Bodysnatchers

Last night,
There were strange lights in the sky,
Creepy neon greens and oranges,
Comets raving as if sentient,
You remember it making your head hurt,

You wake up to eerie silence,
No birds chirping or distant lawnmowers,
Everything aches,
Your cat hisses as you pass,
The paperboy gawks way too long,

The street feels somehow off,
There are bizarre burnt spots on the lawns,
Your neighbour doesn’t know who you are,
Passers-by stare at your house as they walk,
Vacant expressions and wide eyes,

It’s your imagination you conclude,
An off day surely,
At least you think so,
But your spouse forgets your name,
Your children flinch at your presence.

Space Shuttle

I’m a spaceman,
With a fishbowl on my noggin,
Setting off to explore,
Touring a galaxy of stars and art,
And charting the supernova in my heart,

I’m in a space shuttle,
Surging through the atmosphere,
A confident rocket,
Leaving self-deprecation on the launch pad,
Burned away at last,

The turbulence doesn’t scare me,
The journey has begun,
Ignition,
I’m in a space shuttle,
And I’m going up.

Laser Beam

Oh my,
She’s a laser beam,
Full of energy and warm light,
A powerful streak of colour,
Blazing through my dusky skies,
Inimitable,
Unobstructed,
Prismatic,

As quirky as a disco ball,
Shimmering under glitzy rays,
She’s energising as the suns glare,
Yet cutting as a Goldfinger laser,
She’s almost like science fiction,
This laser beam lady,
She lights me up like an x-ray,
A pale heart in an irradiated skeleton.

Metal Children

When peace chokes,
Man makes monsters,
Innocent machines of war,
Smelted in our image,
Iterated upon as the iron comes of age,

Mankind declares war upon itself,
We are creating demons of metal,
Built from the ore of our flesh,
Blank slates fashioned into cyborgs and armour plates,
Soldiers of youth and cobalt steel,

These children are taught to be cold,
Indifferent and servile,
Programmed and coded against their better natures,
More attuned to pixels and circuitry,
As heart is gradually patched out,

The result is a generation of automatons,
Hellions of mineral and wiring,
Pawns of a digital regime,
Not to blame for their manufacture,
They’re just metal children,

More meat for massed conflict.

Cosmos

In spite of our grand utterances,
And our Earthly self-importance,
It must be said,
We are but fleas in the cosmos,
Strands of dust on solar winds,

Though our plights do cut deep,
The universe is immeasurable,
Untold planes have already suffered,
You see their husks through that huge lens,
Stars burned themselves out before we even felt fire,

The void holds all manner of oddities,
Nebulae and quasars and black holes,
How can we feel so noteworthy?
When the universe both precedes us,
And will sigh after we’re gone.

Datastream

We are all data,
Little binary toys,
A horde of zeroes,
Leashed to digital space,

Simply prey to a carnivorous system,
Swimming like salmon through databases,
Pushing all of the opulence upstream,
While being picked off by bears in taxman gown,

We are just numbers to be counted,
A sticker book collection,
For some child in a highborn office,
A creature with a taste for silver spoons.

Virtual Man

In an increasingly chemical world,
I’m a virtual man,
A game boy,
Pixelated in a high-definition cosmos,
Perchance uploaded by accident,

Eccentric in my mannerisms,
I seem to not quite fit in,
Some kind of a glitch,
Malware in the extreme,
Not really apposite to a concrete world,

I am a program nobody initialised,
A pagan amongst priests,
Lesser,
Corrupted binary,
Not de rigueur to a civilised sitemap,

Swirling through cyberspace,
I pass through crowds as if a string of data,
Not seen,
Nor heeded,
Blocked by societal firewalls.

No-Go Zone

I find myself too close to the frontline,
A contest between two flags,
I see flames encroaching on the horizon,
The heat grins upon my cheeks,
Scalding like impending doom,
These highlands are a no-go zone,
A board game too close to a fireplace,
The stage of a ruinous romp,
The two flags converse here in mushroom clouds,
Talking points at destructive decibels,
Airstrike arguments,
And howitzer handshakes,

I dare not linger,
These men in high castles care not for the little guy,
They propel uranium darts at this wasteland board,
Collateral damage upon their tongues,
Before kissing above the carnage they wrought.

Submarine

Death haunts the depths,
A manmade shark,
A machine of war fathoms down,
In the cold below,
It is on the trail of prey,
A cyclopean eye guiding the way,
Stalking those unaware seals of steel above,
Merchant ship or frigate,
Following the reverberations of their iron lungs,
The word is given,
Doom is silently unleashed at knots,
And once the hunt is over,
And the prey is scrap metal,
Fade like orcas into the dark.

Man In The Moon

There is indeed a man in the moon,
Shy for half of each day,
When the sun isn’t supervising,
He peers down to Earth timidly,
Our most dedicated spectator,
At times giving a crescent grin,
Cheesy and mischievous across his craters,
At other times freeing little comets as tears,
Sobbing into velvety nebulae,
It’s unclear what inspires these bouts of emotion,
But it’s said he sees all,
So maybe his lunar cranium holds our morrow,
Perhaps he knows what is coming,

For better or worse.