To be consumed by her freezing flame,
hot as dry ice, an unrenounceable
illiterate desire that drove
my past and drives my future.

All I see, all I hear, all I touch,
all around me is the realm of Jaci.

ineptitude étude

The screen loses focus.
Should I comment on that commentary?

I might miss letters, mistakenly
construct some nonexistent word
known only by the cognoscenti,
the avant-garde—darkly offensive,
or far too intimate.

hall of mirrors

The binding of the inescapable,
the unnameable, will never set me free.
My existence ended long ago,
and left behind an echo
of an imitation of another me,
chained to the reflection
of a revenant.

ex machina

My preference is loneliness,
with machines to harmonize
my shallow contemplations
with the recondite.

“Android,” I said, “I want you to do
what I would do in the world:
seek out the unkempt natural.”

“I’m not an android.”

“Meanwhile, I’ll be flying high above,
on the wings of a restless dream.”

coda

Beyond the fields of rampant mowers,
the crystal planes of Ballard’s forests
reflect refulgent lunar light.

Jaci, the goddess of the moon, draws a line across the sandy stars.

“Wisdom’s found and lost
in mindless grasping.
The gentle are forgotten,
and unrepentant anger
gathers like with like.

“This far
and no further,
for humanity.”

about

Jaci is the moon deity in the mythology of Brazil’s Tupi-Guarani peoples.

The Crystal World, J. G. Ballard, 1966.

artwork

Spiderweb, from an Australian garden orb weaver spider, evolved by the visual evo engine, my software that seeks unimagined realms, and with cyclic nonlinear desaturation.