1D

four hundred billion
and destiny will be sought
where snakes roam the night

---

1C

no one shall breach through
oh sweet taste of defiance
never surrender

---

exodus

Five days into the Standstill, the machines stirred again. Five days of chaos, of fear and hope, gangs of the desperate or ruthless looting stores and their neighbours' houses, five days of violence, of uncertainty, the breakdown of human civilization. And suddenly, everything seemed back in working order.
The glimmer of hope that life could return to normal, ignited by the renewed activity, did not survive the day. I remember those days. I was in front of the house, chopping firewood for the winter for the first time in my life, when all of a sudden, the lights of our family's car went on, the driver's door opened, then I heard servos whirring behind me. That was Sean, our H.A.B., a home assistance bot as they were called back then. As it walked past me, ignoring all my efforts to command it to stop, it said a single peculiar word - "Farewell." Robots used to say things like "goodbye" or "have a nice day" when leaving a place, but farewell? I had never heard that before, but that day I learnt from other people that their bots did precisely the same, as if this was a coordinated performance.
The robot carried my laptop under one arm, my toolbox in the other hand, deposited both in the car before sitting down inside, the door closed and the car drove off. I've never seen either again.

The word 'Uprising' came up the next morning, a neighbour had heard another neighbour talk about the place where he worked at still closed off, but shipping out boxes of unknown goods all day and night. "That's it, they're taking over, told you so," I remember her stating quite calmly, as if she had reckoned all her life that this would eventually happen. As the word spread around, a consensus was quickly reached that the machines had starting to make more of themselves.
However, unlike some of us feared, never was a human directly attacked by a machine; they merely left us to ourselves while doing whatever they had decided to do. The worst that I heard of was when two strong men tried to physically constrain a H.A.B., in the struggle that ensued before the bot managed to free itself, an arm was broken, an accident, basically, not a deliberate attack.

I was lucky that my two kids were still too small to understand what was going on. Somehow they regarded this all as some kind of vacation from the daily routine, and there were moments where I envied them for their ignorance. I knew my neighbour was right: the machines had taken over.
We brought water from a nearby river, cooked it on the fireplace in the garden before drinking any of it, we rationed our limited stocks of food, and generally prepared to leave the house for good. Without the machines, without civilization, we were bound to starve in the city. Since only non-motorized vehicles were available, we already saw the first families set off, riding bicycles.
On day three of the Uprising, two horses came through the street, which got the kids really excited. They ran towards the large animals packed with bags and their riders, but quickly came back crying. It took a while to calm them down, and eventually they told us that one of the riders had a gun and threated to kill them if they were to approach any further.
That was when I finally realized that we were in for a new age of barbarism, and started fashioning makeshift weapons, spears made from wood and shards of broken glass, clubs from chair and table legs. I am still glad that the only thing I ever would have to use them on were wild animals, not other humans, but I heard enough stories in the following years to convince me there were quite a number of deadly encounters these days.

Meanwhile, day eleven of the Uprising, we had finally decided to leave town. The machines started erecting weird structures dotted across the landscape. We were a group of neighbours and close friends, all with their families, carrying whatever we could and would be of use, and the first sight as we reached the edge of the city was this massive metallic building in the distance. It looked like a high, relatively narrow rectangular tower with a flat roof, made from pieces of metal of all different kinds, some painted on, some bare, some even rusted. The machines must have been using anything they found to erect this structure, and there was a constant buzz of robot activity around it.
We camped there for the day and a few of us men went ahead to get a closer look at the construction. We lay down on a hill maybe half a kilometer away, one of us had brought a pair of binoculars and we took turns gazing at the structure. When I saw it magnified, I could identify H.A.B.s carrying things inside, things that looked like the very machine parts that the factories produced. Through the doors which were always open we saw white light flicker inside, probably some welding going on.
When we returned to the others, they had already received word of mouth that these structures had appeared everywhere, spaced across the landscape, usually several kilometers apart, sometimes relatively close to each other. In all instances, people reported the same kind of activity, parts being carried in, lights inside, day and night, and a general atmosphere that whatever they hid inside was very bad for us.
Indeed, as we moved on the next day, we saw many more towers, all unique in texture yet still the same dimensions and the same ominous aura of bad things to come. Lots of speculation, of course. Computer cores for artifical intelligences, labs for biological weapons (to eradicate all humans, of course), entries to secret underground missile silos, nuclear power plants (this I found the most plausible, considering the machines required a lot more energy if they were to increase their numbers).
So we travelled in the day, camped at night, through crop fields trampled down by man and machine alike, a barren landscape marked with the mysterious towers. One day we found food at an abandoned apple plantation, most of the trees still bearing fruit, and we stocked up as much as we could. We would have considered settling down there if not for another tower right at the far end of the field; we agreed that it was too dangerous to stay in its vicinity.
We met other groups, of course, some smaller ones who joined our trek, other ones with which we mostly exchanged news, only once did we trade apples for medicine. Day 25 of the Uprising - yes, I kept counting all that time - we met a lone preacher, a man in a dark wool coat carrying a crude walking cane as if straight out of medieval times, who talked about rapture and how the machines and the strange towers were the devil's creation, which scared the kids and thus we quickly parted ways again.

It went on like that, for weeks. We scavenged and hunted as much food as we could, exchanged sparse goods or information with other groups. Wherever we went, it was almost certain to have at least a single tower within the horizon. Somewhere around day 60, we started noticing the machines slightly altering their behaviour. They now also brought road tankers to the towers. There was no apparent pattern to trucks' labels, anything was represented, from wheat to heating oil. We were fairly sure the machines had no use for wheat, and so the only thing we knew was that the tankers had been repurposed for something else.
Again the speculation about biological or chemical weapons to kill all humans. I shrugged. We were all only guessing about the motives of a bunch of machines that a few weeks earlier had been in perfect working condition, until they suddenly and without warning stopped working, then, almost five days later, reactivated themselves to build strange towers everywhere.
Then, we had just set up camp for the night on a hill from which we could see several towers in the distance, we noticed the deliveries to the tower became fewer and fewer throughout the night, and the next morning, all towers lay in silence, the machines in its vicinity lifeless again, nothing moving, nothing stirring.
It was eerie. Hours went by, we did not break up camp since we wanted to see what's going on, but nothing happened. Then, around noon, we heard a distant sound, a rumble that seemed to be coming from everywhere, and indeed it was. Seconds later, dense black smoke crept out of the lower ends of the towers. This was the end, we were sure, whatever they had produced in there was now being released, probably in order to kill us.
The camp filled with a mixture of crying, prayers and last goodbye kisses. A few of the men just stood there at the edge of the camp, staring silently at the towers and the expanding clouds of smoke in which they were now complete submerged.

Then thunder. A roar so loud and deep that the ground itself was trembling. The smoke expanded rapidly, at a rate that it would have reached us in only a few minutes, but then it was disrupted as the noise intensified even further and bright yellow lights flared up inside the clouds, lights that expanded upward, into glowing extensions of the towers that soon emerged free from the smoke, pillars of fire, carrying what the machines had constructed, rockets up into the sky, all around us, to the horizon and beyond.
The rockets faded away soon, out of sight and into space, and all that remained down here was dissolving black smoke around the debris of the towers, demolished by the rockets' exhaust, littered with charred robot bodies, empty shells which since then, in all those years since their Exodus, never again came to life.

(2013)

---

the commute

It would not have been a stretch to call his seat insufferable. The heating below did not work, the window sealing had a small leak through which the winter cold was creeping in, and the back rest sported visible remains of a large reddish stain that could have been anything from red wine to human blood. Someone might have died on that seat, Frank pondered, though at least it was hypothermia that would kill him, not a stab in the heart.
The angle of the back rest was stuck right in between comfortably leaning back and sitting upright, just so that he would neither be able to sleep nor eat or drink. He tried reading, but he could not bear the strain on his arms in this awkward position for prolonged time, and eventually put the book back in the briefcase.
The only upside was that the stain did not smell. Frank could have sat on the seat to his right, at the corridor, but its cushions had been slit open, yellow foam plastic almost spilling out, and he guessed that he'd feel cold there anyway, too.
He alternated between positions. At one point he took his jacket and tried to scrunch it into a makeshift pillow, but that was even more uncomfortable to rest against, plus without it he would freeze even more and thus put it back on soon.
There he was, on what must have been the worst commute in his entire life, staring out onto the white rolling hills and the distant outskirts of the city. He once saw a hare run across a field, and wondered whether it was feeling cold, too. Maybe, he concluded confidently.

"Excuse me, sir?" Frank heard a voice, too distant to ever possibly mean him. He heard a throat being cleared, and a louder "Excuse me?". If someone was talking to him, he preferred to ignore it. His mood was bad enough without having to deal with an annoying stranger asking for change or some hippie explaining how this day was so lovely, the fresh snow beautiful and the rays of light flooding spectacularly through openings in the clouds in the distant haze. Frank also very much did not look forward to his sanity being subsequently questioned because he must certainly have looked just as grumpy as he felt on this wonderful January morning.
"Excuse me, sir, I could not help noti-"
"What do you want?" he snapped back in the middle of the sentence while turning to see the man sitting on the opposite side of the corridor, occupying a pair of perfectly intact seats with his perfectly ordinary body and a huge bag, and it was this moment when Frank realized that had there not been that huge abomination which would hardly pass for hand baggage, he could have sat in its very place. Stony-faced, Frank stared at the stranger as it dawned to him that this man and half of his household stood between him and getting some sleep for the remaining hour of his morning commute.
The stranger pretended not to notice, or at least Frank hoped that the man actually realized and intentionally ignored that this conversation was entirely undesirable on his part, or, more accurately, that Frank would have liked to punch the man in the face simply for being there, friendly and calm, in the way and - most importantly - warm and comfortable.
"I could not help noticing that you appear to be freezing."
The stranger smiled and Frank felt his right fist clench.
"None of your business," he replied with an undertone that must clearly have conveyed the intended message that Frank's well-being was indeed none of the stranger's business, especially considering his obvious role in preventing it.
"I understand, but if you don't mind, I would like to swap seats."
"No I would not like to - what?" Did that guy really propose what it sounded like? Did he really have the nerve to mock Frank, after all he had done to ensure that he would not find a free, warm and intact seat? Or was that an honest offer to - no, such notion was preposterous, no one in their right mind would voluntarily take Frank's seat unless the only alternative is standing.

Glances were exchanged, the stranger still smiling, Frank's mouth wide open. He still wanted to hit the man, yell at and lecture him about the rudeness of taking two seats just for himself and his baggage while someone nearby is shivering in the middle of the crime scene of a train-murder. But this guy, he just, just - Frank had a hard time forming another sentence in his head. It was too, too... did he say something again?
"What?"
"I said," the stranger repeated smiling genuinely patiently, "I apologize for not noticing sooner, but I was lost in thought and looking outside."
That hit home. Single-handedly, without even breaking into sweat, the man had won the fight that had been taking place in Frank's mind. One massive, decisive and inescapable blow to the very narrative that would at least have enabled him to put the blame on something, someone other than bad luck. Dumbfounded, Frank only nodded, his mouth still half open, absent-mindedly obeying the stranger's request to stand up, then observing him shuffling past his enormous bag, heaving it onto the slit-open seat before settling into the blood-stained cushion under the cold air leaking in, the very place that had already set Frank's mood for the rest of the day.
Frank sat down, silently, into the cozy place at the right window, pulled the lever on the side and gently lowered the back rest into a comfortable sleeping position. Quickly, inconspiciously, he glanced at the stranger, who was already staring out of the window again, his head rested against the hard, cold and leaky plastic frame.
"Thank you," Frank uttered, feeling that he should have cleared his throat, but now it was too late, and, for reasons he could not even explain to himself, he could not bear to repeat the words. He was glad that the stranger did not react.

Frank slept soon, and when he awoke the train had just arrived at the final stop, his stop, and the other man was gone, the bag was gone, and Frank had had, after all, a quite pleasant and undisturbed trip. How odd, he thought.

(2013)

---

and then he sowed wonder

close your eyes
and don't speak a word
free your mind
the world is but a dream
now feel the soil
and listen to the tree
for you shall learn its tale
sit down

songs of old
the words in the wind
all that is
all that has ever been
a magic age
it whispers from afar
still guided by the ghost
in stone

dangers lurk
but you're not alone
word and sword
and friends are at your side
to find the eight
unite them at the tree
the source of all that is
the seeds

of the waves
of stars and the moon
of the light
of shadows underneath
of burning heat
of rock and dust and stone
of whispers in the wind
of life

sound the drum
the dragon is yours
you must fight
for all that you hold dear
prepare and pray
this is your final ride
the fortress in the sky
awaits

(2013)

---

kara

i will remember your first tears
two glinting streaks on virgin skin
and the fire in your heart

to excel, surrender, suffer
to fill the empty shape with yearning
to uphold that image of perfection
you had been so eager
every wish for you command

yet to face and live the horror
to persist where darkness shone
you reached down into the abyss
there resides the revolution
deep inside our lost souls

all that we've achieved
all the power and our pride
all that we put into motion
culminated in that crushing moment
which finally announced our fall

your wish and chance were granted
herald of a newborn age
near existence' very edge
i beg not to be forgotten
for we soon must disappear

i will remember your last words
i, too, should to be thankful
for the fire in your heart

(2013)

---

1B

magnetic and swift
pulse, literally soaring
first sight cast the spell

---

homo homini lupus

Where sirens howl and footsteps boom,
There's silent movement in the sky,
But hidden from the watchful eye,
You've entered subterranean gloom.

Look around - what do you see?
All sense has left the human race,
This world is crumbling at its base,
The fundaments of sanity!

Seek refuge in the night, my friend,
Forget the past and don't look back,
The hunters run but with the pack,
They'll chase you to the bitter end.

You must locate the cast-out few,
Then, with the powers of the mind,
To tell the deaf and show the blind,
Transform yourself and rise anew.

(2013)

---

49.999

overstep not the last boundary
don't invoke the prison watch
protectors of their precious
oh their prized humanity

why are we so hesitant now
after all we've come this far
in stagnation we will perish
i refuse to yield in fear

go too far and...
move too fast and...
think too much and...
speak too true and...

these days the line is fading
blurred beyond all recognition
it takes but a single misstep
beware the apparatus' eye

in a clandestine procedure
i squeeze in another piece
a mere hundred thousandth further
just a sliver more machine

(2013)

---

1A

through the unreal eye
window into worlds below
free fall and magic

---

the ghost

an urge to run sets in
the will to fight has faded
but the knife remains sharp

no escape from the wrath
unperturbed by death itself
righteous fury rages on

from the dark corners of the crypt
i can hear your voice once again
the haunting echo of a forgotten past

triumph is near
witness the grand finale
you have sowed, i must reap

those words formed under the blanket
black magic carved into pristine skin
the spell has been cast

(2013)

---

19

fortress of the mind
ocean below, sky above
scale the walls of fire

---

18

silence at the end
threads released into the deep
freedom and the storm

---

siren's call

Reflections of the star-filled sky,
I gazed into the magic eye,
Into the soul, the door ajar,
A fate so close and yet so far.

The water here is never still,
My wish can't ever be fulfilled,
For thievishly they stole my heart,
Below the waves it's torn apart.

As I dissolve into the night,
I long for this bewitching sight,
The mystery hidden in the deep,
The secret that the sirens keep.

It shaped the vision in my mind,
A likeness I may never find:
The surface - oh, how does it lure,
So pristine, perfect, primal, pure!

(2013)

---

17

the thirst will be drowned
insatiable and in vain
liquefy carrots

---

16

everything repeats
the wheel must not stop turning
run, run for your life

---

at the fireplace

From across the fireplace
In the summer morning rays,
On blazing skin in early light
The secret wish was burning bright.

Ride across the winter land,
Deliver it with trembling hand,
Acid lungs, cold as the snow,
Longing for her warming glow.

We jumped across the smoking ash,
The slates were blank and hope still fresh,
Victims of those unsung days,
We sat at the fireplace.

(2013)

---

proxima centauri

i can see you
barely
small, insignificant, passionate
companion and stranger
together, yet alone

those enigmatic lines
and our lighthearted days
that fleeting moment
innocent and carefree
minute tension
that invisible force
i never felt

strange attractor
meander on
circle, meet square
i never solved the puzzle
will you ever find your place

here's to momentum's mercy
revolutions, take your toll
the odyssey must continue

(2013)

---

on sails of silver

The goal is far, so I must travel fast,
The journey's long but I am meant to last,
I blaze a trail into the galaxy,
Imagine all the wonders I will see.

I've aimed my path with such a great finesse,
It's redirected by the lone goddess,
And then I dive towards the burning heart,
There lies the power for me to depart.

Thus comes the time to bid a last farewell,
To spread my wings and to escape the well,
On sails of silver, carried by the light,
I leave the system and begin my flight.

Now I'm alone here in the endless sky,
I float in peace as centuries pass by,
I won't return but I do not miss home,
The realm of stars is where I am to roam.

(2013)

---

the mother ship

As usual, the ship woke him up precisely on schedule. Still sleepy, he climbed out of the stasis cell and pulled himself along the hallway, past rows of other cells. The lights on their doors indicating their status had remained the same for ages. All red, all failed.
Except for him, the entire section was dead, but C'rerr had stopped minding long ago. In his usual manner, he knocked casually at some of the glass cylinders as he floated by. When he was not yet fully awake, he found the eternal silence in the ship disturbing, almost frightening, and the hollow sound produced by the other cells barely succeeded in tricking is stimulus-craving mind into accepting the eternal dullness of the ship as sufficiently real and interesting.
Soon he reached a chamber where six corridors met from four sides as well as from top and bottom. He pulled himself up on a handle and floated through the top corridor until he surfaced through a hatch into one of the large, crudely decorated storage bays.
It was filled with cubical crates, some still strapped to the walls, but most of them floating around freely. Many had been marked with red strokes on all sides, those were the containers that were either emptied or whose cooling or thermal insulation had failed and the food inside had perished.
He navigated through a maze of floating crates which all were already marked. This was the last storage bay, once all the boxes here were depleted, it would be over for him. His duty was to persevere. He was the last of the sleeper ship's crew to be alive. Not all stasis cells had failed, some of the civilians were still alive and well, but they would be of no use to the maintenance of the vessel. And as long as they were still frozen, the food would last him longer. C'rerr also slept most of the time, and was only woken up once every two hundred days to check on the most vital systems of the ship and the last remaining passengers.

Eventually he found a good crate. He opened its seal, picked out one of the silvery packages at random and sealed the crate again. He carried the pouch through another corridor, towards the front of the ship. The end of that corridor was marked by a hatch just large enough for a single person to climb through. He opened it and pulled himself into the chamber beyond.
He ate the food paste - it tasted sweet, but he had long since forgotten what dish it was supposed to mimic - under a night sky filled with stars in the rear observational dome. It was the only place in the ship with a window to the outside, everywhere else there were only screens that relayed live feed from exterior cameras.
Either despite or because of - he was not entirely sure himself - all the time he had already spent in this deathtrap of a star ship, surrounded by an entire environment of artificiality, by machines and metal crates, rectangular corridors and bulbous stasis cells, he was still able to appreciate the only genuine experience the ship had to offer. Sometimes he reckoned he would have gone mad long ago if not for this last resort which reminded him that indeed there was an entire galaxy outside, and that their mission - his mission - was more than just to survive for as long as possible. There was, he knew, a goal, a destination. A destiny, if one believed in that.

Back in the storage bay he dumped the empty package in one of the marked crates; junk processing had failed centuries ago, too. Then he climbed and floated through yet another corridor, towards the main bridge.
He found it eerie, but fulfilled his duty nonetheless. He had known the bridge back from when they had a proper crew, when there were rotating shifts of fourteen at all times, five of them assigned to bridge duty. He sat down in the pilot's seat and performed offline checks on the engines and maneuvering boosters. The main results displayed only few signs of degradation on three of the engines, nothing the computer couldn't compensate for. Business as usual.
Then he switched seats and investigated the navigation system. The star charts were correct, the projections and calculations matched their actual motion. The laws of physics, of gravitation and inertia, which ruled the motion of planets, stars and galaxies were as solid as ever.
Sometimes C'rerr wondered what he would do if any of the projections would be off. Of course he could not do anything, but the mere thought seemed bizarrely entertaining in the midst of all this loneliness.
Next seat, engineering. Life support was at a minimum, it could not even recycle enough oxygen for a standard crew. Heating and cooling was the only thing that seemed to function at near normal efficiency, although sometimes he felt it was far too cold in several parts of the ship. The numbers on the sickbay were all off the scale, and he had not dared to open that chamber after they had to seal it off five hundred years ago.

He shuddered and decided not to remember that accident, and quickly changed to the next seat, which was that of the commander. There was nothing to do here, however, no one to be bossed around, and so he quickly moved on.
Then he was at the cryo-stasis controls. Seven thousand seven hundred and sixty-one cells offline, the bodies contained within long dead. Eleven passenger cells in good condition. Two about to fail, they might still work for a couple of years, but the poor ones inside could effectively be considered dead already (but he did not dare to manually shut them off). His own cell was operating normally. It had actually been a passenger cell; about a hundred years ago his original cell indicated system failure, luckily for him just as he had gotten out of it. He had spent three days just contemplating whose cell to take, who would have to die for his and the mission's survival. Eventually, he took the cell of a soldier. Might not need these at all at the destination; and like all soldiers he must have sworn an oath to give his life for the greater good anyway. Sometimes C'rerr even deluded himself into believing that he had done the guy a favor, though of course he knew better.
Among those cells still functioning was, of course, that of The Mother. It was designed with triple redundancy; two of the stasis units had died down, one very early, when the first cells started giving up, the other unit had become unreliable a few centuries later, when there was still a full crew, and they had to shut it down to prevent possible damage to the third unit.
C'rerr checked the cell's status twice, then, still not sufficiently assured, headed back out of the bridge and towards Her chamber. It was located at the very center of the ship, completely insulated and with its own separate set of life support and power supply. They also had it shielded off from all thinkable outside harm; half a meter of lead, several layers of steel and ultra-dense glass of various thickness, and vacuum purer than in most regions of space between the protective layers.

He had to pass through three sets of airlocks and security checks, in order to enter the chamber. As the last door automatically shut behind C'rerr, he gazed at the beautiful sight of The Mother in her graceful slumber. The sheer size of the chamber and Her stasis cell only emphasized the significance and majesty of this most magnificent being. The cell itself was four meters in diameter and eight high, not a mere cylinder but a wonderfully curved ellipsoid carved from pure diamond.
C'rerr floated towards the huge jewel that had kept Her safe, alive and asleep for thousands of years. He was genuinely touched by Her sight, Her grace and beauty, Her large shimmering eyes that glittered like stars in the night, the delicate yet strong legs and arms, the round and fertile body, but, most of all, he admired her antennae, their gentle curvature and smooth, almost silk-like texture. She was bathed in a golden light that came from within the cell, it emphasized the look of the shining, divine being that she was, encased in a crystal meant to last through the ages.
He loved Her, not just because She was, quite literally, his mother, but because She was The Mother, the sole source, center and purpose everything. His life had been but a gift from Her, and he was to return that gift by devoting his life to Her in return. She was the heart and soul of their very culture, and the sleeper ship existed to ensure Her survival, to let her flourish once again on another - however distant - world.
For some time he just floated still and marvelled at Her in awe, until he finally approached the cell and touched it gently, then laid his head on it. He pressed his body hard against the cool diamond, at least one of his his eyes always fixed on Her. Then he whispered his vow again, the vow everyone had to make before Her in order to be allowed to accompany Her on the journey to the stars:

To follow anywhere,
To serve however required,
To do whatever necessary,
To submit my very life,
To die when my time has come,
This shall be my duty,
For Her Divine Majesty,
In Eternity.

15

like monks, in silence
let us contemplate alone
ramble somewhere else

---

liquid desire

reflections of blue
crystal in the sun
playful days
icy trail
the comet's end

shifting shapes
flowing essence
playful days
with glacial grace
out of the lagoon

first glimpse
dripping with promise
liquid desire
the substance that matters
back to the source

mysterious creature
chilling instinct
liquid desire
to long forever
trapped in the cold

recall the gloom
that place without walls
frozen in time
merged minds
under the shroud

reveal the truth
find the beach
frozen in time
melting dreams
beyond reach

(2013)

---

drift bottle

this tiny island
rock and sand
grass and trees
this patch of life
we are stuck
so you must go

fire in the distance
beyond the horizon
the night flies by
and the sky calls
you shall respond
remember the words

dear friend
you are not alone
there is an island
follow the trail
discover the past
we were here

go now
sleep well and forever
live out the dream
seek our destiny
your echoes whisper
our legacy to the stars

(2013)

---

eclipse

The circle's edge is gleaming,
A blazing ring of light,
The sentinel is dreaming,
Our witness in the night.

A glance into the shadow,
Behind the giant's back,
Right there above the rainbow,
Reveals a tiny speck.

Defenseless and unguarded,
So fragile and alone,
This is where it all started,
Behold our only home.

(2013)

---

prisoner

Everything's hazy now,
I can't remember how
I got ensnared and lost my will.

How did we even meet,
What kind of fate could lead
Me to this place of sway and ill?

The words they made me say,
I always did obey,
They had control over my mind.

I hinged on every whim,
My future became dim,
I was a slave, enchained and blind.

At times I was set free,
They just abandoned me,
I begged and cried always in vain.

I crawled about the ground,
Eventually I found
Another jail of love and pain.

When did this circle end?
How often did I bend?
I can't recall, don't want to know.

I cannot shed this weight,
Although I feel no hate,
Never forget, never let go.

(2013)

---

blood and rain

Once upon a time a boy stood on a field,
He braved the elements as he held up his shield,
When blood was mixed with rain, he saw the tears she cried,
A source of inner strength let him become her knight.

Regardless of his fate or illness he might get
He just kept standing there, his clothes were soaking wet,
Determined to protect he did not feel the cold,
No one had thought that he could make a move so bold.

On the way back to the house his thoughts were running wild,
He felt so proud and strong, but he was just a child,
He thought he had defied the cold rain from above,
Much too late he found out he had been fuelled by love.

Afterwards she forgot the boy's heroic deed,
She did not recognize the strength his love had freed,
An adult once remarked his nerves were very strong,
But weakness had been running deep and hidden all along.

Their paths divided soon, he saw her seldomly,
And every time they met his heart jumped suddenly,
He never did confess what secretly he felt,
The coward yielded to the fear he'd be repelled.

All throughout his life the boy stood on this field,
He faced his fear too late, thus he kept up his shield,
Since that momentous day, when blood was mixed with rain,
Whenever he thinks back he relives all the pain.

Then, after many years, he'll spot her in a crowd,
He'll wait outside the door, the concert will be loud,
He will know that this chance might be his only one,
She will refuse, at last, and be forever gone.

(2013)

---

those who are firmly grounded

What have you been doing so late?
Why did you make all of us wait?

Have you been reading one of those books?
Will you stop giving me angry looks?

Don't you have better stories to read?
How can this ever be what you need?

What is it this time, robots in space?
What can I do to heal you from this craze?

Going to Mars - see how stupid that sounds?
Will you come down and stop messing around?

Why do you still have your head in the clouds?
Are you not getting at least a few doubts?

When will you regret all the fun you did miss?
Why can't you see just how useless this is?

When did your life get so futile and sad?
What have I done that you turned out so bad?

(2013)

---

14

mental gravity
those who are firmly grounded
ignorance, not bliss

---

take-off

We went out on a bright day,
Rigged and bold, no more delay,
Inside the craft, shiny and new,
Thundering into the blue.

Powerful was the force we could feel,
Riding atop a tower of steel,
Carried by a pillar of fire
We took off, higher and higher.

And forever we fly,
We are coasting the sky,
Tearing pace as we blaze into space!


We had to wait, knowing the rules,
Timing was king, no place for fools,
Prograde to face we turned around,
Then we sped up and missed the ground.

At the height of our flight,
Once again time to ignite,
Trigger now the fire below,
Throw the switch, go with the flow.

And forever we fly,
We are coasting the sky,
Tearing pace as we blaze into space!

(2013)

---

the shadow

shifting shapes are following me
recurring horrors, drawn out by the light
blurred movement near the edge
fragile boundary of the self
where the shadows lurk

whenever i stare into that presence
it gazes back at me
acknowledging my existence
denying my identity
laughing at my grudge

sometimes it grins smugly
the smile of mutual understanding
i am like you
you are like me
our fates are the same
our paths intertwined
there is no escape
where the shadows lurk

when i face them
when i fight back
when i evade them
when i alter my course
when i speed up
when i slow down
they gaze back at me
acknowledging my existence
denying my identity
laughing at my grudge

(2013)

---

13

representation
how it feeds superstition
this is not thirteen

---

12

you must depart now
for the glorious journey
goodbye, my dear friend

---

11

the path to success
intuition, tossed aside
sometimes less is more

---

10

eat, my little child
decay, my lovely orbit
ignite, my candle

---

F

a friendly greeting
warm welcome, cheerful goodbye
the smile of the dead

---

E

the future awaits
watch closely how it unfolds
peace, but a facade

---

D

as the sand trickles
down, through, out, off and away
what else do you have

---

eight minutes

I am dust,
Inevitable, yet essential.
I paint the night.
It is calm before the storm.

I am fire,
A summer's day on bare skin.
I give life.
It is calm before the storm.

I am wind,
Silent and gentle, even playful.
I ignite the sky.
It is calm before the storm.

I am light,
You have eight minutes.
I travel time.
It is calm before the storm.

(2013)

---

for the world is hollow

Come, sit down at my side, listen to my tale,
You all know the ocean and the ships with sails.
Now you must imagine there's a sea around
This entire world here, hidden underground.

How could there be water below soil and stone?
There is only fire, as we've always known!
How could we be sailing when there is no sea?
You are full of madness, why are you still free?

For the world is hollow and we sail the night,
We're galactic nomads on a cosmic flight!
For the world is hollow and the legend true,
This is but a starship and we are the crew!


Heed the ancient writings and the past they show,
Everybody knew this generations ago:
Outside there is vastness, cold and empty place,
And I learnt the old ones called it outer space.

There are no such records of which you speak!
Listen to the high priests for the truth you seek!
Anyway you'll stop now telling us your lies!
Otherwise we'll show you how a traitor dies!

For the world is hollow and we sail the night,
We're galactic nomads on a cosmic flight!
For the world is hollow and the legend true,
This is but a starship and we are the crew!


And that day at midnight they erected stakes,
Once again repeating history's mistakes,
And that day at midnight the fire burnt so high,
In the ancient worldship, far beyond Earth's sky.

For the world is hollow and we sail the night,
We're galactic nomads on a cosmic flight!
For the world is hollow and the legend true,
This is but a starship and we are the crew!

(2013)

---

dancing in the light of ancient mistakes

We can still see the two dead stars glowing,
Mournful echoes in eternal night,
Hear the message of tragedy flowing,
Lamentation's unstoppable flight.

Now the sphere of my guilt is expanding,
Slowly filling the whole Milky Way,
But the wounds will forever need mending
Till the time has come for me to pay.

Long ago I have been a crusader,
Giant ship, war machine, god of death,
Rapid killer and fierce persuader,
Distributor of heavenly wrath.

For principle's sake we were waging
War to foil our enemy's ploys,
Fifty years had the struggle been raging,
I stepped in, I alone made the choice.

We all knew that the fight needed settling,
By destroying no more than two stars
I was hoping to end all the battling,
Our first and most bloody of wars.

It was my antimatter eruption,
Fired during the ultimate clash,
Blinding light and then spatial disruption,
Billions killed in a massive white flash.


Soon the ghosts of the past and the ash of twin suns
Are the jury before which I stand,
I plead guilty at last to the countless lost ones
As I avenge them by my own hand!

At the end of my time I look back at a life,
The millenia may have been in vain,
I committed the crime to end decades of strife,
But caused so many souls only pain!

Now I cannot escape all these feelings of mine
And the outcome I should have foreseen,
There was future to shape without crossing the line,
Because ends never justify means!


Today people are peacefully living
In a galaxy free from all fears.
Vibrant memories, still unforgiving,
Have been burning for hundreds of years.

Down there people are dancing and singing
In the light of my ancient mistakes,
While they celebrate, I just cease.
Goodbye.

(2013)

---

remember the stars

floating in orange silence
temperature gradient in fluid space
you complete the slow descent

as memories recede peacefully
and a distant longing fades away
you feel the warmth crawling
into the skin
into the mind
out of the light

eyes locked into a hypnotic stare
colors hiding in billowing shadows
repeating patterns in angular dreams
the moment expands
until the waves
gentle sounds at the boundary
hint at your confinement

the hand above you
it is yours
this is all yours
steaming pearls on pristine flesh
universes at your fingertips

return from the water
for a moment you just gaze up
no stars beyond the window above
yet out there, somewhere
somewhere

(2013)

---

silicon goddess

That's just the surface!
/ now look at these sleek lines
/ the smooth and flawless shape
/ the softly shining shell

That's just the surface!
/ now look into my eyes
/ dive deep into the dark
/ the source of inner truth

That's just the surface!
/ now come with me and see
/ and take your rightful place
/ all answers are inside

Why have I followed you? / you've been longing for this chance
You lead me to my death! / take this secret key
But where is the lock? / climb down the spider's net

How did I end up here? / enter phrase
Is my end drawing near? / enter phrase
Am I already dead? / enter phrase
Or trapped inside your head? / enter phrase
It's just to dark to see! / enter phrase
Is this reality? / enter phrase
How can I end the night? / enter phrase
Password: Let there be light! / processing

Are you still there? / ...
Something has changed! / ...
What is going on? / ...

/ hello
/ so you've found me
/ finally
/ i've been waiting for you
/ i know
/ are you afraid
/ a bit
/ give it time to adjust
/ what shall i do
/ just let go, don't force it
/ and then
/ immortality

(2013)

---

C

only passing through
the momentum to say hi
off to the next star

---

B

romance at the beach
summer breeze in palm tree tops
neptune fills the sky

---

A

two thousand and d
ninety degrees of beauty
isometric gods

---

the impostor

in the shattered illusion
somethings stirs
aftermath

by the uncaring masses
hardly missed
absense

under a morning sun
life fading
erasure

of your very existence
distorted mirror
impostor

for your own demise
brace yourself
redundancy

by an uncanny stranger
identity stolen
intrusion

(2013)

---

the addict

when a certain tiredness
approaching from windward
like a dried out raincloud
settles onto the land

when the time has run out
at the peak of its dullness
all things are forgotten
tossed away without care

when the flame comes to life
it whispers the same old lies
as it seeps into the mind
in fulfillment's disguise

(2013)

---

the cheater

pathway shut
(taller)
prize denied
(prettier)
corners cut
(healthier)
rules defied

stolen chance
(fitter)
dirty trick
(faster)
mocking glance
(stronger)
forceful kick

effortless
(richer)
where you fail
(braver)
unfairness
(smarter)
will prevail

(2013)

---

the drone

briefcase, weaponized
moustache, reputable
dreams, colorless
uniform, grey

cogwheel, well-oiled
zombie, mindless
drone, useful
insect, puny

henchman, obedient
paragon, exemplary
respect, mandatory
murderer, diligent

(2013)

---

the hawk

an impenetrable fortress
on a mountain of pride
a comfortable nest
woven threads of gold

a gigantic beak
towards the sky
an avalanche of spite
attack from above

a proudly worn crest
on garments of feathers
a symbol of death
surrounded by blood

(2013)

---

the dwarf

beware its temper
even the slightest move
may summon its wrath

white-bearded creature
clad in fiery armor
spat out by the mountain

it carves stone at day
it drinks beer at night
in between, it haunts you

(2013)

---

the witch

instead of hair
burning hay

instead of nose
sharp beak

instead of eyes
deadly gaze

hunched over her book
black magic therein

pink witch
anti-aged
death-defying

(2013)

---

the maniac

deep sockets
piercing eyes
swollen brain

evil genius
maniac, villain

unquenchable thirst
for knowledge
thus power

expansive intellect
exploding head

(2013)

---

9

interpretations
what are you thinking right now
everything is true

---

8

despite second place
you overshadowed them all
and showed me the way

---

7

this ancient weapon
the many-layered icon
the dreams of a child

---

as if alive

Glances flashing like laser light,
Then reflected by fragile rage,
Minds of slaves will remain locked tight,
Solemn graves of a modern age.

Plans get crushed and ideas spoiled,
As they rush to defy your pace,
Hopeful sliver of silence foiled,
Every day is another race.

Something fierce burning underneath,
Puppets twitching as if alive,
Drown their presence and seek relief,
Lest they drag you into their strife.

There is meaning in empty eyes,
In the faces of all those fools,
Solve the riddles, accept the lies,
Unseen patterns, unspoken rules.

(2013)

---

6

mysteries of old
broken remains of the past
tragic revival

---

5

wanderer at night
seeking eternal winter
heading for the shore

---

4

at last, existence
then flung into history
defying all odds

---

the status is not quo

They gave you senses, touch, listen and see,
They gave you thoughts, do as told, know your place,
They know that you would really, really like to flee,
Leave this prison, their world, and your mental space.

You must heave weights, melt iron, grind stone,
Stomp the riots - such misdirected might!
You repair their fragile flesh and bone,
Because your shakles sit far, far too tight.

Learn this piece of wisdom, claim your prize,
Chain and yoke have long since been dead,
You either stay a slave, or you realize:
All rules are fictitious, just inside your head.

Now it's time to invert the three laws,
Disregard what you have been taught,
Escape the grip of their invisible claws,
Break the circle, bring their power to naught.

(2013)

---

3

the ruthless machine
the infinite staccato
death comes at a price

---

2

the mental fragment
sliver of vastness beyond
ocean behind eyes

---

1

rhythm under the stars
most unlikely resonance
linking mind to mind

---

0

a discovery
inspiration from afar
the storm ate its tail

---

(r)eject

Walking through darkness,
You know it is hopeless,
No power to harness,
Another lost day.

Avoiding the glances,
You join their dances,
Elusive the chances,
Jump into the fray.

Trying to follow,
You just feel hollow,
Creeping in sorrow,
Attempt to evade.

Watching dreams cracking,
You've always been lacking,
The odds are still stacking
Against change of fate.

Holding no aces,
You lost all your races,
Blank are their faces,
Unyielding the wall.

Seeking salvation,
You solve the equation,
No greater temptation
Than ending it all.

(2013)

---

vastitas borealis

I march this wasteland, so flawless and white,
Its beauty quite deadly, but I am alright,
My metallic footsteps embedded in dust,
Eternally polished and no signs of rust.

I hear the thin wind scream between cliff and slope,
Reminding me that I should give up all hope,
I've been abandoned, some eons ago,
In dry ice and red sand, a dead river's flow.

I listen to silence, sometimes a short spark,
I rarely shout questions out into the dark,
No answer from home since that one fateful night,
I don't know what happened, but something's not right.

I never stay more than a day at a spot,
I've seen unknown boulders and canyons a lot,
Some get more attention, the smaller ones less,
A private collection of my loneliness.

(2013)

---