I Hope the Eldritch Horror Learns My Name (And Other Good Ideas): Superconduct and Supercollide

 And if I die, I was a scientist in these times.

Chapter warnings: Realistic depictions of neurological, physical, and bureaucratic trauma. War. Grief. Death. Mental illness. Regular illness.

Text iteration: Midnight.

Additional notes: These songs really exist and can be found. I wrote the lyrics, which are preserved here.

Superconduct and Supercollide

Superconduction

Thankless Child

The spread of seeds; the fall of leaves;

A swarm of cells beneath the sea;

A carbon-based machine.

I’m you, you’re me;

We’re sharing half our genes

And nothing in between

But unlit kerosene. 

Take r times B, they’re less than C;

How many others should there be

Before you wouldn’t leave?

Floorboards, dead trees,

Our own phylogeny.

You think you will break free?

My little flame is clean.

Turn your back, we fade to black.

Friction, drag, and quiet scratch.

Someone seals the latch

You’re detached; we’re dispatched

There’s a catch—you and I? We’re attached.

I’ll release my burning match.

What if I had a twin?

How would you behave then?

What if I had a twin?

How would you be—

There are things I can’t—

Can’t save.

And I’m relieved you don’t believe

The trappings that society

Has told you that you need.

You’re you, you’re free;

I’ve rearranged your genes

Now they belong to me.

(Ignore that kerosene.)

You’ll outrun all you have done.

Metaphor will keep our scores.

In the dark I might tame

Given names, waiting games.

We’re the same—you and I? Deranged.

I’ll release my little flame.

Benefits less than costs:

Calculation of loss?

Or just math as a gloss?

Are we both lost?

There are things I can’t—

Can’t save.

Two, four, eight, six plus ten

Tell us where you have been.

Your invisible kin;

Please select them to live.

What if I had a twin?

Do you think you’d save him?

Don’t look, just begin

We await you.

Do the math, turn your back

You’ll ignore graphite traps

I’ll release my little match.

Metaphor will wage our war.

Two and eight, six plus ten;

Tell us where you have been

Your invisible kin

Please select them.

All the things I can’t—

Can’t save.

****

Berlin

Colored lights above

A stranger.

Piezo crystals

Pickup dark.

Circuits quiet in a soundboard

Pull electrons into arcs.

I’ll always see the line of the cityscape

Lit up bright against dark sky.

Streets that glaze with water reflecting

Streetlights red and green,

Transiting machines,

Incomplete routines

Rain that washes the city clean.

Glutamate above

A synapse.

Long term potentials

Make their mark.

Ionic flux becomes a memory

Scribing history into sparks.

I’ll always see the line of the cityscape

Lit up only in my mind.

Nights that glaze with memory reflecting

Self as slot machine

Bridged with dopamine

Hazes of caffeine

Come back to the mean

Chemicals burn hot and clean.

Are you sure the lights were green?

Are you sure that the lights were green?

Running down the aisles

To click tracks.

Overdrive, clean-

Boost your part.

Lay it down as neural pathways

Someone’s childhood pries apart.

I can’t see the line of the cityscape,

Dimming lines against dark sky.

Nights that fade with memory reflecting

Self as slot machine

Bridged with dopamine

Hazes of caffeine

I don’t know what you mean.

And were the stage lights green?

We watched behind the scenes.

Memories do not burn clean.

****

Central Dogma

You meet when it’s raining

Air pressure is waning

Wind speeds rise,

You’re inside.

You follow your central dogma,

A song and a fifth of vodka

You confirm

It’s short term.

Residue by residue

It propagates inside of you

Veridical and vertical

It’s all you have that’s personal.

A code that you’ve half transferred

To me, transcribing word for word.

Four years and five cities

He thought you were pretty.

Time to go,

Quid pro quo.

No roots when you wander;

Your child, your transponder.

Improvise,

Cut your ties.

A helix comes unscrewed

So you can be renewed.

Veridically and vertically,

Literally and perfectly.

Sequential code transfer

In you, in me, transcription word for word.

An altered translation

Produced by temptation.

A work of art

Split apart.

Your genes in a remix;

Reworking of limits.

An arced degree

Spans you and me.

****

Chemical Transmission of the Nervous Impulse

Forward feedback makes it

Ultralasting.

Très fantastique excess

Fluxthrough cacheing.

Transmit this:

Transmit this:

Come get me.

Come get me.

Go all; go all or none

Where a voltage gate

Is a fired gun.

Go all; go all or none,

A voltage gate,

A fired gun.

Screaming saltruns sliding

Downpotential.

Stat electric deltas

Transmit this:

Transmit this:

Come get me.

I’m waiting.

Go all; go all or none

You can charge my gates

And pass them once.

Go all; go all or none

A voltage gate,

A fired—

Go all; go all or none

Equilibrate

By passing once.

Go all; go all or none

Voltage gates,

Arcuate runs.

Go all; go all or none

A voltage gate

A voltage gun.

Go all; go all or none

Equilibrate

By passing once.

****

Enchiridion

Enchiridic, fatidic, and ready in hand

Heuristics run thickest among what’s unplanned.

Perceptions are fictions not how I define

Epistemological threats from inside my mind.

Anaclitic, proleptic, misleading marquees

Conceal trains of thought that we don’t want to see.

Self-organizing behavioral goals

Applying to workflows outside our control.

Ataraxic, empathic, a tactical bind;

Mirroring circuits are poorly designed.

Locked down to voltage, and lacking a key

The fluxing of ions is all that I’ll be.

So release your thoughts into the chaos 

Of the things that you might have become

So release your thoughts into the cosmos

And let go of where you were from.

****

An Ancient Curse in the Modern Tradition

Iphigenia

Is dying for Troy;

Hands over mouth,

Wishing she was a boy.

And she’d curse you,

If she

Could curse you. 

Heliocentrists

Write heretical texts;

Locking them up

Is what you think is best.

But they’d curse you,

If they

Could curse you.

Screw you,

You, with your biased view.

What do

I have to say to you

To break through

What’s untrue?

[Untrue.]

Paradigm cracking

Of codes during war

Didn’t save Turing

From violence

As cure.

And I’ll curse you.

For him,

I curse you. 

You’re writing the workflow

That lands me in Hell

Forbidding the questions

That could crush

Your cartel.

I curse you.

Reject

That which is valueless.

What do

I have to say to you

To break through

What’s untrue?

A clearer mind;

History finds

You’re the killing kind.

****

Heliolatry

Data mine; arrowed time; thoughts combine unaligned;

Wittgenstein shutters blinds; alpine climbs open minds;

Say goodbye; math may lie; retry with fluorescein dye;

Crack bonds free; ATP; one two and three;

Don’t agree; not with me. You can’t foresee

The coming debris

(Coming debris)

Caller ID

With six degrees

You’ve lost your key

Among the debris.

In the dark night,

There is no light,

Until the Earth turns,

And your skin burns,

And you ignite,

Ultrabright.

In the sunlight,

There is no night,

Planets revolve,

Darkness absolves,

Lightless eyes.

Abstract art a la carte pulls apart four-part hearts;

Cognicide circuits fried; cast aside; have I died?

Speak in clang; Sturm und Drang; I can’t recall if if you rang?

Come unglued; yellow hued surrealist mood

Thoughts intrude; getting reviewed will not preclude

Continued feuds

(Schemas askew)

Things that pursue

Someone like you

Coming unglued

Coming unglued

In the dark night,

There is no light,

Until the Earth turns,

and your skin burns,

And you ignite,

Ultrabright.

In the sunlight,

There is no night,

Planets revolve,

Darkness absolves,

Lightless eyes.

Coming debris

Full of ennui

With six degrees

You’ve lost your key

And joie de vivre.

Continued feuds,

Schemas askew,

Things that pursue

Someone like you

Coming unglued.

In the dark night,

There is no light,

Until the Earth turns,

And your skin burns,

And you ignite,

Ultrabright.

In the sunlight,

There is no night,

Planets revolve,

Darkness absolves,

Lightless eyes.

****

The Sea of Dirac

We are sailing on the Sea of Dirac.

How long have we been here?

How do we get back?

And you say you’re looking

For a hole in the sea

But if you look long enough

You will see that it’s just me.

Mass annihilation

Extend the Schrödinger equation.

When antimatter comes in waves,

You should get out of the way.

I hate to die

But I think you and I

Might be destined to collide

And nothing would survive.

You’re impossible to hate.

We are sailing on the Sea of Dirac.

How long have we been here?

How do we get back?

And you say you’re looking

For a hole in the sea

But if you look long enough

You will see that it’s just me.

Mass annihilation

Extend the Schrödinger equation.

Hand in hand to hand in glove

Voltage drops down from above

A water lock

That you and I traverse en bloc

Going stepwise toward a sea

Superconductivity

I’m impossible to love.

We are sailing on the Sea of Dirac.

How long have we been here?

How do we get back?

And you say you’re looking

For a hole in the sea

But if you look long enough

You will see that it’s just me.

Mass annihilation

Extend the Schrödinger equation.

I fit you and you fit me

We’ll annihilate our sea.

An open slot

We failed our shot.

In the moment we crash

We’ll have turned this sea to ash

As our energy’s released.

We are sailing on the Sea of Dirac.

How long have we been here?

How do we get back?

And you say you’re looking

For a hole in the sea

But if you look long enough

You will see that it’s just me.

****

Benzene

To see an arcane ring,

An endless string,

Where, in a dream,

A structure torques and twists,

And aromatic bonds

Sing their carbon songs

You spend too long

Resisting what exists.

In sleep, the dreaming mind

May spark an arc

Through circuits blind  

And running in the dark.

And time after time

When existing methods fail,

In dreams oh, in dreams

The snake will find its tail.

To decrypt a mind,

Untangle lines,

You’ll go blind

Unhinging thought from sight.

And causation’s lost

When live wires cross;

Your brain’s embossed

Electric through the night.

At night, electrons bond

Both shared and strong.

They’re resonant

And singing in the dark.

And time after time

When structures go unseen,

In dreams, oh in dreams

[Benzene will form its ring.]

In sleep, the dreaming mind

May spark an arc

Through circuits blind  

And running in the dark.

And time after time

When structures go unseen,

In dreams, oh in dreams,

Benzene will form its ring.

****

LHC

Beneath the ground, a toroid ring

Conceals a synchrotron that can see

Unmade things.

Particles in curving paths

Will meet so violently that they will

Create mass.

LHC,

Baby,

LHC.

LHC,

Baby,

LH, HC.

LHC.

Across the sea an empty track

Is buried far beneath the lonely

Fields of grass.

Halfway built, abandoned still,

And lying silently in the place

It was killed.

Massive rings

That could

Rule out strings.

Massive rings

Tracking

Unmade things.

[Unmade things.]

Bending charged particles

Shows the way that matter is built

You superconduct and super collide.

Conduct,

Collide

And mass divides.

Ideas die and resurrect;

If you live long enough theory and practice

Intersect.

Line beams up so atoms smash;

Head-on energy collisions leave pseudo-colored trails that one can

Trace through ash.

Superconducting,

Supercollide.

Superconducting,

conduct, collide.

[repeat x4]

****

Evangeline

Scrub away the things unseen.

Repeat and then we’ll reconvene

And go.

You told them that your hands were clean;

A consequence of your routine.

It shows.

Littoral,

Branched coral,

Ground up, will scrub you clean.

Evangeline, Evangeline.

Evangeline, Evangeline.

Algorithmically banish all your guilt.

Neurochemistry mentally rebuilt;

Binary trees absent of leaves; you’re trapped or free.

Things encoded in your genes

Will not regress you to the mean,

You know.

Drafted structures unforeseen

Make it hard to intervene,

Although—

Resistors,

Transmitters;

Thank god you’re a machine.

Evangeline, Evangeline.

Evangeline, Evangeline.

Pharmacologically bank your mind with silt.

Line up all your thoughts into circuit quilts.

Skeleton keyed chemical parsimony.

Literal,

Branching coral.

Ground up, it’s from the sea.

Resist,

Transmit.

You must know you’re a machine.

Algorithmically banish all your guilt.

Neurochemistry without flaws rebuilt.

Trapped by your tree, binary fate unveiled by leaves.

****

En Règle (and Out)

Meteoric

And dysphoric

And soldered by hand—

A misleading worldview that I can’t withstand.

Impressions,

They are all tested,

But not central to me;

Logic gives way before practical needs.

Consciousness and cognizance

Combine to dissonance. 

It’s a tough to translate

Psychological state

That hates what I create.

Replicative methods

Define what is true;

Subjective distress

At a mental review

Of the rules that I’ve unglued.

Atmospheric,

Esoteric,

I don’t understand

How natural selection deals this kind of hand;

Leaving spandrels

Not likely to end well;

They’re causing disease.

My dysphoria’s dealing out death by degrees.

And cognizance kills confidence

In any providence. 

It’s my tough to translate

Psychological state

Subjective and ornate.

The sky has been calling

For thousands of years;

Explorative risks on a

Literal sphere.

It appears

I would volunteer. 

Incurring costs

That we’ll exchange for our benefits.

Why is that we don’t have them yet?

Just a null set of our own regret?

And I am upset,

Pinning my worth on my sobriquet,

Tracing ennui with my cigarette,

Wearing the unwanted coronet

Of the space cadet.

And cognizance kills confidence

In any providence. 

It’s just my tough to translate

Psychological state

That hates what I create.

Replicative methods

Define what is true

Subjective distress

At a mental review.

The sky has been calling

For thousands of years;

Explorative risks on a

Literal sphere.

I’ll pay down your costs

If you take on my debt;

We’re trading for something

That we don’t have yet.

It’s not clear

Who’s looking out of my mirror. 

****

Supercollision

Syncope

I work with precision;

Concepts, heuristics and excision

Of my mistaken visions.

Cognitive refrains

Driving me insane

I hate this division;

I’ve got transmitted indecision

Throughout my nervous system.

Syncopated pain,

Rooted in the brain.

And I can’t see,

Fighting syncope.

Who’s driving this car right now,

'Cause I don’t think it’s me.

No, I can’t see,

This is syncope.

Who’s living this life right now,

'Cause I know it’s not me.

Mental persecution

Leads to problems with hypoperfusion

And cognition dissolution.

I hate this solution;

I’m on the floor as resolution

To nervous retribution.

Neural amp and gain,

Circuits linked in chains.

And I can’t see,

Fighting syncope.

Who’s driving this car right now,

Cause I don’t think it’s me.

No I can’t see

This is syncope.

Who’s living this life right now,

'Cause I know it’s not me.

And I can’t see,

Fighting syncope.

Who’s driving this mind right now,

'Cause I don’t think it’s me.

No I can’t see,

This is syncope.

Who’s living this lie right now,

'Cause I know it’s not me.

****

The Correspondent

Iced-over streets and basement doors

Below forbidden upper floors

You’d hide beneath the seats to catch

A lecture by Niels Bohr.

For a short time between two wars

You got to fight for what was yours:

Colloquia with quantum themes,

A friendly physics corps.

Converting mass and energy,

Fission knocks electrons free;

Uranium as effigy,

Decay for all eternity.

Dividing atoms expertly,

Chain reactions must proceed.

Explosions at sea;

Lise, you must hate your fate,

Your legacy was twice erased.

With correspondence from abroad,

In pen you tore down old facades.

You split an atom like a drop

And opened realms of thought.

Mass times squared velocity

Of light defines stored energy.

You must get out of Germany,

Because of your identity.

Doubled jeopardy; 

An empty life is misery.

Explosions at sea;

Lise, let me hate your fate

Your legacy was twice erased.

You came to hate the things they built

With the uranium they split.

Your contribution was effaced

Without a hint of guilt.

****

Strange Attractor

It is strange to me that I cannot leave

A surface real, but widely unperceived.

n-dimensioned space,

Vectors won’t escape.

I can try to change;

Attractors stay the same,

So I remain.

Glasses case, knowledge base,

Mental states mapped in phase,

Where motive gets erased.

Get my mind back on straight.

Interface, don’t erase

The things I can’t replace.

Displaced, disgraced

Out of place, in your face,

But I won’t win this race.

Damn your pull is strong,

My strange attractor.

If I get away from this mental maze

I am afraid that I’ll be back this way.

Fixed point, map sink;

Makes it hard to think.

I can still break free;

Attractors wait for me.

The release is brief.

Turn the page, step onstage,

Fractal rage makes a cage

That can’t be disengaged.

Don’t reveal your age,

You’re in range, that won’t change;

Attractors turning strange.

Define domain and range.

Disengage, rearrange,

I won’t escape this race.

But you knew that all along (didn’t you?)

My strange attractor.

I can’t complete what I can’t conceive;

Attempts unique, but failing by degrees.

I can make a play,

Try to get away.

I can throw the dice,

Sacrifice my life.

Is that enough?

Turn the page, step onstage,

Fractal rage makes a cage

That can’t be disengaged.

Get my mind back on straight.

Interface, don’t erase

The things I can’t replace.

Displaced, disgraced,

Out of place, in your face,

But I won’t win this race.

Damn your pull is strong.

You define where I belong.

I bet you knew that all along,

My strange attractor.

****

Delirium (Ontology Rejects Reductionism)

Ceilings processed into sky

January in July

Does this mean I’m going to die?

No one’s with me anymore.

A technicolor spirit corps

Of empty former cynosures.

So have I closed my eyes?

Or have I opened them tonight?

Am I listening? Is what I hear

Right here to hear?

Have I lost myself in colored rising lines

As the echoes fade and memories die?

Crisp Chablis and sun on seas

German streets where none should be

A novel neural frozen scene?

I won’t speak my given name.

Won’t and can’t become the same

Works and days compress to frames.

So should I close my eyes?

Or should I open them tonight?

Am I listening? Is what I hear

Right here to hear?

And is all I am this set of slowing lines?

As the echoes fade and memories die?

****

Regeneration I

If I’m obsessed with things that creep

Toward restoration of the self,

If I’m obsessed and cannot sleep,

It’s in pursuit of something else.

I’ve been possessed by dopamine,

And my thoughts blink like a pulsar lately.

If I could sleep my mind to clean

Then I’d finally have a breakthough, maybe.

If I’m obsessed with things that creep

Toward restoration of the self,

If I’m obsessed and cannot sleep,

It’s in pursuit of something else.

I’ve been possessed by dopamine,

And my thoughts blink like a pulsar lately.

If I could sleep my mind to clean

Then I’d finally have a breakdown, maybe.

****

REGENERATION II (instrumental)

****

Burden of Proof

 

Can you?

Can you see darkness?

Outside your windowpane?

Behind the reflection of rooms?

Have you?

Have you told others this?

Have you tried to go out there?

Will you take them?

Take them too?

 

Can you?

Can you see darkness?

Patches on perfect spheres?

Spots on the sun? Little moons?

Can you?

Can you see darkness?

People who carry it?

All ways and places it moves?

Have you?

Have you told the others this?

Have you tried to tell them this?

Have you tried to say

That the earth moves?

 

They won’t see it.

They won’t see you.

And they will lock you

Into a room.

 

In a room

They’re gonna leave you there

Without any telescopes

Without anything you could use.

They’ll block exits

They’ll build you a tomb

Yes, they will build for you

The most beautiful perfect tomb.

 

They won’t see it

How it still moves

So they will lock you

Into a room.

****

Darkrise

 

Western rise

Western rise

West rise

Darkrise

Glass eyes

Darkwise

Darkrise

 

Crystalform lens

Brassilínidrical case

Brightverted star

Telescar

Scopefieldscape

Unfail

 

Crystaform lens

Brassilínidrical case

Brightverted star

Telescar

Scopefieldscape

Unfail

****

Infinite Loops (instrumental)

****

Dreaming Correctly

Plate Tectonics

Lately,

Cracked up things

Seem like (mostly)

All I bring.

Cut rings

Transit more.

Baby baby baby let me open your door.

Maybe,

If I wait

Right here (where else?)

Melting plates will

Fuse shut (bad idea)

Ocean floors.

Baby baby baby let me open your door.

Baby,

Look for me

Living (while it lasts)

Above the sea.

I can’t (I really can’t)

Take much more.

Baby baby baby let me open your door.

Bridges break

And slide into the sea

Cities shake

Sliding down to waiting places

Waiting for me,

Waiting for me,

Death like life can come out of the sea.

****

Hedy Lamarr

Shut down servers and go,

I’ll give you my key back;

Swapping coasts and oceans.

I don’t think you need me now;

Mechanisms showing how

Humans live and die

Are set aside. 

There is ash beneath the trees

In a wood that’s Viennese.

But I’ve offered everything

Up to the sea.

Tectonic shifts create weak lines,

Submerged by miles.

Those metric tons of ocean won’t confine

What will arise

Like an apocalyptical design.

And if I die,

I was a scientist in these times;

But what if science cannot find

A way to coexist or stay alive.

Crawling out of the sea—

Story sounds familiar—

Breathing air and water.

That is why I switched my field;

Empiricize the slow reveal.

Quantum rifts are real;

They should be sealed.

There is ash beneath the trees

In a wood that’s Viennese.

But I’ve offered everything

Pacifically.

Tectonic shifts create weak lines,

Submerged by miles.

Those metric tons of ocean won’t confine

What will arise

Like an apocalyptical design.

And if I die,

I die a scientist in my prime;

But what if I don’t leave behind

Solutions that exist or come in time?

Take me back if I come,

And I want my key back

Swapping life for theory.

****

Dreaming Correctly

Don’t take this flower for an ocean.

A breeze is blowing from over the sea.

In a life that lies beyond us yet

The notes upon

The blue guitar

Were things exactly

As they are.

Don’t speak of all our greatness.

A torch is dying under the ground,

Our vaults and structures come crashing down.

The Earth, for us

Is something rare;

Half in shadow,

All that’s there.

Don’t dream of life under amber,

Of shells cracking, dry in the air,

Become a class of things that are:

A blue guitar,

A set of stars,

Or those exactly

Who they are.

****

End