SUCRE SUR LA MERDE

The rings under his eyes sagging
soaked hammocks hung to collect
blood, dripping from capillaries
or tributaries branching off irises.
     "A fruit tree
     planted by every child
     that's all I'm saying."
Sucre sur la merde!

Ten years transient
stripped of flags
navigating shame, unaware
we all lack accurate maps or
burn them once we settle for being lost
swimming polluted rivers in silence,
thumbing the reset button.
Sucre sur la merde!
    
     "I don't think it's too late,"
shades slowly drawn over red electric storms
a warm sour breeze and
his swaying, reaching clumsily
for more wine and
     "fruit trees for tomorrow."
Sucre sur la merde!

LOS CALLES DE BARCELONA

we often feel as if we
are under seige
watching waiting walking
the streets with the elderly
couples in tweed jackets
woolen sweaters
hair the color of spilt table wine
below skies of frozen smoke
still as the closed gated shops
all the same on every street
bars and bocadillos
tobacco and tapas
flowing crowds on sidewalks
abruptly plummeting in
frenzied construction but
nothing is changing
occupied buildings are still demolished in favor
of emptied lots
instead we occupy spring
paella in dirt parks surrounded by
yapping pups and laughing children upside
down hanging from boughs
and arms, loving ballast
the stars are few, but similar,
dimmed beyond our reach
pinpricks in the sky above canopies
of flapping fluttering fabric
between wrought iron railing steel
grates clinging to stories of
brick aged in centuries
salt sprinkled days pouring
through narrow alleys, darkening
tinting, mellowed,
cooled below rafters behind
quartered walls like thin hardened steps
into thick clouds
hanging palls
returning every day to
supervise shifts of control
sometimes narrowly edged out by
wind swept sun saturated streams
whose currents pull us
under painted trees,
but not glass or blood
just shade and song
fruit and beer
and tomorrow, stained

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.

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.

THINGS ONLY LIVE ON THE BASIS OF THEIR DISAPPEARANCE

welcome to the psychedelic wonderland
to the celebration of heathen holidays
in overzealous times
and the impermanence of living a clandestine poetry
as we circle around the fire
sending delayed feedback loops to the stars
alongside mermaids and werewolves
with whiskey-glazed lips and wild grins
stars and swords in snails are invoked
to aid in rituals of lo-fi black magic
for the bittersweet promise of a new year
filled with nights passing like dreams

ODE TO A SNAIL

subtle whispers of movement:
eyes atop their stalks
sway with the heavy breath
of exhaust
and moonlight

seductively spiraled and
striped with imprints
of earth
and sky
and the leaden burden
of self sufficient
survival

surreptitious surges
through filth and
up stairs
stretching
sallow skin
and the stain
of passage

the soft scent
of spring
signals
the end
of sleep

BAKHTIN TELLS THE HOUR OF THE STAR

For one has a right to shout, and if we detach ourselves
completely from this impulse all we have left
is the naked corpse of the word,
because what is fully mature is very close to rotting
and every word is directed towards an answer.
So I am shouting, for surely words are actions?
besides, I know about certain things simply by living:
all objects are from one side highlighted while
from the other side dimmed,
and their rhythm is frequently discordant.
This is opaque material and by its nature it is despised by everyone.
The word is born in dialogue as a living rejoinder within it,
exclusively in the present because forever and eternally
it is the day of today.