Category Archives: My Literary Column

I am here.

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The spirit of the universe was nowhere to be found
and we had charted light years of starways
through quiet dust-strewn blankets of forever dark
to find ourselves run out of road,
staring but into ancient void

There is nothing, we relayed
as we made to pull the plug
for there was nothing to stay on for

When the stardust-clad darkness gazed into us
as does a cliff into the mountaineer
breathed into our forgotten souls
and said,
I am here.

And we stood and watched,
explorers floating in deep space calm,
until I can remember no more.

Explorer

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Are you there yet?

Have you reached the stratosphere?

Look out, look out of your porthole

Tell me what you see

 

Is your space capsule given up

to the beautiful rolling blanket of stars

Is there peace

Or just handfuls of cold emptiness

To betray our quiet dreams of growing up

 

Is there peace, explorer

Can you bring back a sample

They put us on the blue one, we made it to the grey

Stop and watch the blue one now

gets redder every day

 

Do I care any more what sense I make to them

Just my footsteps echo in the landing crater

And a universe of hope

Looking up at the rise

Of our great majestic blue

Against a starfield of aeons

 

Just this one time, explorer

Turn off your cabin lights and listen to my voice

Interrupt your sequence and look out the porthole

 

Is there a different beauty there, a different truth

Or are you going away through hallways of starlight

 

Explorer, do you copy?

 

photo c/o Jeremy Geddes

Builders

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Welcome

to the Age of Light

to the blinding digital paradise.

 

Just ask

and ye shall receive

the spoils of our technologies.

 

One touch

and the world arrives

for your entertainment on primetime.

 

Make a wish

to our shopping malls

anything you dream, we’ve got it all.

 

All Rise

to the power and freedom of the Future Age.

 

Give the word

Sit back and watch the world obey.

 

Just one word

I almost forgot.

With all good things there’s always a catch.

 

This power

you think you exercise

was never yours, just open your eyes.

 

It’s the Market

that’s all-powerful

and guess what, they’re manufacturing you.

 

It’s Business

you know the holy command

create supply, manufacture demand!

 

All Rise

and submit to the power of the Future Age.

 

Stay calm

nobody gets hurt if you just obey.

 

 

Look out to the sea of faces,

hypnotized, anesthetized,

as the all-fulfilling structure

enslaves and drugs our minds.

 

Here’s calling out to the ones who still

have the power to disbelieve.

 

You are the architects of our future

Step forth into the light.

 

This is your time

Lead us to the Age of Questions.

 

Come take the helm

and guide us to a new horizon.

 

Rise to the glory

Of blood, sweat and tears of pride.

 

You are the one.

The eyes of time are turning on you.

Edward’s Death

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‘I’m going away.’

This text reached seven people within a few minutes of half past two in the night of the last Tuesday of September, 1999.

All of them had been sent simultaneously from a cell phone number that switched off two minutes later.

With that, Edward commenced the process of witnessing his own death. And the effect of his death on the people around him. Relatives, friends, lovers, haters.

Edward wanted to find out what he really meant to people and what they inwardly thought of him. Realizing that his existence was an unavoidable hurdle in this evaluation, he had finally decided to take himself out of the equation.

Nobody had ever done this before, because nobody was sure they could hide today in a world so small for the rest of their life. But Edward had spent time working it all out.

As the phone sank into the cold midnight waters of the Pacific, Edward walked away from the moonlit beach, a bleak, unremarkable figure, receding slowly into the late night drizzle, giving himself up to the waiting darkness of the forest.

This time

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This time there will be no poetry

No songs, no tearful prose

No floating into thoughtscape as I

stare at the tiny lights that play

across the walls of my dark room.

 

No, this time will be dry.

Functional, minimal, standard.

Only the necessary detachment procedures

as I relish the realization

of having got over emotion.

 

This time I can save time

for the things that count

work, produce, live as before

and revel in my growing strength

as weakness dies an early, sad death in me.