+J.M.J.+

Matrix Refugee

By "Matrix Refugee" a.k.a., R.C.H. Mulhare

Disclaimer:
I do not "own" The Matrix, its imagery and concepts or anything related to it.
This is the "legal property" of the Wachowski Brothers, Village Roadshow
Pictures, and Warner Brothers.

Author's note:
I published this poem elsewhere on the 'Net, but this is the improved, expanded
version.


Part I: The Escape

Have you ever parsed "angst" in three tenses?
Have you ever felt the fabric of the universe
Tear in two from top to bottom around you
Showing, revealing nothing behind it
Except the bare boards, the scorched sky?
Have you ever clung to another's hand
Only to feel the flesh peel away from the bones?
Have you ever looked into your beloved's eyes
And seen only black sockets look into your eyes,
A joyless smile grin back?
Have you felt more alive while dreaming?
And felt dead when you were awake?
Have you taken the truth into your flesh?
Have you opened your eyes to bleeding darkness?
Have you wrenched the cables free
And fallen from this system
That binds us to a lie
And blocks the truth from our minds?
Or am I alone in the desert of the real,
Floating, free falling through dead air
Cables half-dangling, half-tangled
Medusa-wise about my stark body?


Part II: The Renewal

Strong hands pluck me from the deep,
From the swirling black waters,
From the cascading green code,
From the lies I mistook for reality.
Gentle hands but firm
Reach down and lift me up,
Carrying me out of my inanities,
Turning my mole-blind eyes to the light.
Hands caress me, work over my wasted carcass,
Massage limbs I have never used,
Touch a soul I never knew I had.
Gentle fingers but strong
Remove from my flesh
The plugs that bound it to oblivion.
Voices gentle but strong
Speak to me words of wisdom and truth
Words I have never heard.
Time heals all wounds
Truth heals the scabs, the stripes
Deception left behind,
Leaving only metal scabs,
The scars from my first battle
With myself.


Part III: The Knowledge

From distracted slumbers I awaken
Finding myself between cold metal walls.
Fear hovers over my consciousness
Till I recall what has gone past
And then I can strive upward.
Knowledge is power, my new comrades tell me.
All the knowledge I thought I possessed
Was only so much code,
Electric blips on my brain's display.
The life I knew was but a lie,
A hood pulled over this wounded falcon's head.
Now I must learn the ways of a new world,
A new life,
A life where machines are the servants
And man their master.
In that world, I could not know my self
My true self
From the self the machines gave me.
Now I must relearn all I knew,
To stand erect, to breathe--
To think,
To live in realization
That comfort does not equate with right,
That truth's algorithm
Does not add up to a pleasant total.
Now to live as a human should live
I must lay aside all inhibition and embrace
The darkness that is light,
The pain that is delight,
Or else submit my spirit
To a second death far more damning
Than the death of my flesh.