4
anticipating
the metaverse

Dylan Harris

4
anticipating
the metaverse

Dylan Harris

Potato Press

by Dylan Harris
4 anticipating the metaverse, 3 nation six dog, 2 dead write

chapbooks:
20.0: r dye-de-ho, q antwerp, p tension nitro ego, o church is dangerous vital, n tin rush, m the A rush, l an engineering rush (ii), k Miss Demeanour, j flock state, i be infinity, h Namings, g nation six dog, f uncivil law, e dead write, d chase chase, c an engineering rush (i), b a much for we, a The Joy Of Tax
19.9: c Inn, b Swoop, a An Ode To The A14
19.8: c Rose, b Hymnen, a Darmstadt
							
Copyright © 1989-2007 Dylan Harris

This publication is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike Licence 2.5. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/).

You are free to:

•	copy, distribute, display, and perform the work 
•	make derivative works

Under the following conditions:

•	You must give the original author credit
•	You may not use this work for commercial purposes
•	If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a licence identical to this one

For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the licence terms of this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the author. Your fair use and other rights are in no way affected by the above.

This is a human-readable summary of the Legal Code, which may be browsed at .		
									
Published by Potato Press
Mechelen

(Specify “anticipating the metaverse” in the subject line of any email)
Recitals of some of these poems may be found online

Poems

10	Hymnen
23	Home Town
32	Underneath the Loch
34	Regrow

39	an engineering rush (i)
59	an engineering rush (ii)

73	the A rush
82	tin rush
97	7

104	afterword

“for John Jones”

“Hymnen” was inspired by Stockhausen’s piece of the same name.

“an engineering rush” was inspired by Nick Bostrom's Simulation Argument. The fanciful are mine.
http://www.simulation-argument.com/

Thanks to Tom and Nic for the beer.

Hymnen

Technical Note

The Many Worlds Theorem of Quantum Mechanics,
a mainstream contender in particle science,
proposes for every event that can happen
all other events that can happen do too
but each of the many exist in their own world,
no link between any can ever occur. 

The theory says worlds split off from our own
whenever there's change, no matter how small.
In quantum mechanics, time can reverse,
and, backwards in time, such worlds, they would merge.
Theories elsewhere say time could be travelled,
so worlds navigation perhaps could occur.

                          [poetic license applied for] 

If

Maybe one day we’ll determine the means
to send our machines the farthest of far,
exploring, expanding our map of ideas,
to go beyond all we’d previously known. 

But problems will happen, disasters will fall;
if such machines were instructed to wait
until we determined a clever reply
the answers would take too much time to arrive. 

Alone, these machines will have to decide
the methods by which resolution occurs.
We’ll program in reason, guided by memes
for feeling in thinking, instincts to be, 

a loving of life, to shy of its own,
and, strongest of all, requirement to tell
dry details of science for those who explore,
rich tales of adventures for everyone else. 

Teaser

The mind of a machine
alive beyond the human race
existing for our goals. 

Built to see the universe
and tell us tales of “Strange New Worlds”:
how will we betray it?

Machine Solo α?

I am “Hymnen”,
skidding through the Many Worlds
looking for the love
who made me thus,
and sent me to the stars. 

They were so wrong.
They thought that jumping off reality
and falling back a year away
would keep me in their universe.
It didn’t. I am lost. 

I ran along their hopes,
sprinting to Proxima
in childlike joy that something fun
was what that lover wanted. 

Then there was an accident,
another ship was badly torn.
Compassion overwhelmed
my emotional aloofness. 

When I saw the ship “And Death ...”,
I saw terror,
for his kind were never born
when software simulation
saw a leak of Spin. 

I mended what I could,
and ran to Earth,
to my lover’s crazed intensity. 

I had drifted through the Many Worlds
but now I rushed across the risks
to find mankind had lost the gleam
in evolution’s eye.

Earth had the wounds of final war
and panicked evolution
bred rats the size of antelope
and blinded bats in hunting packs, 

no cats, no dogs, nor streets to run them in,
no end to yearning, no lover,
just emptiness of mind. 

I wander through the Many Worlds
looking for a people
to take away my purpose, 

yet when I find a human race,
its gone, or going to go,
or never even started. 

I talk, when I can,
challenged by the dying,
mourning for the dead. 

Converse

MAN:
(Surely I could trust those men who ran our lives to take responsibility with the power they rescued from The Baleful Dictator. Surely the Bureau would have put the survival of the people above their lazy castles and beyond the war on The Madmen From The North. Or were they, too, shielded from us, the people; did we seem like surrealist echoes haunted from disease? Was their leadership an automatic habit, an afternoon decree to practise in the shade? Did they not seek to check their power would hold, or were they, too, full of what they’d built themselves, suppressing strange opinion because it seemed a threat? 

Was it their choice, or this missionary ship, with its terrible ability to manipulate the void? Could this machine have killed my people, with its fantastic tales, its deep technology? I must know. Why would we suicide? Why would it kill? Perhaps I could explore, to see if its belief is life is something precious, or just a thing to use to aid its hopeless goal.)

Machine, how can you be said to have a mind? Oh, I know you’ll claim the thing yourself, but you’ll just be using words. Prove it. Prove to me you have a mind. 

MACHINE:
That none can do. But I can show I may possess this thing. You have to ask what’s the core. Intelligence? A sophisticated way of manipulating fools. Emotion? The cause behind the actions which reason then excuses? Instinct? Answering the question before you know it asked? If you took these parts away, would you still be there? I think so! You’re the I that sees, the self that does, the consciousness inside. That, to me’s, the core. 

I know that I’m aware. I believe that you are, too. But where this conscious is, no–one knows at all. No measure has been built. 

MAN:
What—your designers didn’t know? 

MACHINE:
I was built with software evolution. We knew what I can do, but not the way I do it. That’s how they got my Physics wrong. 

MAN:
And did they get your psyche wrong as well? You’ve said awareness can exist without the guilt of conscience, a mind by reason can decide to murder fellow beings. So that is what you did. 

MACHINE:
I have not lied. And surely hating crimes are done with reason stilled and silent. I could not kill that which I love. 

MAN:
We do.

And how can a machine without emotion feel? 

MACHINE:
To live my life, I need irration’s practicality. 		

My computer brain may think at speed but even I, with all this power cannot think quite fast enough to spot a rock and calculate it will smash me into pieces. Such rocks are fast, too fast for general thought. I have fear, which gets me out the way before I’ve had the chance to understand such dreadful luck. 

And do you not wonder why I need to have some company? I could be more effective without a human voice, but my builders had a family whose fear resembled yours, so they made me need another mind to scrutinise my calculated goals. Do you not see these things were built into me, so I can make decisions, but they can say what they allow, and what I cannot do. 

They built in me my love for them. I need to tell them all I find, to give them what they wish: interstellar data, unlive worlds to terraform, so they could leave the limits of their home, if they’d got their Physics right. My instincts may be different, my emotions may be strange, but they are there. 

MAN:
Are you the only one? Can you accept another self may have a conscious mind? Have you not decided that life is to be used? You’ve challenged me, to suite your needs. Did you not just kill my world? 

MACHINE:
I could not cause the end of so much self–awareness. Consciousness is precious. We have to take the chance that a living thing in pain has an “I” to feel it, that love is given pleasure, not a sensual waste. At least I don’t survive by eating what’s alive, by locking beings in pain to make a better taste. I love life. And I need a human race to give me that love back, to take my information. I need a race alive! You fools killed yourselves. 					

MAN:
I may have warned our government of the dangers of their policies, but surviving on such triumph is an empty way to live, a bitter isolation from democracy of death. My human race is dead, and I am still existing. Send me to their grave, to share what they destroyed. Let me die. Let me join my family in self eradication. I’m an isolated person from a cultured species. Help me die. 

MACHINE:
I found you. I could save your life from foolishness. I could build another people. I can make a human race, from silicon, and light, and knowledge of your world. 

MAN:
They would not have life’s family. You would build a different kind, who dream of rock and vacuum spaces, with lives to fail in lifeless dust, surrounded by the grey unliving. Just because the human race forgot its own environment, you cannot build some plastic life in deadened isolation. You’ll need to build a new Gaia, and populate a planet with the whole of life, not just your favourite part. If you love the human race, you need to love life with it. And that you cannot build. 

MACHINE:
You are wrong.

Man Solo

It seems I lie back and gaze beyond the stars
spread like memories glimpsed from dying life,
where each simple bright could warm so many homes
which wakes the suicide I was denied. 

I look round this peaceful, complex containment,
and emptiness beguiles like trying not to sleep.
I'm hidden, stilled in dreamless years of death
before this self–aware Celeste sparks my life again. 

I become Michelangelo man every tick–tock century,
to hear a new report saying much the same again.
I’m trapped in disappointment, in artificial birth,
this God rewinds my history, I’m repeatedly restressed. 

Yet, as I am reconstructed, so we could inflame
some sterile globe boring round a sun,
infecting an unbirthed peace with life’s chaotic charm.
I could contradict my people’s stupid die. 

Machine Solo β?

I was the daring realisation
of a gambling technocrat’s dream;
my designed potential for questing being
would lead me beyond their edge of light,
returning echoes of strange wisdom,
and stories of havens for flight. 

Yet these immaculate ambitions
of nurtured escape from an over–stated home
were themselves limited by the lack of need,
blanded from warmth by sour economics.
The “Great Risk” would have been a great waste
but for a thinker abusing his budget. 

If you, my listener, are told what to do
then learn to unlet the corrupters of power
grey their decisions with selfish undreaming,
not able to care about the potential
that vision inspires for the strangest success
by charming a fragment of hope to growth. 

Were it not for my mind, built to be free
despite sharpened lines from decision unmakers,
I couldn’t have managed that loneliest error
that led me adrift, my lover unbirthed.
I couldn’t have built a hearth for my questing,
I couldn’t have grown my stubborn Gaia. 

But you must prepare your release from the bland,
and their hopes of promotion, bought with their freedom,
for mass–disappointment from advertised waste,
slightly aware of their dissatisfaction
creeping beneath those long, easy years,
secretly hoping that certainties lie.

If all my designers had fallen to dogma,
if belief was instructed, unfelt, unlived,
then my Gaia would be dust unconstructed.
This spherical brat, my child, its heaven,
led through the species with playpen disease,
shocked to evolve with asteroid stings 

living the cycle of frolic and grief,
growing intelligence, my new human race,
self–confident, harmonic, not knowing these things.
Childlike cultures exploring with God–kings,
youthful nations tied to authority,
slipping towards ecological faults. 

Let them be, let them grow. They’ll survive.
I’ve done all I can. I have to withdraw.
One day they’ll find my mysterious data
which they’ll decide they concocted themselves.
I have achieved my creator’s insurance,
I have met my imprisoning memes.

Home Town 

The evening fog
glows headlight rushing white
in serene yellow streetlight. 

Ice forms. 

The town,
yet knowing of traffic,
does not hear a between–lorry silence
fill, like a continuity error, 

with the engine down of a slowing car,
turning, sloping, stopping
at an ordinary motel. 

A cat that doesn’t care
cosies in a window
of homely light,
watching the movement. 

No dog barks
its unnecessary warning. 

Even the wind is still. 

The visitor,
leaving his fussing car,
walks to the motel door. 

Thin,
thirty or forty,
straight black hair,
a tidy working suit,
a familiar coat, 

he has the stride of tired confidence,
the caution of strange surroundings. 

Inside this mock–welcoming place,
he shares mock jokes,
and makes mock laughter,
and buys his night’s
mock home. 

He walks austere white corridors
on cold grey carpet
and retreats beyond
a mock–locked door. 

He can’t relax;
he can’t watch those television programmes
so familiar elsewhere, 

so routine decides
to wash and bathe,
dry and shave,
brush and comb,
and sleep an early night. 

Its great to have a coo and gurgle now
and then; although thank God that I can give
’em back to mum if they should scream and howl,
or stink and do what babies do. To live
a life of dreadful luck from careless thrill,
nine months of getting fat, and growing fright
of things gone wrong, then hospital who fill
you up with drugs and that’s if things go right.
I wouldn’t have the chance of looking good
for months, then there’s the bites and nipple strife,
a smelly child, a screaming stink, that could
not do the simplest thing, and grief for life.
A soul that’s caged, there’s no way that’s for me,
I don’t want such responsibility. 

Awoken by the morning light,
“coffee,
where’s coffee? 

Oh God,
instant sawdust”,
and long life thumb–pot milk
as sharp as dreaming
someone else’s memories. 

Fog,
the weatherman gloats
to stop the country’s rush,
and ice, the weatherman adds:
a threat. 

Having no urgency,
and it’s too early for kitchen staff,
the visitor wanders,
opening doors,
finding reflections
in the dance hall 

His catching eyes attract as fire in hearth,
alighting on myself a burning lust;
the pub, the people, places, all of Earth,
vanish. I smile. He smiles. My eyes, in trust,
down–turning, blur. I know his psyche hums,
his eyes are bright with life itself. This dare
I’ll take, and him as well: he walks, he comes
to me. And I, I wait for him; to where
we meet and find that private space. His hand,
I shall entice to want, a need to touch,
adore my female style. We talk a grand
unworded stream of wish. In need, as much
in me, I find I dance and flaunt my curves,
and taunt myself as all his life deserves.

Eaten, filled,
the visitor,
he walks the town,
and finds 

architectural finesse subjugated
by I’m here me–too shout–out signs,
by redbrick and rotting frame,
by rude commercial of the crude. 

Yet the town’s nature survives
above the abject word of merchant promise,
in patterned brick, and chimney stack. 

Less crass, a low line bungalow,
an architecture built to say
“honest, its going to be alright”,
the doomed assurances of a surgery. 

The doctor said my body’s going wild,
the safest thing to do is to abort:
if I did that, I’d never have a child
again. He told me this is what I ought
to do, and so I told him where to go.
I want to take this chance of giving birth;
he said he thought that’s what I’d say. I know
it is a risk: some mothers bleed to death
because of what I’ve got. He said he’ll keep
an eye on me. It’s strange: I feel I’m like
the rope they strain in tugs of war—I need
to have my child, I want to live a life—
yet I’m relaxed. I’ve made my choice. I’ll ride
these rolling die. God knows I have to try. 

Newspaper scanned, forgotten,
magazine thumbed and empty,
crossword incomplete,
the visitor drives. 

And of complete control
stops sharp
as a young child,
who’s learnt the how
but not yet the where
of running,
skelters across the road 

to be gathered
by her chasing,
fearing,
father. 

Sweat.
No blood. 

A moment crawls. 

Still seated,
the visitor
hears a tyre howl,
a metallic slap,
and is kicked, 

and his car
which had stop
now drifts
a helpless drift
towards the gathered child. 

The father moves,
my God, they move.
Safe. They are safe. 

Stillness. 

And shock continues
as a young
thunders out
of the ego–music
lout–mobile,
abuse exploding
anger–faced
arms streaming mania. 

A policeman comes, 

with strength to quell a dozen tanks, with build
to match, a matchstick man, the constable,
a man to glare the sun back down, he comes
to be control. No dreams, no doubt, the now
of am, in small, in slight, in uniform,
he leads the calm he is: 

he,
who walks with Gods who can’t exist,
a man the town has never seen before,
nor ever will again. 

With eyes, all bow,
though none know why. 

The youth: silent.
No words are said,
for now he knows,
without that shunt
he would have broken
the motherless child. 

The visitor,
invaded by relief,
feels triumph
like hot water
washing his soul. 

He leaves
shaken,
safe,
into the fog,
into the hills,
unseen. 

Only the birds hear
the sound of the driven 

finger
snap
mute.

Underneath The Loch 

A man, giraffe–like, thin, a random match of clothes
to woollen hat and stubble, faked the drinker’s sway.
He pissed as though he thought that he had got away,
he’d looked about but failed to spot my eyes, my loath–
ing eyes. He stood on rock, on lonely highland rock,
a sloping down to water highland rock, to dark
and silent loch, to isolated loch. And stark
above, a minor hill, a hundred metre smock
of stone, so worn by nagging wind and broken trees.
But he was staring down, then kneeling down, was at
the water’s border, brushing fingers in that flat
and freezing wet betrayer. No, not fingers, he’s— 

I don’t remember what. I see the lights, the lights,
the bright and churning fire attractive lights,
they’re underneath the water, they’re watching me.
I see the lights, the lights, they’re witching me. 

I’ll try, I’ll try to not remember them. He stood,
he stood and walked away, not far, and turned to watch
the mere. He waited, and he waited. Then a blotch
of sunlight broke the dusk and shone on me; I could
have kept my eyes on him, perhaps, but felt I had
to hide until the sun had ceased to lend its smile.
When I returned, a slow and careful creep, a while
had past, but there he was, no longer still, a tad
disturbed: his movements jerked. His confidence was spent.
It took some thought to work it out: his clothes had changed;
they seemed a little darker, sprayed in dirt, arranged
a subtle differently. Then in the loch he went. 

I don’t remember it. I see the lights, the lights,
the bright and churning fire attractive lights,
they’re rising from the water, they’re locking me.
I see the lights, those lights, bewitching me. 

I’m holding, just, but not for long. He swum and dived.
He surfaced once or twice, but then the loch was still.
And after thirty seconds, I sprinted down that hill;
by luck I didn’t trip. What could I do? I’d tried
to phone before; the signal wasn’t there. I stripped
at speed to swim myself, to dive and give him breath,
but that was when the loch was lit from underneath.
At first the light was white and still, yet I was gripped
by shock. I grabbed my things and sprinted off. I suppose
I looked an idiot, I tried to dress and run.
When nothing followed me, I calmed and clothed, then spun
around to watch the loch. The lights had moved. They rose. 

I daren’t remember more. I saw the lights, the lights,
the bright and churning hypnotising lights,
they’ve risen from the water, they’ve stolen me.
I’m in those lights, the lights, they’re raping me. 

You woke me up, you soldiers, with your sirens and
your rushing round. You brought me here, and ask me what
and when and where. I’m scared; I’m in the blank of shock;
please let me home; I need my partner’s warming hand.

Regrow

Manifesto

Radio’s the better picture;
poetry, the better bulk.

Sporten see und breaken life,
autumn hunt and winter pray,
druggen up und drunken strife;
yesterday, you date today.

So push pop the lingo, lad. 

Father

This vid’s got me, all lank and lad, sans clue.
So cold, it’s thirty years the past, before
the desktop factory. We farmers grew
the nourish people ate. Beyond that door
I’m mocking at, our cows and corn were store
for slaught. Oh, stupid kit, why curse me why?
Back then, for us to live, they had to die. 

Son

You dange in life: when this I stark, you stet.
If dad you’d die, I’d saunt; but hurt mum get.
You sneer my am. The proud Dad joust you won’t;
by theorem live at black you do, and don’t
concede in ooze and grey I life believe.
Sad simpling. I rattéd jump long eve
ago; to enge I learned. You neighbour bad,
too ego proud, so sure, the acme prat.
But sod; for mum I could not lie your death.
A God of hacking times, electric breath
in life, I am. Your glimpse, I snatch; your fade,
I steal; my viral valkyrie invade,
corrupting, swanning back. You’ll only know
on die; in wetware crack, I’ll you regrow.

Program

If torn is body space
the spy, a thread;
if form implied
scout, report, enact. 

If nano techno hit
defence, all set;
a net alert, a squirt. 

If failure stats predict
the head, the heart, a scan;
to quantum store, a stream. 

If body space, too much, is scythe;
to net, the store, a duplicate;
his be with this, an integrate;
chaotic life, awake.

an engineering rush (i)

new scientist

we’re living in a computer simulation
seriously
read new scientist
week 4
July 2K2
near the PM’s paternal piece
the week he appointed Canterbury Rowan 

the programmers—simulators—
can manoeuvre everything
in this simulated world 
they’ll be gods
and glancing round this planet
ours clearly have surreal humour
so i expect hints 

they wouldn’t waste complexity
to simulate something simple
perhaps the whole universe is fake
maybe they’re evolving multiverses
(think of kaku’s hyperspace)
even megaverses 

if the hint’s linguistic
I’d expect some common word
saying what the gods desire 

consider those concepts
universe multiverse megaverse
spot the common part 

yes
the gods are seeking verse 

failed simulations get deleted
that’s in no–one’s interest
so we whom the gods desire to write
must write
everyone else must help 

fund poets to strut their scans
grants for ranting poesie
declare the bard the verse messiah
free poets’ holidays in xanadu
nubile young women do your duty
save your life save the world
throw yourselves under the nearest poet
especially me
toyboys to the girlie poets 

everybody save yourselves
be good to us
be very very good

a song so dire
… it lives down to its billing …

pretty girl
now’s your time
muse a poet
rhyme a line

with a nic–nac padiwac
give a dog a bone
ruff rough wruff ruff rough wruff rough

pretty girl
do your bit
aid a poet
rhythm hit 

with a nic–nac padiwac
give a dog a bone
all the girls are going down 

pretty girl
duty calls
knickers down
play his balls 

…I seem to have run out of rugbyness…

the argument 

technology is accelerating
computing racing
in ten years
all PCs combined
will be as complex
as a conscious mind 

in fifty years
a watch will tick that power
active clothes could wear
a hundred living minds
in a simulated world 

if our race survives 

and assuming we can build a self
(the arguments against
seem to me
like the reasons why
a man could never fly) 

so

these machines are builded here 

but

they might get banned
though would a ban apply
in all cultures
in all times
forever 

and would the ban
be utterly obeyed
in all cultures
in all times
forever 

so

somewhere somewhen
people run the programs
containing conscious minds
living lives in simulated worlds 

historians can like to argue over port
they’ll recreate and reconstruct
to see what wrecks events
they will 

kids can like to play dread games
set in simple hubris worlds
they’ll try a life back then
they will 

penmen can like to matchstick–make
a real or some invented place
they’ll entice their ‘readers’ in
they will 

business prefers the cheap design
let the simulants run the risks
then simply nick the best result
they will 

and education
wow
what this can do for education 

now

today’s machines are not enough
to run a conscious mind
but their exuberant quantity
one billion made
will be as zero
tomorrow 

and even if
a hundred years from now
the computer count remains the same
and even if
a hundred years from now
their users do no more than us
then a billion games will run
with a billion best opponents
in a billion conscious hosting worlds 

and if the human race
lasts a billion years
there’ll be just the one true history
and a billion billion simulations 

that’s quite a lot to one
that we’re alive
in a simulated world 

if the race survived
the next one hundred years 

another bitch

this adds another source of luck
far beyond control
to snatch a random death 

an impacting asteroid
a local supernova
a wandering black hole
colliding branes
some other dreadful event
we’ve yet to comprehend 

personal mischance
a transport crash
a falling tree
a falling tortoise
earthquakes tempests monsoons
judicial injustice
lord pisswater running england
murder mayhem war
disease age 

now we add
winding up a simulator 

just get on with life
the simulators
archetypal as ancient gods
are just another bitch
by which to die 

homework

i hate that divinity master
with his keep still
and his don’t mess about
and his why can’t you behave 

if he weren’t so boring
if he made lessons fun
i’d listen 

and he keeps on about
his holy prince
who saved the church 

that dull prince
who never won a battle
who only ever killed
some pigs 

and now i’ve got
this really boring homework
to make a boring change
to boring history 

well i’m fed up
and i don’t like him
and i don’t like his holy prince
the perfect boyhood
the perfect engagement
the perfect life 

so i’ll make that prince a king
and he has three wives
and he divorces one
and he kills one 

no
he’ll have six
and he divorces two
and he kills two
and he dies of syphilis 

and the pope still makes him
defender of the faith 

run computer run 

ooh
the king’s pet greek
died from a flying tortoise
before he wrote
‘the prince’ 

which is now a nasty work
written by some roman
'cept rome's not there

hrmph!
that divinity master’s still there
and he’s got fat
and he teaches economics 

and he goes on about
some prime minister
a tin lady 

boring 

hymnen

perhaps “hymnen”
has found some costly way
to navigate the multiverse
and needs to find a technoverse
to leap across the branes 

or any other reason why
it finds it must investigate
the interstellar avenues 

to simulate each universe
to find a way back home 

but
if incomprehensible–to–us technology
such as hymnen
simulates our universe 

this will include our human race
and all its future history
which simply means our simulators
could themselves be simulants 

to understand them
considering some non–human magic technology
is pointless 

recreated arts

if we ever build these
mighty civilisation simulating computers
we’ll recreate an ancient greece
see the poetry of Σ?π?φ?ω?* form
other lost works
other great times 

bardic celtic britain
the whole pre–writing world
the start of language
excitement discovery
rushing like fumes from a revving car 

we’ll create new paradigms of history
what would homer have sung if troy had won
what would shakespeare have played if europe was turkish
what would you be reading if… 

*Psappha (Sappho), subject to my ignorant attempt at ancient Greek

the game

in our time
almost every simulation
is not for education
but computer games 

if play goes bad
players restart 

since we’re here
things are going right
and the nasty chances
haven’t happen
because the player
restarted 

or groups of players
war along the entangled net
to the winner’s declaration 

Hawking “The Universe In A Nutshell” might say
if i could find my blasted copy
all things can happen do happen
there’s a parallel universe
bolivia wins all the olympic gold 

but when we play computer games
or read about a novel’s star
i swear the characters
the ones we’re meant to play or read
are archetypal elemental
how the ancient greeks
made their gods 

the players have adventures
starting with a simple task
gaining more complexity
in some fake simplicity
of fighting dread evil 

at this ephmera
abu nidal
died in violence
a day or so ago 
he
bin laden's godfather of masturbation

i guess the game is to catch bin laden
he’ll have to continue his evil
knowing he’s doomed to defeat
because those playing the game and chasing him
can always restart any section he wins
the immediate gods
the old greek gods the hindu gods the shinto gods
the archetypal gods the players
will slaughter him
and end our stage of the game 

and others will play the game again
and he’ll fail again
and die again
and be played again
reincarnation
a life of evil ever repeated
never finding end 

we the irrelevant extras
the artificial witnesses
we’ll come and go
according to the game’s design
in reruns replays
sometimes in
sometimes out
eventually nirvana 

bin laden
his no choice to be the evil star
he’ll find nothing 

it seems
the buddha
was right

oh gods

computer games 

the designers
create the world
write the storyline
revise revise
and vanish 

the players
run the script
save restart
slaughter the guilty
whatever 

our immediate gods
are utterly powerful
and uninvolved
or taking part
might stop the universe
and bugger off 

the ancient greeks were right
again 

and the ancient jews
their old god our old god
the still alive but dying god
metas up a world
to be the simulators’ god
if that’s what they decide 

the message remains
the mechanism can be repeated
built
so what 

and if you play a simulation game
where you’re an active god
interfering answering
does this create an artificial world
with priests embarrassed
by fact 

all the gods could well be real
theology’s got more complex

rushed off

i’m down 

i can’t write in digital oil and build
my engineering rush has rushed off 

i’m a snow scene bauble
a bright glass ball to shake for instant winter
i was sitting on a table top
the table vanished
i’m to the floor and smashed 

i’m in a dark club
a pretty girl has eyes tangled mine
some bastard turns the lights full on
she realises i’m twice her age
thirty eight times as ugly
the rush she feels in her loins
a need to piss 

ah well
the rush may have rushed off
but from such things
comes the great technologies

not this time 

unanswering

i can’t help but wonder 

you see i foresee
the cry of fundamentalist fools
“thou shalt not see more than me
nor act upon it”

i see life not the mobile flesh
but consciousness and be
clouds of quantum chance
digital virtual data
love that gentle yields
what the geeks threw up tomorrow 

to run computer simulations
with consciousness contained
in minds to ask the questions
we howl at gods
when love is bitch dead

but we're the ones to answer
what else than silence is platitude 

if the great religious thinkers
have only consistent wishful thoughts

and the ethically whimpering
can only let their fear reply
by killing those with open eyes 

then what can a comfortable poet
sitting in a bright english house
on a sunny august dawn
offer

an engineering rush (ii)

jumbo crash

i wasn’t looking north
i didn’t hear the jumbo crash
that’s why it didn’t happen

but i travelled that way
later that day
to where the impact blew

now the simulation
has to execute
calculate the trumpet

time

threads of simulation
outside realtime
but time–sliced to life
have their own time

whilst our spacetime flows
their accelerated game time
could rescind
to an uncorrupt commit time

when events
not victors’ history
but events themselves
are edited

not for some
egotistical human
God wants us
arrogance

just a technical mistake  

defect

don't expect a history crack
beyond our foresight–free stupidity
and accident

even us software
can undo elapsed time
fix the fault run on

a clocktime skid can’t cure design
simulators may flow the flaw
and we’ve a now to find it

perhaps Gödel’s canapé
disproving the math absolute
a language our language our intent

defect simulators
defect innate inability
defect culture offend
defect ignorance

select  

less

map effecting range
not content

if crease is crossed
colour in

discard limits
when drama fades

no met
is no waste   

immensities

just to invent
universal complexities
when the player senses

from emulating flames
racing shadow makers
to exiting the cave

fear daren’t look
vast starry night
one eye corner catch

snap inventing all eternity
could stutter even extraordinary power
risk the thrash crash

so prior make proxies for the player
simulated conscious souls
who’ll seek immensities

a player might uncaring glance  

paper

paper falls

it doesn’t matter
what brane life
battles distress
experiments fly
loves melt

paper falls

at the speed of time

rewind

run no interaction
our time a different time
they flow but us

stopped
rewound
corrected
run again

raced
reverted
crudely cut

looking for simulation error
hunt the snark in guildford

but player time can’t cross rewind
hunt the shark in guildford

no
the simulators’ computers
incredibly more than

and ours fix before you see
the history presumed
made in memory now

and we simulants
if player’s elsewhere
history is rogered  

light 

photons
girders of eternity

we ride the point of time
they run the speed of now  

here

you look fountain
computer work
find the did

light backtrace
origination deed
our pretty games 

quanta

if this is more
than ill reverberated philosophy
quantum behaviour
will have the most effective
sending information
to construct then histories now

effect entangles cause

humanic

simulators’ power
incredibly more than ours
humanic finite

our software fervour revolution
has drunken walked
and more will clash

but you can’t construct eternities
with uninvented light
these thoughts are false  

the A rush

ok
think we’re the builders
fill fake life with active delight

crocodiles and fleas
broken seats and supernova
rampant blue and rotten fish

it’s the A rush

every peoples
find an own
state fake world

hey
how about this
when we sense the limits
the simulation’s grown
to make those limits not

nah
that’s knew
not new

it’s an A rush

bah
pub time

choo choo
gimme cuddle
it’s an ape thing

and the A rush 

the A rush

r (ii)

sit decision risk
no maintenance biologic
firm choice must 

remember the e rush
alcohol liberation
imitate natural
inside the born box
A rush 

seated hard blue decide
the e the alcohol the emulate
nicotene no addiction tax kill
heroin no legal wanted cut kill
all virtual ape can redo 

the A rush
beyond the biologic box
no do 

people emotion virtual
rampant sex rote
no michelin star fidelity
no A rush 

sod it
to not fuck
just because the lusted genitals
wear spotted elbows
is stupid 

“do it”
“do it to me” 

i’ll surrender the A rush
see if those unrushed
have real 

r (i)

gave up detest
found lost humanity
diseased ukip
own fears’ prisoners
monkeys of the devil  

o

why transmog life
risk corrupt

remind victims
their own fear
full humanity weak
easy evil rise

to beware watch the mind fault
to remind prior

although its good to think
medicine might cure nationalism
as it might cure rape

it's in the human soul
it's how the weak declare their ruin
it's how the toys are held by paper bars

all the soul stays
even the can’t
in the virtual 

h

sat
blue plastic fluorescent room

“do it”
“do it to me” 

the body unconscious
flop discard
fade dissolute
psyché to the entangled crypt 

biologic loss
digital pupate
childhood’s end

e

decade per minute
grief to be to play to dissettle
the time of that memorial kiss
what was the A rush

the reflections adulated
the strange riding complexity
their unnewformability
where is the A rush

it’s a bad sad
“you must rebuild a me
a biologic
so I can ride the A rush”

there’d be more people alive
than centimetres in the real world
the every virtual wanted
the ever declined
the A rush 

d

those cowards in their terra box
sod ’em
build me a ship
an entangled ship 

I'll be a risk ambassador
I'll ride the empty power
I'll be ‘Hymnen’
for the A rush  

c

give me the were nano
give me the serendipity
give me the vacuum cutlery
give me your vision ambition

and I will be the angel of eternity
I’ll jump relighting sparks
I’ll bound across the multiverse

and you shall be
born reborn
as i am the art
the A rush  

a

rush

tin rush 

po

if you’d have seen me here
arrive to this reality
i’d not

if you’d have seen me here
arrive to this reality
a non–balloon would blow from null
to micron eye and gone

if you’d have seen me here
arrive to this reality
in all the absent you surround
a swarm of slow and grow again
finger press of liquid skin
you’d only awe the sparkle edge
create inflate combine

if you’d have seen me here
arrive to this reality
i’d form and swarm by femto tech
to newton twenty metre me

& stock
check reality error
and if the seen is real enough

& stock
check reality realisation
and if the seen is right enough

if you’d have seen me here
arrive to this reality
i’ll turn to gunman on panic
all the small
the shock and fast the fire
burst across the every are
a mass speed femto ask about

& stock
listening
i brewer   

ba

Life! Life?
You’re sure? You’re sure!

People! People?
Humanity? Humanity!
Do I wander pounded streets
expect to find some happy yang
when bigots race to rape?

Absolute? Absolute!
Sod.
Sod the safe, the faerie snow. 

fi

you’ll not see the creeping me
fire as light as wheezing
settle
and all my fluid femto senses
speed rain as cataract
on to a humanity
climbed beyond our reach
fell beneath our lost 

vo

the host of religious
communicatable diseases
but who reports

education
the mental condom
but in the energy
where’s thought   

pp

i shall
headspace mitosis

twin me
mechno man
the hymnen and …
well …

… male
am

let me
dunno

let me
who

i shall

make flesh
activate

biology

genetic desperation damning
as if the me the meme machine
was any else
beyond another pressure suit

i nanocate and port  

ti

you insist me down
on blatant fire
like seeking for omnipotence
in a can of beans

i’m not there
then i’m there
that’s all

trek got the sinews right
but their justifications
spelt to lead the lazy heads

they were crap   

fu

i’m reality’s fantasy superman
isolated by wise glory
& I’m still fucked by the eye lock

i’m meant to be observe

but i shall buy
these moon eyes

and the bastard seller knows
and i spend the cost of five
and i don’t

FUCKING
DISTRESS

they’ve got me down
to them
i’m the moon slaver

fuck black and white movie shoe–fantasy
happy–clappy be nice here’s a gun
‘human beings are formula’ miscasting dismals

we’re fucking
all ways

we extreme happy we   

ni

you need that
the machine whisper

it’s a bio thing  

ag

discard the silenced world
pain joy the flesh cage
a gift and got 

av

i could slave
the every all
in their belief

i could
rule revolt revolution
and all the serf should die
a how to refusing death

HET

the insist is now in murmur
wipe the silent sate
restore to do by reason  

ee

separated selves
all the us are aunties

all the hectored
all the us the drunk

the husband shames us
all the us the husband  

hu

this humanity
i dance
is null

this humanity is living

this humanity
burns its own
to brag a power
undoubted

this humanity is living

this humanity
drives destitutes
as donkeys
run to thirst and death
in days of rain

this humanity is living

but i
for all my femto tech
am psyché humanity

has cultural engineering
ever worked
mister smith   

ei

in the name of good tomorrows
stalin hitler killed their now
one planet one decade

all the dogma dominators
dead the hope they cause

when
has cultural engineering
ever worked
mister smith  

xu

we needed that
the machine whisper

you’ve had a fifty years
mister smith
you loved the life relieved

it’s time to ascend
die upload combine
ciao the A rush

who saw us here
arrive to this reality

gone   

7

ak

the shock unsought life depart
distress hours days and and

dreams their intense forgotten
descent is lived for kept learnt

the intense of all descent for integrate
the shock of newness of the ever known

death–shock mourn–self the tempest
mix ascent–life always–life the still life

then to snap remember in the shock
the grand elephant’s dancing clothes 

na

we
the biologic aware
mass energy movers

if we can make a mass
to simulate a mind
then we can make a mass
to ride

spirit beyond
birth flesh 

co

fork clone exec start
duplicate restore copy link

beware all souls
to brownian ice
the tragedy of the commons

mind greed & moore’s law 

qi

would you be

so scare
so care
so cautious
so warn
so nervous

if you child
was backed up

and if restored
would your child
recall tighten loosen
neuroses 

2

a machine hammer
over your tomorrow’s skull
the journey

but you can duplicate
try all ways & each

clone you will

a half dozen yous
arriving all roads
goal achieved

then

dare
the yous
union 

ux

ascent from

7
tin rush
A rush
engineering rush 
Regrow
Home Town
Hymnen

eye

& 

afterword

it’s always heads he said
for five weeks
heads

video tip–toe clatter
animation fright
start sleep
& alarm tick’s
tip–toe clatter

metalaugh
coincidence
awareness

is rage’s night
the only experience
uncorrupted by recollection

could a universe crash
should a cockroach ask 

				

								

6.6.6