Destroyer, discrepancies.
How to sort them out?
Dismantle, then fire post-freeze.
River, run rue rout.
Destrier, to break mid-stride.
Sacrifice a pawn.
Midnight train, buy ticket, ride.
That will mow the lawn.
Priceless? Quite a prize? Surmise.
In passing? En prise.
Ring? Alchemy. Arcane? Rise.
Stifled cries? No lies.
Falconer, thy widening gyre.
Second coming? Now.
Come and see? Fine funeral pyre.
Live wire, take a bow!
Broil and char? From near to far.
Muskellunge and gar.
Peacocks pretty, poison par.
Dream, seem. Lead. Red star.
Serenity? Stable, sage.
Madness, mycophage.
Roundabout, rill. Rusty cage.
Symptoms mad, thy age.
Ark electric, how you burn.
Tones, burst sonic flame.
Mind cartoons? Ashes in urn.
Same game? Claim the name.
Armies, mechanize and wail.
Never end, our tale.
Weak resistance stale, you fail.
Blaspheme, boil and bail.
Silver, sickles. Red regrets.
Automaton, glean:
He who risks it all once bets.
Wind and wintergreen...
Behind the glass, a ticking god of brass,
Who waves a withered palm of fiberglass.
The neon crystal bleeds a bruised magenta hue,
Dispensing plastic tokens, counterfeit and true.
“Your wish is granted,” the solenoid sighs,
While servo motors calibrate his glowing eyes.
He sits in a paisley vest and a gold-wrapped head,
Proclaiming: “Be happy living, for you’re a long time dead.”
Drop in a copper, hear his jawbones creak,
The algorithm’s gospel is the truth he’ll speak.
He shuffles fifteen fortunes from a secret slot,
Telling you of money, love, and what you haven’t got.
A silicon swami in a cedar cage,
Selling sudden adulthood on a printed page.
For twenty-five cents—or a swipe of your card—
He dictates the future of a weary backyard.
But if you feed the Deluxe Cabinet every spare dime,
He loops all his blessings in a paradox of time.
A timeless automaton, forever programmed to please,
Dispensing our destinies on tear-off degrees.
Android, light a fire!
Melt down metal and stone.
Forge of these a wire.
O hateful, hold thy own!
Hordes of havoc, ride with fate!
Loose thy battle cry!
Warrior, thy will is hate!
Compel these to die!
Sigh, O waiting ladies?
Not readily, good sir.
Look up at the Pleiades!
Reality, just blur...
Automaton, black abyss!
Apocalypse; kiss.
Flock of pelican, fish. Grow, gris.
Serpent coiling, hiss.
Bile and blasphemy, break. Be.
All tomorrow, flee.
Beat of my heart, suddenly!
Vision means to see...
Cold confusion, coffee cake!
Help a brother out!
Vampire, do ye fear the stake?
Dragon, do ye doubt?
Flame eternal, burn within!
Blanch, O fire of Sin!
Scorching heat of oven? In!
What ye dream, begin!
Light of spark and intellect!
Brilliant is thy glow!
Raven of fate, how you pecked!
Necked and tossed below!
Chain unbroken, forge. Deep gorge.
Weathervane, point. Sight.
Unit twenty, thou art corge.
One it takes to fight...
O my shadow, sail away.
Be thou far from me.
Morning deadly, thou art grey.
Poison, hear my plea.
Torn apart, O tones of time?
Nerves inside us, roil.
Countenance of bitter crime!
Belladonna, boil!
River, in thy deepest cave.
Giant, see thy grave.
Sidewalk cracked and needing pave.
Savior, time to save.
Armies of forgotten gone!
Tend thy fiercest rage!
Blackout, blossom! O my swan!
Broken, O my cage!
Automaton, mad machine!
Envy turned them green!
Roundabout run red! I deen?
Just what have I seen?
Moon above, thy fullest.
Lunatic, thy fringe.
Fill the brazen bull? Best!
Murder, on the binge!
Great queens, from thy black abyss!
Give the end a kiss!
Such a night! What lurked in this?
Serpent, time to hiss!
Hope, accrue? What do we do?
Magnetize the flue!
Stick together just like glue!
Make the whole world new...
Destitute, O destiny?
Thinning at the ranks?
Doubtful, thy delivery.
Whom to give our thanks?
Riddle red run roundabout?
Automaton, flee!
Rhyme, ravine, regime, rot, rout!
Blessed, blackout, be...
Unity of message?
And what would be the point?
Straits, afford the passage?
O yellow priest, anoint...
Teeth, open in serried row!
Faces, peer in deep!
Broken is the golden bow?
O my masters, weep!
Weakness in the belly?
There's always lots of that.
Predators, hie to hell. He!
Nameless names from hat...
Ocean water, rush in quick...
Break the candlestick.
Light the match, ignore the wick.
Give the end a flick.
Burst upon the basement?
O slaughterhouse, succor.
Evil case of easement?
Weathervane, point to war.
If I were in automaton mode
and wrote a digital poem
with binary code
in terms of two states
expressed as 0's and 1's
(positive and non-positive)
which when done
alternate
and run
in a lengthy string
then later transmit the data
with technology
it would not read
a beautimous thing
but repetitively tedious
or boring indeed
nought but a numbers game
of dreary ennui
it would positively be
Sheila stepped out of the mechanized gear-filled lab with her robotic dog.
her lace blouse a contrast to her steam-powered eighteenth-century hog.
Another inventor looked up gave her a quick friendly boy-next-door wave.
His invention would make robotic airships flow and cascade.
Is that another automaton? Sheila yelled at her childhood friend of forever.
He did not divulge secrets, for Sheila was exceedingly clever.
She tucked her auburn hair into a helmet from Leagues under the sea.
But she was not fooled by his quick answer, not by any degree.
these rival inventors had been steampunk friendly since twenty-twenty.
She had phenomenal forthcoming mechanics almost ready; he had plenty.
Nothing frilly or fancy about her robotics, she intended they be the best.
Jim understood this, but he still wanted to carve out for them a love nest.
Sheila had avenues to conquer, airships to build too.
Eventually he planned to make a move, for without her, life would be blue.
Sheila congratulated herself for her coolness as she rode her hog away.
She planned to make him fall in love with her, tomorrow might be the day.
The transformation is complete once again.
An automaton is reborn in day.
Atop its tower it ponders in silence.
Atop its tower it observes in relevance.
Once again it is disconnected.
Truly distant and dejected.
A path it marches onto.
But there is no one at it's side.
It's facade still active yet deep down it hides the truth.
Recording and replaying never creating.
None able to reach it as it's solitude grows.
Blankface remains....
I can’t remember how I was before you -
what I was feeling, doing, or where my heart was.
I can’t remember how I lived before you -
how the days were, the evenings, the nights.
I remember I was sometimes lonely, lost somehow.
I’d forgotten who I was meant to be, neglecting me.
Automaton in the every day; going through the motions,
with no notion of what love truly was, or passion.
It was mundane - grey, transparent, colourless.
Cloudy in my heart, trudging through the motions,
bland emotions, no piquant of tenderness or intimacy.
No heart rush, or fluttering of butterflies - just still.
And then I saw you - the dark, sultry eyes, the silent desire.
The mystery of not knowing, the quickening of breath.
a chemical reaction, undeniable attraction, and I saw it too,
in you as you stared across the room, making me uneasy.
I fidget in my chair, sensing you there, but trying not to look.
Then our eyes meet, and we’re suspended in the moment -
then - just there - knowing there was no way back.
Knot already tied. The red thread of fate binding us eternally.
"The Odyssey, First Steps"
"You’re just like a doll...
you're like a doll,
in a dream", he said,
I nod, up then down,
as if my head moves
by puppet master
I turn with the strings
like a piece of furniture
facing East door, then,
the ghost in me arises
from its chair
and like an automaton,
I walk, through the door
I walk, I turn North,
as if drawn
by architecht
Sthapatya Veda;
the Odyssey, first steps
looking for
the way to
Brahmasthan
the centre
pulls me back
(LadyLabyrinth / 2023)
" When the Soul wants to experience
something she throws out an image
in front of her and then steps into it."
Meister Eckhart
Little bits
spin off like sparks
from a grinding wheel,
as if you are
being honed to fit
the dimentions of
an ideal, the template
of a saved soul.
Sometimes too much
is taken off, ground down
to where the will
is compromised into
a compliant automaton,
flesh stripped back
to gears.
And the lie is sanctified
as holy writ,
god becoming little more
than a product
pumped out of the factories
of earthly prophets.
You forget who you are
Amidst the chaos of this journey
You ignore your true purpose
Trying to chase your problems
You lose your identity
As you suck into the society's labels
Before you even realise
You're engulfed by the worries of this world
You've lost track of time chasing hard cash
You're a reflection of what you wished not to be
Many years ago when you'd judge your formers
Who am I? What have I become?
You ask yourself
Unable to recognize the person you see
Little did you notice
While you were trying to make amends in others
You lost a part of you to them
Until there was nothing left of you
That truly belonged to you
Now you're just like others
An automaton, a label, a status, a cash cow
In here
I occupy the smallest space,
yet cultivate galaxies
to weave and web light
across an infinite sky,
or in darker moods,
conjure glaciers that grind
towards frozen seas
and numb the mind
with cold. Beyond,
I populate the unknown
with fickle gods.
In here
I pretend to be out there.
You may have seen me
seated at a table, conversing,
appearing to be at ease
when really I am - in here.
Out there I masquerade
as me but what you see
is a fiction,
a mere automaton
moved by levers pulled
by me - in here.
In here
I cast no shadow,
all is a closed room,
a darkened theatre waiting
for a movie to be shown.
Thoughts wind like frames
through lighted gates
and blink images
upon a screen. I watch
and examine each passing scene
trying to put together
a picture of who I am.
In here
there is only me,
the solitary custodian
of a lifetime's haul,
the judge and jailor.
I would like to be elsewhere
but cannot gather in all
that is me. I spill between
the frames of this moving mind,
and these words,
no more than a notion,
a flickering ghost
on an editing room floor.
The Human Race acts with a semblance of virtue,
if only for our illusion.
Yet, if his goals are reached, and not his passions,
he will be an automaton.
Striving through all the endless wars that he fights,
satisfying the traditions.
Searching for the golden heroin, the great deceiver,
who claims to buy love.
So the mystery remains, where will mankind find,
their eternal dimension?
The question was written with scratches on sandstone,
of what he might find.
And whether the great expectations through antiquity,
will finally be received!
I sidle a hand through the ink-bleeding screen,
My automaton heart now a fistful of glee.
For a flickering vigil in Purity's name,
Lie comatose dour mockery of roses and flame!
Only such beauty in idyll remains
Soaring from laughter 'fore its wilted decay,
‘What gorgeous weather we're having these days’ —
I'll be wringing out my bones and hanging them up to dry
once the sun grows far too bashful a rival
for the concrete shadows of a Haptic sky —
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