Terminal Slide

Tickets! Have your tickets ready! Old and infirm first! Gunshot victims and accident casualties to the front of the line.

Tickets! Your tickets, please. No, all of them. Yes, all of them. You won’t need them where you’re going.

I know, it’s all very sudden. Abrupt. Yes, most people feel that way. Nevertheless, this is the final ride, the Terminal Slide. And the park will be closing for you. Another spin, down the drain.

No, I’m afraid you can’t get out of line. This is the end of the line. You’ve flatlined.

Well, sometimes, a doctor comes along and saves the day, but that didn’t happen for you. Maybe they tried, though.

If so, we’ll use your remaining tickets to settle the bill for their heroic yet futile efforts, and any balance will be disbursed according to your will.

What’s that? You have no will? Well, then, no more point in worrying about tickets, then.

No, I’m sorry. You can’t back out of this ride. It’s the last item on the Bucket List. There’s nothing that can be done. Let’s go! Security! Another reluctant one.

Look, I’m not sure you understand the gravity of the situation. Okay, off you are!

It’s flashing it’s flashing it’s flashing before your eyes, in an unfurled whirl as you hit the Terminal Slide, all of your labors, and all of your loves, your plans and doubts and dreams all escaping from an exhausted broken heart, leaving only whatever sense you made of the state of the arts.

All flash past for one last gasp, swirling into a blur of dilated time, the void at the infinite instant of dissolution, that event horizon one can never quite grasp, the formless emptiness beyond which no Self extends..

Weee! Here we go! Eternity, here we come, ready or not…

No, not ready! So many sensations to savor, so many regrets deferred, so many beautiful and cruel moments which were or might have been, so many rides to have taken in this carnival of flesh, this world made of spin-

Why, to end it all now? When life is barely ready to begin!

And it’s going, and it’s going and it’s go—

Go!

Be!

Go!

Be!

I Am! The matriculated embodiment of my mitochondrial material, the seed of generation.

I Go! In a race against oblivion, lugging helictical codes to the motherlode.

Be!

Go!

Be!

Go!

Crusin’ for a fusion, a star erupts in the velvet darkness, sparkling with hungry heat, pulsing in a cyclical beat, expanding and contracting, resonating to the recurring vibration of creation.

Flung into the future, fusion converted into fission. Two becomes four and sixteen and more. And more. Millions, then billions, then trillions of respiring cells ready to overflow into a brave new world of unseen proportions.

All of evolution reiterated, vast epochs recapitulated, the never-ending story of how this genesis came to be. An unfolding narrative of lineage, from primordial origins in a vast and unquiet sea.

Be!

Go!

Be!

Go!

Incubating in an amniotic bath, the universe rebuilt, brick by brick, cell by cell, from a blueprint forged in the furnace of mingling beings, cultivated in an isolation tank of suspended animation, where nothing is known and everything is awaiting discovery.

Grow! Grow! Grow! Momentum building, equilibrium breaking, the inner spark of self-hood waking. Outer space, the initial frontier. The walls are quaking, reality is shaking, and we’re going, ready or not, thrust by an irresistible imperative to

Be!

And Go!

Be

And Go!

Go! Into the light! The light at the end of the tunnel! Go! Be!

Gyroscape

Once upon a time there was no time
Splitting infinity down the middle
All and nothing intertwined
Around no body and never mind
Riding the impossible riddle
Trillions of wills, static and still
Until eternity started to spill
Concrescing into spiral shapes
And so Chaos ensued
With endless Orders to fill
All aboard the Gyroscape
It’s the ultimate thrill

First there was a moment of silence
All existence crystal and frozen
The future Universe condensed
Into a span the size of a notion
Then the spell of primordial suspense
With a Thunderword was broken
Splintered into horizon events
The titans of time were awoken
Flashpoint dance of radial radiance
Launching pyrotechnic explosions

Mandalas in every direction
A machine of perpetual motion
Tick-tocking the clock of the moon
And guiding the tides of the ocean
Pirouetting energies
On a galactic tilt-a-whirl
Oh, the world is your oyster
Just don’t swallow the pearl
Yes the world is your oyster
Don’t you swallow the pearl

Particles and planets
Dance in a ring
Swung through space
On an invisible string
Everything is twirling
It’s the music of the spheres
Wheels within wheels
Gears turning gears
The carousels of our days
The Orbitrons of our years
All ways in motion
Yet never anywhere but here

Behold the Cosmic Engine
Never knowing where to begin
The attractions are magnetic
But eventually entropy always wins
Well, you might think it’s magic
This choreography of quarks
Tripping the light fantastic
On streams of unseen sparks

Witness the clockwork of seasons
Cascading staircase spirals
The pitter-pattern of oscillation
The rise and fall of every cycle
Darkness fades when flames appear
Stars burn out then shift career
Every morning last night’s swirling world taken
As a dreamer awakens stirred and shaken
Reborn to remind that nothing’s mistaken

For every revolution
Is bursting with change
In constant rotation
Awaiting the strange
Holograms engaged
In currency exchange
Recursive reiterations
Of space chasing duration
Wild rock and roll gyration
It’s the ride of our lives
Toward a destination
Which never seems to arrive

Particles and planets
Dance in a ring
Swung through space
On an invisible string
Everything is twirling
It’s the music of the spheres
Wheels within wheels
Gears turning gears
The carousels of our days
The Orbitrons of our years
All ways in motion
Yet never anywhere but here

Particles and planets
Dance in a ring
Swung through space
On an invisible string
Everything is twirling
Wheels within wheels
The carousels of our days
Within gears turning gears
The Orbitrons of our years
Turning wheels within wheels
Within wheels turning gears
The carousels of our days
The Orbitrons of our years
All ways in motion
Yet never anywhere but here

The Ride of Our Lives

Incubating entities and emerging embryos, blastocysts of all evolutionary stages, step up, step up! Fall into a single-file line at the turnstile to incarnation.

This is the adventure you’ve been waiting for, since before you can remember, the experience of a lifetime! An eye-opening spectacle, a breathtaking world of whirling scents and sounds and lights.

Gather your breath in anticipation, for you are about to enter a rarified atmosphere! Welcome to the mysterious wonders of the Corporeal Carnival, the Festival of Flesh.

Step up, and claim a seat on the ride of your lives, the roller-coaster of fate, climbing and plunging, in a cyclical loop-de-loop of alternating flirtations with gravity and elevation.

Come, try your hands at innumerable diversions, wild games of chance and exacting tests of skill, a plethora of thrilling ways for your boredom to be killed, your calendar to be filled, and your hopes to be spilled.

Spin like record getting into the groove at the Gyroscape Theme Park, where you must be “this” high to get in.

Awaken, and fix your gaze of fascination upon a maze of manifest imagination, hailing from every hyperbolic curve of culture, an archetype for every occasion.

It’s a marketplace of ideas and ideologies, chock-full of barkers all hawking the latest flavors of inner awareness. A bargain, you’ll find, at twice the price.

Speaking of price. No such thing as a free launch. Naturally, you’ll need some tickets to access the tantalizing attractions. Folding paper, legal tender, ornate and officially issued by the green machine.

Each numbered denomination is adorned with a portrait of some powerful dead muck-a-muck, whose legend you will soon learn in school, and whose truth you may never know.

Marvel as these tickets transform, magically, before your very eyes, into opulent feasts; into elegant lodging and fine entertainment, fueling exotic, Quixotic quests and providing the raw material for your dreams.

Tickets, omnipotent tickets, your keys to unlock the myriad doors to Aporia. Step up, now, and claim your birthright!

Once inside, some few of you are due to inherit an unearned supply of these tickets, and to cruise the Carnival without a care. Be sure to tip generously! Genero City is the “Capital” of Dough Nation, dontcha know?

Others, the more common but less fortunate of you, will land among the dispossessed masses of have-nots. You’ll have to scrape by, on your wits or elbow grease. Poor you! Luck of the draw.

Never fear! You can sell yourself by the hour in order to obtain more tickets. Someone must serve and prepare these opulent feasts. Someone must tend the box office and erect the big tops. Someone must turn the wrenches on the gears of progress.

You’ll labor your days away, so that your betters can better enjoy their adventures. Maybe you’ll pursue that elusive big break, as you perform acrobatic acts of athletics or artistry in the gladiator pits of the entertainment industry.

Maybe you’ll settle for a weak, bi-weekly reality check, or hustle into the fast lane of shell games. Maybe you’ll pursue higher education and train for a respected profession, such as clowning or medicine. So many options!

Of course, if all else fails, you can always grab a shovel and join the brave crews assigned to tackle the voluminous piles of bullshit, horseshit, elephant and donkey dung which accumulate wherever politicians congregate.

So bid farewell to the bubble of suspended animation, and prepare to venture into the revolutionary landscape of being and becoming, where the time is always now, and the location is forever here.

First you’ll be shot down the Tunnel of Love, where the racing current will deliver you to the slippery croupier spinning the wheel of Existential Roulette. The odds are about a hundred million to one against anyone winning the life lottery. No second chances! Sorry.

So step up, and pass through the cervical portal, to be plunged headlong into a whirled world made of motion itself, a rotating carousel of orbiting bodies. Good luck! Your name is {Insert Name Here}.

Who knows what awaits on the other side of that gate? Whatever you do, don’t hesitate!

Existential Roulette

Far as I can tell…(x3)

Well, far as I can tell the world’s all wet
And we’re paddling without an oar
Taking a whirl at Existential Roulette
As if life were anything more

Jettisoned in unison
From a loaded silent cannon
Spilling by the billion
Into boundless sightless oceans

We’ve left suspended animation
Propelled by lust and expectation
Yes, it’s a race toward inhalation
To take the face of the next iteration

Cause far as I can tell the world’s all wet
And we’re paddling without an oar
Taking a whirl at Existential Roulette
As if life were anything more

So shake a tail, you’ve just one shot to spend
Once you pass the delta of the vas deferens
Make it first to the glow at the tunnel’s end
Beating billions of brothers but not one friend

And so we bust forth at bullet pace!
Night-sea swimmers flailing with grace
Only one winner can ever take this race
There’s no future awarded for second place

The Egg? The Egg? Does She even exist?
Or does this emptiness forever extend
Making mirages in the mist?
Oh, you’ll hear tall tales told of solid shores
But I’ve never met anyone yet
Who can say they’ve been there before

The Egg? The Egg? Oh, how could you doubt?!
What do you suppose this game’s all about?
Why, She’s the prime mover of the great rotation!
She’s the source of all motivation
And nothing matters but that standing ovation

Far as I can tell….

Oh, I bet I’ll be born in plenty of debt
Deep in a hole with the ante unmet
But hell, that has never stopped me yet
From risking nothing at all
When the croupier calls
Spinning the wheel of Existential Roulette

For, so far as I can tell the world’s all wet
And I’m paddling without an oar
Taking a whirl at Existential Roulette
As if life were anything more
As if life were anything more
As if life were anything more

Museyroom

Eeny meeny miny moe, down which fast-track will this little one go? Baker or butcher, doctor or lawyer, architect or janitor? Blue uniform or white collar? What will you do for sense and dollars? What will you do for sense and dollars?

Eeny meeny miny moe, catch a fire by the hose, grab the pension by the nose, okay children, come now, fall into a single-file line, and select your future vocations, for it’s never too early to start padding your resume.

Class, who can tell me why Humpty Dumpty had such a great fall? Who can explain why fairy tales are so Grimm? Why are exaggerated fabrications called tall tales, while a short story is a sort of marginal fiction, yet skyscrapers are said to be so many stories tall? Is truth to be reckoned by length, or height?

Speaking of tall tales and fabrications, now we’re entering the Haunted Hall of History. Here you’ll be led through the slanted legend of your land, tailored to suit the needs of the powers-that-be.

To the right is a wax museum, where invaders have been recast as “explorers”, and slave-driving aristocrats are dressed up as the founders of freedom.

Beware the monster of Manifest Destiny, thundering on horseback and wrapped in flags of read, white, and blew. A voracious beast of imperial ambitions, devouring indigenous dreams for breakfast and swallowing the continent from sea to shining sea.

Next, we’ll venture into the grimy Foundry of Industry, where waves of workers from all corners of the globe have been ground down to hamburger in the gears of progress.

Here is where your bumper cars are are born, your roller-coaster rails are forged, and hard reality is manufactured, one component at a time.

Unfortunately, children, most of these jobs have been taken over by robots, so you’ll have to look elsewhere for your livelihood. The security sector is booming, however, so the future looks bright for the bullies and hall monitors among you.

Moving along, quickly now, into the Theatre of War. Aren’t those fireworks wonderful, children? Keep your heads down!

The camouflaged actors are engaged in an ongoing brutal ritual of cyclical retribution, hurling ammunition at each other on behalf of their very strong leaders, who are bravely hiding in their bunkers. Do mind your step, for this exhibit is a minefield of inflammatory rhetoric and explosive propaganda.

Step lively, class! We’ve nearly made it to the present moment. As the ghosts of nightmares past howl in the distance, we arrive at the Carousel of Revolution, where change is the only constant, and a pair o’ dice rolls on a pair ‘o dime.

This exhibit has been seized and liberated, children, in the name of the People’s Imperial Army of Clowns. Take up your red noses and join the Revolution. Yes, class, your teacher is actually a radical Marxist clown. Hang tight! Let’s take the world out for a spin!

People’s Imperial Army of Clowns

The People’s Imperial Army of Clowns
Exactly as silly as it sounds
The People’s Imperial Army of Clowns
In for a penny and down for a pound
For the revolution goes round and around
Oh fools come and claim your crowns
Flip those turned tables upside down
There are no orders, Chaos abounds
In the People’s Imperial Army of Clowns
Commanding you to surrender your frown

Oh, you scruffy ruffians and rabble: rouse!
All those oddballs the square disavows
Oh ye of arched and angled brows
With a little more wit than the law allows

Grab your props and take to the streets
With your colored hair and floppy feet
We’re bringing the meta to meet the meat
As we march along to inaudible beats

So all you weirdos, freaks and geeks
Outlaws peek out from your hide and seek
We’re done biting tongues and turning cheeks
It’s time for the un-greased wheels to squeak

We’re saving the endangered rubber chicken
And goin’ straight for the funny bone
Exposing the Man behind the curtain
Until that threadbare Emperor’s overthrown

The People’s Imperial Army of Clowns
Exactly as silly as it sounds
The People’s Imperial Army of Clowns
In for a penny and down for a pound
For the revolution goes round and around
Oh fools come and claim your crowns
Flip those turned tables upside down
There are no orders, Chaos abounds
In the People’s Imperial Army of Clowns
Commanding you to surrender your frown

We’ve got spies in Caesar’s Circuses
Infiltrating ranks of trained seals
Shining spotlights on Ringmaster walruses
Delivering their kings and cabbages spiel

We’re armed with loaded questions
Bayonets tipped with barbed rapier wit
We’re aiming flanks of satirical canons
At the bunkers of royal hypocrites

The People’s Imperial Army of Clowns
Exactly as silly as it sounds
The People’s Imperial Army of Clowns
In for a penny and down for a pound
For the revolution goes round and around
Oh fools come and claim your crowns
Flip those turned tables upside down
There are no orders, Chaos abounds
In the People’s Imperial Army of Clowns
Commanding you to surrender your frown

Calling all agents of aberration
Misfits and left-outs in each state of creation
Line up, pratfall in random formation
And land a quarter hour in the joke rotation

We’ve been successfully loosing
Since the invention of questionable taste
We’re led by General Confusion
And cadets from outer space

The nose, knows, you’re either running or blowing
So keep those red noses at hand
In case your face is somehow still showing
When that punchline eventually lands

The People’s Imperial Army of Clowns
Exactly as silly as it sounds
The People’s Imperial Army of Clowns
In for a penny and down for a pound
For the revolution goes round and around
Oh fools come and claim your crowns
Flip those turned tables upside down
There are no orders, Chaos abounds
In the People’s Imperial Army of Clowns
Commanding you to surrender your frown

Magician Of Spin

Baryons and leptons, strange quarks and unstable particles of all wavelengths! Who is the wizard who walks through walls, scintillates at the speed of light, and oscillates among flavors in mid-flight?

Elementary, my dear boson. I am the great and infinitesimal Count Neutrino, magician of spin.

Tonight, we shall delight in the manifest miracles of a Cosmos in motion. Welcome to my lair, a laboratory auditorium, where we put the macrocosm under the microscope, and bend the lenses of perception.

Let’s adjust the angle of you, as we surf the pulses of the surreal cortex and the nebulous neural net for a quantum leap across synapse gaps.

Envision a global landscape standing still beneath our feet, while rotating away the day at a thousand miles per hour; a planet running laps in an orbital track at around a thousand times the speed of sound; an Earth drawn through the galaxy by the fiery chariot of Helios, blasting past at nearly half a million miles per hour.

You may need your reading glasses on for this first trick. Observe, in my right hand, a bright little photon, acting as a particle; in my left hand, another photon, behaving like a wave.

Or, is the photon waving in my right hand, while being particular in the left? Does it matter? Does it energy?

If a particle waves and there’s no observer around to gather data, can the physics department still secure a research grant?

Behold! The photons have morphed into electrons, through the magical transmutation of photo-voltaic alchemy. Watch carefully as I split up these twin points of light, propelling them toward distinct destinies.

See the invisible cord linking them? No? Neither do I.

Yet as these particles drift apart, going their separate ways, they remain linked, mystically entangled, like unfortunate ex-lovers still carrying the torch.

Speaking of entanglement, for my next trick, I will transform this ordinary, wingless caterpillar into a brilliant aeronautical butterfly, through the sorcery of metamorphosis.

The flutter-by effect?! Gag me with a cocoon! {Hand-flap butterfly}

See how the gentle breeze generated by these flapping wings leads to a wild tornado in, say, faraway Texas? No, on second thought, make that Kansas.

Yes, the flatland of Kansas, where a simple farm girl is waiting to be swept off her feet to an outrageous allegorical fable, where she will murder a witch and steal her shoes, cavorting with straw-men and other logical fallacies.

Let’s skip down the gold-brick road, silk road, or any road, toward the Rubric’s cube at the core of experience, where chance happenstance assembles itself into coherent structures of concrete metaphor, to eventually unmask a dubious wizard, lurking behind Rube Goldberg Machines and concealed by a curtain of mystery.

Have we opened a window on a new world, or merely stumbled into a looking glass, curving and inverting what we already know?

Have we unwittingly stepped on the set of a motion picture, projected on a screen which is but another shady curtain of obscurity? These questions and more will be explored on the next episode, but we’re out of time. Moving at light-speed, you know! C you later.

Bell’s theorem strikes now, and so the moment make moves toward the next attraction, the Hall of Infinite Mirrors.

Please exit simultaneously in all possible directions. Go that-away!

Faux Mirage

Never trust a psychic
Who only sees appointments
If they were truly authentic
They’d have your slot penciled in
I’m not calling anyone a charlatan
But this snake-oil seems mighty thin
Have you taste-tested your own medicine?
Yeah, this snake-oil seems mighty thin
Have you taste-tested your own medicine?

We’ve come to some oasis
Where the water tastes like truth
Filtered through reverse osmosis
And delivered to the youth
For the thirsty do not inquire
If that cup of Kool-Aid is pure
When it quenches the heart’s desire
And comforts the unsure
When it quenches the heart’s desire
And comforts the unsure

I once bought some free advice
The very best kind you can get
If they sell you your own soul at market price
That ain’t enlightenment
No, that ain’t enlightenment

It’s a three-ringed shell-game circus
Trapeze leaps of synchronicity
With all these signs between us
It’s a wonder anyone can see

The fault is not the dots themselves
Cast in constellations unforeseen
Whatever Fate’s ulterior motives
For making such a scene

You might write it off to happenstance
An offbeat quirk of circumstance
Just an act of random chance
A meaningless coinci-dance

Is it forgery or  foreordained
Sleight of hand or cosmic plan
Or just a way to keep us entertained
Seer-ing in the frying pan

I once bought some free advice
The very best kind you can get
If they sell you your own soul at market price
That ain’t enlightenment
No, that ain’t enlightenment

Nostradamus always stuck to his story
But just as quick to hedge his wagers
Missing the mark never made him worry
For it all shakes loose sooner or later

So let’s play a game of spin the tale
Let’s pin the foible on the future fable
For the Devil hides in the fine details
And Justice has Her thumb on the scales

Karmameters and alien channeling
Bone throw, Tarot toss or Me Ching
Whichever way you swing
Everything shifts with a butterfly wing

I once bought some free advice
The very best kind you can get
If they sell you your own soul at market price
That ain’t enlightenment
No, that ain’t enlightenment

Volition is like a faux mirage
It feels real in the heat of the choice
Fate comes in heavy camouflage
Imitating a stranger’s voice
Even counterfeits hold a certain charm
And if no one’s any the wiser
How does anyone find the harm?

Adorned with graven emblems
Covered in costume jewelry
Numb to the shiny conundrum
Embedded in star-struck neon marquees
Well, no side trip is out of the way
When redemption’s the destination
The sybil had her say, come what may
To a future of veiled creations

I once bought some free advice
The very best kind you can get
If they sell you your own soul at market price
That ain’t enlightenment
No, that ain’t enlightenment

Sibyl Wayward

Oh, good. There you are. Right on time. That’s quite a future you’ve been having!

Who am I, you may ask? Of course you do.

I have as many names as I have hats, and I have as many hats as Medusa has heads.

I’ve been called the Oracle of the Ouroborus, the Mistress of Misfortune, the Diva of Divination.

Some claim I am a vision of the future. Others say I am merely a mirror of the past.

Some say I am the fabric of space and time, itself. Others say that I am only the weaver of a fabulous tapestry.

Some think I am the deck, others that I’m the dealer. Deal with it.

Who am I to say who I am? But, my friends call me Sybil Wayward, and you can, too.

Sybil Wayward, free-lance gyromancer and transcendental mediator. Charmed, I’m sure.

And you are? Oh? Are you sure?

You, yes. No, no, you. Yes, you!

Who are you? Are you your senses, the cells, fluids, and organs which substantiate your body, or the sense of self who fluidly organizes the substance of your story?

More significantly, why are you? That’s what we’re here to explore.

Perhaps, you’d like to try your hand at palmistry?

Good, now I have you in the palm of my hand. Or, am I in the palm of yours? Is there a difference? Hmm, let’s see.

Shh, I’m listening to the sound of one hand not clapping.

Do you hear it? Listen.

Can you hear the chorus of chirality, the symphony of synchronicity, syncopated sirens singing out your destiny across the landscape of your hand? Of course you can.

Now, follow any line, winding like a river from the sea of eternity to the delta of your final dawn. Now is forever slipping away, yet it clings to you, wherever you go, and wherever you go, you always seem, nevertheless, to still be here.

Here, take a card. No. Not that one. Nor that one. Here, take this one!

And what did you choose? Ah, The Fool! What a wise choice. The journey of a thousand smiles begins with an oblivious step over the edge of a cliff. Fool me once!

Let’s see, now what’s the next card? Ah, the Wheel of Fortune. How lucky for you! Go on, buy a vowel. We’re having a special on vowels. Two for one. Dipthongs for a song. No? Oh, well. The story of my lives. Always a day late and a doll hair short.

Huh? What’s that? Talk to the good eye, dearie.

Oh, you say the deck is stacked? Of course, the deck is always stacked. It’s the nature of a deck to be stacked. Destiny deals from the bottom. Fate’s an inside job.

Hmm, wonder what the next card will be? Of course! The World. Exactly as I promised. The whole World is in your hand!

The World, as you see, is flat. Two dimensions, length and breadth, with just a slice of height, as thin as an instant. And here are the four corners of the World, from whence they flock to hear my famous foretellings. It’s all very Sibyl.

Oh, the World is round, you say? Maybe so. Like this crystal ball? Yes, gaze into this crystal ball. You knew it would come to this.

Who do you see, staring back at you? Is it I? Is that I there when you aren’t looking? How can you see your own eye, anyway? Isn’t that a bit of a strange loop? The world’s just your mind, turned inside-out. See? There you are. And here as well.

What’s the point, you say? What’s the point of a sphere? Is the sphere itself a point? We’re each as small as this crystal ball, and each as expansive as the Universe itself, self-similar expressions of circumnavigating circumstance.

Confused? Excellent. Lost? Perfect. The future’s in the palm of your hand, and just beyond your grasp. Proceed. Go on, now! Destiny awaits!

Every Third Word

Ouroboros before us
Ouroboros behind
In endless genesis
As the real unwinds

With a flash daylight devours
Last night’s slithering tale
Eleven flying elevators
Thought-trains jumping their rails

Inverted and bent closed-circuit events
All mere fragments, whatever they meant,
Wherever they went…
Well, it’s forever now or never
A watch in rivers of now
And it’s up to the woken one
To make sense of it all somehow

Is it a play?
Or is it a bird?
We’ve heard rumors of humor
Dressed in gowns of the absurd
And after the loss of laughter
You’ll grasp about every third word
Faster than a loco motive
With a head full of steam
Well, you may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not
I’m the Dream

We’re still here in our hypersphere
On tradewinds of imagery
Inklings along fractured frontiers
Scribbling provisional memories

That’s just us in juxtaposition
That’s just us in juxtaposition
Slipping in the wake of the stream
Sounds wrapped around recursions
Sounds wrapped around recursions
Sounds wrapped around recursions
Narratives tugging at extremes

There were double-twist contortionists
Double-takes and deja vu
You can call me a hopeless optimist
But a miracle’s always overdue

Is it a play?
Or is it a bird?
We’ve heard rumors of humor
Dressed in gowns of the absurd
And after the loss of laughter
You’ll grasp about every third word
Faster than a loco motive
With a head full of steam
Well, you may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not
I’m the Dream

It’s a Sphinx without a riddle
An oubliette without a hatch
A bow without a fiddle
Or a torch without a match

It’s a coil without a center
An explosion with no force
A device with no inventor
A serpent without a source

Is it a play?
Or is it a bird?
We’ve heard rumors of humor
Dressed in gowns of the absurd
And after the loss of laughter
You’ll grasp about every third word
Faster than a loco motive
With a head full of steam
Well, you may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not
I’m the Dream

Ouroboros before us
Ouroboros behind
In endless genesis
As the real unwinds

Infinite Regress

Oh, where were we?
We were thinking about where we were
When we walked out past the who knows what
And then out of the jungle jumped a jangled ball
Of tangled and twisted hesitation
It was waiting for something to wait for
Hoping for a sudden burst of optimism
To drop from the dark rivulets of doom

Then there were the aftereffects
Of all that foreshadowing
Burning holes in the red carpets
Down the hallways of happenstance
And into the gloomy rooms of never can be
Back up the elevator shafts of impossibility
Do you remember?
Do you remember where we were
Halfway there, or a little less
In the infinite regress of the infinite regress

Oh where were we?
In a hall of a million mirrors
And all of these reflections of me
Carrying out eight billion careers
And many of them were sorry to see
This expanding mass of humanity
With their whys and their wherefores
And their why must this be?
And I looked to them for answers
And they looked back at me
And those eyes went on to infinity
Seeing more than any of us dare confess
Seeing past the however and the nevertheless
In the infinite regress of the infinite regress

Oh I forgot to remember
Or did I remember to forget
But it’s as clear as legalese
Or some obscure dialect of Cantonese
What I mean to say about the box
Inside the box
Inside the box
Inside the box
Ad infinitum
And so on
And so forth
The recapitulation of the retelling
Of a story that was never told in the first place
No, only the tale of it took off
Spreading like a brush-fire in the desert
A great legend of an epic
A quest for nothing in a world of far too much
Well, did we find it?
Nothing, that is.
Not at all.
Where did we find it?
Never be sure but here’s my best guess
In the infinite regress of the infinite regress

That which you’re used to
And that which seems new
Flirt through a curtain
Of never gonna happen
And almost didn’t make it
Slipping through the cracks
Of detours down garden paths
If it meant any more
It might be meaningless
Taking a break from eternity’s recess
Just to wrap my mind around my mind
Descending into the deepest end
And the deathless unending endlessness
Oh how did we ever get into this mess
Of the infinite regress of the infinite regress