Class Project Contribution, part I

A deliberate attempt to control adequacy


I. Mission Control
ten
We start counting down the ways from ten
That we control every little thing around us
It controls us, no doubt, and we lie to ourselves
The remote becomes the comfort blanket
nine
when we see that the only comfort we can seek lies
in infomercials and blog spots
there is no way that we can ever clean them,
even if we add one to the other.
Billy Mays could sell a mac to a pc
and a windows to a linux.
eight
Running at optimum capacity
systems that run smooth. Fans and glass
replacing the wind and water
nothing natural. nothing natural
we see nothing outside of our monitors
and unfortunately for us, we are stuck thinking inside the box
seven
we speed up now. upon the monitor’s unblinking gaze we
see how the might and fury of flat-backed
hooligans, those internet ruffians deliver unto us the
true feel of love. Nothing ever sold so well as a
promise of complete happiness and bliss amongst peers.
Counting down. Ignition.
six
a silence. a silence.
and then, Crescendo! the hall fills with
the rising sound of sentient life! Fingers upon keys
The Brass Flares! The Woodwinds Whine!
The Strings swell and fill the hall with the indomitable and resolute
promise of violence and the digital hereafter!
five
sweat does drip and drip and rip and dip
all upon your face
when staring at your plasma screen,
on eBay buying lingerie and lace
to fill your house with trinkets and codswallop
and useless inane and asinine
front end-loaders and sour cream (but just a dollop)
but why stop there? Why stop there indeed?
We need more and more and more
Or how else will we plant the seed?
four
the spiral effect of dive-bombing doves and
pigeons know how to make your head grow
around that which you cannot live without
contemporary man has no need for the past; all he needs is to stand on the shoulders of those before him. Make him man. Make him god.
Those contributions, those technological contributions, those gadgets and gizmos
And new age mythos
Those letters from doctor Spock, hand free from needless spanking
It becomes clearer and clearer who gets the banking
rolls by using this automation and money back guarantees
(don’t worry; soon we’ll all be 100% human free!)
three
we wind ourselves down and up like a watch
whose function we have yet to figure out
who needs a calendar, stopwatch, laser pointer,
remote, garage opener, can opener, can recycler, nuclear fusion reactor,
decompression chamber, and automatic juicer in their watch?
Well, I suppose the juicer would be nice.
The degrees of separation are as various as our degrees
of killing ourselves with kindness.
two
This is our digital age. Our digital revolution
I had a gigapet when I was a child. When it came time to put it down
all that was required was that I put it down. Sometimes it’s easiest to pick
up a child’s toys in the morning.
meander to the desk. click. click. click. click. click. click.
this site makes me grumpy. So grumpy
but this one makes me happy. So happy
and this one makes me sleepy. So sleepy
and this one makes me dopey. So dopey
and this one makes me bashful. So bashful
and this one makes me sneezy. So sneezy
hmm, these symptoms certainly will send me to the doctor.
right Doc?
one
spiraling in a web, halcyon red and blues and whites and greens
it is so easy to find Lolcats and movie quotations, but what about
it is so easy to find ourselves wrapped in our technological bundle.
Do you sync? Everything should sync. In this world of digital mechanics
and analog components it is good to know
that when it comes to sync or swim, we can finally let ourselves sync.
One. By. One.


II. The Sheer Audacity
creak one leaky eye open on a Sunday morning
only to have a head full of throb and an ear
full of static
the music is too loud, I want to scream
the music is too loud
turning over into a puddle (was that there last night?)
a puddle not involving a girl with a pixie-cut and a man with a sweater-vest
the music is too loud
but wait…there is no music. Where does the infernal racket come from?
the television is on, but…where is the sound?
the computer is flashing, but…where is the sound?
Stumbling to the mirror it is easy to see that throughout the night you have been attached
to your source of pain.
two thin white cords spill from your ears
and in between them a small pillbox. Medicine, they say. Medicine.
One for the doctor and one for the patient
One for the soldier in the camp where he’s stationed
One for the sailor, on rolling seas
One for the pastor, ill at his ease
A jerk. A hard yank. Silence. Silence.
now the song that was playing over and over is launched into
digital orbit surrounding your bed
in one ear and out the other?
not in this lifetime, said the voice in your head.
Not for all of the tea in china, or on the hearts of those who implore
nor on the blackest of smiles lying on Poe’s Plutonian Shore
pull your boxers up, boyo
there’s much to be done today.
Put those hoses back to your ears and rest assured that you will encounter
things that will test your moral fiber and defibrillate your self-esteem
but the thin white noose hanging around your neck assures you
that the comradery and violence circling the outskirts of your own universe
will never be able to silence the decibels screaming inside your own head


III. The Old Man and the C:
what do we save? Where do the little little things in our lives
that we save to aesthetic memory go when we sleep?
children have the greatest knowledge of when to click and when to save
but their memories are short. shorter than their little legs and little fingers that
pry into the deep
recesses of the widest web. Social webs with little spiders crawling
and sprawling across your screen. The children keep
tabs open and browsers full of the things that most keep their attention.
But what does
grab and
nab and
poke and
pull
the attention of the little spiders, on the shores of the C:
eventually crashing the waves upon their little feet

Search and rescue bars for the children lost to
the generations between. Gen X? no. Gen Y? no.
Do they get into the surf, the digital surf, and find out fatefully the undertow?
Where do these children go when those waves come crashing on their feet?

A lot of candid paragraphs can be written, through the impersonal and lackluster
Films on the web, but where do these children go? Where do they, where do they go?
In a world where wireless supplants dial-up, the span
of time that it takes to grasp the children’s attention and run with it, run far away
until the only question left to ask is “where did they go? Where, where did they go?”
they compose their songs and play and cast their pods into the sea
the sea. the sea.
where did they go? Where, where did they go?