Contributor: John Ogden

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We still keep him
keep him as a reminder
of who we were
before.

I like looking back
few do
most want only the now
only the new, the more,
listless for novelty
balloons on the winds
of progress.

I am not immune
I am a harem of Nagels
porcelain skin, blue eyes, black hair
serving only myself
servicing
a recursive loop
of endless echo chamber dynamics
spun between future
and past
but never the one
no longer the other.

Like a curiosity
we keep him in our midst
safe and sated
hivemind self-gratification
achieved with workings
of a sea of same and subtle parts

Nostalgia gives him context
all else has been ripped away.
his friends are lizards now, foxes
brass dragons
with solar-sail wings
soaring gas-giant skylines
all elegant and delicate
complex in body
infinite in mind.

Gone are the tenuous connections
of unshackled minds
simple skins
simple illusions
simple ideas and simple needs

The faustian bargain has paid in Nagels
in dragons, in flight
in a thousand awe-inspiring ways

The faustian bargain has paid in Nagels
and taken its own toll with shackles
with depression's venom
and novelty's constant bite.


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John Ogden was conceived of a government form and a passing mailbox. He lives somewhere out in the woods of a rural land more akin to the fantasy realms of literature than real life, and his favorite dirt bikes will always be the broken ones.