I shiver with a nervous chill
As I stand incredibly still.
Dressed in black of silk, twice-pressed,
A rose of red upon my breast.

High King Alasdair lies at rest,
Pickled corpse dressed in solemn best.
Stone-faced priests in ritual vests
Offer up incense cakes to guests.

Silent is the Hall of Passing,
False the tears of those in mourning.
Every sigh a shrilling laugh,
Grief and pain all pre-choreographed.

Seven spiders and fourteen lice,
Coven of liars, lords of vice:
Every one enseated here,
Scheme and plot whilst stewing in fear.

Cosmic thread of lies enweaved,
******* sons and daughters conceived:
Fighting for the Starry Throne–
The sounds of war give pleasured moans.

As a Requiem starts to play,
All who are present bow to pray.
Great and grand Galactic Mass,
Liturgy for a blessed farce.

Past the ghastly Introitus,
"Kyrie Eleison!"–Have mercy on us.
Ships and drones now lie in wait,
Pistols, disablers, knives and fate.

I get up and say my prayers.
Leave this hall of **** betrayers.
As I close the door behind,
Shots now click and fire in kind.

I breathe a sigh: it's coming soon.
Power shifts like the waning moon.
Death and Hades at our door:
Seven-way galactic war.

Dance for me, dear minstrel of the moon,
Sing languidly, sweet flute of the lune.
Tressed in silver trains and sashed with gleaming stars,
Galaxies for your flowing mane, Princess of Mars.

White against red, like blood to linen cloth–
Such is your skin, as soft as a white moth:
A spot of whitewash, a drop of pure milk
That stains the heavy crimson sky with silk.

Descending from your ship of steel,
Your gaze in veils of iron concealed,
You step onto the sand of the Moon –
The first of foreigners in the land of Aün.

A grand procession seeps from the ships:
Brass, woodwinds, and pipes on their lips,
Maidens of braided coiffures and gowns,
Menservants bearing jewelry and crowns.

Lances, spears, percussion, and cheer,
The Universe revels in awe and fear.
Gonfalons, standards, colors, and banners:
Kings, lords, and men of all manners,

Gathered from every corner of this Realm,
With ships of all sizes, and captains at their helms,
To witness and celebrate a sacred union
Of two people, two nations, in a blessed fusion.

Aün and Imandi, two worlds made one,
A union, a tie, dare challenged by none.
The Moon and Mars now weaved with a loom
Of iron and silver–the bride and groom.

O Princess of Mars, allow me one last glance,
As the breeze whips your hair in a dance,
As your dress sways to a sweet lullaby,
As I whisper a final goodbye.

Though I’m unworthy, allow me this word,
I’ll dare to say it, though it sounds absurd:
I love you, o princess–a plain, simple love.
With my heart of hearts, like a tender dove.

Not a love of pain and lust,
Neither one of ashes and dust.
Though it’s rude, admit it I must,
Lest my strength be made to rust.

Go, dear princess. Take your prince’s hand;
Enter with his people, his heart, and his land.
For now is not the time to weep,
But to sing, twirl, dance, and leap.

A cheer erupts from the gathered crowd–
Ten thousand races, hands aloud;
Brass resound a hymn from Mars,
Pipes and drums echoing the stars.

With a forlorn gaze, I sigh and falter.
With quivering breath, I sadly whisper,
“Farewell, dear princess. May your years be prosperous,
And your love be stronger than a fortress.”

With one last look, I turn away,
Boarding my ship, the 'Evergray'.
Though I’ve no plans, I’ll return someday,
A visit to the Prince and Princess I will pay.

In the heart of the city, where magenta veins pulsate,
A symphony of lights, where shadows dissipate.
Alleys whisper secrets, in electric glow they bathe,
Where loneliness is currency, in another world depraved.

Billboard signs flicker like fireflies in the night,
A digital dance, a city's heartbeat in flight.
In the labyrinth of circuits, where dreams collide,
Loneliness echoes, in the depths where souls want to hide.

Fast-paced technology, a relentless stream,
In the dimly-lit alleys, lost souls scream.
Connections fleeting, in a cybernetic maze,
Anxiety is thriving, in the digital craze.

In the city smog's haze, where futures are sold,
Humanity fades, in a world growing cold.
Echoes of the past, in the television's static hum,
Heartbroken minds persist, in the city's artificial thrum.

Yet amidst the chaos, a flicker of hope,
In the sprawling streets, where outcasts elope.
For in the depths of darkness, a spark ignites,
A rebellion against loneliness, in the rain-drenched nights.

So let the puddle glow, let it guide the way,
Through fiberglass and darkness, we'll find our day.
In the embrace of technology, we'll carve our fate,
And in the retina-burning neon lights, we'll find a new state.

© fey (27/04/24)

/ Blade Running \

Making memories,
Wondering who sent for me,
If it wasn’t you then who was it,
& if you didn’t send for me then why are you here next to me,

Self preservation is the first law of nature,
From animal to human from human to machine,
Antisocial butterflies restlessly cramped in our cocoons,
Part plant part mineral part alien fully human being,

Sure we converse with other persons,
But we converse more with ChatGPT,
Hey AI I have a question,
Do ‘Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’,

Even Philip K ****,
Doesn’t know what the answer is to this mystery is,

Half man half nocturnal machine,
Half real life half diurnal dream,

Were we born or were we made maybe it’s the same thing,

Maybe there isn’t a difference or so it would seem,

“You don’t believe,
In miracles because you’ve never seen a miracle.”,
That’s why you’re willing to **** for a fee,
& why you’re always so sterile & cynical,

& maybe that’s why I write,
More than I do anything else,
As a way of trying to jog your memory,
While running up the bill,

At the bar trying to wash away,
Things that still affect me even though they can’t be totally recalled,
In this present day sci-fi anti-climactic dystopia like Arnold,
Call me Jack of All Trades & I’ll call you Jill of It All,

Getting drowsy,
Must be the pills,
On a plane,
On my way to somewhere else,

Travel so much,
Sometimes I wake up & don’t know what country I’m in,
It’s a dog eat dog world so cat naps can be dangerous,
Especially when you drink while sleep walking on Ambien,

A creature with amnesia & beautiful features,
How’d you become such a miracle,
Are you really that perfect,
Or is that just the way I remember you,

Guess it doesn’t matter either way,
Because maybe I don’t even remember you,
Maybe you’re not mine because maybe you never were,
Maybe nothing is mine not even the memories I have of you,

Maybe it’s all just programing,
Maybe we’re all just programs,
Programed to play our part,
In The Grand Program,

Programmed by the wizard behind the curtain,
Or by the woman behind the glass wall,
Maybe in the end we have the same thing we had in the beginning,
Which is absolutely nothing at all,

Maybe that’s why I’m making memories,
Wondering who sent for me,
If it wasn’t you then who was it,
& if you didn’t send for me then why are you here next to me,

Self preservation is the first law of nature,
From animal to human from human to machine,
Antisocial butterflies restlessly cramped in our cocoons,
Part plant part mineral part alien fully human being,

Sure we converse with other persons,
But we converse more with ChatGPT,
Hey AI I have a question,
Do ‘Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’,

Even Philip K ****,
Doesn’t know what the answer is to this mystery is…

∆ LaLux ∆

From ABC: The Beginning Of The End
Available worldwide on all platforms and in all mediums, Audiobook, Paperback, Digital, and Hardcover

I woke up with a noose around our neck.
I thought it wasn't real,maybe,
a scene from a dream?
The snapping of the tree branch.
You use your nocturnal carte blanche
for just this one thing, it seems?
Every night you're given another chance.
Perchance;
Shrubbery snubbed your success, this time.
Instead of being caught by the bushes,
We could've collided into those boulders below!
Luck decided to show.
Intervened when there was no one else to.

I stranded us both on this island:
it's just me and you.
What delusions helped shape your one truth?
This island is a (psychological) poker table for two.
I deal from the deck.
We play a game reminiscent
of four-hand Omaha.
Sitting across from each other:
It always ends in a draw.

You know I can read your poker face.
You know I detest the one desire you chase.

Make your excuses:
They won't help you leave this place.
I see the ace up your sleeve:
It has always been homicide.

I wish you saw this body same as I-sacred.
Its purpose is to serve us,not be desecrated.
Everyday I pray in its name.
you prey.
plotting its demise at night.

One temple.
Two temperaments.
Your one-way fight.

at the Altar I pay tithes.
We are two alters-tied.
You wish to ***** out my life,
Yet abhor the idea of suicide.

I will never leave your bloodlust unchecked.
Your worst intentions(what do they reflect?)
You once could reside in the heart of the city,
Near the coast, by a bustling transit station.
I emerged that day to save them all from you-
You planned to derail a monorail
with a distraction,
Disguised as an altercation.
denied you your reverie
Of a premeditated killing spree,
stranded us intentionally far out at sea.
your constellation prize now
is trying to **** me.
You plant your ***** traps in the dark
while I'm sound asleep.

One morning
I
awoke
and water welcomed our lungs.
Weights wound round our feet,
took us down deep where fishes sleep.
One morning
I
awoke
and smelled smoke clawing at our throat.
Only one entrance in and out of our cave.
and of course: you'd set the entrance ablaze
One morning
I
awoke
and was in a daze
You had consumed something similar to peyote.
Slathered our skin in spices with a savory glaze,
then left us to be eaten in a den full of coyotes.

One morning
I
    awoke   And
One morning I
awoke
And
This morning I
Awoke
and this time. instead of death traps ...
my notebook was nestled in my lap.

ripped out pages I had written
-directed at you-
you glued them to trees with their own sap.
Splayed them out like Hansel and gretel,
for me to follow like a trail or a map.

But I'm no fool.
Luring me on a paper trail to buy my trust.
Where are the trojans that you've hidden?
Trying this new scheme
to occupy my attention.
I know you wish to slice and dice.
If I lose and you win:
we both will pay the price.

Yet, still I follow your route.
I have hope for what you want me to see.
I will always love you
because you're a part of me.

Maybe we can play a new game?
Learn from one another?
I know you think I'm your enemy,
but I've always seen you as my brother.

Shudder-I smell death.
I approach a clearing in the woods.
why have you brought me here?
Atop an amalgamation of numerous dead fowl, fish, rabbits, (those same) coyote
and deer.
A single piece of paper;
clear off the guts and grime.
Tears in my eyes, holding the paper dear.
That single sentence you wrote down:

I never thought I'd live to see this day.
That one line,

that one line was all I ever hoped to hear you say:

           
        "Together at our Altar we will pray."


-

Darkness made clearer
By the accretion disk of a collapsed star
Gravity is a force that binds us now:
Defining how strong we are

In our weakness we could not resist
Compelled towards a rift in the sky
distorting reality
A monstrosity not even light can escape
The irony being that we can assuredly
See our fate

Time slowed down as we neared it
soon it simply froze
We sailed past the event horizon
-onward toward a secret that through fear:
not even time is willing to expose

The nose of our vessel ripped apart
Ejecting us from the safety of our ship,
"The Noah's ark"
Unable to atone for the embryos aboard
we had lost
we drifted alone,
Together,
in the dark

rushing head first
towards the heart of oblivion
The mission escaped from our mind
as tidal forces began spaghettifying our skin

This wasn't the first time
A few seconds felt like
They would never end
Our destiny swallowed
by a black hole in outer space
Consuming our only hope
to restart the human race

Yet in this place I feel peace
we are shown a secret
that no man should ever see
Right before I desist
Collapsing Into that eternal nascent sleep

Something from beyond the singularity,

speaks...

I close my eyes.


                   "Such sweet release."

Once more the Big Bang occurs
Each time spurred on by the spark
of the sleeping child's dream of reality
A naked singularity inflates
at an exponential rate
Subsisting on the substrate
of her slumbering psyche

Her neural networks create galaxies
Energy expended directly from REM sleep
spent on the formation of solar systems
and stars
comets crash land carrying key components
for the conditions of future life on Earth
and Mars

Within the primordial soup
Of the third rock from the sun
Residing in the ocean
-life has just begun
Microbes photosyntesize carbon
Giving Earth an atmosphere rich with oxygen
Arbitrary factors steer evolution
Tetrapods mutate from fish
becoming amphibious

Exodus.

Something steps onto the surface
- for the first time
Two billion years have elapsed
mere minutes move in the girl's mind

It was maybe thirty minutes since
she bade her mom goodnight
The child sleeps tight
Meanwhile a caveman strikes flint on timber
The resulting embers form a fire
Providing him with warmth and some light

Callous winds from outside conquers
the comfort of her comforter
A chill permeates the child's skin
This feeling reverberates all the way down
The first ice age begins
A frozen world of snow
For eleven thousand years
Her mother creeps in closing her window
The ice age ends

External stimuli
affects those things which rely
on her to sustain sleep

The 21st century is past the prime of its peak
The greenhouse effect from carbon
Corrupts the ozone, making it weak
Wars carry on over resources or religion
Water levels rise and countries
remain in division
Governments pick payouts over compassion  
Indifferent to what happens
With their most vulnerable citizens
Letting most rot in for-pay private prisons
Yet far removed from all these chaotic conditions in this society,
...The child still snoozes,ever so quietly

There's no more gods In the 2,001st century.

In their place, now only harmony and grace
Humanity banded together as a unified race
galvanized toward a single, common goal
To flee the dying planet
before it swallows them all whole

A contingency plan is put in place
For when the scientists fail
and the Earth collapses under its own weight
A ship will be sent deep into outer space
containing embryos and astronauts
suspended In a cryogenic state

The sun assaults the closed blinds
Testing the resolve of the resting child...

Two astronauts are jolted awake
En route,they believe
To a viable new world to habitate
Earth imploded five decades past
But with mass embryonic incubation
-they will revive humanity
Saving it from the brink
of all-out annihilation,
All that hinges on is if they can first safely reach:
Their destination

A routine glance
at procedural scans on the screen
Shows they shifted an exigious sum
while they were sustained in cryogenic hibernation
This detour turned exponential;
when you tally up the years
They fail to attain any feelings aside from fear
for this journey they must now embark
a single line of corrupted code controls their ship,
"The Noah's ark"
These last two have veered so far
from what would have been humanity's
new home
-With no way to course correct
They suspected their task would take a toll
But they were not expecting anything
like this:

Adrift towards a rift in reality
The ship's malfunction
steered them in its wake
It's too late now:
-far too close they can't escape
That dark incision distends itself
gourging on time and space
There is a beauty to how things end
Watching superheated gas and dust aggregate
Creates an accretion disk concealing vacuity
-Yet shines much brighter
than an angel's halo
The two astronauts strap in to the cockpit
With front row tickets to the show:
...just how far down the black hole,
         are you willing to go?

The mother returns,
fully opening the blinds
Cuddles next to her resting child...

Meanwhile Inside the singularity
The last human sees a secret and weeps
He's peering beyond the veil now
Into a little girl's room who is asleep
Yes, he sees her clear
her mother spoons her nestling near,
Shakes her shoulders softly,
whispers into her daughter's ear,
-As she does every morning day,
" what did you dream of this time, my dear?"

She kisses her daughter on the cheek
The little girl yawns as she speaks
Birds outside have started to sing:

"Momma, I think I dreamed of...Everything?"

His eyes close
The man gives in to that sweet release
All of her internal creations ceast
Consumed
as the child is wrenched from the well
Of her own unconscious infinity
The pocket dimension contained within her
Is decimated as she arises
All that energy then metabolizes
to sustain her life
And when she rests it will be divested
once again
To create a new dimension-
as it does every night

Eternal Bloom
Entire galactic timetables and scales contained
In the slumbering soul of a six-year old
She will grow old
She will wither
She will die
As the world's which reside in her do,
When she wakes.

- when she meets her fate
On that operating room table
at the age of 98
the light which emanates at the end of the tunnel

Was merely a father's mistake.

Illumination cast killing darkness
In the bedroom of his home
he absentmindedly turned up the brightness
While playing on his phone
She takes one last breath then fades to grey
In sync with the father stowing his device away
Not alone in his room
he snuggles in for the night
-And can't help but smile
Unaware of the realms
that depend on the dreams

Of his own unassuming, resting child.

-