..

Nightstalkers 

by Ray Ogar, 2016

we drive a sleeping eight and too long forget ourselves 

across the black tar yellow eye lined asphalt.

silver chemicals fall from our eyes,

pass from us,

prepare us,

to dream and flee from logic

as we hunt for the post-processed hulls

of husky boomlets and their ancillary sibls.

-

first flagged by the graphite castle,

we soon fell from the hill top,

as,

oh too soon,

it was us, 

tearing down the middle of it all,

grasping at the red thread,

ray-traced and diss'd between 

club carrying voys and dreg-faced memory-miners.

yes, we tried to slam their claws and flesh-pulls 

away and under our wheel chains,

slay them,

fuse,

and,

re-fuse,

them,

in a-maze, 

beneath

our repetitive drive-by, 

collapsed into the beyond,

folded into our looping loop.

-

next

to

me

sits

demogirl, 

her form pre-fected in porcelain,

hips tight and

bosom flush white with perfect magnetism : 

she lays stretched and gasm'd in the cockpit beside me.

my eyes catch at her neck, 

which lies lazy and guarded in micro-primitive embellishments,

rings et rings et looped in bundles of wire, 

these lapping abstractions pull at her ears and shoulders

like privatized micro-drones, 

insectile, 

vigilant.

-

a nod from me,

and demogirl begins 

breathing the thin electric gas cracked from the fluorescent tubes

stored overhead in the diode blue of the cockpit.

we press our eyes with the hope of a fine capture, 

a refugee from the cordite exaltation,

a boomlet uncorrupted.

-

bump, 

ridge and shrev, 

the charger enfleshes another voy.

from this scene,

i 'tempt to coil our fender away from such code-free action,

but the hiss of a mad mod peels from the vehicle's bone born rims --

one tire re-inflates, shedding its voy infested fleck.

besides, we know our play is doomed,

we understand how near collapse our civilization remains --

we were black on black five blocks before,

when

the translucent sins of our 

former pupils evaporated from their shoulders,

and

the red lips of incorporated pets gnawed on carnivorous dark matter,

or as 

miserly geishas Photoshop'd themselves "inverted" under the flood lights 

of a city always moving towards the moon.

though my tired face wanes into wax under the cliche'd grid of mirrored glass,

our self-inflected task reflects in my mind,

i contemplate our act,

our pre-hostility towards a specific code crew.

the contemplation collapses as i reign my hands tight and 

back across the fresh harvest of celebrity flesh 

stretched 'cross my steering wheel,

its smooth fabric grown from the remains of Keanu, 

the steering wheel skinned, 

printed warm and 

now slung tight over steel,

prepares for turning,

prepares for conforming,

gripping.

-

i disengage.

another glance,

demogirl looks out the passenger window 

scanning for scraps, 

scanning for simps 

and the lower throng underhoods which embed with 

the school-boy'd story(s) of the outer north exburb.

I try not to smile,

or wrap my face in fear, 

i try not to reveal too much of my juke and bass

as we shark our way into the deeper, 

the inner, 

and the even further.

though demogirl prefers the tap of the beyond, 

i usually gamble on sensory augments like Parallax,

pure Projectory,

or the sniff of a pill crushed hyper-symmetric like Simpaticoincidence --

my turn to look away,

as bump and scrub,

another one down,

more voys undercut,

and become light in our tread.

-

i tap my finger on the red line mercury 

laid new in the cockpit dash, 

soon, wagging my finger

as i gauge the reserve tank's capacity.

i watch as demogirl draws an o2 line and tube from our core

to the ailing white bear cub running its scalp under fingers in her lap. 

the cub's robotic purrs and mewly growls call from its miniaturized form in 

the coded feign of a bio-human-pet-pleasure feedback syndrome.

passwords escape from its breath,

the cub's diamond dew eyes pull to a close,

its gear-pinned paws stretch in faux reflex from a Java-scripted yawn.

i sigh,

it is these sorts of fauna we normally scoop-up or 

capture on the colder drives down from the castle,

it is these sorts of toys which perpetuate 

along the perpendicular turn of arc d'A and B

or across the charcoal streets

and near the supermoon storefronts.

we find them among the disposition of rusty wheelchairs 

plexi prosthetics, 

and 

pixelized blond dogs.

components 

gathered,

loved once,

used,

rendered,

useless.

-

i wait for smoke to fill the cabin and

the resisted exhalations from demogirl's side-door cigarette stash --

instead her left laced hand clenches the cub's neck,

medieval steel capping her right finger, 

she points through the passenger window,

perfectly away and near the beyond. 

me, 

sensing words about to break from her lips,

i rub salt across her cheek

in preparation for her forthcoming

micro-managed 

private celebration,

and it does come after her mouth opens --

demogirl coos as if bridled in warm leatherette,

like all the text messages one receives and realizes are 

unreal until read aloud,

"there,"

she calls,

"near the lazy dawn,

prepare the snare,

engage the trap,

et savor myself,

a boomlet approaches . . ."