but not any more

Not since the clock reset

Mornings blossom now with only pain and regret

A count-down of time, somehow stuck in reverse

My home has become a prison

More accurate to say, my hearse

I think it happened whilst I was sleeping

Someone wound my clock

They stopped it from creeping

At some point life hit me with a curse

I jumped out of Drive and got slammed in reverse

The night my days numbered less than had passed

And the hands on the clock, began to tick-tock too fast

One morning I awoke

To find myself twisted and broke

I felt Atrophy suckling to feed

On my body, my mind; it had all begun to recede

So subtle and slight

Piggybacking time so I couldn’t stand and fight

The leisurely tide that had seen me crowned

Had swelled into waves that would now see me drowned

They say, we’re the residue of fallen stars

Some kind of celestial spark

Seraphims born with a nucleonic heart

So what the fuck happened?

It all began to ebb

Git sucked into the nexus of atrophy’s web

I was a Demi-God, well oiled and quick

Everything I did was rumbustious and slick

An Alpha Male, with empathy and grace

A lightning bolt who electrified his space

Then something happened; an event horizon passed

The hands on the clock began to tick-tock too fast

Like a postcard from the past

“Wish you were here”

I’d been jettisoned from my pod

Left to orbit what had passed

The offspring of a fulminating sun

But just like my genitor, my sparkle had spun

How quickly I’d tripped my fuse

Become an old age wannabe, feeling atrophy turn the screws

So, good Morning? Maybe once, but not now

I crawl out of bed and plod like a cow

Use the wall and the door

Try not to trip on the carpeted floor

Then an emergency wiggle; take aim and don’t miss

Old people rise early, because they really need to piss

Descending the stairs just a step at a time

The other way around is an Everest climb

Flick the light; hear the caffeine call

My fingers resting on a painted wall

As my body begins to settle

The length of the boil from a slow burning kettle

Every morning sees the ‘edge of tomorrow’

Live, die, repeat . . .

A morning closer to inevitable defeat

I want to be strong again, to be fearless

Like back when I was BAD!

All very sad

The only thing bad now, is my back

As I reach for my pre-breakfast snack

Fruit of many colours, sizes, and shapes

Do I swallow in a handful

Or savour like grapes

The pills that keep me going

Or do they help stop me from slowing

As I sit by the window in count-down mode

It’s like waiting for a bus . . .

But some bastard closed the road

Not that I stray far these days

Looking out through the window as my garden greys

Waiting for my body to play catch-up, and get caught

Staring out the window thinking solitary thoughts

About the past, as I watch it all fade

Somewhere in the past my future was mislaid

And then a sharp breathe, as I remember more

And reach for the photo in the kitchen drawer

How I miss her; her name was . . . Jean?

Her memories in here. I just don’t know where it’s been

I wore her like a Onesie; my love, my wife.

When she passed on it tore a hole in my life

Her empathy, her laughter; the way that she smiled

Is this the first, or tenth time, this memory’s been dialled

How could I forget that we Rosy, our child . . .

That’s them in the photo; I think I keep it close

The treasure in my world that I covet the most

But there are times when all I see is sand

And wonder why this picture is held in my hand

A woman and a child, they share a happy scene

On the back are the words, ‘Rosy and Jean’

In brackets below (Your wife and daughter / 25th December)

But not an inkling of recognition . .

Sometimes I don’t remember

It started as a recall glitch

Dementia, she’s a fucking bitch!

Dialysis is the God of fatigue

I have a nurse who drops by, but not as often as I need

My arthritis gets angry, always on the grind

Depression is a marriage of the inconvenient kind

But you know what? I’m not fucking dead

As the kettle finally boils and I butter my bread

I have that first coffee of the day

The pills kick in and the pain (mostly) goes away

It’s breakfast with the Gods; caffeine and drugs

To rewrite my code, and delete all the bugs

Though I still have to wear glasses

And use a stick to amble

Straying too far from a toilet is a bit of a gamble

Have I mentioned that?

Not that I go out much these days, like I said

Hearing kids shout and scream, it fills me with dread

And when the door-bell rings, it’s not very funny

Oh, to get visitors who don’t want my money

And the crap through the letterbox; junk-mail on the floor

All I feel is a draught as I pass my front door

A portal I keep well shut to the other side

It’s now a barrier for defence

Two-fingers up to the outside world

The last futile gesture I have to dispense

Even to the people who care; its only because they’re paid

When we’re unable to pay our own way

We’re ushered off out of sight, and into shade

When you’re old no-one cares

You’re from a by-gone-age

You’re a leaf in a book

A full-stop on the page

There are too many candles and not enough cake

The State treats the aged as a biological mistake

So, kids should be warned . . .

The crash is harsh and cold

We learn how to grow-up

We’re not taught how to grow old

That’s the truth of how it is with every ‘good morning’

Old age should come with a government warning

Well not any more . . .

I think it’s best all round

That when the nurse calls by, my body is found

‘Treasure’ in hand, whilst I still remember their names

Tentative control of what little that remains

My fate.

My terms.

To end the feeding frenzy of the Memory Worms

I’ll forestall the Reaper before I’m asked

Stop the clock before it tick-tocks its last

One final chance to have my say

An end to ‘good mornings’

I’ll make them all go away

Dark

Nothing can travel faster than light, am I right?

But what about the night?

There’s always more darkness in which to spread

Like a fish through the sea, light just can’t get ahead

And if it did, then where to

Or more importantly, to when?

Will the catching-up stop

And the overtaking begin?

You see, darkness is the natural state

A fatal follower of its own futile fate

A true believer that sees no end

A totemic traveller, on a journey without end

It’s a tide on the swell, when it’s going really well

A tsunamic bubble that’s looking for trouble

But all waves eventually will tire and get wet

Every dream wakes up in a cold and beady sweat

At the speed of expansion on this universal ship

Even nothing finds something on which to eventually trip

Unfortunately it’s an end that we’ll never know

Imagination is a thought that happens too slooooow

So it’s life on the road, but left by the kerb

Stuck out on the rim; do not disturb

But when the light finally goes out

There’ll be an end to any doubt

That we see no more distant than a person who is blind

It’s all an illusion being conjured in the mind

Watching darkness; always pushing back

It’s a full on assault

A banzai attack . . .

To drop the curtain where light might reveal

When the stars burn out there’ll be no appeal

Dark touches life in a way that light never will

It’s normality returning to its ancient state

Sensory deprivation is a universal fate

Where all will revert to whatever it seems

The reality is, we reside in our dreams

So go on, dare you, close your eyes

Shut them for a day and win the ultimate prize

To realise that light is a terrible mistake

That only in the dark are we fully awake

Darkness, it’s within us all

Deny it all you like

But it will come to call

It is everything within, and all without

There’s no escaping the dark

When the light eventually burns out

Crisis

Mournful about how memories, holidays, possession, count as nothing when age, time, retirement, illness etc The past counts for nothing when the present gets in the way. When the future has run out of steam . . .

Love is a terminal illness that will take one or the other away

All those wonderful moments

The memories in the sun

Just an antidote for depression, when two become one

When a lifetime of love faced its final test

The heart of the matter is laid to her rest

And the nights become long, dark, and lonely

The space in my head fills with “what if”, “and if only”

One step forward, the other steps back. When a mid-life crisis gets stuck in your crack. Lodged so far up you can’t function on a high. What you find is reduced to, OMG, and why?

I think I want to cry

I’ll hold back the years at Bingo, by the bar

I’ve always fancied no roof on my car

White stripy sneakers; the tie can go to hell

A mirror to help me spike my hair with glitter gel

Looking good

Got a spring in my step

Off to the gym to break out the sweat

Golf four times a week for a wayward stroll

Naughty Nina’a website helps grease my sagging pole

Who am I trying to kid

A decade of trying and I’m still on the skid

The rust in my limbs start my joints to seize

Onset arthritis and a pulmonary wheeze

I used to know how the world was made

I thought Virgin cable was a sexual aid

No, I won’t cry; I’ll hold back the tears

As full-on Nuclear Winter appears

A dystopian future, looking real bleak

In a body made of Balsa, that was once carved from teak

I’m slipping away like the tide

Yet I still feel twenty one inside

Not even the moon can bring me back

Medication keeps me going; but there’s no going back

Atrophy

I’m broken

I’m dying

Piece by piece my body is lying

You see my mind is an egg, my body the spoon

What began as a symphony, has rescinded to a tune

More inaudible with each year of diminish

One race I don’t want to win

Is the one to my finish

To the end of me

To the life that I’ve spent

Thinking I’d bought it outright

To find it only for rent

But still, my mind thinks so therefore I am

As I teeter towards an end that doesn’t give a damn

Because it doesn’t exist, the end

I never thought I’d die

But now it seems my Gordian knot has almost been untied

What the fuck . . . Where did the time go?

Who pressed the fast forward when it used to be sloooow

When did my kids grow so freeking old

When did atrophy really take a hold

It removed my dignity, and my choice to respond

Turned my hair white, when it used to be blonde

Makes me tremble, fearful, and full of . . . I don’t know what

I meant to say something; but dammit I forgot

I’m hiding behind a shadow

The last stand at the Alamo

It’s time for the bugle to play the Last Post

Then again to reveille my soon to be ghost.