Creation

There is a certain amount of fear about committing oneself to the art you create. Will all that I have put of myself into this work lessen me? Honesty is not the point, the danger is in a thorough effort, an enervating amount. You never completely recuperate. But you are always dying anyway, why not add what you have to the world? Why is it so hard to accept the paradox that sacrifice will give you life as well? Trepidation. Ambiguity. All we read of Kafka he willed be destroyed, a kind of life I can't yet grasp.

Where Are You?

-for my friend

You are always smashing through glass doors
(soft tissues sliding open, dropping little red teeth),
through store windows, satellite mirrors, empty bottles,
that the events fuse, and the glass splashes
out like weather vanes or planets
spinning where day and night garble
to a star’s light refracting the broken pieces, 
each observable only in echo,
a tidal bore of broken sunrises,
illuminating the expansion of your dust cloud body
as though what shines 
were key to where you are.

Creatures of Time: Krannozhi

For Krannozhi, the world has already ended, and he is the reason. The clouds break against nothing. Krannozhi extends beyond our world, his head resides in space; growing into another galaxy, it has been surmised. How he lives is impossible. Seers residing on the Siberian edge of the Bering speak of Krannozhi. His defiance extends beyond the physical. "Krannozhi has won," they say, "he has crushed our world to nothing under his own bare feet."

“False,” cry the youths of the village, “We live, and the world continues. How can we have lost?” 

“Listen to the wind, children, Krannozhi exists across so great a span that time has begun to work against him,” replies the elder, "His mind tells him he must have crushed us eons ago. He remembers all that occurred, the great delight he felt, vividly. Yet, his endless height has led to deception. What he commanded his limbs to do has yet to occur. In all the long years since he has moved his feet, of which only a twitch could break us apart, the feet themselves still wait for the command."

"He believes that his thoughts and actions occur like a trip and a fall, but this is not so. His brain has fooled him, and across the length of his body that trick has multiplied infinitely. Pray that space never stops expanding.”

We are in no danger from Krannozhi. He has already won, but his victory will never happen.

Premature Gradation

A wiki says dependin' on what you prefer,

you shoot up with a certain foot and flow down with the other.
As though, QWOP aside, there were a wrong way to walk,

my natural favorite musta' got forgot,

'Cuz during the stairs approach of this fact I’m well awares,
it's this one foot, one foot one, won, (원?)

and clodhop stutter the steps before swinging back

into the natural state of the assademic,
a general rurbalicitry,
so long as no one checks, including me.

Now Was Is Will Now

*For, and at the behest of, Ayumi Nagashima

As photons whisper by, tending bar

for those who can match pace,
a laser-ribbon man

lowers himself to the four-walled sunrise.

Now and then, time licks back and forth in

a mobius tune writhing above

him as he drinks and waits for his drink

to be handed to him.

The wolf crows a thin growl.

It is said, "All that he cannot do

is whatever he has yet to.

His ever-instant orbit,

his finish-start,

his slumbered record-breaking

and swallow sip:

What could he be up there

If not worth ignoring?

After wires antiquate,

after the heady air stales,

the apes will walk halfway aboveground.

Plugged in but implants. Connected by space.

Someone raise a toast: If he saves the day again,

even the day-saving ice clinks

will be a story our grandchildren,

already opening tabs,

had predicted."

The Circular Ruins 1.2

After years of study with the Administrators, alone with his Power Source, Monitor and Mouse,

the Wizard began writing. Equations, numbers and letters, symbols he had short-cut to

his Keyboard like tattoos or sable fur, all these things he placed into Memory.

He was able to work without much rest, had stocked a bank account and accrued interest,

had his groceries: fruits, nuts, rice, and milk, delivered to his door.

The windows stayed closed to keep Samaritans from causing mischief,

but the blinds stayed up so the Wizard could survey his progress.

Each day started with a few Strokes across the Keys, clicking in the sunrise,

as the light lingered higher and lower he would ebb and flow his speed.

Always Troubleshooting, sometimes not construction so much as conversation,

Discussing the Algorithms, noting each other’s limitations, capacity to evolve.

His Application must begin to breathe. As the Text he etched developed, he began to convert it to a Model.

Death watched through the crack beneath his front door.

Soon, the Pascal, Python, secret Languages he wrote himself, ran into each other,

slid into the crevices. He decided his Task had reached the torrential stage,

and opened his Mainframe to the Network. Shadowless people and other Wizards

at first feared, misunderstood what they perceived to be a chasm of Data. 

They mocked him, roasted his U in Forums and trolled his Requests.

The Wizard had anticipated this, his Spiders already searching for instances of warmth.

Soon he collected his Followers and Slaves. They combined their Bandwidth and became his mouths,

posting and composing for him, their Hits escalated, more joined, the tubes grew.

The Wizard returned to his labors, struggling with the final step, the dangerous spark,

which could wipe away as much as it could create. His arms continued to wither;

his beard hung long and wispy on his lap; his room echoed with clicks, gasps

when the Wizard remembered to breathe. The sun paled for him and

his groceries piled up, were scavenged, piled up again. Even among his beloved followers

doubt spread, until he released the Key and the Contributions flowed full Open Source up the mountain.

Veins opened, were patched, any fragments of material deemed extraneous were deleted.

Truly, no one suspected his end goal, his miracle applied intravenously to the world

was not a man in the alpha build. One, rather, at the next stage of development

because he was constructed of all the Bits of Man. And yet he was not of men,

he served no more purpose for men than a brief breeze. 

Those who could grasp the Code marveled, suspected

the Wizard, and yet none could quite conceive what existed.

When the authorities arrived, they found a child half awake.

Her Voice had broken into a human binary

of "lololololol."

Creatures of Time: The Kong Chiang

Lasting far longer than dynasties or governments is the Kong Chiang. Whereas Krannozhi perceives only the future at the expense of the present, the Kong Chiang witnesses all of time, from beginning to end, as now. Scrolls uncovered in the western deserts of China and traced to the Zhou Dynasty, approximately 900 years before the time of Christ, depict the Kong Chiang as a type of tiger, always in movement, always in profile. Its black and orange stripes trail behind it, either blurred by its speed, or forever attempting to regain ground on their own hide. 

The Kong Chiang occupies the element of air, but it is one of the few creatures of this realm that does not fly. A jade sculpture bought by an Italian merchant near Shanghai and dated to the early Ming Dynasty of the 14^th century depicts an evolution of the Kong Chiang in the form of a flattened monkey.

The Kong Chiang is said to travel at speeds so great that time itself must slow to nothing. Albert Einstein surmised that objects travelling at high speeds could alter their own passage through time, thereby exchanging sequence for confluence. Chinese mainstream culture has appropriated modern science to help explain this creature. If the Kong Chiang were able to travel at what amounts to light speed, it would also grow to near-infinite mass. If it somehow did not, it would nonetheless leave an easily recognizable path encircling the Earth (to say nothing of the devastation a being moving at light speed would have to life on the planet). 

Since neither of these things is true, it has been surmised that the Kong Chiang resides only in bi-dimensional space, consisting of length and height, but no width.

Even if this implausible hypothesis were correct, there would be a line of points having no width, which no man would be able to cross (as the Kong Chiang would be continuously passing through every point of the line). Viewing this line from the side would show only a plane of whatever color the Kong Chiang may be. Touching this plane would be akin to pressing flesh to propeller blades, though its effect on the creature itself is unknown. 

The sun stretches into the moon through night and day while all events of human history are a tapestry woven within itself to the Kong Chiang. Existence is homogeneous. Legends describe the Kong Chiang as a friend to the indecisive and carpenters.