ghost in the machine

def./

"the human brain has grown, it has built upon earlier, more primitive brain structures, and that these are the 'ghost in the machine'.

at times these structures can overpower higher logical functions, and are responsible for hate, anger and other such destructive impulses.

humanity's atavistic brain areas will lead it to self-destruction. however, the same areas responsible for hate and anger are also responsible for certain other emotions, such as love and happiness, which tend to be viewed more positively, although they can in themselves foster or lead to certain destructive urges on an individual level.

certain narcotics, for example, create what may be viewed as 'positive emotions, despite their harmful long term effects."

escapade_

you and me, darling, let's hop on the next train to vegas. elvis and prostitutes will be the only witnesses we need, and the whole world will be in the dark, but we will be lost in the light. until the end of time. until the end of me.

when the world is dark, we can become sideshow freaks in liberty. we can bend and mend silver spoons with our minds. we can burn suburbia to the ground with our middle fingers towards the podium and then, teleport to remote ghost towns to revive the dead.

the beautiful dead.


can we please do this? before they make a robot out of me. before they make a robot out of you.

you are_

and you wished, wished that, just once, it could be meant for you, that fortune might favor the severed finger as it twitches lifelessly behind a sardonic smile, the cavern of a candy mouth, your saprophytic intentions commemorate your every failure at leisure and you are as guilty as you make yourself to be as momentous and tantamount to a head without a proper home that shall wander for eternity upon that stump that raises itself proudly from your shoulders, an erection of a different kind but full of the same incessant pride that you only wish you could shame yourself for and why do you stare in such a way as if someone will lift your steel lenses and gouge out your searing eyes can you see? can you see without the light, do you need a mirror to believe that no one can love you as much as yourself and even that is an insufficient affection; what have you lost, lost forever in the cyclone of diversity, loved and destroyed out of sheer jealousy and are you as guilty as everyone else or do you harbor a different kind of crime, one without a name? introduce us, please, introduce me to your new disease my last was lovely but short but painful but pretty and i could float without salt, fly without wings, but its all gone now, all gone, dead and laying amongst over-turned leaves of fall of amber and days of a summer that i lost to a state of sublime health, but its gone now, all gone and a new needle could be cleaner than the one sticking out of your arm, are you a disease, a failure, a picture of deceit the pleasure of discovering that you are all that

. . . a child an old man.

a story for my nubile wickerman

we walked. we found a trail of fossilized bread crumbs on the dry manhattan grounds. you tip-toed merrily through them, whistling whistling:
just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.
you, the wickerman, arms lagging, dragged along your machine gun (knuckles scraping the ground); i trailed behind, feather-flicking and smelling the death of tomorrow and transforming every green thing into wrought iron.

we found it---the trampled-down, junkyard version of la agua de vita.
a sister tributary, more like; sprung from a cadaverous well.

and there, we made our memorial--- our ephemeral dedication, we drew sigils in the air and practiced playing indians in red scarves and collapsing hats.

we held hands; i put my head in your lap and drank in your softness;
we pressed our faces close, and your mouth communicated the peligrosa effervescing of sourbright cherries.

the photo-box clicked its teeth.

on the way back, you, named the reasons on your hennaed fingers: why we could never be.

stupidly, blindly, i laughed, unaware that you were maybe trying to tell me something
or, then again, you were only convincing yourself
and with my gullible laugh you pushed that snuffbox back into its drawer.

like december_

he was here. he was lost. they found him but they couldn't find him. the day he found himself was the day he lost it all over.

and his nightmare became true.

ENDGAME

all serial killers were made in shoe factories.

shoot your leaders down

half of them follow blissfully, chin-deep in ignorance
a mirrored image of their leaders

the other half follow because they need you to sustain
to feel something
a false prophecy or a phantom sense of purpose
that they exist for a reason
that they are capable of production

such is this tragic institution
feeding and breeding a crowd of starving, useless children
in denial of failure
in denial of brutality

how clean you are is irralevent
faith, in actuality, has accomplished nothing for you nor for the architect
nothing can be added to this collapsing structure
it is only sloth that you engineer

because this place,
is as hopeless as it appears to be

...unless you tear it all apart,
and start shooting down your followers and your leaders.

refraction

flashing lights. sirens. police.

none of these things existed. only the music.

chopin’s prelude no. 4 in e minor, in fact...and what a beautiful song it was. it practically drowned the listener in a slow moving ocean of emotion. loneliness. such loneliness.

such beautiful loneliness.

like cautious steps tread across an all-too familiar path. like rain falling from a glowing, gloomy, slate-gray sky. like tears and sadness. like a lifetime of waiting. and losing. and wishing and wanting.

this was music.

what a fitting tribute. what a fitting farewell.
ave to those poor, unfortunate girls.
ave to himself.

the room was cold and draughty. and empty save for that piano. tattered curtains drifted inwards like ghosts, allowing a sliver of moonlight to puddle across the floor and his hands, wandering over the keys. they danced together as wanderers might along that moon-lit boulevard, depressed by gentle fingers as if in gentle caress.

gently, gently now. rise and fall with the music. rise and fall, emotion.

rise and fall. rise and…
fall
and rise
and fall and rise and…
…drift.

drift in and out of consciousness. in and out of reality. drift with the music on a sea of loneliness.
he was a castaway drifting through life. through time. through eternity.

he raised his eyes towards the star-strewn sky, scattered like milky-white pebbles on a blue-black velvet cape.

it was almost time.

silence_

so she found a way to break your silence

but before you speak again
the dust storm will suffocate you.

and maybe you will realize that i was right all along:

"i made you up inside my head".