Body Modding

It starts with teeth, for even the healthiest:
Fillings put in, and “extra” teeth pulled out
Or realigned, the whole jaw moved about,
New faces for the kids of the wealthiest.
Tonsils, appendix, out. The stealthiest
Inject, use pills, every fluid reroute
With tourniquets, with tampons, condoms... flout
Flow, through to adult nappies. Atheist
As Science makes us with creative powers,
We add pumps, implants, radio, wires, chips,
Casually as tattoos, replacement hips;
Graft patchwork skin from humans, pigs, plants, flowers,
Joined in flamboyant Frankensteinish suture,
Racing against decay to cyborg future.

Published online in Snakeskin, January 2018

THE FUTURE AS CDG TERMINAL 1

The future is a long low passage,

Whitewashed, undulating,

A moving forward-flowing track,

No chance of going back.

The future has no message,

Its ads are guides only to the past,

Misleaders, redesignposts,

Echoes, undefined ghosts.

The future is travelled without presage,

Always onward, none comes back.

Predestination without destination.

Stationary or walking, you’ve no final station.

The future goes on until you get off.

I won't. I will not to get off.

Published: The Rotary Dial, Toronto, January 2016

THE FUTURE AS EVENT

The future like an avalanche

Is roaring down the sky.

If you’ve prepared no hiding place

Then be prepared to die.

You never reason why.

The future like a question mark

Is scything humankind.

If you can see, then handle it –

You’ll be cut down if blind.

The future doesn’t mind.

The future like a giant wave

Is heading for the shore.

If you can ride that wall-like wave

It’s no wall, but a door

Into forever more.

Published: The Rotary Dial, Toronto, January 2016

POST-HUMAN

On the graphed time-descent of years since birth -
The time-line of my life from birth to present -
The initial line dividing life from nothing
Hangs like a thunder-cloud atop my life
Dividing ME from Ancient History
(That rumored world, alleged before I lived)
And threatens dispossession once again
Through final death if I should make one slip
In seeking to survive to the New Age:
The genome-driven world of nanotech
Which will allow my line to drop forever
Beyond humanity, across starred gulfs,
Into a Universe-wide consciousness:
The interlinked intelligence of all.

Published: Ambit 190, UK, October 2007