Catalyticat
-
Rebirth.
He watched and waited.
Time ticked upon the wall and poured through the neck of an hourglass.
Waiting for that single, precious moment.
When, with perfect clarity of mind and all inhibitions cast aside, he would climb out of the rabbit-hole.And there would be a void to greet him.
A virgin landscape, untouched by even God's hand.
And every secret and subtle whisper lain beneath this event horizon would expand like a nova and flush through his soul.Great knowledge. Great opportunity. Great pain.
The overbearing weight of all origins and fundamental truths stripped bare, only to numb and confuse.
Our eyes, in which we invest so much faith, perceive only a mere sliver of the spectrum before us.
We are not ready to know yet.Great yearning. To see it. To feel it.
To believe that this blood pumping through these veins, that every new cell birthed and every neuron firing -
Brings us closer to God, and to a higher purpose.
This is what keeps us searching.
To hear the bluebird call or the fish leap from the river and know that the universe may have evolved differently in its absence.
Seizing the opportunity to be alive.
Taking every leap of faith and refusing to forsake the freedom of this life for the hollow promises of one after.Pushing this eugenesis, fuelling this metamorphosis.
Reaching out with both arms and clutching at the ether.
Shaping its nothingness and carving our identity into all that can be measured and all that cannot.With wondrous eyes of a newborn, blinking in the harsh fluorescent light, we see the world again for the first time.
Reinventing. Adapting. Surprising us at every corner. -
Black Suits.
Closed my eyes, the world dissolved,
And all that brought me down.
I've ceased to fear these apparitions,
Sullen faces never listen,
Black suits through the fog.One billion more that can't sit still,
The silence TV drowned.
Another guru who'll save your soul,
A little cash to make you whole,
Beneath a neon sign.Only when the stage is gone,
Can we begin to dance again.
Broken bottles scar my feet,
But I'll find peace before the end.Closed my eyes, the world dissolved,
Into a haze of grey.
Vines reclaimed the glass and steel,
I wish that I could stay. -
You First
Frail truce
Playing loose
With pledges, and the edges
of a guilty blade.Mutiny
But never free
Labour's cheap, submissive sheep
'cause you're afraid.Muttered prayers
Sombre stares
No question at suggestions
of ditching aid.Sallow palms
Skinny arms
Are your blues' shoes
a blood and sweat kinda suede?Disparity
In the charity
Filling coffers, stock offers
and a gold-coin charade.Did you say find fortune?
Or meekly inherit the Earth?
Calcified words of inaction
You first,
You first. -
Tim-tams & Other White Meat.
Eat your carrots and you won't crave dawn,
Drink vice coffee, sell your firstborn.
Here, take these pills - they'll make you buff and pro,
Botox brow,
Cupidity,
Guru guilt and blow.Feed the Vendee God, he loves that silver clink,
China tea sets, corn flavoured softdrink.
A frugal hand rolled snake eyes and turned to go,
Ralph dandy,
Rolex,
Fashion fraud,
Enjoy the show!Locust din and pub curfew,
The Boogeyman's not after you,
He's out for someone cuter... -
With a Coin.
With a coin I buy this Earth
For it may be priceless tomorrow
With this blade I cleave new lands
And the widow shies her sorrow.I tried to see a new dawn
Beyond the scarlett plumes
Siblings in our reflection
Trudged broken through the fumes.When the bottle slipped away
I knew I'd had my fill
When the Amazon turned to pulp
They built another mill. -
Forever Restless.
I waded out to the furthest shoal,
I was free—there was nothing to fear.
And a lifetime of songs were right there whispering,
'There are so many notes you'll never hear.' -
Perception.
Pain brings perception,
To my clouded eyes.
See through the mist of pettiness,
And wicked lies.Upon the cusp, a revelation,
Kisses me with lips of ice.
Time is wasted, time is wasted,
From the casting of dice. -
Stimulant.
Plugged within.
Wired to my soul.
Shivers from this cold metallic
Entity that makes me whole.Experience.
Sound and colours mesh.
A dream that is wrought
By unison of steel and flesh.Motionless.
Illumed by the guise.
Birth, love, marriage, death
I saw it all before my eyes.Numbness.
Nothing left to see.
My senses relay too much
It seems we've lost all subtlety. -
World Awake.
This breath I take it feels so right,
Like every breath before it.
I wonder how I got this far,
And how could I ignore it?Nothing more is needed,
Not one more thought desired.
So much went right to bring us here,
For that I feel inspired. -
New Breed.
These visions of salvation,
Run riot through my soul.
Wasting at these muscles,
Yearning to be whole.Strangle this pallid flesh,
The psyche can live without.
Yet another parasite,
Drowning in self-doubt.Feed this metamorphosis,
Change floods through; beyond.
Relax; complete in stoic self,
Cease to feel Time's bond.Acceptance of myself
Collective. Conscious. One.
For the space between a thought
And what is to become. -
Reflection.
Shards of a broken mirror
The wingbeat of a fly
Echoes life of a thousand worlds
In the shimmering of an eye.And through the cosmos dark
The candle's light will wane
Self-reflection as the ashes fall
Liberate me from this sane. -
Now I See the Moon.
A sphere of ill repose,
Through the heavens cast.
Seeking only selfish solace,
Rapt on time that's passed.Awake in arms of faith,
Faux flowers in full bloom.
The Temple has burnt down,
Now I can see the moon.And if the wind could speak,
What fabled whispers utter?
Just one more butterfly,
Through the continuum; flutter. -
Remember.
To the sound of a heartbeat we danced,
Until the night was old,
Proclaiming that we'd suffered
By those whose souls were sold.Between the trees light flickered,
But in our minds we saw,
The bodies of the fallen,
In a fruitless war.Through glazed eyes of a child,
Her mother's breathing ceased,
Bullets don't bring reason,
Just power to the Beast.Between a blink and a tear,
Lament at Hate's rebirth,
We must learn to get along,
For there is only one Earth. -
Aspirations?
Sweet sojourner—my enigma
Tranced falcon, subdued.
Church bells and
Bouquet throngs in technicolour.Ruffled sheets—so white
Glistening digit unfurled.
Crumpled satin and
Tousled locks in allayed dreams.Chained to the altar
Chastity forlorn
And all your aspirations—donned
As a gown of wilted petals. -
Aspirations?
Sweet sojourner—my enigma
Tranced falcon, subdued.
Church bells and
Bouquet throngs in technicolour.Ruffled sheets—so white
Glistening digit unfurled.
Crumpled satin and
Tousled locks in allayed dreams.Chained to the altar
Chastity forlorn
And all your aspirations—donned
As a gown of wilted petals.
-
A New Eden.
The mournful howl of a stray suburban dog would herald the end. Silent, looted husks of sedans trapped in a final gridlock, dim headlights ebbing the last of their life.
A rampant pandemic unconcerned with pitiful nation-borders or human ethics; indiscriminate of rich or poor. Viruses exploiting society's excessive hygiene and pullulate proximity.
Rats would writhe and squirm their way into storerooms everywhere and grow fat on frozen TV dinners. Would they stop to contemplate the wasted bodies abandoned on stretchers? Or their loved ones, bent double in anguish and blood-specked phlegm?
The vines, free from herbicide shackles would emerge from their dank shadows. Like thick olive hair, entwining and braiding together to snake their way up the vast steel edifices of human endeavour. Arrogant avatars greeting the rising sun like middle fingers held aloft to spurn nature's every offering.
These final phallic frontiers of man would be reduced to support struts of some great orchard. A vineyard for the gods.
But beneath a new growth, blinking in the dappled sunlight, a fawn would stretch its frail legs. A new Eden would begin, on the pyre of the old.
-
Transformation.
When he went blind they replaced his eyes.
And when his limbs withered away they gave him new ones.
Fashioned from alloy. Wired to his flesh.And he spoke,
'I am not this body. For it is no longer my creation.
The nerves that used to touch, see and taste are but electical sensors. Artificial impulses relayed and interpreted so I may continue to believe in a malleable reality.'Then if I am not this body, am I this mind? These experiences that have shaped me? These learned mannerisms that have made me so predictable?
'But surely it is not the sum of pieces that equates the whole. Will the shattered vase still hold water?'
And when his body refused to draw another feeble breath, they realised too late that they could not create deus ex machina.
With strength all but spent, he spread his arms on a cross of steel.
For every creature on this earth dies alone. -
Devolve.
Having watched David Attenborough the other night, I've decided I would really like to devolve. Not just to the level of a Texan president but actually grow ball-jointed wrists and swing around in trees all day.
Simplify; simplify.
In this world, it seems like everything, instead of being done up with a nice little red bow, comes gift wrapped with a Gordian Knot. You need a big axe to cut through the bullshit these days.
But habitation yields ever more complication.
At the turn of the 20th century there were 1.6 billion people on Earth. There are more than FOUR TIMES that now. Where the hell are we going to put them all? Maybe in Felix the Cat's bottomless bag. Surely this prosperity of such a destructive creature cannot last.
From a meteorological point of view, the last one hundred years were pretty quiet with a minor hiccup here and there. The industrial age and the automation and centralisation of economy enabled everyone to move in closer and stake out their quarter acre or half attic. And they did. Now when the cyclone hits it doesn't just take a few banana trees, it takes a whole bigger chunk of the pie. Centralised power, infrastructure, food supplies...we've become far too dependent on the SYSTEM.
Don't know how to cook? No problem, just buy a BigMac.
Who needs to know how to cut up a pig these days? It's pork chops right there on the shelf in Woolies.
Never learnt to sew? Just get a new shirt, it's all desposable.
Want not; waste. Out of sight and out of mind.
This society we live in, the cornerstone and hallmark of 'civilised' people, is more fragile than a house of cards stacked on a student household's dining table. The moment the lights go out, someone will smash a window and steal a TV. We're not so civilised afterall. It's just a thin veneer of unnecessary complexity, a veil in which to cover our naked shoulders and flaunt our superiority. Basking in the great concrete empire we've built. When the last V8 stutters and dies from starvation, who will ride the fine arteries of bitumen then?
I'm taking bets with myself as to what will end the Age of Aquarius first. Hey, maybe the Mayan calender was right. Maybe all those bearded crazies wearing "The End Is Nigh" sandwich boards are not so loony after all. Will it be rogue nuclear proliferation? Increased storm severity or disease influx from global warming? What about Godzilla? Prehaps we'll just tear ourselves apart over the petty things we've been bickering over for the last 40000 years: land, women, power and wealth.
We'll reach the apogee of this rollercoaster bell curve and watch the ground rise rapidly up to greet us. The light at the end of the tunnel was never our saviour, it was just the high-beams of a freight-train. "I thought this would never come to pass so I left my wings at home," says the last human alive, a lone cosmonaut silently orbiting Earth in the ISS, waiting for food and supplies that will never come.
"I know not what weapons World War III will be fought with, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." said Einstein.
So I suppose all the gibbons and orangutans will disappear along with us. But I'm thankful that I've got this far and I still plan to get some quality tree swinging time!
-
Just Passing.
The crisp snap of stretcher legs as they hauled him into the van,
As foreboding as the cock of a gun.Condensate took rest on his thin cracked lips and glinted in the sun.
The same dew that baptised a babe in her mother's taut embrace.
One pair of glazed eyes gazing into the void of another,
Who's tears drowned mascara in the wells of hollow cheeks.His hands no longer clenched that chilled roll-bar.
The last inhalation and the final beat of a jaded heart.
When the wheels arose and the hammer struck down, he felt at peace.And dearly he will depart.
-
Introspective Frolic.
You might believe that the walls are two-way mirrors. Beyond which cruel directors of your destiny, with their hyena laughs, pull strings and derail perfect courses.
Not malevolence. Just ugly blemishes on the clay mould of You. As they shape you into this vessel on the potter's wheel.
And when a visage finally forms; you look introspectively at all those unique scars, the tears shed, those perfect summers. And the way that flawless porcelain was ever so slightly out of reach.
But the skin has dried and cracked. The journey is terminal and the fires of this kiln are enough to cremate even the most hardy soul.
Why was our laughter so quick to abate, yet our sorrow so consuming? The acid taste of resentment so potent; choking, aimless longing and a main course of solitude.
Prayers litter the streets like soiled, unread flyers. Prying fingers enshroud our every good fortune.
And if this wilted sun never set,
would you despair of a virgin day?
Behind darting eyes of troubled sleep -
barely a breath away. -
Fragments that don't fit.
The watchers and silent observers; the great God, are all but metaphors for the desire that your existence is more than just a mind trapped in a deserted theatre, endlessly playing the foggy slideshow of your life. That there is no one but you to sit on those worn cushions and piece together the plotline.
When you find a soul-mate, can you renounce your God? Or will the yearning still be there, behind those glassy eyes that have seen so much?
Feed the void.
Dance the silence.
Sough the end -
Succumb to the darkness.
The whales dived so deep that the ocean waters thinned and gave way to blue sky once more. Humpbacks floated silently between the puffy clouds over these new lands far beneath the world of men. And staring back up at that filtered, wavering sunlight they tried to recall the escape velocity of a cetacean...
Through cataract haze, I thought of you,
Stumbling and pushing through.
Looking back, a tired sigh,
At all the beauty that passed us by.
This next step, timid and blind
Every inch
Closer to reason
Or greying hair and sunken eyes?