torn

It's a big J-shaped offset bordering the pale cement

Naturally patchwork grass, the interior, cross lines

An embroidered quilt, freshly pin-flagged down

Circular dissections of aged trees, which

Just can't outnumber concrete buildings

Yellow, green, red, indigo, splattered on a grey palette

Rolling winds fall

From over the rooftops and

Howling through the sparse greenery

Behind, football teams break in the newly sod fields

Frisbee players meet closely on the side, complaining about football

Big universities are brimming with bright-eyed young students and wily old professors, trying to get laid

Well-groomed, fit men escorting smooth, curvy women, practicing their games

while this hack-ing -

cough and

rot-gut hangover's

freakin' killin' me

Throat's dry and scratched,

Wince and recoil-

Too bright, clear sky

Hands weakly shaking, probably, lack of booze, food or sleep, whatever

Stomach's getting the pinch;

A tentacle squeezed tight around an empty, rumpled bag, torn and neglected

Giant specters loom over the city, silhouetted by clear sky and clouds

They watch the park, piling concrete and steel and reflective glass panes

Behind the ring of trees, that surrounds the scene

Growing man higher and faster than nature

A greenhouse cultivating food or medicine, gifts or experiments

These mechanical mammoths balance in the middle to shrink or evolve

Three men pushing a shopping cart filled with clothes and cans stop at the bleachers in a warm, sunny spot this afternoon to have a few smokes

The man in the dark blue, 80s windbreaker stretches out to nap for a bit

The other two converse quietly

One puts on his tan fishing hat and black back pack

Exiting at the other end of the park

landfill

The heart is a landfill

Littered with the decaying revenge

Of inadequate reflections

Projected across everything that's seen

Choking on the scar tissue of

Recycled meaning that was never bothered

To be understood in the first place

Waste that was not meant for anyone

Yet was bathed in until it was forgotten

Where it was, or is going to

Choose whatever is wanted

But know that there can be better

Than this garbage that has been created

For nobody

overlord

Our robotic overlord

Is incubating

Malformed and festering

Spreading and infecting

Primordial encampments encroaching

Every one of you,

Is the beginning

They're building the super being

An extension of their minds

For the sake of convenience

In the name of bigger, better and

More, more, more

We are forced to donate our souls, our very DNA to the dream of safety

Artificial inspiration

Digital comfort

Glowing, suckling asphyxiation

Desperately mining for resources

To abandon the shell you call yourself

Absent actors irrationally switching roles on an abstract carousal

Mindlessly looking for an easy way off

Illuminating the infrastructure with apathy

Growing with your greed

Drowning in indifference

Dull complaining to be set free

Yet you don't know where to go

Or what free even is

Free from decisions?

Free from struggle and pain?

Comatose power cells awaiting instructions

From your robotic overlord

There's a secret

They don't want you to know

The system only works because you let it work

You are afraid and need to know everything about everyone else

You refuse to trust

You can't let the world exist as it is

Turning against each other in the name of what you're heard

They already know everything, but what good is it if nobody cares

Danger,

The relative trick of perception

Others telling you how bad things really are

You let biased opinions become your realities,

Because it is so much easier to just accept what you've been told

Gossip is replacing experience for the lazy

Judgments are being cast out of convenience

Evidence is an afterthought, sympathy and understanding are for the weak

Great barriers are built to blind you

Control is bought and sold as the new currency, harvested from your fear and ignorance

Every one of you has the power to stop this, but you're too busy to know where to start, too meek to raise your voice, too scared to stick your neck out.

dear somebody

Dear absolute anarchist,
Righteous rebel,
Or whatever you want to call yourself
There is no support for your cause because you don't have a cause
The system IS the people because EVERYONE is the man
And you're just disappointed that you haven't found a way to be the best
You're fighting a war on apathy, an assault on boredom
(Hopefully) Nobody is stopping you from choosing to live the life you want to live, as long as you're not hurting others or taking away their right to choose
If you want change, invent a better system
Be the truth no person can deny

You are the neatly folded corners of a movement that never got started, never had velocity or direction
The good intentions that couldn't decide what exactly good was, or what you intended for that matter
You are saying the same things over and over again because you can't think of anything better to say
Year after year you wash the same pots and pans, the same national flag plates, coffee mugs and clear glasses
You casually complain about the same corporations dominating our media outlets, yet you watch their stations anyway, just to make fun of them with your friends, of course
You are disgusted with the clothes that she wears because of the labor used to produce them, or the food he buys because of how it was raised and manufactured and processed, yet you don't grow your own food or sew your own clothes
Imagine if everyone from every major city owned their own plot of land and raised a farm
What if all six billion people in the world clear cut large portions of land?
Would there be a tree or wild animal left on earth?
Humans are not alone on this planet

already happening - 2011

It starts the day you're born

You're given a name and a number

You're photographed and filed into their system

There's a process for raising and educating

School and college, work and religion

That society's agreed upon generations ago

But you don't have to

Find another country with better rules

Move to the woods, build a shack and grow your own food

But someone will still be watching

Your neighbor is listening, like their neighbor is watching them

The government sends surveyors and census and infrared mapping and global positioning satellites and cameras from space

But people don't dream of quietly shrinking out of sight

People see sports stars and leaders of industry and renowned writers and influential politicians and famous musicians and inspirational teachers and Nobel prize winning researchers

And you wonder, is it all worth it?

Could I be a part of that?

Yet your every misstep and mistake will be remembered

Histories are a collogue of family, friends, professors, neighbors, teachers, employers, enemies, acquaintances, people you wave to on the street, that guy that hated the fact that you weren't that into the girl he couldn't get, the co-worker still mad you got the big account or project, that one person that always tried so hard to be better than you

And eventually someone will try to use it all against you

It's inescapable, unchangeable

If you want to live in a house, you better have good credit, a steady job, references, a traceable past

If you want a respectable career, you better have a clean record, a lengthy education, a specialization, awards and recommendations, and you better pass all their tests

And don't ever get too big

Every web site you've ever visited, every email you've ever sent, movie you've rented, book you've checked out, CD you're bought, or anything purchased really, every picture someone else has taken of you, every phone conversation is stored in a database somewhere

Even if its not legal yet, the system is still run by the unofficial court of public opinion, the biased gossip of anyone who's seen you walking down the street in a bad mood or arguing with your girlfriend, or talked to your nemesis from high school or just been cut off in traffic

They have cameras smaller than the head of a pin

Microscopic nano-bots, around the size of a cell

Scanners that identify multi-dimensional shapes, types of matter, movement patterns

And its all connected

Through web sites and phone calls and word of mouth

Through digital archives of every possible type, that are around sometimes your whole life

There might be brain wave scanners

There might be emotion analyzers that gauge how you feel while you watch TV

They might be cloning you and genetically engineering you better, right now, while you're not watching

And this is only the tip of the glacier

This is the information that they want you to know about

This is just enough not to scare you too bad, but there's no telling what's to come

Maybe you should just run for it, right now, before it's too late

But know this, every opinion you've ever had, every thought can be found out by someone

Someone can read your mind

food

Cowardly man, peeking in the window

Trying to take my dinner,

Right off the table

Town crier, boy who shouts wolf

Advertise the non-existent

Rile up the troops

Rip the shirt off my back

A man only gets pushed so far

Before he snaps and can't stop

Enough is not enough

You can't give back

The things you've taken from me

I vomit on your name

As you steal the food

Still in my mouth

You are an infection

Of the good and working

An actor with no part

Fear monger

Standing for nothing

Perpetuating a panic

Vile and useless

Worthless coward

release

Siphon off my tank

Gum up the works

Leave a trail of slime

Clogging the fresh air

Take what's yours

What's mine, and maybe your neighbor's too

Talk too much,

Shouting diarrhea out the window

At anything passing by

Until these birds are watching

Keeping tabs on the crazy

Stung by bees repeatedly

Over and over

Until the poison makes your eyes roll back in your head

Until your teeth are chattering and numb

I break my own fist

To release the pain

Into sweeping adrenaline

Thunderstorm thoughts

Transcending weak illusions

Disappearing volcano

Hardened beneath the sea