Journal Entry over Texas: In The Clouds

From 36000 feet, Texas farmland looks like diodes and circuitry slowly rolling beneath us. Roads, pathways and trails intersect and carve the earth into multicolored, multi shaped sections interrupted by natural curves of diverted streams and dry riverbed. Then, faster it seems than the ground passing beneath our wings, the wisps of cloudcover obscures the land and suddenly, we are a machine bird gliding over an ocean of misty ivory vapors. We are children on a snowbank, waiting for the final internal pull of courage, as we hold steadfast to the sides, we let gravity takeover and do the rest. The clouds like snow whiz by on our descent. We are all grinning mad fools taken by the sky and pools of painted white. One could reach out with fingers through timid clouds, feeling the wet dots of rain and young condensation trickle through the tiny chasms in your palms, and smile. Now we land, this foreign field of airplanes, fins and faces, in this place called Austin, Texas.

Who the Fuck is You?

An older poem I wrote but had not shared. It was 2 months after I moved to DTLA and much of it is still true. It was meant as spoken word and I edited and modified it to fit my more contemporary mind.

Who The Fuck is You?
By David Vincent Cortez

Id' tell you what my name is,
but,
in a city like this
with people like her and him,
Hungry, teeming spirits,
aren't we all.

I came here, 2 months to the day.
I joined the throng of people,
nameless until they speak.
This place where giants tall of steel
tower above,
the old ones and the weak.

Like him and her, my name is Dream,
because that's what's in my heart.
Amid the many,
looking down while they walk as
I look up as I talk...
to meet those giants with my eyes.
No matter the ground where
people like bees,
pollinate concrete,
I'm searching for my place in this
to root my restless feet.

But why do we create our worlds
apart
from one already here?
The buildings built and fences keeping out
perspectives new and clear.

Because,
It's not good enough for us who came
to build a brand new "me".
Those of us who carve ourselves from outta stone
and CHOOSE identity.

The world is ours to paint our way
and change ourselves into,
the mutherfuckers we ought to be
from the fearing ones they knew.
That's not just me it all of us, cuz,
who the fuck is you?

So here I stand, a face, but not a given name,
because what's important is not this face
but,
the reason that I came.

I came to be.

A King, Humbled in Death

An older poem I had not uploaded.

A King, Humbled in Death.

A poem by David Vincent Cortez

In this, my portend wayward hours,

When stillness soon take root,

Will fasten in beleaguered mind

And soon to bear dark fruit.

Play on! Play On!

Encore! Encore!

Too soon the curtains close,

“I have not yet chanced the empty halls

where might my children grow!

Nor danced among the lovely trees

And carved such marks, my name.

Nor,

Sung the tune that beats my heart like

Wild fervid flame.”

What word is this that leaves me dumb,

And flirts my wanting tongue?

It leaves me quiet as a grave

Where mothers,

weep,

for babes.

If not for pen and thirsty page,

the means to my reprise,

I could not say of what I feel

With words befit a king.

“Oh Lord, what game do you create,

To see the Lily bloom,

If just to see it whither low

And cower in its doom?

Have not we gained your confidence

In ours, our sacrifice?

To play your game of charlatans

as

recumbent men and mice?

Have I still time, then words as well,

To vex your welcome gate.

Not still, I go but remain at fight,

The buzzards too shall wait.

Each breath be mine until my last

Not robbed of that, will I.

My lips may move to only gasps

yet

on pages, I shall cry:

Play on! Play on!

I am yet lost,

my pen my mighty sword!

Encore! Encore!

Not curtains yet!

With you, at odds, my Lord.

(In dark, a light.)

What light is this that finds me, chilled,

And thaws my frozen veins?

What moves this brittle skeleton

Upwards with veiled strings?

Such luminance as cresting beams

Of sun

That pierced the sky,

and fills my former wistful eyes

with verve revivified?

Enraptured awe of marvels thrust

Into mine waking mind.

In audience of infinity,

Before me, all of time.

If one reached out, could touch a star,

no,

single. point. of light.

I realize no human eyes were built

To witness such a sight.

Enthused by curiosity,

I reach to touch the flare,

but

upon such fragile trifled brush,

the light bloomed everywhere.

What fool am I, ‘twas no star

That I mistook at first,

My feeble mind could not conceive

the birth of universe.

Then funneled down in reverie,

Like rivers, star-lit dreams,

I pass into another place,

a,

second life redeemed.

Play on! Play on!

Encore! Encore!

We go around once more.

The Heart of Machine Galaxies

The Heart of Machine Galaxies

 A short story

By David Vincent Cortez

Marron Canyon connects two settlements by four hundred and ninety-two kilometers. To the north from where the canyon snakes through the byways and inter-connectors of a neo-roman facsimile, rises Citadel, a monstrous effigy to the ostentatious. To the south-east of the canyon and through the erstwhile chasm of a post seismic rift, nestled comfortably in the shadows of Mt. Ephemeron stands the first decaying landfall of Mercy Clay. At seventeen kilometers above sea level, the highest topographical feature, Ephemeron was visible in the first images of this bold new world sent home. A home starving for resources. Zinc phosphide, copper oxide and gallium, those not-so-rare and rare Earth minerals in photovoltaic metals were more abundant here on this little rock than in any mine or quarry known. And so, hungry, we left our planet Earth so very far away, reaching out through the endless gulf with photon sails made of gossamer alloys, intricate and wildly beautiful, silently running the length. 

Though Mercy clay was built into the mountain, Citadel was created from it. We dug into the skin of the sleeping ancient and pulled from it its metal heart. We built the walls and the struts and the machines that built the bubble. There now, our pride that rivals in wonder the horizon of this alien moon, our “city of steel”, Citadel. The infinite heavens our backdrop. It truly is a sight to see. Even for a machine.

In Mercy Clay, everything had a burgundy stain to it, the shade of engine oil and iron oxide. Compliments of the mineral rich mountain soil and moisture in the bubble-dome. Everything aged a little faster here. Vehicles and buildings in disuse stand statuesque, somber giants oxidizing in place.

At the end of work hour, all the clockwork and machines fall silent and the streets fill with the sound of a resonant hum from the scrubbers. If you stay out late, when the steady droll of new oxygen is loudest and the town is asleep, you can look out towards Citadel and watch the light of distant spacecraft on approach, routine autonomy, but still a serene display. That city beyond the canyon where the lights never go out may be beautiful. Here, we get to see the ships like wisps race through the atmosphere. On descent, I’d stare at those little fireflies and recall the dance, the retraction of the arms, the folding of the sails, wing-like and elegant. Machine birds.  

Mercy Clay began the day the first machine started chewing into the mountain with obsidian teeth on drills like the maw of a great shark, gnashing up black and slate dust. Oxygen was pumped into the newly formed dome to prepare for the arrival of people. Pretty soon, that metal rich charcoal dust turned red and silvery machines began to lose their luster. It was like a red velvet nuclear winter that filled the bubble and occluded the stars for decades. Then one winter solstice it finally began to clear, and that’s when I saw my first star sail and fell in love.

If you travel out past the habitat towards the landing pad, on the little road where tracks now lie beneath layers of red cake, you’ll see rows of machines parked where they died awaiting replacement. Parts could be printed you see, but the rust would always gum up the works. On that specific solar cycle, I was navigating the little road near the rows when the ship landed. Through the dust and particulates, a goldenrod fabric of impossibly delicate material unfurled, she unfolded her sails. I stood, transfixed in place and immobilized, as she, the ship, bloomed before me. I scanned her through the veil. Elaurra Empyrean.

“Beautiful.” A digital voice at my side relayed. I turned to face the machine that had pinged. It was and old one like me but tracked, probably one of the first among the first. His tracks sunk in soft red mineral, every inch of him coated in the dust that seemed to find its way into every servo and joint. His right appendages hung motionless at attention but both of his left arms were mangled and torn at the end effector, the result no doubt of some industrial accident.

“It is.” I turned back to the ship and surveyed her lines and the iridescence of the sails.

“Is this your first one?” He asked of me.

“Yes.”

            To my side, I heard the faint torsion and friction of articulated motion inhibited. I turned my head and the veteran was pointing out thirty degrees off from the ship and followed his digits to the constellation above. His dim eyes followed his good arm but his head was fused in place with age. “That’s where I saw my first. She was a transport class. Bringing machines and equipment. Not like yours. Not sleek.”

            I imagined that ship he described. One like I came in on as replacement. “Still beautiful?”

            There were groaned clicks and a sound of whirring as he slowly brought his good arms straight out. The broken ones still hung from his torso, a twisted bouquet of metal and optical sinew. “Fat.” He mused and dropped his arms with a clang against his side. I smiled.

            We stood there him and me and the many others next to us with their eyes dead and dark. All around us, dust. Minutes may have gone by in silence with the whir from the distant scrubbers, a persistent hum in the air. After moments of enamored observation, he broke the silence.

            “What is your designation?”

            “Six-two,” I clicked, “what’s yours?”

            “One-nine.” He paused, thoughtful, distant. “One day Six-two, they will no longer need Mercy Clay. One day long from now, when all finite things entropy, we will still be here, nameless memorials preserved under glass.”

            “What makes you say that?” my wonder piqued.

            “All things meet their end. Man, machine, it is the nature of the universe, to end. One day, Mercy will find hers and your beautiful vessel here, she too will close her wings for the last time. Enjoy her now, time is precious.” He finished and I considered his words.

            “How long have you been out here?”

            “Too long and not long enough.”

I nodded. Beyond the curtain of dust, there are nebulas so vast, worlds so strange with stars that could dwarf our night sky in brilliance and somewhere in between them, pretty little sails that glitter in the dark made by beings so small in scale. There are no words for things such as this. There would never be enough time to see it all yet still, one could imagine and delight in the wonder of discovery.

“Six-two, if you’re still around when all the machines go quiet for the last time, make sure you find a place with a view.” With that, he looked back to the place he pointed out, his place with a view. His ship that once flew there and the constellation now in its ephemeral place.

            “I will remember that One-nine.” For a few more minutes, we stood together. In front of us, the Elaurra Empyrean reflected the stars off her skin, silver and gold, seemingly immune to the red dust of oxidation that tints all things in Mercy Clay. Fly soon and let not this wicked red take hold of you. How I wish I had been a sail to fly alongside her and free from this place, but I was an earth-mover, and I had my place. So it goes and so it was.

            When I left that road all that many a decade ago, he was still facing his constellation with a far-away look in his eyes. I will remember that One-nine. I have for this long.

            Ships don’t land here anymore. In disrepair, the platform at Mercy Clay reluctantly joined the rows of quiet shapes protruding from where the road used to be. Often I’m reminded, nameless memorials under glass. The dust settled. The mines went deeper into the mountain, reaching into its belly tearing at those precious metals for the domes, the cities and machine birds with gossamer wings.

Replacements no longer come. We do what we were built to do. We keep digging. Every night, the machines go quiet and I wonder if it’s for the last time. I roll up past the entry to the mine and up, it’s difficult to get my footing with my joints rusting away beneath me. The path is narrow but my gyroscope still keeps me balanced. Some things do last. I find my familiar outcropping above the city below, the town dark and muted but for the steady undulation of the scrubbers. Had I breath, I would exhale cloud formations into the permanent night and watch them disappear. I stare out at the iridescent lights of the universe and the glowing heart of a machine galaxy. I close my eyes and spread my sails.