Letter from Prison: August 25, 2003
“’I would like to know which is worse – to be raped a hundred times by Negro pirates, to have a buttock cut off, run the gauntlet among Bulgarians, be flogged and hanged in an auto-da-té, be dissected
Welcome. My name is Jeremiah John, sf/f author & activist.I tell liberationist stories.. . . More About Me
“’I would like to know which is worse – to be raped a hundred times by Negro pirates, to have a buttock cut off, run the gauntlet among Bulgarians, be flogged and hanged in an auto-da-té, be dissected
I recently decided to cut caffeine from my diet entirely. In the wake of a three-day illness, I realized that I had past the period of physical withdrawal, and decided to experiment.
He kept us there
imprisoned
after he constructed a facade
around the the sheriff's office
it was the tin veneer
of a general store
he sold permits and titles
to goods and lands
the fire in my flesh
a bicycle-gholem
from the amputated and discarded
the bionics of a thousand worlds
all impossible, forgotten
a lace of time
resolving to now
discarded limbs, all
remembered
touching and flexing the lost
moments of departure
dead flesh kindled
in the fire of what was not
the haunting
of a limb that never was
i feel the jar of steel
through my hands and feet
as i ride her
the memories and frustrations
carry me
In the midst of Foucault's book, Madness and Civilization, I find myself once again wondering about this blanketing expanse of reason that is computing, or the mechanization of all matter, rendering it inert, the thing we call science. Computing is the vast citadel of passive reason, motored by science. It is at the outskirts of this empire that I speculate.
That is, before we carve this empire, we face a vast and raging sea: madness.
i am myself
lived through me
another's hand
upon me
i am in love
with her
she is a prescient guide
past my doubts
and troubled questions
I must persevere
as I have done
for less
towards less.
There is no returning
only the dip of oars
soft in the night
lapping at the stillness
in my soul
as i move towards the moon
on the water
I am Ahab
that terrible king
of self
Fate
a godless windup
ratcheting its red arms
Blasphemy
is an empty hatred
motored as I am
a blood-turned turbine
Hope
a harpoon
thrust towards the leviathan
Life
crushed to oil
Fuel
for the machine
i am awake in dawn
thoughtlessly alive
in a stream of life
past a collection of islands
against a grey sea
in a system of seas
infinite swirling grey
revolving about an black abyss
that is needing
i am moving
in increments
of eight
by sixty
by sixty
I am moving
still smaller
past atoms
quarks
leptons
bosons
and fermions
the spaces between things
are not rules, no.
Our God
is an AK-47
he said
we love
with power
yes, i thought
a distant steel
penetrating
like a bullet
to the heart
a bang
and a glittering silence.
God was a tiny speck
I saw him
narrow
through the iron bars
Thrashing
in white
I threw myself
straightjacketed
against them all
I love my just so God
white like me.