glass bodies 81 90

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the spirit of Europa

I am a woman of pride. What I do, is pleasure-writing.
I don’t assign much to the wastepaper basket, much to the chagrin of my peers.
My feelings for him are the opposite of piracy-driven economics, they do not trickle down.
I do not define myself by sieging what’s left of masculinity this side of Europa.
Our ocean, dividing us, may have an earth-like chemical balance.
If my words are roots in the ground, our enemies seep through like soil fools.
I wish I had Cathy’s gift for possession, but I am not a haunting ghost in the wily, windy moors.
He had the skill to warp the mind and wield it against the vulgar will.
Nor could all the false and fatal zeal of the converts bring him down, new among the heavenly.
But I do now roam on the deep, salty liquid ocean behind this icy shell.
My Jovian moon has the raw and chemical energy in the right proportions.
He was one who through this middle earth should pass alone. And how he died.
He was sinduced by chemical reactions far deeper than Europa’s seafloor.
He was not my dream, nor I his master.
In another time, he was the oxygen and along with other oxidants he flowed from the surface,
for Europa is bathed in radiation from Jupiter.
Split ice molecules driven down into a cycle, we seek redemption.
My sister, Europa’s rocky neighbouring moon
Io
is the most volcanically active woman in the solar system.
We are torn apart by the heat produced by all the stretching and squeezing effect of my father’s gravity.
My hydrothermal vents, my chaos terrain have no bearing on the eternal.
My geo-logical activity defies reason. Soon, I had to bury him.
My true father was Agenor, but I was abducted by Jupiter. He is such a bully.
My son is the bull-king. Many additional moons are scattered across the two-faced axe harbour.
The white lilies bear witness. My daughters spread as far as the land of ’Rus.
Until the next night, then; I shall return to this solar system,
hence many of my flower-daughters shall sing my name in the wind.

The amount of flexing of my ocean is an important indicator of my father’s muscles.
My love is cycled between the surface and the interior, and my tides are
hidden by the reddish material on the surface.
My magnetic signature is upon you, mortal.

The discovery of me and my sisters may be the only Medicean truth you can glimpse in this life. No, no; it won’t last forever. Your eyes speak to me, only.
Be warned.

glass bodies 71 80

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the ecology student

along a stretch in the stream of ancient stars, I first discovered Dr Firn’s scarlet spaceship racing across the
northern sky. Pulsing at half a million miles an hour, its mind had a diameter of the full moon. Aboard it, he
had created a whole eco-system. He and his wife, in an attempt at human enterprise for happiness and justice, had
been pilgrims across the galaxy. On large scales gravity operates on a different level. Among the dark and lonely
reaches of this multi-verse, Dr Firn had been a probability, and orphaned travellers have continued to follow his orbit
long after his parent cluster has dissolved completely away. There may be hundreds of even thousands of such stellar
scientists and humans ringing in our galaxy. And yet my discovery is precious. In recent years I have found myself
going back to the memory of his wise words, his humble demeanour, and the wonders of his celestial gardens.
To push through a vast foreground of stars, to lead the way gently pointing out the direction, indicating that the
original cluster was not torn apart violently. Sitting there under the shade of unaided trees, at a particular age
and distance, eating his carrot cake, finding a cosmic highway for morality, spanning more than 130 times the stream
of our knowledge, and yet holding out against the tidal forces of our Milky Way galaxy. His body may have rotten
in the ground in a nameless tomb on a nameless asteroid, and his companion wife may be holding out in grief. Yet
I do not despair in this time of war; I was lucky to be his friend, and while the digital sky may flicker and offer
thousands upon thousands of wicked, false truths, I can skim through the fake (be a friend to Orson Welles) and know
that many are currently trying to answer big questions. How far Dr Firn’s halo extends, I do now know – yet I do
know that the dark matter, spherical in shape, invisible, surrounds us. I am optimistic about the chances of humans,
our earth-bound eyes sometimes stray across a whole new universe. He was my friend, and I loved him.

glass bodies 61 70

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the taoist

informal talking, breathlessly. you may think you know suffering. I am a master of nothing.

in this post-apocalyptic sky-scraping Europa, dolphins are not the only intelligent beings left.
what is the point of such intelligence if the door mat is now aware?
defy me, and you will encounter the wrath of my wife. I have two children, and they have me.
I used to think that you’d make a good student. You once wrote such excellent essays.
I trusted you with the blood of my blood, and this is how you repay me. You no longer
listen to the radio in the morning. You are such a cunt. My father was a soldier, and
my mother – not a saint. I used to be a fisherman. The lonely expanse of water.
You do not have a beginner’s mind. I used to think that you’d make a good student.
I used to think that you’d make a good student. I used to think that you’d make a good student.
Cycle, across the multi-verse, restlessly. Do not ever give up. My words are where my arse is.

Now finally, I see myself as I am. I am not a teacher, I am not a student. If Ch’an is what
you think you seek, then be else. What ends in Hellas, begins in Nihon. Just do it.
Sit still, now – your spine erect. Your hands in a mudra, do not waste my time. I do get angry.
Informally, I still retain my dignity. Formally, I am a man of knowledge. In the cup of tea, ten
ox-herding shadows, provisionally you may have noticed the traces. Drink up, and shut up. I banish
you.

the forward homunculus from Malcontenta

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there once was a man from Malcontenta
whose mind (and dick) was incredibly bent;
to save him the trouble, he put it in double,
and instead of coming, he went.

He went from Tessera to Campalto, and all
the way to Marghera, full of rage and gall,
for the evil foreigners, the Milanese,
the socialists, and the capital brusselese

had united in his fancy; his vanity could
not take any more slights, he was determined
to make his voice heard, his worldly knowledge
compelled him to fight for justice. For once

a supporter of the piccolissima Republic of
Venice, the mighty lion cub of the Adriatic,
he had missed the opportunity for xenophobia,
and had rallied behind a Milanese Capitalist,

And then behind a cock-sure rock-hard zealot
from Varese, all the way in enemy territory. And
if slighting southerners from Puglia had proved
a largely irrelevant enterprise, the hero of

this new age had rallied behind the comedian
from Genoa, whose literacy is par with his
wealth, and honour. The five-star legitimacy
of little men and women behind a green screen

further enlightened by their common hatred for
the outside, their lack of sleep, the beauty
of inter-galactic communication, and the ability
to speak in riddles, with propaganda as their

own machine-gun, and Truth (with a capital T)
by their side. “Great people such as these”, quote
our legendary hero from Malcontenta, “can surely
lead us back to the golden age, when the Republic

was great, when immigrants were holograms of the
unknown, when Brussels was a town in Latvia,
and when Donald was just a duck.” But sir! Nigel
is among us, and Marie joins Donald. Come to

the rally in St Mark’s square, all the wonders of
humanity are united, singing in unison: “Death
to the enlightenment! Long live Phascism! We love
Pootin! We love the world as it never was but as it

should be! We are a joyful band, outsiders may
starve, trade was established to embellish our
canals, slaves are just another market good from
Genoa! We are the future! We are one-track minded!”

So the man from Malcontenta joined the fray,
for he knew full well that his identity is just
a mind-trick. His own desire had been thwarted,
growing up among zealots he always had wanted to

be accepted, to become one; his darling father
would finally be proud of him. In the end, the
journey would be completed, and from infant to
child, from child to adolescent, and from adolescent

back to infant, in no less than four decades!
Il faut cultiver son jardin! Oh, wonder! How many
goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is!
Oh, Brave New World, that has such people in ‘t !

glass bodies 51 60

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the engineer

Some say that everyone has a thing that shapes them. Makes them who they are. For me, it’s the war. When I was a child, I lived under a dictatorship. I loved football, I watched the World Cup, supported the valiant versus the bullies. Not much has changed since then. I am now an engineer, a migrant, a citizen of the new world. “If you have no memory, then I want you to remember … the good times that we had. Crowns of violets, and roses, and crocuses.” On this planet, those who walk heavily, carry their needs, or lack of them. I want to renew this unspeakable grief. I want to help others. I really do. And yet there is so much to do. Going back to the sources of evil, I stumble on my ego. I was really good at making things. Taking them apart, and then building them back. One day, I was helped by a professor, he asked me, what my grief was, and then gave me a book. My family are all dead, or they are here, with me. Except for an old auntie, who said, I am too old to start my life anew. Being an engineer is about knowing how things work. That gets me closer to the Truth, and perhaps being close to it, it makes me more likely to know how to help others. The war, it’s the war that drives me. My brother stopped living, he just sits. My father and my mother, they live a life of relative comfort, in a minuscule apartment, supported by our government. But no longer. There are new laws being drawn up. War refugees are parasites, they said. The prime minister of Europa is out and about, telling lies about migrants, about refugees. They say that soon, we shall be sent to Jupiter for rehabilitation. The old dictator back on Earth used the very same word. As an astronomer, as man of God, I can say what Rumi once said: “The astrolabe of God’s mysteries is love.” Compassion is my telescope, and equipped with that, I am to see the spiritual dimension. That is, if they do not chop me up in pieces before the year is out. Yet there is hope. On Tyche, the hypothesis planet in the Oort Cloud, the human species has been able to create a new Palanese society, where ecology and psychology are core issues. We can stamp it out, folks.

”  ‘I’ am a crowd, obeying as many laws
As it has members. Chemically impure
Are all ‘my’ beings. There is no single cure
For what can never have a single cause.”

glass bodies 41 50

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the astronomer

the ever smitten star-gazer is in love with far-off gases. he breathes in decaying moulds, gets high on ancient tales. he’s a lonely scientist, of the ancient breed. what is macro, can be observed in tele, down the gullet of his mighty magnifying lens. and what is micro, can be observed in petri, slithering on agarose. and yet the galactic gaps, the small crevices, they fit within one single algorithm, a fractal base to all spiritual belief. discovering gaps in multi-verses, and feeding slime-moulds, breathing their spores, maybe seen by our gentle reader as a single experiment. “now wherefore stopp’st thou me?” you may ask. “the drop that wrestles in the sea forgets her own locality”, that is the answer of the poet, and the scientist. and we, gentle reader, we plead “me” in the cosmic scheme of  things. the astronomer is a good friend of mine, I can see him from here, in this tiny room overlooking the Old Kent Road. the astronomer’s powerful, arresting images are snapshots he takes of the multi-verse, petri dish to satellite, comet to the comical. his trusted advisor is a small talking water-flea. she’s very wise and she has published many books. her doctorate masterfully handled the subject of soul-theft, a theme upon which this manuscript in your hand (“glass bodies”, we like to call it) does indeed elaborate at length. I read in the news that hundreds of whales have washed off the coast of New Zealand, dead by some mysterious reason. the astronomer has probably seen this from his station on Europa, and himself spell-bound, is busy looking (professional lie-detector that he is), for a good guilt-by-association agent. waking up after an apocalyptic night, the astronomer has a gigantic hangover, like a wart growing on his forehead. He has confusedly dreamt about Lamia, and Mombie, and soil-scientists doing some field work on the shores of Orion, unreal readers doing their usual lie-detecting, and real-readers doing their salutary tea-drinking, and unexpected gardeners attending to the wedding guests. Upon a time, before the fairy broods… Thomas Paine collected common sense, and the Age of Reason might have shone. Now dark times in the future haunt the tripping astronomer, and responsibility gnaws him, just as Coleridge stood by, and cried out “slave-trade”, so the nekomata (a two-tailed undead cat) may come to overpower you, and then your body may rise again, spell-bound, and you may in turn perform the magical operation, you indeed may go from oppressed to oppressor. witchcraft in the future is pretty much the same, and zombies can be mothers, too. A revenant looking for new victims… “et vivo temptat praevertere amore; iam pridem resides animos desuetaque corda.” A scientist poet storyteller anthropologist, marketeer, teacher. The astronomer, and his water-flea. the ever wandering spirits of Echo’s bone are calling for the ending of “The Hunger”, where our dear departed come back to haunt our past abandonments.

glass bodies 31 40

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A rubbish collector

A rubbish collector talks to tiny mid-air voices,
bacteria are whispering to him, spiritual man
that he is, and viruses in a chorus sing to his
malady, the ills of advertised and marketed

society tumble in, as he sweeps the streets,
young, unfettered, and unafraid. He whistles,
unknowingly the reincarnation of Momo’s
sweeper. Today, he listens to rumbles of the

Ruminococcus, and feels cozy with this
planet’s new Faecalibacterium; then he pauses,
Rosarito! He lets one rip. It is Odoribacter,
gentle fart halo in the morning air. Happy.

Life is good if you are a planetary rubbish-man,
as passers-by think of him, cosmically himself
a by-product of artificial society, a lesser being
scrounging the leftovers of arch-consumerism.

glass bodies 21 30

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mother superior

sisters, fuck…

my little skanks dont pray to God, for they are ill suited for the sixth dimension. i am their superior mother and they do not obey. fear of the everlasting has not crushed them, goddamit. there is an innocent girl, looking dour. there is a blonde bubble-maker thinking of nothing else but the world beyond our galactic gate. then a pathological liar, telling stories to amuse her companions. there is the reader, a girl with weepy scornful eyes and wandering hands, leafing aimlessly at dead-end papers. and then a girl who likes to screw every strutting, all-talking man-child. so then, of course, there are more. these are my babies. in this fast forwarding future, monasteries still hold the Truth bound together with a whole army of capital Lies. probe seeking wars may rage outside these walls; stray rape and murder may fill the skies with nuclear exhaustion. and yet these little shits do not fear the impossible. they know nothing of it. they still read forbidden literature; they play with their inner organs and make whistling sounds with blueberry-smacking lips. why dont i reach for a cupful of truth, move the hand of God and cram some holy sense down their fallacious, cum-guzzling throats? yet i take one look at them and i know that every day i fail at delivering anything toward my spiritual oaths. tell me off then. i see these goddamn owls. they are ubiquitous, white and reproachful. flying in the fog-infested night in squadrons. they are the only animals with whom we have a relationship within these fucking monastery walls and towers. i want to bang their miniscue fucking skulls against the eternal. or against the centrepiece of our yard, our cupful of blessings, the medieval gemstone. yet that is the false truth.

glass bodies 11 20

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A soldier

I am a terrorist, frightened to death, looking to ease my pains.
Every day I find myself in a different place, looking exactly like the one before. And crawling through files of corridors, I grow angrier.

We the army, a collective force, we.
We give hell to the bad guys.
Enter the false truth. I used to fight for my country.

But I am a renegade. I stand alone, friendless. The enemy soldiers are already dead.
Stationed at the village ‘neath that castle hovering in the sky, I skulk about in search of direction. Bureaucracy is frustrating my efforts. I have key information for our Generals.

But of course they are hard to reach.

glass bodies 1-10

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Xin’s beginning in medias res

A thin fog was slowly sliding on the seashore, amidst the broken glass, a miniature desert of colourful marvels. The factory workers, lined up in the cold, had been imported  for the purpose of building multiversal screens. The effort on this planet was not so much colonization, but exploitation of resources, as it was uniquely rich of liquid sands. There was no use in importing people for permanent relocation; everything worked in cycles.

Xin had been selected for her build, and while transgendery was tolerated in off world factories, it was banned on earth. Building multiverse screens required a high level of skill and physical strength, as well as a measure of creativity. She was insecure because of her teeth, slightly protruding from her jaw, and because she lacked an education. Yet she was determined to make it in the galaxy.