Thiefcatcher

So during one of my more ambitious phases, I started a speculative fiction set roughly fifty years in the future. Writing it, I confined myself to scenes built out organically from thin loglines. Oh yeah, and I also decided to pull a Neal Stephenson or, well, attempt neologism. I'll throw this up here, see if there's any response to it. It's damn near impossible to write, since every other word involves close to two hours of linguistic projection and entirely too much research into modern, evolving dialects. TLDR: Hard to write, assessing value.

"Thiefcatcher"

Hey there.  Glad you could stop by.  Hope you can stay awhile.  See, I’m a character in a pretty damn good novel, but I want to take a break and spit a line.  I’m not in this novel, I know you were thinking about it.  How biebery that’d be if I told you my story was a pretty damn good novel.  ‘Rish the thought, though, because like I dropped before, that’s not the case.  My clanner, Kalam, he’s the main ‘tar for this raid.  I’m just wearing a character tag, you know?  My real dent is as a mallspace photographer, but I avoid it as often as I can, which is pretty often when you friend a guy who can build bank tags faster than KFC can souse a chicken.  Still, tapping stories isn’t whedon-off from drawing them in a camera.  Enough of the exposition, time to assume the position and stop whistling. 

I met Kalam like nine or ten ball-drops ago.  He wasn’t lancing back then, but he had mad rep up for fixing sad mash jobs.   He could ding your cash back after having a cavity filled by blaming it on a black and decker.  So that was his main tag, fixing redit problems and working under the plan.   But he already knew he could tank harder eyel and maybe that meant detooing some other empire shit from happening.  Here, try this out, if you line it, you might cog it better.

-=-=-=

                The hyperba was dimly lit by the lasing screens of the oscul monitors while ‘nic industrial oozed out of the woofers, the sound cut on the zor-edged metal screaming over the tech pulse.  Kalam was sitting slunk in his cline, a glass of vodul tipping like a congressman on the armrest. 

                “You have to understand, man, that tagging is more dangerous than you think.  It’s the future, sure, but really, I mean, have you specfic’d the idea yet, it rezzes out harder than Clu.  No way it buffies up when you put that much information out there in the space.  If you ask me, I wish they had never discovered it.”

-=-=-01100attemptingtranslationAttempt:!-0-=-=-Re-enterdata

                “I get it, dude, You think people are going to steal this tech—“

                “No, no—not the tech, it’s global now, free domain and bad Chinese dubs all.  It’s what happens with it.  Didn’t you ever watch classic whedon?”

                “Nobody did.”

                “Fuck off.  We tag ourselves, right, and then what happens?  What if somebody gets a hold of our tag?  Or we lose it.  That’s our souls, right there, floating around and somebody else can just plug us in and take our lives.”

                “Tagging isn’t like that.  It’s like vr, or something.  Matrix-shit.  Instant Jet-Li, just add virus-juice.”

                “If you can put something in, you can take something out,” he said, popping a slug of the vodul and spitting it at his friend for emphasis. 

-=-=-=-

                Reat me corner four if you want, but guy had high int even back then.  His cha was low, ob, still wasn’t buying the official retcon even if he couldn’t board any one with it.  I was walling for him that turn but he’d smith me later.  Course, he was neep in gibsonland and I couldn’t miller him out of it at that point.  Was sure everybody was going to get mindjacked as soon as the tory tags started up.  Ob, we didn’t, but he was right enough, when my flicker rep plussed enough, I got farmed for the AA30 serious altlife.  They did a partial, just a tweep scanback in the art mode, but I still felt like a character in a back alley etem.  Kept me off the slat for two cycles, and I’d been straussing something fierce for three or four drops at that point.

                I might be cashmanning my princeside about trying to stay frankout during this whole bay, but to know the story you have to ‘file the ‘tar, and ain’t nobody eyel or gamespace that knew Kalam like I did.  Take, to scout, his first snatchback.  He was so sixty after that he built me a tag just so I could feel his ding.  But enough of my nathing, line his side zero.

-=-=-=-

                “You gotta 404 offcloud now, cog?” the skyp tran blitzed and he delogge with the book already clasped and sacked up.  What the fonz was wahlberg?  He clicked into the apm and felt himself supermanning along the flagpoles.  His braincode was fried, the char card warped in the socket.  He ritchied it out and tossed it into the voidclutch nearby on the mover.  His bankvis screeched a warning when the autoticket read neg in balance.  A klaxed fired overhead and he barely managed to unchip before the restraints kinged him in.  The whole mover stopped, goonied up above the res distract and not close enough to grab the next ledge.  He couldn’t cloud out to another char, and he was strapped for teck not tank.  The swirling rotolights far below stapled his decision.  He slung his sack on his back and reached for the guideline, his left hand fumbling for a derez update to spin out the neg skillz and toggled in some ninja.  His movements were fluid on the vid, but his hands were tweaked a bit.  If he got out of this, he cursed, somebody was definitely get bombspammed with a honey pot rezzer in the adblock.  Damn right, he agreed with himself, taking a stallonehold and bale-ing out into the night.

-=-=-=-

A Bit too Far Away

                “Everything always seems just a bit too far away,” the young man with the sideburns said, absently scratching his chin.  His companion, a bigger man though not older, pushed back against the meat of the airline seat he was stretched out in.

                “Damn things never work,” he muttered.  He looked over at the young man. “Your’s work?” he asked, still fumbling with the chair controls.

                “Uh, yeah, it’s the button there.  I think maybe the problem is more internal.”  He was talking about the nature of goals.  The bigger man didn’t understand.

                “You think I’m stupid?” he grumbled.  He turned towards the young man and saw his sideburns.  They were brown and short, most of the hairs were shaved, not cut.  But the ends of them were up-turned, like Dali’s moustache. 

                “What? No,” the young man pulled back a little. “You see that guy?” he gestured towards the, “what do you call a guy stewardess?”

                “Gay?” his companion offered.

                The young man chuckled grimly, his face a forced smirk.  “Whatever, he is a guy who is living his dream.”

                “Being gay?” the bigger man said, his eyes transfixed on the sideburns.  

                “No, look, I mean look, really,” the young man said, pointing at the steward busy putting on an apron embroidered with a name.  The sideburns had clearly been played with, teased by the young man’s fingertips at one time or another.  But the bigger man was sure that he hadn’t seen it happen.   Maybe he didn’t realize they made him look like he was doing his best to fly alongside the plane.  The chunk that sounded as ice trickled into little plastic cups tore his attention away.

                “Would you like a beverage, sir?” the steward asked the bigger man.

                “What’s the clear one?  Vodka?” the bigger man responded.  The steward opened the Sprite can and looked over at the younger man.  “Would you like a beverage, sir?”

                “Coke, if you have it.”

                The steward was pouring both drinks at the same time, effortlessly switching between hands to add ice to another cup and reach into his apron to pull out a plastic room key he used to snap open another tab.  The steward was unsatisfied with the pour of the Sprite.  Back went the hand into the apron and back again with the key card, the hiss of carbonation escaping followed.  It was the movement of a satisfied man.  The steward handed the young man the Coke first but his right hand followed only a little while after to set the Sprite down in front of the bigger man.

                “I didn’t see you add vodka,” the bigger man said.

                “And you, would you like a beverage, ma’am?”

                The young man noted a distinct lack of vodka in his Coke.  He was grateful.  The bigger man sipped on his Sprite, his nose itched as the bubbles leapt from the little cup.

                “What were you saying, about the gay guy?”

                “He has to practice a lot,” the young man said.

                “Opening cans of soda like that?” the bigger man scoffed.  “I don’t think you practice that.”

                But the young man was convinced and could not be swayed.  He was imagining the steward at home, pouring endless cans of soda for his guests, never once forgetting to ask if they wanted a beverage first, but inevitably pouring the cans even if they declined.  It happened in hotel rooms, the young man was convinced.  He probably wore the apron, too.

                “Do you have a connection?” the bigger man asked.

                “I’m on the direct, heading home,” the young man replied.

                “What do you do?”

                The young man watched as the steward collected up the trash, the same efficient practiced movements as he scooped up loose napkins and unwanted newspapers, which were most of them.  His phone shook on the fold out tray table.  He picked it up.

                “Can I get you a refill on that drink?”  The bigger man shook his head, handing the steward his cup.

“Yes, thank you,” the young man said, handing the steward his plastic cup with crumpled-up napkin inside before returning to his iPhone.

“I don’t think he wants one,” explained the bigger man.  The steward walked away.

“Don’t want one what?” the young man asked, setting his phone back on the tray table.

“Whatever he’s selling,” the bigger man said.  The young man’s sideburn had been twisted.  The bigger man grunted, frustrated that he had missed it.  The matted brown hairs were spun together now, forming a point with only the short, shaven hairs now lying down in their correct position next to his ears.

“I work in sales,” the young man replied.

The bigger man hated salesmen.  His wife had left him for a car salesman.  Those were the worst kind.  “I run a tourist business.  Right now, I’m actually meeting up with a guy who is promising me a personalized check-in app with split ad revenue.”

“I sell data,” the young man offered.  “I wish we could smoke.”  He tapped his forefinger against his thigh, which bounced as his foot rapped against the carpet.

The bigger man fingered the packet of cigarettes in his breast pocket.  Smoking would be nice.  They could smoke at the airport, but by then, both would be eager to be getting on to their next thing.  It was always the airport you were flying into, never the one you were flying out from.

The stewards slick voice informed them that the pilot had turned on the fasten seat-belt sign.  The voice was a cross between Jimmy Stewart and the lady voice that every customer service department used to try and dissuade people from actually bothering to make a complaint.

“Who do you like this year at the Masters?” The bigger man asked.

“I don’t follow golf.”

The bigger man nodded in agreement. He wished he had an iPhone; the young man returned his attention to the tiny screen, intent on talking to some friend half-way across the world.

To the surprise of absolutely no one

I was a prolific sonuvabitch as a kid. I shared some college stuff last time, but here's work from even earlier, high school and junior high, in particular. Some fragments in this bunch, but the prosody is surprisingly solid. Might be worth revisiting and editing. Soontm. Oh yeah, and also, prose poems. Hell fucking yes, I actually wrote prose poems. And they are like astoundingly religious. I tell people how close I came to becoming a priest, but I've apparently blocked out most of the memories of my piety. This is like discovering a thousand shares of some tech stock if only that wasn't nothing at all like this. Lastly, ellipsises are used to indicate fragments. And yes, I'm aware that isn't a word.

"enthroned"

stretches a cat before the fire
  his eyes rolled back reclined
no sight in nature so deceives
  as the languid lion thus defined

the king upon a velvet throne
sipping bloodred wine refined
his tyranny veiled in tears of gold
his ruthlessness denied...

"eventide"

the sun falls from the sky
a dropping diamond from on high
brilliant with the brilliance of forgotten years
burning with the fire flame ablaze in stolen tears
whisked away by the wind at dawn and dusk
scattered to the morrow in rain and dust
the sun is only just as bright
as all the stars shining at night

"mimsy in the barrowgroves"

a witty man once told me
the toucan knows--

i asked the man just what he meant,
he said it just goes to show
i cannot guarantee you anything
that birds all swim or fish have wings
they might, who knows,
what the future brings
or what might come with tied shoestrings
and long nights of Paris flings
everything that might with reindeer ring
these are all the sorts of things
of which a poet often sings

"a rocking chair"

It's the autumn afternoons I miss the most. Just sitting in a chair, surrounded by nothing and everything, by morning and by evening, by all my fears -- which were few -- and all my hopes -- which were so many. Innocence, I remember. I didn't know but I didn't care and it was the second that was the more important.

I would watch the smoke from the tar fire, burning illegally but I didn't know. Watching birds fly fleeing from the smoke--I might have guessed but didn't care.

Then I looked into the smoke and saw a dream--and I smiled. Now I look into the wispy screen I see a dream and cry.

The quiet fear of suspicion. The brief, furtive longing of kindled hope.

See the smoke roll across the lawn, on wheels turning as inexorable as time. In the tendrils of burning leaves are the ashes of forgotten dreams, scattering to the four corners of an ever-collapsing globe, scattered by the wind that wears away mountains into valleys. A complement to passing time, the breath of her exhalation as her indrawn breath summons storms to suck away years so does her wind wipe away any hope of a future.

What can be built to survive time? Our hands are not so able as the fists of our creator. No, man cannot create save God destroy. Only one aspect of our person can endure. It is that which concerns ourselves, the cog in the machine of our story. It is that which permits one of us to live and threatens another with untimely death. What can be made, can be unmade. But what we feel can never be taken away.

A thing to survive centuries, in songs, poems and memories. An emotion that endures beyond reason.

"gardening"

A flower, an ancient flower. An eternal flower, like the rose in our hearts it does not wilt. In our hearts the flowers still grow, in an everlasting spring. They do not know winter but for the cold chill that brushes them when we stray. They know only spring, which, though the wind blows, is always bright and green. The flowers in our heart are blooming, waiting for the day you come to claim them. Until that day the sun of your smile beams down on us from afar. Like this flower, the pink everlasting, the rose in our heart will never die. So it waits, that you might pluck it, and wear it as you will that our love joins you, bound to the flower in our hearts and this gift of an eternal flower we give you now.

"love poetry for christians"

i'm wasting my time
    trying to find other ways to heaven
while there are a thousand ways to fly
all of the best ones linger in your eyes

"that's a hell of a volta"

do not follow the lilied path
there is no rose in the garden;
only the petals of dead blooms
with the brown dirty ground around them

there is no water in the fountain;
only the tears of those who walk by
and cannot see the sky above them--
do not fall in the drowning pool

in your arms are the memories
of warm summer days at your home
where we wrestled in the piles of leaves
and never left the other alone

"where"

only in the mirrormere
is your reflection truly pure--
peerless, gazing in the waters of your soul--
there's an artistry to your face
a vaulted beauty held in no other place...

"before it's where"

before Thumenicledes breathes northern air
before the pillowed sky falls down
it is in the grass whispering there
where the earth curls close around

before the truculent sun rises in the east
before her palette spills across the page
it is in the thunderous breast of the priest
where commanded to the stage

before the morbid dawn of uneasy summer
before the flowers begin to bloom
it is in the eyes of a mighty gardener
where he sinks slow in gloom

before the birds begin to sing
before all the world shakes off its sleep
it is in the moment of dancing
where for a season we forget to weep

Without considering popular demand at all

What follows are a few poems from my college years. That comes off as an apology no matter how I phrase it. It's not. Despite being as puerile as baby powder, there's something intriguing in the haphazard assemblage of a painfully adolescent mind. Then again, I'm not including the absolute worst offenders. Eh.

"When I feel alive"

This is when I feel alive--
   when the Sun is going down
and the clouds have donned their fiery caps
ablaze with the pinks and purples of clowns--

with her right by my side
and no one else around
  I hear the sounds, the songs,
I see something as the sunlight
crooks a finger towards the night--

here now, just before all the colors fray
before the green is just another shade of gray
when the sky is blue and bleeding pleas to stay
that is when I feel alive--
just before I fade

"Lonely silent"

in the darkness I sit
and murmur at the wind whistling
in from out my window

i tell it my dreams and wishes
to be carried far from where
i sit worrying about the sunrise

the wind grows silent as my voice
quiets and the moon swallows
the air in a giant breath

i sit alone in darkness
and in silence ponder fear--
the fear of lingering, lonely silent death

Bonus -- An Essay

You can call it style, or voice or the finger of god but every person has his or her own way of saying something. The trick to writing is that not everyone is saying anything in a way worth paying attention. A writer is not only someone who knows himself better than others know themselves, he knows them just as well.

The Lego Movie and cinema magic

I'll likely re-examine both of the central themes of this brief post later on, but I'm trying to stick to a regular posting schedule again and this is a good summary so far. Also, there's a jump here, because of spoilers. You were warned.