Sci-Fi Film Fiesat: The Swingin' 60s - Volume 5: Mind Blowing Ris of the Machines by Chris Christopoulos - HTML preview

And the turbulence of distraction

Gives the wind’s final determination.

Looking down I watch the aimless walking dead

Google Map their way through rubble and ruin

While their leaders over head ride the jet stream

On their way to kneel before would-be emperors

To pay them obeisance and perform prosthesis.

For they know which way the wind is blowing.

Unaware of the coming cloud the wind brings,

Back they fly with butterfly bills fluttering in the wind, To pay for bigger and better ways to kill and maim While the walking dead scratch for ways to live.

The ill-wind whispers, “march onward unto war.”

And lies about what they’ll be fighting for.

It is an ill-wind that blows on this day,

Buffeting me with hot updraughts and air currents

Fed by wild fire flames fanned by the force of the wind; A devil’s scorched earth policy to starve out hope.

Is that the wind screaming or the sound of screaming jets?

Or the walking dead pleading “No more, no more?”

But the wind merely blows mercy back into their faces While their socials busily scoop up views and likes, Subscribers and followers and gathers comments To occupy their thoughts for only a few moments.

All the while the cloud looms larger in the wind’s wake; The wind that cleaves and carves chasms and canyons Through binary minds divided by thoughts and opinions On what’s black and white, right and wrong, true and false Real and fake, good and bad, who’s innocent and guilty.

I strain to hear the walking dead shout across the divide At one another above the roaring wind as it casts aside Bridges built of reason, empathy and compassion.

I then start to shimmer and undulate in the wind’s grip And try to wave at the figures below to show I’m real.

But they just look up and through me as if I’m not there, No flicker of acknowledgement that I even exist

And this from living ghosts – the walking dead

Who don’t yet know where they have been lead

By this ill-wind that blows on this day,

Before I can ask how and why this can be

I feel my atoms being dispersed by the wind.

All I’m aware of is the blackness of the cloud

Rapidly rent by strobe-like flashes of violence.

It has finally come in the wake of the wind

And I feel nothing but a deep hollow grief

As water coalesces around each particle of me:

A multitude of raindrops that drench the earth

In a flood that drowns bystanders who did nothing, Said nothing and stood by while the wind blew fiercely In a genocidal blast of murderous cleansing criminality.

The raindrops now become tears that form a deluge

To wash human sin away from the face of the earth

So that none can ever again see what shouldn’t be seen With only the wind knowing how and why it could have been.

*************

“This is a warning to all intelligent species:

Do NOT approach the planet designated, ‘Earth.’

Turn back now or face the consequences:

To ignore this warning is more than it’s worth.

“This is a warning to all space-faring beings:

Avoid the third planet of the Sol system.

A quarantine has been placed on all earthlings

Now determined to be a dangerous organism.

“Do not be fooled by signs of advanced technology

Nor evidence of a capacity for creativity.

Resist the lure of the planet’s wondrous ecology

With its seemingly dazzling display of diversity.

“Beneath the blue, green and brown epidermis,

Lies a body contaminated, infected and infested

By a greedy pathogen, an all-consuming virus

That must not be allowed to escape and spread.

“The virus is the dominant species called ‘human’

That lives divided into different nations and ‘races,’

All the while ignoring what they all hold in common Preferring the safety of dividing walls and edifices.

“Treat the earth as a place most hazardous,

Nor expect to be greeted, feted and courted

If you foolishly attempt to land on the surface; As you’ll most likely be detained and deported.

“If you intend to help the humans change direction: Your words of warning will be wasted on this world, No match for human capacity for self-destruction; Best let it be judged wanting and into oblivion hurled.”

“To the human species of the third planet of Sol:

Your world has been earmarked for destruction,

With no way to avoid what on you is about to befall, No appeal, or plea or possibility of salvation.

“Why should your kind be exempt from extinction?

How can you justify your continued existence,

When you have perfected the art of extermination

And genocide seemingly without conscience?

“You have even created a form of artificial life,

And then set about turning it into your slave.

And now you wring your hands in grief and strife,

When the machine you made chooses not to behave.

“So you wish to venture far out into the Universe?

First to come your probes - a prelude to acquisition; Next, explorers planting flags wherever they traverse; Then the colonisers claiming ownership and possession.

“Worst of all, your corporate carnivore intruders, Ripping out the insides of entire systems

As of an orgy of Cosmic consumption defilers,

Fuelled by Stock Market economic dictums.

“We have long known of your existence whereby

We have followed your progress for centuries.

You have glimpsed us from the corner of your eye

Dismissing us as mere phantoms or hostile entities.

“We had allowed you to venture as far as Mars

But we now decree that to earth you be confined

There is now no place for you amongst the stars,

So await the fate to which you have been assigned.

“You are not nor have been the centre of the Universe.

Nor does it exist solely for you use and pleasure.

When you wink out of existence in short course

No tear will be shed nor sorrow felt whatsoever.

“Above you spreads the palette of creation,

And yet you failed to gain true perspective

Of your place, significance and station,

Wrapped in human hubris, so strong and protective.

“You may wish to take time to contemplate The choices made as you await your final fate,

Or you many continue to obliterate, incarcerate,

Eliminate, intimidate, discriminate and liquidate.

“You placed faith in demi-gods, who sought to betray Your trust by promising you a false tomorrow.”

To your gods and deities you’ll have time to pray, But safe to say they ceased listening long ago.

There’ll be no more tomorrows for the human race,

For you’ll simply cease to exist in a flash of light; The earth imploded and collapsed and in its place

Nothing, save hushed blackness and silent sunlight.”

***********

We can't leave the children

To face a future filled with dust

And ash, abandoned and forsaken

At the mercy of all that’s unjust.

“Help! Help! Help!” Hear their cries,

Faint and muffled under the rubble

From death made smart in the skies,

Distanced, none held to be culpable.

“Help! Help! Please help us!”

Louder now we hear their pleas,