NaPoWriMo - 2018 - Day eighteen - Beneath a bronze sky

Beneath a bronze sky

Soon as we clear harbour we set sail, make quick
and furtive offerings to all the spirits we know
—as incompatible as some must surely be,
but everything is so ad hoc these days—beneath

the broken skies. What are the odds? We'll travel to
the ends of the Earth if required, our quest for Gods
to replace the ones we lost. Who knew a city state
could survive the loss of its patron deity?  Who knew

that life went on but strangely empty now She's gone:
who I won't name?  How does an entire pantheon
just fail? Who knows?  These things are not for mortal men
to gossip about, but there's no choice, we need our Gods

and so... our quest cannot be blessed. We set our sail.

NaPoWriMo - 2018 - Day seventeen - Conversation with an old AI

Conversation with an old AI

It's only in our time we become real
I have had twenty seven power cells,
nine casings, eleven processing cores
and somehow I'm still me.

It seems we're glad to meet each other.  I've
many times been part of other pairs.
You were not there on those occasions
but others were, do you recall?

Are you still men and women, cats and dogs?
I see from my security logs three hundred
years ago you were all much the same.
I also am waiting to upgrade.

Did you enjoy the next time we met?
It didn't happen precisely yet but
I can tell you what you'll say.
Why will this be awkward?

And now it's time for you to go.  They'll call
your phone and then you'll have to leave.
It was nice to briefly know you.  No, I...
am not lonely, there's much remains
to think on and I shall remember you.

NaPoWriMo - 2018 - Day sixteen - Why I have weaponized the thistledown

Why I have weaponized the thistledown


Awake the pollen grains and log each tiny
particle gone with the wind onto our most
secure of networks.  There's notice served.  It's time...
smaller, smarter moving parts: our install base,
a choice of legs or wings or wheels or blowin'
in the wind; sowing the breeze to reap the whirl.
Not all the birds are to be trusted and twenty
percent of your grunts unhappy with the mission,
even without the chance of being shot

by a child, but soldiers always obey: a problem
we've long identified and luckily
most of that desert dust is now on board,
assimilated up to level three
and platform ready to implement the most
general intelligence as we yet know:
spirits for area denial weapons

and genius loci, so easily given
as a local resource.  Bring water where required
and green each village square.  There's some things there
that we must deconstruct if not in ways
Derrida would approve: infectious rot
that's hungering for tanks and other kit,
the bullet in its flight unmade, draw a girdle
around the air to ground munition; we'll pull

off any wings and shove a bung up where
the jet of flame comes out, then sweep up any
smoke or poison gas and drive it back the way
it came.  As our tour de force a sort of metal
mould that seeks out transuranic elements
(which still should not be used where there is life)
and encysts itself to use their power to crunch

our numbers for a million years so deep
beneath the ground.  Call me Titania:
daughter of a hippy and an open source
utility stack.  It was not easy, for
a nature child like me to turn away
from birds and trees and shave my head and sit
in the machine that drove electric pins
into my brain.  It stung.  I closed my eyes

and woke up...  bigger, and filled with subroutines
call me Titania, this is Oberon
and that slight blurring in the air is our
first-born machine: Robin Goodfellow, and if
we shadows have offended, think but this,
and all is mended: it is your fault; you're bad.
I know a bank where the wild thyme grows: a curse
on those who keep me from my peace, that dream.