Love in the Time of Space Travel

blackness and the void
how can I find her, moving?
a speck against stars

I close my eyes and
I think I can feel her through
the vacuum of space.

Attempted Condolences to a Co-Worker Following an Accident Which Took the Life of Her Manager and Supposed Lover

"Faulty welds, I hear";
"No way to know" | "He once said..."
But she turns away.

Uploaded to the Cloud

my consciousness is
the system, not the substance
that meat is not me

I exist within
ten million nanomachines
swirling as fine dust

And now she's the enemy

her skin is like jade
perfect and smooth, a pale green
she has been bitten

the city... silent,
but for the stirring of the
shambling undead

it was a small scratch,
I thought I could survive... but
I feel the sickness

The Superiority of Haiku Over All Other Art

All of our lives are intertwined. I mean this in more than just the economic sense. Yes, the pencil on your desk took thousands of men to make (the man who chopped down the tree for it's wood, the man who mined the ore for the steel in the axe of the man who chopped down the tree, the man who mined the graphite in the center, etc)... but more than this, we are connected by the actions we take (or do not take) in ways unfathomable to us, unless we're able to step back often and see the mosaic of life for what it truly is, a complex system of connected beauty.

How Prince Lupus Gained His Royal Title; Also, The Arming of a Tyrannical Regime

Rangoon, Burma: Birthplace of the famous Prince Lupus

I realized recently that I neglected to explain fully how Prince Lupus came to have such a regal name. It begins with my first meeting of the Captain James Massimo, in fact, and involves much international intrigue, two Burmese military coups, and the arming of a tyrannical regime with stolen weapons:

On The Meaninglessness of All Things

I once heard through my friend and Captain, James Barlowe Massimo, that Dr. Benjamin Redstone had told him of a dead planet with vast evidence of previous inhabitation by roughly "pre-industrial" sentient life. Those on the planet likely died over one hundred thousand years ago due to their star going nova.

He supposedly said this planet had the most beautiful stone carvings and works of art he had ever seen. Unfathomably enormous, intricate, highly detailed, and perfectly preserved carvings in stone the likes of which he says he had never imagined could exist. This is a significant statement considering the longevity of Dr. Redstone and the many world's he has supposedly visited. This planet was the one that stood out among them all. And it's still a nameless planet around a nameless star. I think Dr. Redstone prefers it that way. Captain Massimo told me there was a great sadness in him when he spoke about it, unlike anything he'd seen in his friend before.

The Good Doctor discovered tablets of their language, deciphered them, and brought back some poetry from this lost civilization. It's offered here in what Dr. Redstone determined was chronological order, roughly chronicling their planet's slow demise and increasing temperature, through stages of appeals to the gods, then into eventual acceptance of their deaths, or cynicism... depending on your interpretation. Dr. Redstone said that the very last carvings were made deep within caves underground, where the last of their species probably survived when the surface temperature became unsurvivable.

here they are:

Laboring in stone
The million faces of God
that we should know You

the sky in stillness
the stars lay unstirred by the
sound of our cries

Our world is like dew...
fleeting... small beauty, like dew,
will evaporate

Prince Lupus and the Jain Temple

As I explained here, I'm diverging from haiku proper for perhaps a few days to tell an important story, that of Captain James Barlowe Massimo, and his role in history. A role which is not insignificant in the grand scheme of the universe. Bear in mind these snippets in the life of the Good Captain are not in any relevant order now... but laid out... as mosaic would be. So that perhaps one day when they're gathered together, we can step back to see the whole... which today, is unrecognizable to us. Here now then, is the story of Prince Lupus, and of Captain Massimo's time at the Jain Temple:

- Prince Lupus and the Jain Temple -

After consulting with an associate from the British Consulate... I was advised not to tell the particulars of the portion of the story including Captain Massimo and the items from the British Consulate. They were quite adamant about this and suggested some obscure post 9/11 legal rules and the threat of detaining me in perhaps some... as they say... "facility of undisclosed location" for a time if I were to divulge the quite amazing events that took place there. Nevertheless, I will tell the tale around the bits, and tell the story of Prince Lupus, and the Captain's time in a Jain temple. It's a short tale:

A EULOGY FOR THE GOOD CAPTAIN JAMES MASSIMO

Many of the haiku written on this blog are collected from obscure places: time machines, internal memory banks of robot soldiers, ships found floating in the outskirts of uninhabited star systems, etc... others I've written myself. Fortunately, I've led a life so-far which has enabled me to either hear these stories and haiku from well-traveled men, or given me the particular opportunities to obtain them myself directly from their exotic origins.

The following few posts will not be haiku proper, but it will eventually become clear as to why they've been posted, over time, when the entire story emerges. They are the continuing stories of a man whom I came to know quite well, a man named James Barlowe Massimo, who captained a sailing ship named "The Pyroclastic Flow" on which I sailed for some time. How I came to find myself a sailor pirating the waters of the South Pacific is an intensely complicated tale.

However, the question of how Captain Massimo came to know and become involved with Doctor Benjamin Redstone, a time traveler from one of Saturn's moons, is perhaps even more complicated. First, we will begin with the Good Captain Massimo's death:

- A EULOGY FOR THE GOOD CAPTAIN JAMES MASSIMO -

I arrived home from Grenada only moments ago. I was there attending the wake of a very fine man... one of the finest men I ever knew in fact... one Captain James Barlowe Massimo (of the Massimo's of Rome who could coincidentally trace their lineage to Quintus Fabius Maximus born in 280 BC, making them the single oldest noble family in all of Europe).

A Sickening Wind

seen from the surface
our stars are starting to dim
the cold is coming

a sickening wind
blows north from the old city
where the millions died