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

coin

There are two sides,

To every coin

Banging your head

Against the padding

And you don't know why

Mindless competition, driving you mad

Bugged out and broken down

Over worked and under paid

Trying to see another side

Without changing perspective

There are two sides,

To every coin

Showing up late

And trying too hard

Getting there early

But not enough's done

Rooted trees

Ground into paper

Falling leaves

Pressed and preserved

Lost in the doorway

Opening your minds

Do you even know

What side you're looking at?

Standing and waiting

Hoping and wishing

There are two sides,

To every coin

sand scrubbers

Dirty lint, floating in the water

Empty foil, half buried in the sand

Bent straw, lying in the grass

Crushed coke can, just short of the trash

Look at all the people

Watching from their chairs

Angry gulls are swooping,

Knocking out the garbage

Picking up the cigarettes and

Throwing out the boxes

Look at all the people

Watching from their chairs

Where is the lifeguard?

Nobody, patrolling the beach

There you are, on your own

Scrubbing the dirty sand

Look at all the people

Watching from their chairs

bond

Love is not a prize to be won at the carnival,

Happiness not a trinket that's bought or sold

Friendship is not a scripted performance at the circus,

Entertainment is for personal gain, the mirror just opposite says

A bond restrains and shackles you in place

Or symbolizes and contains your freedom

When forged by your own hand

A connection out of pity or guilt or fear, deteriorates at the first sign of distress

Satisfaction is not inheriting a bronze statue

But sculpting that statue from scratch

Designing, planning, modifying, maintaining

Progress finds pride and complacency fighting over harmony

Contentment is the pride that comes from the right to choose

And the wisdom to know when enough is enough

devil

When you go looking for the devil, that's what you're likely to find

When you want to see evil in others, it shouldn't be a surprise when you do

Every person has the devil inside of them

The capacity

The possibility

But

That does not mean that you want this

Society creates religions and Gods to transcend our limitations

To offer hope where there is darkness

To break through the illusions created by negativity, mistrust, doubt, fear, and jealousy

The things that create conflict, violence and greed

You construct gigantic walls in the name of safety

Massive institutions in the name of consistency

How much simpler would empires be if they were rooted in finding the good in one another?

You already have great literatures based on finding God

In nature

In your fellow creatures

And humans of all sorts

Warning of evil and hoping for good

Yet you can't escape your fear of the devil, seen all around you

And inside one's self

Locked away to protect what you label as yours

From what you imagine others will do to you

Instead of trying to see the greater God in everyone

If there were no more crimes there would be no need for police

With no corrupt police, innocents wouldn't need the protection of the gangsters

If every person knew the meaning of the word enough, there would be no leaders or politicians

With no politicians there would be no rebels to challenge their biased rulings

If harmony was a goal, could there still be room for prejudice?

Would you still want big rooms to fill with dusty collections of stuff?

And here, just scoff

Who exactly is to decide?

And then, who will make everyone follow?

And how can the decider and leader be equal to the people if they have to be greater?

Just one voice of descent will always lead to many

And who wants to be forced to follow anyone else's idea anyway?

What answer can be found without a question?

I say only this

Look for the good

NOise

Spiraling noise

Vibrating keyboards

Jittering alarms

And another ticket

Numbing congestion

Routed this way and that

Swimming upstream

Paddling against the flow

Swerving erratically

Dodging, ducking, accelerating

Tuning out the interference

Stopping to pick up the trash

Assimilating to the mess

Kneading the knots

Sweeping away the dirt

Slowly paving a better street

Together, look beyond

Your stoop and your neighbors'

The woods and the waters

All reserve the right to respect

Let pride be the beginning

To take only enough

To relax the tangle

You create for yourself

crowding power

what is a great leader?  strong and absolute?  wise and compassionate?  endlessly generous?  a leader should be a representation of the people.  one that does not say, how will this benefit me, but how can this benefit everyone.  and what if the voice of the people is one of evil?  maybe one would have to go against that for the sake of sustainability and balance.  lead by example.  keep in mind what's best, yet try to understand what's wanted. 

ill-intentions are marketed harder than good ones, because they have to be.  good things don't feel the need to force themselves to be recognized and understood, by definition they should be.  ill-intentions HAVE TO assault their audience for fear of being understood as they truly are.  propaganda is how people are trained to never understand the truth, but what someone else wants them to believe is the truth.  yet it is all part of the same ecosystem.  a leader is no greater than the people, nor the villain less or superior to either of those.  all are the same, struggling to survive.  all are striving to find harmony in their surroundings, whether they want to realize it or not. 

if everyone is unique, how can all be the same?  no two people have exactly the same abilities and desires, yet everyone lives together.  people all eat, sleep, breathe, drink, work, play, love and fear.   care.  if everyone is so similar, how do you reconcile differences?  by crushing those deemed inferior?  by getting as much for yourself as possible to prevent someone else from taking it?  what about loving thy neighbor?  even if that neighbor is a villain or a coward or a hero or an innocent bystander.  differences don't need make others feel inferior.  but that doesn't mean everyone should be the same either.  celebrating differences can be a matter of working together.  more power is generated through peace than war can ever create.  anger, aggression, fear, animosity are all cheap ways to generate something that is perceived to be lacking.  but these can not be maintained over time, they are self-defeating.  you hurt yourself and others through these means and ensure that nobody wins.  cooperation is how everybody can grow together.  a forest is always stronger than a single tree.  does a forest have only one kind of tree?  do the trees impose their will on the animals that live underneath them, or the insects that dwell in the soil or the bark?  a successful ecosystem maintains equilibrium for all the living organisms.  the rabbits don't drive the wolves out of the woods, but they don't allow themselves to be eaten either.  evolution allows them to find their niche.  wolves that are too vicious run out of food and starve themselves.

crowds that follow poor-intentions will not prosper.  what's good for the many will be good for the individual in the long run.  what's good for the few could mean anything.  how can a person even know what's right or wrong, good or bad if they don't understand how things are working together?  everyone is born into the system, given the illusion of choice and asked to carry on their merry way without thinking too much one way or another.  advertisements are projected into the subconscious.  news headlines flash back and forth across one's senses.  you have to fight to view a situation for the many sides that it exists in.  ignorance is broadcast like it were a modern day virtue.  someone has already decided for you and in the name of efficiency, in the name of your best interests, you are asked not to question.  you are asked to remove your individuality as a sacrifice to the greater good, which you may or may not even know what exactly it is.  there might not be anybody that can clearly define for you what this is, but people are following it anyway.  because so many voices are too small by themselves.  because people have become so tiny and insignificant, what's the point.  somebody out there must know what's best for everyone else.  somebody out there must be moving things in the right direction.  how do we know?  efficiency tells us that questioning only leads to trouble.  you are taught from a very early age that some things can't be changed.  You will find from experience that sometimes you don't want to know.  those of you that dare to ask are pummeled into submission.  submission to what?  where does this force come from that sees and understands what is best and how things should be?  flightless birds are easier to herd than ones moving all over the place.  but where is the danger, and who exactly is this dangerous to?

power.  curiosity is the enemy of power.  power doesn't need to be good or bad, it only controls.  power can be both and neither.  power is nameless, faceless, voiceless, opinion-less, and endless.  power exists beyond the grasp of human understanding and doesn't only inhabit organic hosts.  power is attraction and conformity, while simultaneously destroying.  power cannot be fought because it is envied and desired.  power can only be avoided, distributed, re-associated, and diluted.  safety and comfort are by-products.  power can oppose harmony as fervently as chaos.  harmony includes both of those elements, but is in itself neither.  trees cannot grow if they have no leaves or roots, branches or bark.  the soil will not support them if they held power over other organisms to remove them from the environment.  chaos is diluted by power to allow parts to come together, forming vegetation, animals and other forms of life.  power is diluted by chaos, allowing differences to exist, side-by-side.  the concepts work together to enhance the complexity life.  working together there are no absolutes that can exist.  power is a sign of disharmony just as anarchy is, yet harmony can not exist without either of the base elements present to give it meaning.  without the elements you are left with nothing but the pallet.  you are left with only possibilities, no realities.

a leader does not have answers, only suggestions.  a leader is not power, but a bit of help.  a counter-balance to a situation, not a solution.  life must always be allowed to balance itself.  life is not necessarily a series of right and wrong actions, but an attempt to balance.  even expansion and reduction are consequences, attempts to correct what has been thrown off.  peace and war are no more right than wrong if you can not understand them.  are you trying to create peace where there is already peace?  are you trying to create war where there is already war?  if you could educate and pacify the aggressive and violent, would there still be conflict?  war is an invention in the name of power, using unrest and a superficial need for comfort that is achieved through violence.  why not introduce the restless to music or art?  why not fight complacency with self-expression?  what happened to resolving differences through communication and genuinely trying to do what's best for the people that are actually affected by a decision, instead of what's best for someone's wallet?  when was the last time you were afraid of something other than your own government and the turmoil is created elsewhere?  everyone is living on this earth and eventually will have to fit together, sharing the same resources and land, striving to be capable of hope and happiness.

restart

Rearranged relics

On a static screen

Disjointed tension

Lingering silence

Why have I grown so attached to this or that?

These or those?

Sweating grease and oil

Eager prints, jockeying for position

On a crowded page

Empty mug-

Carefully,

Placed in the trash

Unwrapped and ignored

Tiny alarms

Irrational paranoia

The world closing in

Why do I care so much?

Erase, restart and

Try again

simple music

Busy business suits and dress shoes stampede by

Arguing at cell phones and headsets

some side street, the buzz fades

Cars drive by, here and there

Concrete still barricades most of the sky

off the main road, where

green grass in the space between buildings

Families with pets on the sidewalk, laughing and yelling

On and on and on, there are always more houses, cars, bikes, people

The country is a distance, an idea

Sun is shimmering off narrow, rusted and stained trailer park roofs

Tufts protrude between the brown rot of debris, left on lawns

Mailboxes are all nailed to a long board between two old weathered posts. 

Some are crooked and barely hanging on, next to others that rattle and creak in the wind.

The paint, just ripe for scraping, is falling away from the roof

Filled with thoughtful patches of experience; red-browned wisdom replacing the youthful metallic shimmer

Walls stuffed so full of memories they have no room for insulation left

A white haired elderly man exits his car, carrying an old, worn flannel shirt, or coat, or jacket.

The thrift store is small and homely, with thousands of dreams scattered about.

Boys done playing ball with their fathers, have donated old, worn gloves, a small, chipped and stained bat, a ball falling apart at the seams

Precious pink dresses, worn once for someone's daughter’s first school concert.

Fancy shoes some charming young man wore to impress his school sweetheart, and future wife.

Old television sets families used to gather in front of and spend countless hours watching.

Pots and pans and mixing bowls lined up against the wall waiting for a young couple or a poor college student or a family fallen on hard times to make useful again.

The lonely whirr of the solitary machine, running.

It clicks over to another cycle,

Crunches, then proceeds to spin a little slower than before.

The air is a fluffy, linty aroma

A wrinkled old woman opens the door, very meticulously

She silently folds clothes out of a basket sitting on the table

The machine clicks over again and abruptly stops.

The clothes sit, all matted together, waiting to be taken out

The whirr of another machine is heard, towards the other end of the building.

Probably in his mid thirties or so

Wearing a plain-old, grey,  sweat shirt

The kind with a zipper the length of the chest, and engorged, beer-belly

In one hand he’s carrying three full bags of groceries, in those clear plastic bags that are so much easier to hold than the paper ones

In the other hand, he’s dragging the son he barely sees, a sad boy with tangled hair and a bright yellow shirt with a smiling face in the middle

Awkward sideways steps he

Places one foot in front, or sometimes

Behind the other, up the small hill to the house.

A dull coke

Cheap plastic cap guns

Dented tomato soup cans

Boxes of macaroni, half opened and spilling

Red and yellow squirt guns, scattered on the floor

A man with a tough brow, strong forehead, scraggily brown hair trying to disguise his enormous bald spot,

Closes the front door with his one good arm, a little worn and tired, while the other hangs from a sling at his side, amputated just above the elbow.

With his stub, he wedges the door open to let out the last customers of the day.

He rattles his key ring, trying to find the one that unlocks his broken-down, ancient Dodge Neon

His apartment is small and cramped, filled with ragged plaid furniture, stained pictures in crooked frames, and figurines found at garage sales and thrift stores and flea markets

He turns on the TV and slowly falls asleep to the low pitched hum of static

work

Welcome to the Information Age

The digitally distributed

Cyber-nexus, blogosphere

Hyper-driven interwebs

Industrialization's exponentially expanding mutants

Teetering imbalanced ratios

An ever expanding ocean of opinions

Continually contributing to the noise

Researching diminishing returns

Redundant engines, recycled and repeated

Ancient processes perpetually modified

Detergent seeking a quiet chair

Left behind in the paradox of solitude

Endless conversations with nobody about nothing, somehow never forgotten

A single blade of grass

Lost on the super highway

Abandoned atop a mountain

Lonely in the jungle

Trampled beneath the boots of billions of entrepreneurs

Rising to nowhere

For no reason

Preconditioned and preprogrammed and predetermined and prepared

To work

To roll that rock

Eternally uphill

Pushing

Until your feet stink and sweat

Reading

Until your vision is jittery and fading

Typing

Until your fingers stiffen and your toes atrophy and your back creaks and cracks

Rowing

Your boat until your hands blister under the pressure

Stressed

Until you pop a blood vessel in your eyeball

Working

Until your teeth rot and fall out of your head

You have been left out in the rain

Waiting for some bus you don't know much about

With only a small pamphlet called experience which could mean anything, or nothing

All you can do is hope

Hope for goodness and warmth

A place to stay and enough to eat

Yet many never see even that,

Sometimes a handshake and a smile

While traveling from here to there

Can help

racing

Racing down infinite stairs of the dark subway tunnel of your mind

Stumbling, mumbling

Endlessly fixing the flat tires of winged jealousy

Wrapped in the molasses, melting

Feathers fluttering in disgust

Flying in irrational

Obtuse patterns

Variations of paranoid nothing

Vibrating madly in place

The walls are dissipating

Scorched and burning

Dripping and dragging

Loose and leaking

Everything is an illusion

Of your perception

What do you want to believe?

scraps

Rip me off

Set me up

And steal my stuff

Not good enough

To make it alone?

Hop on my back,

Plenty of room

Jealous, insecure?

Step on my face

You might feel bigger

If that's what you gotta do

Rip me off

Set me up

And steal my stuff

My wallet's soggy

Water-logged and useless

Cards are full

Account is empty

Yet still the scavengers

Search for scraps

Leeches are clinging

Hidden and sucking

Rip me off

Set me up

Steal my stuff

swamp

The mind is a dark swamp

Of self loathing, and perpetual fear

If the sun goes down, it may never rise again

That in the shadows, something is lurking

That monsters could be real

You don't want to believe

Purity can exist

An alien with neon sparkling

Open generosity, timid soul

Stinking pits

Are smothering kindness

Obsessive inadequacies

Will never be good enough

When your back is turned

The intangible might materialize

Demons under rocks

Will chase everything away

Yet it's never seen

How they're chased away anyway

Afraid to awaken

Shocked by ugliness

Afraid to stain

Such silky fur

Afraid of losing respect

Upon sight of goodness

Perceived weakness

In this dark world

Unfortunate confusion

Broken mess

stone

Stone gargoyles

Stolid grey

Perched atop skyscraper outlines

Waiting to be seated

Perpetual specters

Driving around and beside

Rooted engines

So deep

So broken

Late to the party

Too early to be noticed

Do not go anywhere

Opportunity buzzes

Only once

Protecting and watching

Ancient intentions

Cannot be overlooked

Good is never singular

But for the many

This prehistoric chess match

Held over quicksand

Is over before it began

But crowds know

No stopping

tired

Scratch, pick and peel

Calm

Twitch, scratch, itch

Steady

Blister boiling flesh

Awkward churning

Oppressive weight of silence

Pacing, pacing, pacing

Peeled paint

Scattered chips,

Stepped on and

Spread across the floor

Warped boards

Creaking and groaning

Unbearable fog of nothing

Moldy thoughts

Rotting, decaying

This is all you'll ever be

Insignificant, Unrecognizable

A spec of dust

On the ass of an elephant

An out of tune guitar

Locked in the case, forgotten and buried beneath useless crap

A rattling pipe

Tired and apathetic

Flickering light

Confusingly dim

An untrained voice

Swallowed alive amongst the macabre noise

A flashlight with no batteries

A VCR not plugged in

Pacing, pacing, pacing

crickets

To the empty night and the crickets in the city

There are no drunkards shouting or squealing tasty tires past my house

There are no half naked girls dancing in strobe lights

No music or laughter or anyone at all, around

Just this alcoholic drinking to himself

Smoking to death

Reverberating

The infrastructure is abandoned

Nobody is any worse off

The skeletal remains of legacy machines

Crashed into a glacier without

Ever having a pilot

And, and, like twist sideways

Twitch, mold, and move into

Their ridiculous garbage

Trucks, mics, and Jesus

God and the telephone, forget your bribes

Civil, social, no mostly existential rebellion

I wanted those cars to speed by,

Chose for those people to stop and ask for directions

I gouge open my wounds, to disturb delicate flesh

Turmoil in the repair

Contort and disrupt

Unset unrelentingly

Waves of numb

Succumb irritated nerves

Puff and swell

Dissolve and forget

Where is this real world I hear about?

In conferences or presentations, group meetings and orientations, learning assignments and educational instruction?

Is it in our businesses or free trade economy, maybe it’s the product, or the process

The service industry, or the entertainment industry

Maybe its in your fame, or your perfect family, perfect mind and soul

Maybe its in your food or your exercise routine

Maybe its in your art or your diary entries, or short stories

Maybe its our ambitions or hopes, or dreams that are so often defined only by our failures

Or maybe its just an accident that we find along the way