Monday, July 6, 2009

Jaded Science Fiction



Jaded Science Fiction

“One day I would like to get
back to what I started there!
Maybe the would be Fractal
Fairy Tale Narrative-Poems?”
—Phuoc-Tan Diep

Science Fiction—images within images
Worlds within worlds—allowing the loneliness
Of human feelings—to surrender to
Nothingness—all sci-fi is lonely

It’s better—than nothing
But at best it fails—to suggest anything
Beyond being very boring—even great authors
Like Phillip K. Dick—end-up lonely in the High Castle

Transgressing—Earth politics
Outtakes—into campaign speeches
Transforming—Hollywood hallucination
Imagistic camouflage—nineteen eighty-four

Pony cars—and sleek muscle cars
Pontiac firebirds—Mercury cougars
Dodge chargers—old Toronados lingering on
Like a Bel Air drag show—waits to be forgotten

What can’t be remembered—goes zip
Everything that—erases itself should be loved
Cherished worlds simply—containing nothing
Saturn’s rings—Vandals of the Void

This dark edgy satire—jaded sci-fi world
Trumps Hollywood again—echoing what vases
In ancient crypts say—Palm Springs sarcophagi
What Liberace says—there in Las Vegas

Death sucks—it’s a dead-end street
Full of weltschmertz vibes—overtaxed imaginations
Heath Ledger—doing his Wyoming fade
Michael Jackson—doing his last moon walk

Norma Desmond—doing her comeback
Ronald Reagan—the man who wasn’t there
Young sperm donors—stripped of their bluejeans Infernal machines—milking them dry as a bone?

Kvetching the other day at work—I overheard
From some literary—meandering misanthropes
Some Melba mutants—the whole sordid story
About the end of death—downstairs beneath

Miles of lovely carnal desires—Don Johnson’s Constant preoccupation—always on the move
His wise-cracking telepathic dog—helping him
To score pussy—and fight moody marauders

Berserk androids—and other post-apocalyptic
Night of the Living Dead scenarios—Don Johnson Held captive in Topeka subsurface world with its
Hydroponic bays—subterranean biospheres

Young Don Johnson—makes his escape
From below—starring in Harlan Ellison’s
A Boy and His Dog—also known as Psycho Boy
His killer dog—both of them telepathic

Well-versed in extra sensory—canine perception
Futuristic dog eat dog world—sounds familiar?
Competition & Death—with interruptions
How to think—like José Saramago?

How to schmooze—about death?
How to update—post-apocalypse dystopia?
How to enjoy—American nightmare cinema?
Beyond Orwell’s—worst expectations?

Saramago’s style—death of the printed word
No capitols—chaotic syntax—absence of full stops Complete lack of—necessary parentheses
The obsessive elimination—of paragraphs

The random use of commas—and the most Unforgivable sin of all—the most subversive
Thing any writer—could possibly promulgate
And that’s the total lack—of Capitalization

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