FROM AQ SAGA: NEURO-PIRATICAL SELF-HELP IN POCKET UNIVERSE 17!
RECAP:
AQ, a cyborg living in the year PPUD117, has descended into a “pocket universe” in search of the source of his neurological illness, for which he has found no cure in his base-reality. This particular pocket universe is based, either through chance or narrative influence, on the Golden Age of Piracy and populated, either through chance or narrative influence, by spirits of the dead. These two cantos take place in the second of the two halves comprising the book, around the middle of that latter half. AQ is tracking a dark ship called the MT Sockett and a manned balloon called the Sea Eye, as his adventures so far have suggested that his final answers may be found there. Just before the events of these two chapters, AQ came across a massive sea monster / land slug, from whose wound a hallucinogenic goo has slopped and drugged AQ. In a trippy state, he comes across an island, low on food.
10
Sailing lonely again, funny moon
Cutting itself down, building its-
Elf up, sun ‘thout definite ‘rection,
Stars r out e motion and feelins
Catishly quaking, rations ‘board
The AQalgian run low and out,
I come then soon and oddly acro-
Ss a knotty, fake-ass isle, where
Fantasies approach from all aro-
Und, I anchor there, a’search of
Chewables or breads, in hungry
Weakling status, notice neatly first
Off the depth of animation here,
Not too real at all, some details basic-
Ally nonexisting, some over-real,
I spy shining circles on the sands
Denoting where underneath a trea-
Sure is buried, not a’great hidden,
But I unspool wound temptation
To dig right off, wander deeper
Into island’s thin interior, find there
A German-style cottage, lit from with-
In by a blooming ufolight, I knock
At thick door, say “Hello in there, I
Am AQ, a traveler-sailor on a mission
Medical, I detour here in a hope to
Find a food and drinks, is there any-
One ‘thin here?” A drawn and sup-
Posedly beautiful face pulls into view
As door swings open, long-blonde, I say
“Oh, you’re that summoned figment
Of defeated and internalized nazi-orig-
In-story, right? That hair-antenna?”
“Mary Oarsick,” says she, thickly Germ’d
Accencion on her words, “Medium and
Conduit for the doc-star, I was gene-
Rated long-aglow for purpose of lores,
Brought down to fatherland the blueprints
For a saucer-ship, never was though, I’m
From like 198x pushed back into whirld
War story of dark and Lytton clashes,
In here I serve as treasure-guard and diver-
Ter for the vile crew of wat’ry MT Sockett,
My truest breth’, they that seed it all,
Mr. Weltanschauungskrieg and all, if
You seek ‘em, you’ll find nerve-branch ans-
Wer, seek writ of cult, O, I’d offer you food,
Water, but I’ll doubt, herr AQ, that
You’ll accept it fear of poisons...”
Oarsick shimmers like a 191x photo,
I lose my grip, attention leaks away—
Halt there flow, is that a shadow in
My face? Is that a shadow in my eye?
My face? Why? Why would that happen?
Why would that happen now? There can’
T in metal toughen’d skull reignite a
Mutant-angel’s weeping shadow PAIN?
Can there? I know that it’s you in there,
All this glowing on in my flapping mind-
Mouth whil v’rily Mary talks out ani-
Mated moundth tongue-lipping speech,
Cup overfluxing, flexing fiber, pencil-
Patterns, cell-soggy, stupid fig, I’m
Coming into, out of trance-dream,
The slug’s slop slowing, find, though
On an isle vacant, anchor’d, I am alone.
11
Caught and ate a sea-raw thing or two,
Sloping out of linger’d trip, I limp back
To sweet AQalgian, home-at-sea,
Recalling odd false-reality of Oarsick,
Feel some spectr’l eyes at back and pluck
A rapid-unbeing blondish hair from shirt, de-
Cide to err on skepty-side, er, ‘nother Germ’geist?...
Get the f’ling that thotform bloom’d
From solution of worm’s-blood/slime
And my future roots in tbh kinda fascist
Technempire PPUD117, and come to think,
The 117 scales on slug-draco’s lengueth…
I set out aft’all down here for lacking better
Upper-world treatment, I aft’all install’d
With all of what docts decide is right, hot cyb-
Org, allopatheurgy failing, turn to fizzy sist’,
The seltzer-system of the dancing pocket-unis,
But thing about ent’ring one is that it takes u on,
Looks back at you, I’ll euphemize, dances, plays,
Allergizes and competes, makes fun, shuffles the dead...
Now, funny feeling flowing out, recommenceth slog in
Recommended poketeurgic journey-cure… I
Am persistent, reboot the half of me that isn’t
Me, I get at sail again, gain guidance from a wil-
Ling wind, costumer-in-air of canvas motors,
Puller, wind, of psychic boat’s singing flaps,
I lacking now ecstatic guidance felt before,
I, lacking all in psychic drainage post-
Limaxial sea-ffluvium dosing, wander with AI stone
Apollochip in ship-terminal, who does offer suggestives
In coded monotone, “Float/ aloft”, “The golden days/
They gladden so”, “The ears/ hearest” and on it
I do over his droning catch a tonal scent: yes!
Again above, the Sea Eye, fitted with mas-
Sive rosy horn, a poet-voice intoning down:
“I see you seek the Sockett whence Eye comes,
To do war-games with us, very good, your
Weak Cantos will drive you to a death, a
Cure of a sort, yes? Your Navy of one!
We on air have above you on water float’d
Few times now, a way of omenizing, freak
You out, distract, but on you’ve come, so vam-
Pire, we invite you in to burn on water, you’ll
Find the Sockett in paranormal harbor there
Where, like your friend said, the vale is low,
The veil that is, at bleeding ledge, tuck’d b’low
A sucking bone cliff, fine, I reinvent it, wheel meat
You halfway, make a roadkill’d androy’d, my name
Is Jonah Judas Fisherman, will happily help
Fulfill your fool’s urge, we’ll meet at these, half:
28° 18' 9.7848'' N
69° 2' 13.3692'' W
BEN ROYLANCE is the author of A Talking Skull and the operator of Apport Used Books.