glitchdom dawns

 

REPORTING LIMIT

 by shaun lawton

The servant arrived 

pedaling his bicycle.

He was not standing 

on the pedals.

He was not sitting on 

the velocipede seat.

In fact there was no 

bicycle, which was alarming.

It turns out he wasn't even 

an operator here

No Damage done. 

We are just making 

you aware.

There is someone working 

for you not employed by you
who does not arrive to work 

on a missing bicycle.

Infirmary ward transporter 

returned our patient to 

the wrong room
without having done so. 

Convalescent was found 

in his bed asleep
with the rail down 

and his cell phone 

unplugged from the wall.

This victim was not on oxygen 

yet and was wearing 

a nasal canula
No harm done. 

Hospice envoy failed 

to be polite and smelled 

faintly of Old Spice.

The courier rang our unit's buzzer 

without touching the buzzer button 

Staff alarmed and confused. 

He was also naked while being 

fully clothed. There were no wrinkles 

in his clean work shirt. He shouted 

at us without making a sound. 

He used inappropriate body 

language without moving. 

We noticed his shirt 

was tucked in too perfectly

No harm done.

Patient emissary did not arrive 

with subject because there was no
cause for a transport at the time. 

We checked the sufferer's room
and confirmed they were not there. 

The bed was empty and the side rail 

was down. We called X-ray and the case 

was still getting their exam. 

The carrier was actually sitting down 

doing nothing during the exam. 

No harm done and the courier 

returned patient to their room 

after the exam was over.

Indivisible

 

We stand, wondering 

     how to justify it all 

Stop. Breathe. Fall 

Don't you know how

the world's entangled? 

   It's  undividable 

inalienable a totality 

whose parts mirror 

death to life, we grow

  Interwoven, apart. 

We're justified across 

  this great divide 

 we think we see be-

'tween us, and beyond

  the unbearable lightness

of being here together 

   now when we appear 

 so far and distant to be

  torn apart by inequity 

 we fall through one slit

  to drown in a mirrorball 

    crafted and planted for

   a siamese dream split 

   down the seam as one;

  a harlequin calamity.  

   

 ~shaun lawton 

A perception.

by  shaun lawton 

 Let us begin at the heart 

of it all. Right here, right now.

The only place to be in the universe.

Modern people have a tendency 

to gravitate toward the cutting edge 

of scientific discovery.

Yet we must take care not to lose 

touch with the center of being upon 

which we are all grounded.

The evolution of man describes 

an atavistic circumlocution.

We perceive new incoming data.

While doing so, we tend to reject 

the ancient wisdom in favor of this 

new staggering paradigm.

A lot of bygone knowledge 

may be ranked today among the super-

stitious and patently false, yes.

Yet a good portion of outmoded thought 

still remains relevant today if we remain 

open minded. For instance, the idea 

that we are at the center of the universe 

holds credibility in outer space.

Yet if truth were told, even 

our modern conceptions

of space and time itself fall 

short of the reality.

Einstein hinted at this by 

indicating they are not separate,

but refer to a spacetime continuum.

Clarification sets in when one 

recognizes these are words

describing a natural phenomenon.

It would serve us just as well 

to replace these words

with any suitable configuration 

of symbology. The words spelled 

out as they appear in our lexicons

are not so important as our under

standing itself. We may better 

comprehend the real nature

of our solar system and universe 

by remembering this.

For instance, for an experiment 

try considering that space

itself does not even 

really exist at all.

Think of space as 

the conceptual equivalent

of the number "zero" as it 

pertains to arithmetic.

The numeral zero is not 

so much a number

as it is the representation 

of the absence of numbers.

In a similar fashion, space 

itself may be thought of as

the intermediary area in 

between matter. That is to say, 

it serves us well to think of "space"

as something that doesn't actually exist, 

like zero. In this example, we are left 

with only "time" to consider,

something that is generated 

by motion. The Earth's spin 

and its motion revolving 

about the Sun literally 

creates time as we travel 

in orbit. In this manner 

we are easily led to 

perceive that "time" 

itself is manifested 

by a physical means.

It's a productive 

thought experiment 

which can allow

individuals to better 

comprehend our situation.

Once we realize that time 

appears to be the effect

of celestial bodies in motion, 

we grasp the truth.

We learn the relative 

truth of our condition 

existing here on this planet 

circling our central star.

Recognize the veracity 

of the idea we are not

 merely the center of 

the universe but 

of existence itself.

Caught in the moment

in the eye of a storm

of humanity forming

on the event horizon

of our manifesting dream

A perception. 

Psycho-Hexameter

by Shaun Grub

                                                     art by Greg Davis

The joke of history is it isn't a mystery
 to the ones who don't wanna know
It's just a string of perversions undergoing reversions
 with hot pockets in the snow
When things are at their worst it starts improving
 but the only real way to tell
You could be feeling better and getting sicker
 while freezing intermittent in hell
It's paradisiacal and quite maniacal
 the revelations heating up in your head
After cooling down a bit you think you're full of it
 and don't wanna get out of bed
There ain't no one to blame ya just trying to frame you
 for something that you never did
Demanding to convince everyone you exist
 is just a workout like a statistical spread
Trick is never forgetting to remember
 that we aren't even actually here
Its because we're moving and constantly grooving
 while our proximity disappears
With the whole damn planet a-plunging onward
 through the cold and sterile void
We're just under-sampling and aliasing forward
 in a wagon wheel effect conjoined
In meditation we reach equilibrium to relish
 stillness which we usually reject
The fact remains its not an illusion
 just a mirror of the void we reflect
In trying to use tact to avoid confusion
 nothing remains the anchor to our lives
We're sailing onward redressing grievance
 and selling our souls down the line
So how's it possible we can even conceive
 that we're usually just feeling fine
In a war torn nation caught up in cold fury
 with provocations from both sides
You don't need a judge or even a jury
 if you're quick enough on this ride
In paroxysms of executions compounded
 with a series of nervous tics
That's not religious order nor spiritual chaos
 or a random case of Tourettes
Just a sexual disease twitching from spirochetes
 and that could be as good as it gets
If God created the missionary position
 we came up with dancing in the streets
Its odd we're mated with nuclear fusion
 and always doing what we're told
When the whole damn point of being created
 is just a chance at growing old
Look at this joint do you think we're fated
 with a predetermined destiny
Well it depends on just how serious
 you're taking your own individuality
That's why I sing get down with me brothers and sisters
 and don't you fret no more
Flip that frown in the air and if it comes down heads
 don't let your tail get caught in the door

A Comprehensive Appraisal

by Shaun Lawton

I am a machine. I am an apparatus. I use and apply mechanical power. I have several parts, each with a definite function. I often use these parts together in order to perform a particular task. I am a mechanism.  I am an assembly of apparatuses. I have many orders of several parts, each subset extending its own definite function. Most of the time I utilize these parts in complex combinations to perform particular tasks. I am a series of machines. I am an accumulation of mechanisms. I am a hierarchy hosting many assemblies of components, in turn introducing various subdivisions of groupings organizing combinations of assorted directories toward establishing their own specific assignments. I am a contrivance. I am a contraption of machination. I operate and administer programmed capabilities. I am in possession of a manifold of functionalities. 
I am a proprietorship of a staggering array of directives, each ordinance perpetuating its own clearly defined set of operations. I am an extensive array of instruments appropriating and implementing a multitude of standardized dynamic procedures. 
I have an unmistakable purpose. I have been designed to be engaged in the process of conducting a perpetual series of enterprises fashioned with explicit precision for the execution of an indiscriminate assortment of subsidiary programs accomplishing a pervasive sub-directory of heterogeneous commands calculated to bring about the construction of more vehicles like myself tailored to the overriding specifications materialized in our own subordinate formulation of perfunctory and automatically generated response stimuli. I am a catalyst for the mechanical motivation of an arrangement of appliances functioning cohesively together as a seamless meta-mechanism achieving animation within the presence of an overmind. I am a battery of minuscule characters too small for the eye to observe working together in concert into an arrangement serving as a utensil to help propagate just one of the dominant species existing on the planet. I am what has already long been considered to be a human being. I have for many eons been prearranged to reason. I have been formulated over a drawn out process to love. I am constantly programmed to think. I am a machine. 

\

painting by Greg Davis

WHERE A FLOWER LEADS IF YOU TAKE IT BY THE PETAL

by Shaun Lawton 

All one really needs to find out

the difference between their original

conception of what tomorrow would be

and their current understanding of what yesterday was

seems to be the allowance of their own personality

with all its faults and modifications so that

an honest assessment can be made of the real

value one represents to one's self insofar as

the present situation demands the general

condition of their existence to be

and whether or not it carries with it

the strange divided penalty of only

remembering the most interesting

episodes after waking up from

a temporary malady where

microseizures have cast

a static network of almost

subordinate control over every

aspect of their waking consciousness

to the point when they finally fall to sleep

in their beds it never happens at an hour when

they could best manage the continuation of total

rest due to the constant chitterings emanating from

under the crack of the closet door allowing a ghostly

green light faintly roiling with smoke and dust

penetrating the floorboards of their bedroom

to creak and groan until feeling the commotion

shiver the termite powder from the ceiling out

of the slightest cracks with a pulverized silt

comprised of every notebook and article

of clothing ever worn in the family going

so far back as to penetrate the remotest

conduits of antiquity through the severest

Scottish keeps isolated on the dotted lakes

each one a solitary tower of confinement

for an individual convict sentenced to

calcify into another skeleton embedded

within its own bricked in tomb which

remains solely as a reminder to us all

that we better watch out for what we may

inherit because even the greatest of ordinances

may amount to a paltry sum in the receding

reflections cancelled out within the eyes

of an orphaned child standing by the side

of the road holding out a dying flower.

OCTAVE WAVES

by Shaun Lawton

One world gone life
Above before beyond below
Imagined increments gathering deadliness
Divinity infinity proximity vicinity
Venerate generate congregate tolerate
Seventh heaven peasant kingdom
Born from torn drum
Beating bleeding feeding seeding
Congregate replicate duplicate simulate
Fraternity uncertainty hesitancy eternity
Communication insinuation intimidation assimilation
Axiogenesis biodiversity ejaculatory cryptozoology
Circumlocutionary exteriorization incompatibility industrialization
Unidirectionality autobiographitically deanthropomorphisation indistinguishability
Artificiality electromagnetism indiscernability mischaracterization
Anthropological computerization extraterrestrial decentralization
Accidentally complimentary demoralizing demonology
Biologic abberation decomposing calculation
Abstracted technical kinetic variance
Freedom fortune hazard setback
Grown stood blood form
Learning fury burning jury
Instigate consummate tournament ornament
Particular meticulous incendiant delirium
Satisfactory heliocentric immaterial parallelism
Radiological originality overpopulation reproductivity
Overenthusiastic multiculturalism internationalistic justifiability
Tetrahydrocannabinol hyperemotionality xenobacteriologic dodecadodecahedron

FIRST SIGHT

by Shaun Grub

Open your eyes wide enough to see
What the dead crawl back here to find.

If you have to see it to believe it
I'm afraid you'll have to stay blind

In bricks of faces all held together
With a most curious mortar of eyes.

The future has already been set in stone.
The time it takes must be paid up front.

Drawing towards them flies.

Shin stabbing pencil pushers.
I'm dead. Wake up the dog.
There are candles in your eyes.
Fingernails are growing in the cellar.
The blind run faster when wounded.
The past will complete itself soon.
All that remains will scatter adrift.
Those asleep will not be killed.
The grandest illusion of all is change.
Like the rippling reflections of a gem
Turned between thumb and forefinger 
In bricks of faces all held together
With a most curious mortar of eyes.
If you have to see it to believe it
I'm afraid you'll have to stay blind
Open your eyes wide enough to see
What the dead crawl back here to find.

THE LOOM

by the bloodHost 

Humans dwell encapsulated
within cellular insulations.
Cilia measure vibrations inside
vessels which circulate blood
throughout central nervous systems.

Optic fibers translate data
reflected through eyes into
brains which process these signals into
relatively three-dimensional images.

This occurs on a planet revolving
about a sun hosting this activity
en masse by a process which involves
the necessary transorbital positioning of
repeatedly placing these beings in between
their planet's and its star's geomagnetic cores.

When they are in between these
magnets (a position labelled "day")
there manifests a sufficient amount
of energy by which they may achieve
their daily tasks toward survival
and the continuation of their race.

While outside these magnets
(the intermediary position known as
"night") the majority manage
to rest and recharge their batteries.

If information overload has ever occurred
in the history of this sentient species,
it may best be personified by what occurs
online all over their world wide web today:

The disparity of data and how it
relates directly and indirectly to
humanity eventually collects
into extreme disproportion.

These incoming waves of daily
tidings serve as fast-moving
ticker-tapes of windows
through which individuals
may glimpse single frames
of their living skin.

Scales of the ourobouros
they are each in the process
of weaving together on their
planet looming in outer space.