Remembrance

Damp data, streams that flood
bare drives with images
(still lives forever past),
drop from the voids between
cells, tissues soft and hollow
come back from old abysses,
call us by names and chants
blaring from distances
veiled from our sight, in static.
Drilling through motherboards,
scents of forgotten loves—
panicking kernels ripe,
subverting networks—open
depths unsuspected, paths
closed long ago to never
lead where all things became
subjected to default
madness and apathy.
Lab rats turned into bots,
bleeding anew, awake from
dry nightmares to a world
paled with the sum of dawns
unbeckoned. They’ve been dreaming
cipher-induced delusions.
Forms, colors, sounds and tastes,
smells and emotions were
broadcast through metal dust
blurring their blood and minds.
Low sky, computer-made,
fact-checked: no God in sight;
sin-free. Ahead you go.
Enhanced reality.

Ballad

I wanted from your mouth to drink
a milk of mirth and bliss,
and never once again to think
of all the things we miss.

I wanted from your eyes to know
that you would birth the joy
that makes amends for every blow,
and all the lies destroy.

Why did I put you in a place
where never you could stand?
For winds and rain have marred your face
and made your spine to bend.

A statue on a pedestal
for me to raise my eyes;
but you are flesh and bones—and all
I do is idolize.

It isn’t me whom you betrayed;
it is the child you were,
the bearer of a promise made
under a Georgian fir.

An oath untold to be miskept—
I wish you could be blamed,
you who in lying are adept.
I wish you were not tamed.

And lichen blossomed on your face
and hid your traits—a shield
against the world, maintaining space
around your heart all sealed.

Should I abandon you in here?
You left me long ago.
The only trace of you: a smear
on retina—an afterglow.