1.20.2010

THE EXCESSIVE PROXIMITY OF LIFE AND ITS DOUBLE

Undoubtedly,
the human experiment has been a failure.

Our future was hijacked
before our very births, our homes
invaded by unwanted figures,
ideologies, atrocities.
We live like quadriplegics
unable to flee this disaster
unable to cover our eyes
unable to fend off its advancement.
Or else we play like children, making
sandcastles with moats of sewage
suckling the teat of forgetfulness.
Machines have been constructed
physically, socially, theoretically
vehicles of control on a collision course
with human extremity.

Our generation
has come of age in an era of
cybersaturation.
The siren song is familiar to us all:
the modem sending its signal through
the ether,
passing through
the multiverse, harsh
yet inviting.

We dream
of jacking in
of mainlining digitized escape
of ditching our suitcases of flesh in favor
of electronic signals.
And while we basked in gloriously
unrestricted communication
endless information exchange,
our connections with the
vast expanse of p h y s i c a l i t y
withered
and these machinations conquered nature.

Like K. we stand
resigned
weak in the face of this
virtual social machinery.
To give in,
to accept the inevitability
of a ghost in our
internal robot is
to worship a false idol:
systematic control on a pedestal,
trapping us in a complex web of
wires and steel
created by power,
baited by escapism.

Cyberspace
is a realm of unquantifiable desire
advertising instant gratification in
every possible permutation.
Freedom from physical identity
social persecution
ethical constraint,
wrapped cozily in a cloak of anonymity.
But unless we accept the dystopian potential of
Complete Awareness
then consciousness in the robot is a masquerade.
There can be
no gender fluctuation
no individual codification
without a database monitoring what seems like
fluid movement or endless possibilities,
a machine dedicated to
algorithmic pattern recognition.

The robot is fueled by our own
arrogance and we overestimate our
ability to fool our progeny. Forget
going underground
disguising our presence,
the whims of this reality are
dictated by programmers and
profiteers analyse every choice conceivable,
statistically evaluated
by those we would attempt to escape.

Assume
knowledge was decentralized,
that the open source movement was able to
carve a rift
between universes,
we could feel rivers of data flowing
between our fingers
free to mold and construct
visions radically subjective,
beautiful.
What then? At what point does
human experience become
impotent?
Phallic and vaginal beauty
castrated
into code? Every aspect of our identity
prefigured
with mathematical accuracy?

The scientific rationalism from which
this creation was spawned
assumes a strict level of objective realism
denying perspectives unexplainable
from federal formulas or civilized symptoms.
Everything else is an anomaly
        standard variance 
co-opted             subsumed
recycled              subversion
regurgitated         subservience.

Nothing
can save us.

Our very existence bleeds
exploitation and faith
in transcendence only ignores this fact.
Hope
of cybernetic escape screams a throaty
NO
into the faces of those unable to afford the
hefty price of virtual exuberance
and lines of resistance are redrawn.
We are left with few choices
hearty acceptance, quiet denial,
or a revolution of reality still unknown.
Only death can speak to us
in an unknown language and
only the death of our species can write a requiem
deserving of memory.

1.19.2010

DESERT CAMPING IN CALIFORNIA
for Richard Brautigan

The sun rises above the steep cliffs
staring down with an intensity usually reserved
for stern judges or bullshit salesmen
but the desert doesn't care about
past transgressions or future desires
its only responsibility is to the hares
scattering through dry brown shrubs
over hard-packed sands and the
tiny grey lizards leaving tiny dark prints
around our sleeping bags.

We wake from a short sweaty daze
scattering for refuge in cool  dark
womb-like caves hidden within steep mud peaks
and lay where trickling streams once traveled
gathering bits of dirt and rock as souvenirs
while sticky sweat dries in a thin film on our skin
and beyond the tunnel's threshold
skies shimmer and dance in a lazy forgetful haze.

Later we climb to the top of the hills
as the sun turned pink and heavy
sinking into rocks like fossilized cocks, remains of
ancient mysterious mountain mating habits and
saw a thousand feet below us our cars and tents which
might have belonged instead to packs of roaming lizards who
like us and the pieces of rock or shells
discovered you can't go home again.