THE HORIZON OF MEMORY

Consider the

on average

seventeen hundred friends you have made

twenty one hundred books you have read

fifty eight holidays you have taken

thousand times as many films you have watched

millions of recorded cells so crowd your brain

you learn to write

if only to keep track of these lists.

As children the

elusive sense of self is sucked

into every mirror, replaced

with fabricated memories

biographical accounts of someone else

wound with threads of

our own history

so of course we write things down

repeat them

to know where we are at in time

our place

silhouettes outlined against a stark

and bare wall

fading after the flash bulb's pop.

Whether through an imaginary history or

memories of the future our

minds travel, our bodies trapped

in the present but unable to lose

the past,

snip the cellular connection,

so when we remember

everything flows like floods

rapids rivers trickles,

brains shrink

memories fold

and our blood is fouled.

Forget the future, he mumbles

through stiff lips

standing still is a slow death

unable to make decisions

the outlook is bleak

released in a silent unseen collapse.

IN THE YEAR BEFORE THE END

A dense grey cloud hangs over each day

in the same part of the same sky

but I don't think it bears me any ill will

just a thousand heavy reminders of

You creep into my dreams and mostly

I think its only to stroke your own ego

and remind me of your brilliant plans

to evade the unyielding future while its

Victims feast on the bony carcass of winter

and this bleak and dour solstice twilight

dyes each pill red, melting, viscous

in the blood moon vacant, hiding

In pack formation dozens of empty bottles

relay the confusion of past weeks

paranoia, itching, lonely drifting

through nights of spaceless time

I float from where I do not belong into

quiet velvet comforters and satin throw-pillows

stuffed in my face upon waking dry

mouth and sore back pressed against

Austere white walls extend endlessly

in every direction fading into a distant horizon

where the ghosts of a hundred clouds must hang

heavy with rain, spoiled wine, vinegar

READING POETRY IN 2K10

As your eyes skim
these Words,
skipping stones
slapping sos, likes
Drinking great gulps
of simile, Gorging
on syllables,
do you Feel
our layers of
fine-spun Filth
snugly fit
over each molar?

Set yourself on
Auto-pilot as your
legs fight to
Escape the horror
while reality Follows
pawing, kneading
neon claws in
gruesome waves
decorating every
detailed twinge, Electric
blue as a Gaudi
scale-model monument,
child-like & Petrified.

But do you even
really want to
feel? Every
ruined step? Every
blistered thought? Every
faulty circuit clumsily
tied and wired to
these wilted words,
Tumbling?

i know You,
as i,
would rather
simply
sink.

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.

COLONY COLLAPSE

We woke up today to an environment
in past tense
bees falling from the sky with
pictures of what things were like then
before plastic palms hiding metal skeletons disrupted communication
or maybe it was something in the food?
When we are constantly producing and re-presenting
with voices tinted red and violent
screaming past each other
without a glance backwards
we will never forget our selves.

Under the blanket of night
we stole secrets, glances, feelings of
how your eyes settled so sweetly in mine
followed by lips and whispers of
hatred for lies and other untold dreams.
But like those who came before us
we found that the weight of regret only hangs
heavily on necks overprotected
and passionless, that occupying hearts
if only for a short time
liberates our desires from the stranglehold of time.