The words are colorless knobbly jots
we fire at one another from
opposite ends of creation.

Here, a stream of prime numbers
in the purest Old French,
while way down that way
a barrage of nonsense curses
intersects in mid cursor blink,
the arena of destruction.
Arrays of Generation Aleph teens
who have paid for the privilege
encircle the interaction region
in ragged Byzantine arcs.
Volunteers record what comes out.

Mangled bits of speech litter the scene
clumping into pleas for mercy
but there is no budget for that.
The graduate students will look drunk,
euphoric with all the reporters,
high on the mysteries of Linear A.
You'll smell smells like squid ink,
like the hottest peppers in rape oil,
and hear syllables crunch underfoot
like moans of extinct homonini.
Best not to show this to Mom.

Yes, there is sex and violence.
It is all incidental to the aim
of wrestling all of language
to the sweaty ground
to prise out her secrets.
Why your beloved retreats despite
a pledge to be true forever?
Who's ordered a rain of musket balls?
And does sworn testimony
exist in eight dimensions?

Results: better than street cannabis,
the best fanzine you've never bought,
an empire to last a thousand years
could be founded on what we'll find.
Shouldn't have to tell you what
that tramp of marching feet is for.
Anyway, you can read about it
in the science fiction collider journals,
fantasy papyri or blood-stained rags
no one taught you about at school.

If outraged bands of villagers
come for us with zombie lawyers,
just know it had been noble.
Someone of our survivors will
have to tell Andromedan
space reptiles what we've learned
once they get here. Twitch streams
for them will not be sufficient.