Lifeboat Foundation

This poem had originally appeared on Transhumanity.

Opt Not for Death

A cosmist’s cosmological comet is in correlation
with the connotational confrontation of dreams,
Dreams that are only dreamt by the dreary of death,
Death only dreamt when no dreams are left.
For what is left than the dichotomy of life and naught,
foretold by the whispers of our ancestors’ ancestors?
A dialectical deictic discussion between a two-headed dragon,
Discussing a myriad of discourses which mirror the race
of every clock’s hand — each with a similar result:
Time since wasted as cells dry with haste;
To die — such a goddamn waste.
When staring at the cosmos, a dual of viewpoints arise,
Do I stare at the stars and witness their transient
transcendence from birth to nonexistence,
Or do I look beyond the stars and witness my own intransient
design over time?
Regardless, for now, I am a convict of my own biology,
Rotting gradually among the convent of convocational creatures,
Possessed in the possession of a pessimist’s procession.
Faith or fate leaves no room to fight the freight of
“(n)everlasting souls,”
Merely left with beggars only begging questions of their beginnings.
Ought we to not fight for a continuance for what had begun?
Forever erred in the conjecture of life and death’s conjunction,
I find myself left with one verity I cannot ignore:
To opt not for options only optimal for dissolution is
equivalent to staring Death in the face and say,
“No more!”

Rise of the Underlings

An explosion erupts in exponential fashion,
Exploiting the explorations of my ongoing existence.
“Exist!” I say as I casually stare in the mirror, demanding
the damnation of this nation’s proclamation to death;
Demanding that the damned rise like a tsunami rushing
through the dams!
The auspice of my consciousness does not respond,
No devil nor angel standing on my shoulders, whispering and
tugging, pointing me to the same direction.
No, only the erection of irreconcilable paths,
With attempts to withstand my wits with which it wishes to wither.
Whether or not I choose to hold my ground in this weather,
I know this withy path I take will lead me to
humanity’s greatest and oldest oppressor.
I stand, pitchfork ready, aiming as the Grim Reaper bows.
This entropy of my life, gasping for my final breath,
Not knowing this night’s conclusion as lightening
strikes over the knoll.
No longer in a state of reverie as I refuse to revere in the
Reverend’s reveling of ancient pseudo-remedies for death.
This is my final stand;
This is our final stand!
As sweat drips down my brow, I stare one last time at the stars.
“This isn’t just for me,” I say to myself,
“This is for every speck of dust, for every bit of energy
they’ve delivered for me to be.”
I shout to the cosmos with sought avail as the whistling
cool winds winnow the cornfields next to us,
“I must….not….fail!”
And then…
Like the scene when David strikes down Goliath, Death is no more.
I weep for joy;
I weep for life;
I weep for every lost being up to now.
With a new beginning with no need to endure an end,
I stand before our fellow sentient brothers and sisters and
shout with all my might and say, “The future is ours!”
A future, indeed, forcing me with an obligation to
oblige our past’s suffering,
Kneeling before Shakespeare’s ghosts, whispering,
“Dear Brutus….we are no longer underlings.”

We Are Cosmists

Like a flicker of light illuminating the night sky;
A coma patient, whose only inevitability was death, arisen
from his biological ashes like a newborn phoenix,
I, the underling, became a Cosmist.
Creation at its most pure and crucial form without being
slain in vain, in cruciform.
With no telling what tales lie before me,
Only the stories I’ll tell over time, like the entrails left
behind from a comet’s tail.
Life, which had hitherto been limited, has now extended,
For the extremity of such an externality is thus: Eternal.
My existential exit from death, itself, is beyond words,
It is beyond existence.
Once automata, now angelic on the path of self-righteousness,
Transcending the boundaries of space and time, pulling
behind me the benign act of unconditional benevolence.
What benevolent act could I possibly provide which matches,
or even triumphs, the gift of immortality?
A message…
A message which ensures that I ensue to you, dear brethren,
all which had been fought for and, unfortunately, died for;
A message to our enemies that their ideals will no longer permeate
throughout the permutations of our newly designed existence.
To quote once more the ghost of Shakespeare, “lend me your ears”:
The designation of our design is only known to each designer.
Yesteryear’s art of Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and Da Vinci will be
tomorrow’s gene splicing, modification, and enhancing.
You are the masters of your own creation,
Even with yourselves being the subject of creation –
A sculpture sculpting his or her self.
This is the time when we should look back and mourn every life
since passed for having to endure in the pains of living
with Death by every doorstep.
Today is a new day;
Today we abandon our Gods and take the thrones for ourselves.
Yes, we live in a brave new world.
Though I promise, your bravery will be the spark which
unleashes our absolute liberation!
For we are Cosmists,
And our cosmological comet is life.