The Traveler
More transient
Then the gate's shadow on the bricks
and tiles of the walk
The dew on the pre-dawn grass
The zephyr dancing across the dust
He pauses
and reaches for something in his pocket
I have trouble seeing him
As he flickers in and out of existence
I can't hear him at all
But I'm certain he is trying to tell me something
Across the vast distance of an arm's length
What?
He's holding something out to me
I think he wants me to take it
But I can't see what it is
Wary
I lift my open hand
In the Courts of Light
The Sun went down
in robes of Fire
Down into the Sea
Golden fire in the waters
Fire flies ignite
the velvet night
Unsummoned memory ghosts
Brush by me
soft as shadow
And
Once again
I dance
in the Courts of Light
Life begins again
Ships of the Wind
swing through the trees
Rivers of Song
Paint everything I see
And I throw my head back
Breathing the sky
Proteus Unit Dis-engaged
The Proteus unit was dormant
recharging its ergon cells
How else could we have found it?
Morphing in its active state
As one with any landscape
The very dickens to find
Our Minerva unit
Disconnected his power feed
And hooked in
one of her trickle chargers
Holding him suspended
in his dream state
She can be so inventive
Oh don't mind the twitching
We just do that to keep
his actuators operative
He doesn't feel a thing
Here
Put on the helmet
Comfy?
Now lean back and try to relax . . .
Mary Shelley's Monster
What could be more alien . . .
Dead torso, limbs and such
Stitched together
like some beggar's ragged coat
Re-animated by
That most mysterious force
running the belly of the sky
Electricity
Say the word
Electricity
It sizzles on your tongue
A dead man
Fabricated from dead parts
With a diseased brain
That was better off
in the glass jar
But she built him
(What, you thought it
was Dr. Frankenstein?)
Bit by bit on those cold
winter nights
Her tender hands
Elbow deep in gore
casting and molding her nightmare
Percy
Salvage
The smell always hits you first
Every time we ram one of their doors
Even seasoned salvage veterans vomit
Silent apartment
Save for a high pitched whine
Debris and dead food
Heaped and strewn at random
And the smell
I bite back the bile
My lucky day
I find
The worshiper of the one-eyed virtual god Her hair tangled in greasy masses
Twitching and panting on the floor
Struggling to crawl back into the chair
Blind eyes searching for one more phosphor-fix Bony fingers reaching for the joy-jack
And I remember
My daughter . . .
Months later
She is sitting across the table
Cleaned up
Politely interested in my opinion
Amused at the general tone of this litigation She knows she must convince the doctors
The board
Even me
That she's well past it
No one ever listens to me
Equipment is cheap on the streets
And she'll be jacked in
Before the first snow
Maybe next time
She won't be so fortunate
And some other poor slob
Will have to put his little girl
in a box