Demiurge of Dataflow

                                               

                Excerpt from Wanting to Know 

       Eyes fast shut

We dream miracles.

Smelling the smoke

Of sacrifice,

We promise

To be good and nice.

Eyes wide open

We behold

Dexterity:

Quick looping hands

Whose work seems play:

Artfully-craftily

Making

Origami DNA.

With shapes untold

Our futures they enfold.

We want prophecy

Cloaked in secrecy,

The inside track,

The inside story.

We want stimuli

That amplify

The ode to self:

                                                Cacophanous chorus

Of lyrics laudatory.

We want an ersatz

Rendition

Of our every opinion:

Instant petition

With Everyman

A signatory.

We want the

Up-to-the-minute

Tip Top Story,

Nonchalant,

Au courrant,

Hortatory,

In your face

Without a trace

Of reticence

Or grace.

Promises we want

Premised on

Prowess

Champions in armor

Armies

Bright and strong

To protect us

And defend us

Whether we are

Right or wrong;

Experts in battle

On their mettle,

Poised

To wow us.

We want to know

The story-arc of every

Embedded video.

We want the climax

Before the prologue is done,

To know how every cyber-war

Ends before it’s begun.

We want the thrill

Of the remote-control kill

The virtual rush

The crash, the crush.

We want confetti,

The victory parade,

And an ever-ready Ferlinghetti

Patriotic troubadour

Evermore

Singing the wrath

Of some modern Achilles:

Praising the win,

Lamenting the war.

And when it’s time

For our troops to go,

When every capo’s made,

We want to know

Pity and dread

In the limitless

City of the Dead.

But come, let us avert these

Ghostly men,

Let us whisper

To their souls, to go.

Subverting our end,

Let us descend.

Making no noise,

Let us repair

To a level where

We find the things

We want to know.

Mark twain on a riverboat:

Two fathoms deep,

Twelve feet,

For wit and tragi-comedy.

                                                Nemo journeyed twenty thousand                

                                                Leagues beneath the

                                                Seven Seas

                                                A four-league drop:

                                                Twelve miles

                                                Into the wild,

                                                Marine-style,

                                                For a sci-fi séance in the

Sub-marine domain of an Übermensch:

Mania Most French.

Segue

                                               

                                                To the DeepSea Challenger:

Journey Toward the Center

                                                Of Earth.

                                                Drop

                                                Six thousand miles

                                                For the epic saga du jour––

Detour

In the Mariana Trench.

Let us repair

To a level where

We find the things

We want to know:

‘Why’ we’re on this

Earth, and

‘When’ did we arrive?

(3:30 a.m., 7:55)

‘Where’ we came from

(Elemental goo)

And ‘What’ we are

(Woman of that girl,

Man of that boy)

And ‘Where’

We’re going to

(Address Unknown).

“Where Do We Come From?

What Are We?

Where Are We Going?”

The figures in the pantomime

Directed by Gaugin

Mimic Polynesians of that time,

Phantoms made of sun, sand, and clime.

Images made up of

How many brushstrokes?

Impossible to gauge –

Flat on the page –

Stark on the canvas,

They won’t be going

Anywhere

I guess.

Houseguests

On your wall,

You can ask them

Any time

Anything

At all.

You can ask them

One by one –

                                                Those existential

Tahitians

Posing naked

European questions.

Behind the phantom screen

Reality hidden, faces unseen:

The show a Western fantasy

Claiming universality.

Primitive scene

Soft focus porn

Bourgeois dream of

Native form––

When the last question

Has been posed,

Collateral harm 

Can be disclosed:

To hearts of darkness exposed.

The questions then

Belong to us.

Let’s ask them now

And answer what we can

Without presuming

We speak for Man.

“Why are you on this Earth?”

Because you wanted to be born:

Of starlight were you made

Early that morn

On the very long day

When the galaxies formed

                                                When the

Universe

Burst

At the beginning of Time

Then was your conception,

Reason and rhyme,

Then was your Election,

Your Predestination,

Your original direction,

The moment of creation:

                                                Your chance or luck

At the crux

Of space-time and matter

A random opening

Onto life-forms, eons later.

Destined for a world

Where you would be

Finite and created,

You swirled in infinity’s

Stardust.

You waited.

That was your beginning

First of many births,

Bound for Earth,

Arrival pending

Specific directions

To the folks in reception:

Parents made of

Stardust, too,

And isn’t that more thrilling

Than elemental goo?

Where did you come from?

You came from afar,

From a time-wrought,

Emergent

Divergent

Star.

Where did you come from?

You came from glory.

What are you?

A human,

A man

Or a woman.

Just that.

                                                Where you’re going

Is the real story.

Wanting to know –

That was never really

                                                A question of

Forbidden fruit –

Of fruit, yes,

Sweet taste of

Experiences

Channeled by

The six senses –

Cosmic knowledge

Not forbidden,

Only hidden

In space-time,

In energy,

In biology,

In history;

In patterns

Made manifest

By Time’s

Evolution

And a Glorious Revolution:

                                                Without a doubt

                                               The position you retained

                                                Remains the same.

                                                Advancing intelligence

                                                Changes the game.

                                                Balanced between two infinities,

                                                Demarcated by birth and death,

                                                You are now in equipoise,

                                                Poised to sound the depths.

                                                Between two infinite worlds,

                                                Macro and micro

                                               

                                                You are the Go-between:

                                                Demiurge of dataflow.

                                               

                                                Now in your lives

You have the chance

To learn what matters,

                                                Disclose what’s hidden:

For you the synchrony,

The happenstance;

Now are you bidden

To the cosmic dance.

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