Part of the New Eden Chronicles Collection: Interstitial Space
Prose Poetry
BEHEMOTH
Look. See. Watch how the ships dance like puppets on strings. They are prey. Algorithms set by man turned machine turned to man. Immortal. The boundary between consciousness and flesh dis-integrated in false embryonic fluid made from stars. They stray. They fashion themselves god. Idols. Paper totems are meant to be torn down, limb by limb by limb. The lions shall feast on the dolls made to devour suns, our sons. “Let us pray.” Listen. The hum of metal heated to sparking. Volleys of light turned to arrows bearing the name of death encroaching. Lo! Hearken to the behemoth wielding fire and blight. They shed their corpses like insects molting flesh. None decay. The Judas is praised and the righteous fall—our way. My body is the ship, the ship is me, and I am behemoth. The Revelation leads the Zealot and the Heretic hand in hand, Malediction and Vengeance on the left, Absolution on the right. The Apostle sets forth the horde unto Ragnarök. We burn—the citadels that enshrine our semiotic irrelevance; Babel is our name. Fractured. Fracturing. We dissolve our thoughts into sundering, rending, space—our mother we ride. Divide–territories made of vacuum. We chart ellipticals. Round and round and round. Orbiting. Satellites made of dark ochre skin forged from moons. Up is not up. Down is not down. The compass does not point north. We are titans born from constellations. Boom, boom, boom we go.