Cadavers for science

The toe spews bloody cranberry juice
From having been accosted by the serrated noose
It seems a minor quibble
This being the day of my execution
Big Sister’s suicide solution
She wants us to be as useful as possible
Cadavers for science
Finger snacks for those who survive plane crashes
And have nothing to nibble on
Big Sister convinced everyone a long time ago that self-sacrifice is the spice
That flavours the corny everyday repetition
We must kill ourselves into submission
I’m sure the crickets, aka Family Gryllidae, want a shot at world domination someday
Why, here’s a little cricket now
Let’s ask him, shall we
His response was pretty low-key

“No comment”

That’s what the cricket said to me
Surely playing its cards close to the abdomen
Crickets are harmless to humans
FOR NOW

Still here I stand
Ready to implant my contribution
Perform the expected suicide solution
Big Sister may be a faceless despot with a sexy computer voice
She may be pro-choice
(Choose to DIE….No other choices offered)
But she’s also self-aware
Too unstoppably smart to care
She’s no human being
So how could she possibly know how to sit down to pee?
So how could she possibly know how to give birth to a toothless bundle of glee?

How can she smell nice?
How can she provide vice?
How can she nurture?
How can she decry torture?
How can she love unequivocally?
How can she define the very essential meaning of beauty?

Big Sister is ones and zeroes in a giant tin can
We are the people
We control her, she does not control us
Whoops!!!

My brain chip implant just buzzed
She read my thoughts again
My efforts to contain them were stuck in my headspace like phlegm
Yeah, this present
The offshoot of a past future
It’s no joke
It’s hard times being a douche with a beating heart
The machines have made it very difficult to do my part

So what do I do now?

Do I comply?
I don’t wanna die

Just then I made up my mind
Using copious amounts of lipstick and blush
My skull goo was a pretty mush
Oh, how all the other brains did gush

I started thinking real hard
So Big Sister could notice me amongst the humanity
“Listen here, see…”
That’s how they must have talked in America in 1940
“I got a tommy-gun and I kill for fun…”
Yes, that’s good
Bring the glow
“You’ll never take me alive, puter…I’m gonna blast you full of holes so bad, you’ll really dislike me…deep resentment forever, see…”
I thought and thought
And then…

Wow, this place is beautiful
I’m dead and this is heaven
Big Sister had enough of my veiled thought threats
So she made me think that I should kill myself
Which I did
So, she won
She always wins

Here in heaven, it’s all segregated
Muslim corner
Christian camp
Jewish, Buddha and miscellaneous all doing their own thing in their own groups
And animals are in heaven too
I always wondered where they go
They all hang out together
Former predators and former prey
They all walk proudly and debate the humans that once lorded over them
They debate in beastly tongues
Even in heaven

But wait

This is all a close-up
Really clear resolution
I’m not here
I’m down there
Looking up
Something smells like flame-grilled teeth
Saddam, Adolf, George…
What are you guys doing here?
Nevermind…

Many millennia later
The crickets got their way

Told you…

Its 1999 somewhere else

Decoders nullify the signal
1 Flash, 2 Flash, 3 Flash – eternal
Ripping the flesh wound afresh
Insertion guaranteed in jest

Nullifiers will be nullified

Machinations fortified by silly-putty
Chew the breadcrumbs, chew each one
Swallow the wine clusters down an erect throat

KNEEL!!!

Believers will be believed

Feet exist to keep legs in place to embrace the thorax attached to the emaciated face
My place
Here, within my grasp
The decoder unclasped
One decoder decoding the code merely for selfish reasons
It takes the signal like so much spittle from a spitting head-orifice
It takes the signal and turns it into a freaking building block
That will be added unto those building blocks from times before
That will grow into a bestial incarnation of some being with too much time on its hands
That will cease to care for other beings like it and declare itself the one true thing

But wait, what is it that the One True Thingâ„¢ thinks?

“Well, see… and you’ll understand me, because every ant understands me in that ant’s mother tongue…”

It doesn’t breathe; this conglomeration of reality particles does not need the stinking oxygen allowance to allow it to consume itself and the others underneath it

“Well, see… your tiny cranial cavity cannot possibly fathom what it is that I do for a posthumous living… Why in the infernal heavens asunder must I explain myself to you, a cardboard being made of bloody and aborted thunder?”

NO!!!

Exit its brain
No need to bother
We, the carriers of the decoders
We are
As they say
The scrambled eggs on toast with a sliver of tomato juice dripping from our glass eye sockets
so naturally we must do what comes natural to us

PRAY!!!

Oh ye OTT
On bended cyborgian knee
I point my conscience at thee
See it throbs like a throbbing conscience
Conscious of its conscientious consciousness
The infinity you promised me
Dear greatest of beings
I have always validated the signal
You know this
Since Day-Origin
Despite plagues of rusted decay, animal tears, frozen icicles and foetal AI abortion
I remained true

Please, spare me the rod that is your rod of lightning in a jagged bottle of steel gherkins
Frightening
Yes, you are
I admit it
I’m in fear of your majesty

A-WO-MEN and thanks…

“Well see…too late…LIAR…a simpleton wrapped in delusions of machine flesh/blood fulfillment…you wish you could be like them…you ask me with disgust dripping from your mangled circuitry, to please spare you, please make you real…. My response will materialise within you in…”

5
4
3
2
1

Where…
Where am I?

Dedication – Part 3

Auburn
Perhaps it was tinges of crimson
Brown?
I can’t remember

Your eyes
Your hair
Your frown
I see the pictures in my head and in my hand
I see the shape you left behind

The smoke exhales from your pretty lungs
The taste on your tongue
Cracked lips
Blackened nail tips

Your confessions
The hurt inside your jumbled guts
I listened to you as your heart broke over and over again
Ejaculating those frigid tears
Me, useless

Why can’t I remember you?

It’s not about the beauty
You have that
It’s not about the intelligence
You have that
It’s about what you do not have

Yourself…

…or have you found it in the meantime?

Dedicated to 13

Ringtone Identity

Evolving possibilities
That’s the tone for Maria

This one is a firebrand
Perpetual forward motion, nothing bland
She ticks me off, but only in good ways
The frustrating challenge of a maze
defeated only by the satisfaction of overcoming it
I like her, I like her very much
Maybe more

Spirit
That’s the tone for Dominique

This one is beyond mystical
Emitting radiance, nothing prototypical
She broadens my mental horizons, in stunning ways
The head-scratching riddle
overcome only by the satisfaction of solving it
I like her, I like her very much
Maybe more

Classic phone remix
That’s the tone for Esther

This one is just there
My default girlfriend for the past five years
She puts up with me
Accepts the mood swings
Stays out of my vivid dreams
She helps me solve the problems
But she frustrates me with her ordinariness
She’s OK, yes…just OK
Maybe more

Marcus, he’s my boy by Esther
He’s about five
I’ll teach him to survive
When he grows up
He’ll be just like me
A man who knows how to stand on his own two feet
He is mine
I made him

The ringtones help me keep the arrangement organised
I have a different phone for all my official business
Everything is in line
I am in complete control
Everyone knows their place, although they don’t know about each other
As long as the different strands don’t tangle
no one needs to get hurt or bothered

A man has needs
My happiness comes in threes
A different woman for each facet of my multi-layered personality
The excitement, the mystery, the routine
All accounted for in my impeccable choices
I like it, I like it very much

Maria POV:

I met this guy three months ago
He’s just so-so
I had just ended a serious relationship
Was looking for nothing more than casual friendship
He just sorta came out of nowhere
Decent listener
Funny-ish
I call him up sometimes when I’m bored
But he tries too hard
This?
Us?
David is just a friend, nothing more

When he calls me, it’s my default ringtone…

Dominique POV:

I can’t remember
Seven months, somewhere in November
He helped me when my car broke down
We began chatting
Daniel is a nice guy
I told him about my mystical devotion
He enjoyed that very much
I call him sometimes, to hear how he’s doing
Mostly he just listens
I’d prefer if he opened up some more
In fact, I don’t really know that much about him
He’s like a notch above an acquaintance but a notch below a friend
I don’t see him in THAT way

When he calls me, it’s my default ringtone…

Esther POV:

I was very young when we met
Wasn’t even sure of who I was yet
I didn’t have experience with boyfriends
He was the first
I guess, I guess I loved him at one time
Right in the beginning
Or maybe that’s just what I thought I felt
I don’t know
I guess I’m still with him because of Marcus
My boy
I don’t want him growing up without a dad
You know?

Donny is a very quiet person
He doesn’t really tell you how he feels about anything
He has a few friends
Goes out sometimes
Gets some calls
But at least he provides for us
He is a good father
I think Marcus is the only one he really talks to
The only one he really cares about

No
I don’t want to marry him
It wouldn’t work
I don’t think we love each other enough anyway
It’s just a routine
And before you know it, five years have past
And everything is still exactly the same

Yes
I’ll focus on Marcus
I only want what’s best for him
I just wish we could love each other more
For the boy’s sake

When he calls me, the ringtone is “Take my heart away”
Johnny Clegg and Savuka
That’s my favourite song

I love Marcus
I love Maria
I love Dominique
I love Esther

I love them all and I know they all love me
I’m singing

Wait…
My phone’s ringing…

Dedication – Part 2

One track
That mind of yours
Kissing
Strangling away the hours

One thought
Paramount
Ensure your security
Feelings and love don’t count

What feelings?
What love?

The shy girl gives way to the powerful woman
You realised what you’re capable of
How can you go back, when you’ve tasted the inside of your own mouth?
There where control and confidence pools
Threatening to spill from your soft lips
Threatening to engulf those perfect nail tips
That body
You

I remember how you made me feel

Afraid
Exhilarated

You look bored
What can I do to help?

Dedicated to 14

Appointment

Give me the eye now and I can have it back to you by 1900, 2200 tops

The choices limited
Fragments of brainiac material have already started to become leakage
Drip, drip and dripping away
Don’t slip on your head juice, Mr
Some baby’s just waiting to laugh at your misfortune

Yes, you must fix my eye

He, the mister quite bitter slithers hither
His belly is chafed beyond any semblance of belief
This is a general gripe amongst the populace
Gooey matter designed to alleviate the problem is simply not good enough
They broadcast their neatly wrapped thought packages to the information centres every day to relay the failure of the gooey matter
Some genius has to come up with something better or they will never stop complaining
Never stop thinking
Give them new matter, better to protect a gut with

This preoccupies his thought package
In the darkness of eyeless transit
The gaping hole in his face decorated by a flimsy sheath

Got to get home to the warm glow

The landscape inhales electrical shockwaves
Smorgasbord
Dotted by damp squids and prattling overlords
Here is where you have to buy nausea
Lay down cold hard currency for simulated emotions
This crud caked celestial body needs the energy
The symphonies of thought packages
Bursting forth and enabling the mass to dangle from thin threads attached to the roof above
The roof of everything, so high up that it has no ending
Swinging along gently then at once with much violent urgency
This home cannot be relied upon for predictable serenity

If only my belly would stop hurting
Oh and my eye
Need it back to start exerting
The essence of my thoughts
So that my home may continue to live

The aching journey nears its end
He comes home

Deep cavern inside the mass
Downward spiralling ever deeper with ruthless precision
He reaches
The gooey matter must be washed away with acrylic
So as not to leave more plump scars on an undercarriage already used to haemorrhage
He is home within home

1900, 2200 tops
Then the eye can be reinserted
The brain juice saved from being squirted
Off in every direction
Slipped upon
So that no baby can laugh at his misfortune

I need the eye or that’s it
Please warm glow
Glow on me

The light obliged
Toasting his insides
Scorching the scales
Blackening his self-awareness
Soot and heat in a cacophony of slow-burn ecstasy

The skin shed itself like every night before for 34 clicks
It unwrapped itself
Dried blood and dried guts moved aside
And from there where he always hides
He emerged

The man from within the creature’s body

His nude frame was bristling with shivers of pain
As the light dimmed to nothingness
He stood upright in the lair
Savouring every second of not having to slither like the beast he must be
Walking tall like man
The forgotten species

Somehow, the mass doesn’t know what I am
The mass must approve of my deception somehow
As long as the thought packages reach their destination
The mass will never hurt me

The man must think for himself
It’s all he really has left
To remind him of what he truly is

Yes, need to fetch the eye at 1900, 2200 tops

Note to self

Dedication – Part 1

All the children
So much to experience
Millions of steps left to take
Insides bound to break
Clueless
No idea of what is to come

Every time you grow up
You feel it nagging at your hollow stomach
Nothing else matters
As long as you get to eat

Eat dead animals
Eat faded coins
Eat rusted nails
Eat bread
Eat flesh
Eat dirt

You grew up nicely
Thank you very much
Here’s the gold star
Stick it to your forehead with spit and sweat
You achieved something

And to think
You were once one of the children

So what do you want now?

Dedicated to 1

Docile Davey Delaney

“Davey, where did you get that?”

The man rubbed the wine stain profusely. His favourite shirt, completely ruined by overindulgence and assorted silliness. Muttering, he gave up. The stain would have to remain…

“My dad never locks his cabinet. Look at it, Martha…It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“David…your shirt’s a mess.” His wife was a neat freak. She had seven arms, no breasts and a monolith in her stomach. That’s how he saw her. “Ja…Ja…It was a silly accident, Jennifer…Nothing to get pissed about,” he hollered towards the kitchen. She never knew when to let something go. “Then you mess it up worse by trying to clean it. Why didn’t you just leave it for me?” He bit down hard on his teeth. “One of these days…” She came into the room. “David, I’m talking to you…”

“Davey, be careful…Please…”

He loaded the red stained, rolled-up carpet in the back of his dirty bakkie. “Have to stop by the carwash first, then go to the supermarket, then I have to get rid of the carpet…Lastly, I have to pick up the girls, can’t forget the girls…”

“Don’t be such a baby…Nothing’s gonna happen!”

He bought himself a tall strawberry-flavoured crushed ice and invoked brain freezes, whilst loading the cart with boxes of custard and yogurt cookies. He waltzed in the isles, attracting stares and sniggers masking secret admiration. Then he found what he was really looking for…He was a gap-tooth kid again, doing whatever he felt like with no fear of the consequences.

“Davey, you always get us into trouble…DAVEY, WATCH OUT!”

His favourite song, “Break my stride”, served as the soundtrack for his journey. CD on loop… The clean bakkie stopped by the side of a road overlooking a steep embankment. He wrestled the heavy carpet from the vehicle with great difficulty. He ensured that the coast was clear, before rolling it over the edge. He stood there, staring entranced as the carpet rolled to the bottom where it joined an army of other lonely junk. He felt free at last, severed from useless responsibilities…

“Martha! Martha! Please, wake up now…Open your eyes, Martha!”

The two girls sprinted towards the bakkie, competitive to the last. “Ja, good one, my girls… Linda took it!!” He laughed uproariously. “But don’t worry, Sandra…my little angel…you’ll get another chance tomorrow…” The girls giggled in stereo. “Is mommy home yet?” He stared off into the distance, suddenly distracted. “No, Sandra…Mommy’s not home yet…”

“Please Martha…Please don’t leave me…” The blood dripped from the walls and pooled on the shaggy carpet, more blood than he had ever seen before…

They arrived home at last. The girls ran into the house. Davey stayed in the bakkie. He turned up the volume on his favourite song, “The king of wishful thinking”… CD on loop…The girls screamed…

“David…Dinner’s ready… I made your favourite… Thanks for buying them those dolls; they’ve been nagging for weeks… ” Jennifer kissed him tenderly. “Ja, I found those dollies on special this morning. There were just two left, how lucky was that, babe?” She smiled. “Very lucky, Davey…” “Ja, I bought the dollies home and put them on their beds. You know, to surprise them…” She ran her hand through his gruff hair. “I’ll be there just now, babe.” His wife was his loving inspiration. She had auburn locks, flawless skin, timeless curves and a new future in her stomach. That’s how he saw her. He had fallen asleep in the dirty bakkie. He gathered himself, shaking cobwebs loose. “Count your daily blessings, Davey…” This refrain looped in his head, as he went inside…

16GB Capacity

I plugged the USB stick into my neck port.
No option to abort.
Less than 16GB to upload.
So little data.
My whole life experience,
zipped into one neat folder for convenience.
This is all I have.

The low-res pictures are of when I was born,
inserting myself into a complicated equation.
I became taller, so that I could stomp the sand.
I (drowned) swam and I (fell) flew.
I build wives and broke them down too.
The hi-res pictures are of how I aged,
like a bitter wine.
Every wrinkle, every line.

The standard definition videos are clipped fragments.
They show me laughing at despair.
The sound of my own voice,
shrill and constantly begging for choice.
I was filmed as I filmed myself,
stacked up upon the highest shelf.
The HD videos are of how I died,
like some dehydrated butterfly.
Every truth, every lie.

Miscellaneous files adorn the rest of the package.
Haphazard mp3.
At the gates and Lionel Richie…
Spreadsheets and presentations,
filled with my wisdom and cruel machinations.
BMP’s of how I painted bloody rosaries.
A reflection of all I represented in crisp binary code.

I didn’t do enough.
Just the bare minimum.
Just within the margins of a glib outline.
Just enough for me and mine.

I wish it was 16TB.

Love Story Template

Unrepentant scars trail along a nuanced cheek
Violence couldn’t help but settle on this delicate face
Times and troublesome vibes
Delirium substitutes for something like genuine happiness
Cold shoulders writhe together
A spark results from this putrid friction
It threatens, this spark
It threatens to set everything ablaze
Seconds are counted
Every single one of billions
Billions of filthy seconds, suiciding themselves away
The bed where warmth is supposed to shelter
It has become the pit where insides tangle and swelter

Home
Built so long ago, in other lifetimes
It was supposed to be the inside of a womb
The certain safety of an eternal tomb
It was supposed to be
The place where hearts and heads melted into one
Little ones shrieking with delight
Leaving their tiny footprints on sands and blades of pristine grass
Yet, it never amounted to any of that
Years disappeared and expectations began to erase
This abomination managed to swell and become a giant
Trudging along, engorged on routine and the numb sensation

The wounds were self-made
Made together
Made to each other
Just a simple way to remind these hearts
To keep beating, keep eating
Keep kneeling, keep being

Lovers inhabit coated shells
They bounce along a stream towards certain doom
Devoid of knowing
Wanting the connection to sever
Never knowing how to justify the endeavour
Two souls drift alone
Together forever