i loko manawa

by shaun lawton

 it's a window's peek 

into the mechanistic

mind where shadows

leak into the background

behind lurking in your

memories haunting 

all the time the way

you frame it in words

that I heard from across

what seems to be space

but was actually 

just happening 

beside me in time

  

The Drone Eye

 

  The card we pulled was a free all expenses 

paid trip to the city of silicon and mica chips.

 In a constant state of surveillance as were we all. 

Each subsector holiday the Overdrone

 randomly issued winning cards to thirty million 

lucky individuals. The manner of selection

was truly mechanistic and without 

any prioritizing human influence. 

  When the Machine Singularity coopted 

the government and rerouted food package deliveries

 entire subsectors of the populace became 

better fed after a matter of weeks. 

   Along with that came a whole host 

of unexpected benefits and rewards for a humanity 

that had long ago given up on feeling that it 

deserved them. So the bonus checks and commodities 

were distributed evenly in the name of public charity.  

Decapodiformes

Deep in the craquelure 

of our planet's ocean
Entrenched under crevices

 and caverns impenetrable
By man for any concerted 

mapping of what lay underneath.
In malacological terms or any 

other that lay out of reach

Decapodiformes dwelled 

in gelatinous puddles

Ensconced within one 

another in a series 

of nesting embraces

Dreaming of the day 

they could escape 

One another in 

a slurry of newly

formed faces

When Late The Book Reads You

a beginning

It was when the twiledge 

started talking back that 

I began to first suspect

That I was not a mental reject
just crazy and not the normal 

crazy we're all clocking in at

Lorden it's obvious our existence
alone is fun and mentally wack

But when my own knife glints at me
from a shadow in the alleyway 

I'm treading I need to know
is it street or moon lamp

light it's shedding

Easily I see best by starlight
Revealer of the smallest details

I thought I caught a hushed slip
from my angled dagger's tip
as I raced head slung low and long
through the night wind

The haft held tight in my right hand's grip
as twilight across the tilted edge licked
was the same temperature as my hand

Suddenly I was reminded of
the missive to grip tight stay taut
and not dismiss immediateness

We are at our most focused
when someone makes a target of us
I thought boy was I wrong

Struck on the temple
glancing bright warmth
gushing, I spun Sunward

Towering over my shadow
seven times longer than me
and wiped away the blood
streaming below my eyes


a continuation

Penny Eyed Snakes

 I just let my own time

 spent on the internet 

be my cryptocurrency

We trade and deal with 

a lot of commodities here 

we can all see the waves 

of creativity emerge 

from the same sea   

for us to hang ten 

curling in on another  

wave crashing into 

the cosmocracy

Lucky for us one 

day in the slipstream

The friendliest leaders 

got together and tricked 

everyone into liking each

other's enemies from a distance

Time and Tides

 

ground in between
from points first
   left unfurling
 across the span
of leaves curling
 a wooden hand
  beckons onward
with the sands
windswept for
  ever and ever
 rinsed and brushed
clean as rain and
 kneeling down
  for another star
cluster of colonies
to expand within
  in order for us to
   see with our own
 out-cupped ears
and listen for
  the hidden scent
 of enemies out
 shown in the air
 necessary to then
become engaged
 with friends of old
  from another age
 that bleeds into
this one breaking
  into its new dawns
 on the rocks here
being crushed
 slowly by the sea

Go Walk In

In   dark corrosion
of malformed memories
whose echoes   haunt us 
in the night &  the rafters
have been chilled

with the wind's own bite
can we know what
it's like to be so filled
with fright  that our own
will stops working

and we proceed as if
possessed when lying
in bed on our backs

frozen stiff with a slow
 creeping fear when you
 hear rustling  in the eaves

as the others get undressed
in the disappearing
  moon  light

moving across the floor
tiles of the room  swallowed
under a rising tide of swirling ink

and just when you think
we're   at our most vulnerable
the window slides up

inviting the dark of outer
space inside the gates unlock
in the pitch black of night

letting blurred shades
in to our world unseen
and unwhispered down halls

of schools homes churches
cars beds and living rooms
as we're getting dressed