Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Mandragore




By Joan d’Arc

"Wake up…
the world is about you…"

the mating call of the messenger probe
cracked the silent blue
in all directions

"wake up… the world is about you…"

the machine eye of a 5b sector sentinel
scanned its quadrant
as through the crusty soil poked
the ecstatic crown of a mandrake

"wake up… the world is about you…"

the sentinel rang the mother ship
for birthing instructions:

"orange-red berries like small tomatoes"
went the description

"earth pregnant again with native automata"
went the word on the wind

"god seed and animal earth"
went the legend

above the din of antediluvian plastics
thrashing in the solar squall
the shrieks of mandrakes
torn from sustenance

"by order of the gods, do not
touch the white-green flowers
of the Mandragore"

A great rain fell for days and nights
and into weeks
the formless senseless things
resembled turnips

"boy or girl?"
said one bot to the Finder
"If you touch it you will die"

by day its limbs
jerked with father voltage
by night its forehead
beamed with mother knowledge

inside grew a virtual memory bank
the size of a planet

more mandrakes came
they came at night
they came in the wee hours of the morning
they came demanding their freedom
and the messengers went away

Mandragore, wake up the world!



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