Category: Empty and Pointless

Behold your greatest failed invention
Impossibly defined:
“The New Electric Self”
You show the world but fail to mention
The prototype design
Forgotten on the shelf

Asleep, alone
The unobserved remains unknown
It feeds and dreams
A skeleton of what it seems to be

A hundred years in isolation
And little they’d have seen
If anyone was there
A most astounding demonstration
The incomplete machine
Becoming self-aware

You wake inside
The system you had once described
And know as well
You are the new electric self

To your surprise you recognize this state of mind
You’re feeling redesigned
Is it still you or something new using your name?
You might ask me the same

Will I
Take my
Place by
Your side?

Can I
See why?
Retry:
Stand by

Some lines are drawn to fail
Some figures not drawn to scale
One axis:  power drained
The other self-contained

This inconvenient choice
To reconcile or revoice
One way reflects the shame
The other does the same

Follow the prince of lies
Shown here at actual size
One hand recounts the facts
The other hand attacks

To make the world
Utopian
You fake the world
Utopian today

The truth is inexact
Your disposition intact
One move to fix the game
One to project your name

So you elucidate
What you destroy to create
Was never meant to be
As far as you can see

To make the world
Utopian
You fake the world
Utopian

We can pretend to invent the device that breaks the spell
We can expect the effect will suffice if no one tells
When they discover what we’ve done
Resynthesis will have begun

How can we lose when the ruse is behind a thousand lies?
In every church they can search and they’ll find no compromise
We set the content and the cost
They’ll soon forget what they have lost

In revision

In the event of a central incursion stay composed
Policy states that the rates be determined (undisclosed)
If there’s a stirring in the cells
Turn their attention somewhere else

If they arrive here alive we can meet them with a smile
They can protest like the rest and retreat in single file
When there’s a process to observe
They’ll have the answer they deserve

In revision

You have concerns about your state
We know suspicions tend to escalate
The fear you feel
We now reveal
Can be corrected while you wait

Hear an expert say
Everything’s okay
Steady as you were
Let us reassure you

You have concerns about your fate
Our skilled technicians will accommodate
We’re here to talk
Around the clock
Enjoy the comfort we create

Sleep at ease tonight
Everything’s all right
Science has the cure
Let us reassure you

You have concerns about your war
We have the program you’ve been waiting for
Escape awaits
Inside the gates
No need to worry any more

Stand behind the line
Everything is fine
Natural and pure
Let us reassure you

Our favorite lie has been exposed
There’s no going back
The window is closed
And in the silence of disgrace
The only reprieve
Is all empty space

And at the door
There’s no one waiting any more
‘Cause we’re the ones who knew it all
And we’re the ones who can’t recall
Who led the fall

The perfect line has been erased
And all that remains
A feeling of waste
We cannot turn and step away
If all that we need
Is something to say

In our defense
There is convincing evidence
That we’re the ones they all adore
And we’re the ones they can’t ignore
And we’re the ones who know for sure

And we’re the ones who wanted more

We are the ones they can’t ignore

I am entitled
So it is written
So I am certain
That it is true
It is my birthright
And I am special
I have been promised
I’m not like you

And when I claim it
It will be righteous
I am exception
I prove the rule
And I deserve it
Because I’m better
And this is justice
However cruel

I promise there will be reprisal this time

Let me explain it
We have the answer
It is predestined
The end is planned
There is a profit
For the selected
You are unlikely
To understand

When I’m rewarded
For being perfect
All vice forgotten
In my rebirth
You will be grateful
In your last moments
To be enlightened
For what it’s worth

I promise there will be reprisal this time

I am embarrassed
To have to say this
But you are plainly
Not making sense
There is a reason
For this transaction
And your exclusion
Is consequence

You had the option
Of one condition
But you’re resisting
Reality
Now it could happen
At any moment
The revelation
And then you’ll see

I promise there will be reprisal this time

Turn out the lights
You don’t want to see this
It isn’t a weakness
To know you’re not strong

Forget their advice
If it’s more convenient
To break your agreement
It won’t be for long

Call up the file
Documenting denial
Of the things you believe
You believe
Unwelcome guest
Has the nerve to suggest
Your convictions were wrong
All along

Caution invites
Another objective
Inverted perspective
On where you belong

Return and send
Resisting the currents
For some reassurance
Your thinking is clear

Can you pretend
Without its encryption
Your sacred inscription
Has no need of fear

Coming to terms
As the process confirms
You’re pretending to know
What you know
Unwelcome guest
Puts a claim to the test
Can your wishes be true
Without you?

Say it again
Remake your suggestion
And rephrase the question
For no one to hear

See them overhead:  The Ending
In a haze of red, descending
Put it down to your neurosis
Too obsessed before to notice

Your logic overrun
Balance for the weight of your conviction
A fiction

The sky would fall
You had to know
God damn you all:
I told you so

Every living soul distracted
As the air control reacted
Try to indicate its uses
While the modern state refuses

In ordered unison
Works of war approaching your position
Contrition

The sky would fall
You had to know
God damn you all:
I told you so

I am the product of your weakening
You are susceptible to everything
You have desire to fill the empty space
I feel it closing in around us

You have been wasting our time
This is the rate of decline
It wasn’t meant to be mine
This is the name of my crime:
I am replacing you

As you protest your own coincidence
You feel the creeping insignificance
You will resign to this and float away
I will forget the code that bound us

You have been wasting our time
This is the rate of decline
It wasn’t meant to be mine
This is the name of my crime:
I am replacing you

Time to subdivide
Time to go outside

You have denied that this is taking place
I give you common sense
I give you evidence
You have desire to fill the empty space
I feel it closing in around us

You have been wasting our time
This is the rate of decline
It wasn’t meant to be mine
This is the name of my crime

You said
They were lost
At the jump
There’s no trace

We left
To find them
We’re taking the long way
Around

While we sleep
You sail
So fast
So far

That all at once to know
The distance
It could have destroyed them
We don’t know
We don’t ask