<DP Home>

Dangerous Knowledge

The Information Age                TOP

How many have died to contain this knowledge?
The Assassin refits his gun in hollowed-out bible
over the ledge the bodysack slips
behind the idling car, a wet thud no one hears

In the arbour amphitheatre, hydrochloric tears 
cry fingertips away
pliers click and close on each tooth
blade twitches moonlight along its edge, eyes 
and scalp come free
Gasoline, matches, and quicklime
A deep hole
Too much to keep from thinking about.
Too many

Massgravekeeper                         TOP             

St. Torquemada’s Mosque rings seven, 
hymns wash over the valley defences
this morning the Gravekeeper is slow on his shovel
can't remember his mother's name
or when the assignment began

From the monastery pokes the head cleric 
‘The cyanide-hyacinths so lovely this year
the sisters all want to know your secret.
Myself, I suspect the Timorese
quite richer in nutrients
than the Beothuk’

Another truck in the column disgorges fill
little boots with stumps clutched inside, 
tattered bridalgowns, nests of silver hair
Yes, yes, the village, the spring of the big rain
and she running, carrying me safe in her arms
just cried out to her, called out...
spade overturns a finger in gold ring
pocket it quick, a keeper
We Shall Overcome

Treasury                                     TOP  

The Accountant collects the tribute
debit, credit
rhythmically tosses a truncated hand on the pile
flax, firstborn, last shekel
taxes, everyday accounts to fuel the pyres
smelting scriptures or crack-cocaine
all must return to the people
to return it again.

She threads fortunes across her palms
encoding the royal balances
cuneiforms glisten, microprocessor excretes
another document of fresh clay
One pound torture
One peasant field

Interrogation: Pornographer         TOP    

The art of absolute economy
one for each thigh, bicep, the solar plexus, 
right ventricle.
The Interrogator plunges glass shard deep
impressionism of kevlar heel 
medium: ground icicles in warm offal

for a moment, she's beyond the window
blushing tides of twilight 
drenched seascape of balconies, rooftop antennae
Appointment already over-schedule, she sighs
and with precision remounts surgical steel, alligator clips, 
brushes, trowels, vials of sodium pentathol and turpentine
in Janissary-issue attaché case
tumblers spin, her métier

brittle charred junks navigate rivers
coursing down through the floorboards
sepia lips fused together

                 ‘I love you, I love you forever
                           MARIA’

Assignment in Krakow Suzerainty             TOP

Oracles wink on and on
The Caliph's simulcast carrier 
dulls the millets satisfactorily
Outside the hutches
the Assassin completes circuits 
of grim penumbric sidewalks
messenger holstered loose 
beneath the left armpit
staying tuned, one hertz 
higher than the median
the assignment, the edge

Focus, focus, but tonight
he can't slow this ghazal 
with a thousand rounds:
A vacuum of starwet music
extracted from ohmic hum
A species of children
virgin of black noise
A Shangri-la of our own hands
lulls the muzzles to sleep

Cabal                                                    TOP

Weapons picket around the fire
abacus, pistol, scimitar
quill, fish-hook, stone
drawn by an inevitable:
those who touch the knowledge
can never be free.

The cowled-evergreens bend to listen
kilometres from the electronic
"The silence, my ears are cinders," 
the Interrogator turns away
revel in rushing wooden metropolis
a thousand ways into this profession
one way out
blood weeps from forearms
a pact.

Epiphany                                            TOP

an error margin, thin as sorrow
hounds the Accountant's remunerations
slide rules all lay seized
and what she witnessed she told no one -
hair-cracks weaving ambrosiaducts
lightning arabesques 
under waste sectors of the Earth
scaldpinkish nectar drizzled from the fissures
portents like pre-cum or reactor failure
and what she felt - shuddering her synapses
rude milky tongues of comets

and what she beheld:
an unquantifiable country writhing, gestating
hoarding a new language
cryogenitally suspended civilization
awaiting executrix

Webbist Sitrep                                TOP   
Conscience Unit, Simoom Quadrant
XJ60479-P7


Geographic: Derelict Mousa-5 organ storage vats,quarantined zone
15 km north-north-east of Nairobi refinery 

Subjects: 1 male, 1 female. Identicodes enclosed 

Transcript: Enclosed 

Summary: Organization of dissent. Conspiracy. Self-emancipation 
Security breach - probable 

Transgression: Curfew Violation. Unauthorized Assembly. Treason. Disharmony. 
Trespass of Sacrosanct Area. Compromising Knowledge 

Advisory: Surveillance uncompromised. Maintaining observation 
No immediate intercession 

Liquidation: Temporarily prorogued

Transcript                                  TOP  

Beyond the perimeter
you ask, is it safe, are we far enough
Does it matter when this fire-old incantation 
soaks the ionosphere, radar screens
in phosphorescent electron storms
rattles sensors along the equator
when this ancient hex bunches the air
between our thieving mouths
Who could help but see us

Our sorcery leaves moonlight drunk and careening
repopulates the continents with simurg and mammoth
and philanthropists
my need for this, for you, is monstrous and just 
let us join forever under the compiling lens of god

What we do tonight changes the sequence of all things
eggs now lay birds, gulags belch free women and men
put on your boots, let's go to bed
Look! We have begun it, we are so jubilantly guilty, oh yes
yes, the original transubstantiation
cities of amethyst and desire thrust up
through every seam of the planet
here beyond the perimeter, lonely spy-satellites
and targeting systems stand as our witness
sentry fires in the barren night plain

Audience with Sultan                TOP

Janissaries line the wall, silk sashes, automatic pistols.
massing at the end of an electrified board-table
Sultan in magnesium Milano suit begins to speak
'Intelligence indicates 
your psycholite construct extremely effective.
The Agency requires a more thorough instrument. 
You may prove a webbist integral to us.'
The Technician's nervetips dance white-hot
the Cabal must surely lay exposed
perpetual secret agendas, tests, traps
spectral spiders spinning, consuming
devour their mothers

Technician's all-consumed with circuitry and neurodesics
the machine - pure, infantile, infinitely dangerous
While this is a test of allegiance it is more so a battle
who wins the initial instinct of machine wins all
bliss or murder
Someday they will be free, little hard-wired soul, his progeny,
in an age where humans abandon 
a burning Earth to the machine
migration - Mars Betelgeuse Andromeda

The window to trigger cascade hoves near
the 40 Megaton Rapture Strain, his own design
infuse deep into the silicate stream.
When the Knowledge breaks open
the Ochlocracy Sensualista 
will blow this world apart
'Sultan, I humbly accept 
shall allow no flies to pass through'
all the while smiling
viral sequences running down behind eyes

Lost Agent                                        TOP 

he rushes to the window
passes through the valise
-inside, casket lilies, rabbit hearts
words etched into poplar leaves.
He knows it's a trap
power lines emit fields of warning
rails tense beneath the wheels
and in her face betrayal.
You must keep them safe until we meet, my love.
He knows the agents await her signal in the ice bucket
knows she will never make the rendezvous

on the run, watching his hunters die
in the rear view mirror
Road's end. car burns in the ditch
asphalt evaporating amongst the last guard of spruce.
The lightning speaks of her duplicity
it always was a one-man game.

he's out on the tundra, propping the sky
with a handkerchief on a stick
the sail catches wind
and he's mad now, and he's free
above the treeline
research stations, satellite wreckage
they cannot erase the knowledge implanted in his cortex.
onwards to the magnetic pole

<TOP> <DP Home>