(NaPoWriMo Challenge: April 9, 2015)

The tendency to forget information that can be found readily online by using Internet search engines.


This information is the result of my searches on Google this morning:

• “Never memorize something that you can look up.” Online this quote is widely attributed to Albert Einstein.

• “[I do not] carry such information in my mind since it is readily available in books. ...The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think.” This was Einstein in response to not knowing the speed of sound as included in the Edison Test. (Wikiquote)

• Many people wear the same clothes every day. In Einstein’s case this was a grey suit--the reason being that our thinking time is wasted making irrelevant wardrobe decisions. I also re-read the Henry David Thoreau quote about life being frittered away by detail. But when considering what is being frittered, you could add the mind, the spirit, time itself. This idea was part of Thoreau’s “simplicity, simplicity” quote which I once bought as a magnet from the museum at Walden Pond in the fall of 2001. I didn’t remember that date. I just googled a story about the trip, (www.apeculture.com/travel/boston.htm). In any case, I felt the magnet was being ironic. Like Einstein, President Barack Obama wears the same variation of two suits every day in order to “pare down decisions.” Apple genius Steve Jobs wore the same thing every day as does Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. (Elite Daily: elitedaily.com/money/science-simplicity-successful-people-wear-thing-every-day/849141/)

• Google is creating personalities for androids, personalities that will live in the cloud and can be swapped into robots. I plan to forget this information because it’s creepy and like Ripley in the movie Alien, I’m suspicious of androids unless they are like Lance Henriksen in the movie Aliens in which case I would probably buy that personality for my robot if I had one.

• I also found out today that Google's images section, (which I use religiously when blogging), was created due to Jennifer Lopez’s green floral Versace dress, the one that opened like a surgical split to her navel, the one that caused such a kerfuffle when she wore it to the 2000 Grammy Awards and everyone searched Google fruitlessly for it afterwards. I’ve forgotten about that dress because I hated it. It looked like a Miami house-robe for one thing and I don’t like any couture that structurally hangs off *****.

• Google also announced a new patent today for a warning system that protects you from pop culture spoilers on Internet pages. If you think about it, this warning system will protect you from Google itself. Sometimes a little information ruins everything.

• I found all of this Google news on Google News.

• You can find more Einstein quotes here:  brightdrops.com/albert-einstein-quotes, one particular quote informs me that creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.

• D’oh!

• Which is a word I have always remembered because the great poet Homer said it.

Feel empty in your post apocalyptic City of Angels,
Where not even your pets are real!
An electric android, a sheep or a frog,
The whir-flutter of micro-electrical wings of a butterfly.

Good, and so you ought.

Now grab the handles of your empathy box,
And in a shared virtual hallucination –
Feel: empathy, depression, pain, delusion and despair,
The outré myriad gifts of consciousness.

Billions of discombobulated and disconnected wrecks:
Adam's sons; Eve's daughters,
And among them simulations too,
Fakes! androids!
A phony circuit of implanted semi-conscious memories,
A hive of neural malaise!
Welcome to our world;
know how dead inside I am.

You, yes, you:

Need a pet to make you more complete?
Maybe you can afford
A Fake Fakir Flake like me who looks like Jude Law,
Sounds like Richard Burton,
And silently romances you like Rudolph Valentino.
Come and stick what’s left of your mind,
In here,
In hair,
Hear her:
har, har, har…

A box of lies...

A voice, Mercer's,
With texture from an age you neither lived in nor dared in:
Al Jerry's, a TV actor,
Droning on in pre-selected tones.

The real thing, the men, the women, the children - their animals -
Made in the wild, wild desert,
In the green pulsing savannah,
On the open crusted sea;
Now too, washed, choked, and drained,
Too many spliced and diced mutations,
Iterating your image:
The thing that was my heart,
My Child, now its imitation.

Destiny for humanoids---
Shall we run by androids?
Or shall we be the androids?
Let's prognosticate,
Predict our fates----
Shall mankind claim the Universe?
Or is Anarchy to be the serve?
Teeming billions in a rat race,
What is destiny for our Earth place?
In our lifetime, we'll never know,
Unless Armageddon explodes,
Let's hope the young are star hopping,
Instead of retail therapy shopping,
Too young for the stars,
Too old for the seas afar,
Nothing left to explore,
Disaffection, please no more,
Shall we be the androids?
Destiny for the humanoids?????????

"What do you mean you've never seen Blade Runner? My GOD! I didn't think there was a single person on the planet that hasn't seen that. They showed it to us in elementary school as an example of a prophetic, foretelling, social commentary."
"Well, I never was a fan of fiction or science, even though somehow I've still managed to live my fair share of both."
" Do androids dream of electric sheep? What are your dreams?"
"Electric...sheep?"
"Yeah, that's the title of the book the movie is based on, but like, I'm honestly curious about the second part. It's a better ice-breaker than your deprived childhood".
"You wanna' know what I dream? I dream of a world soaked in gasoline, and a lone, shadowy, figure masked by deceit and decay, filling the air with a rotten sulfuric smell as he festers in his own filth. I can't see this guy clearly, but I know him. I know him in my head and my heart and he just stands there, idle, in a place where he can see the silhouetted skyline of the entire wretched city. Trapped between his forefinger and thumb is  a match donning a dancing flame for a hat, performing a flamenco routine for two wild eyes.  Eyes that indicate a sureness of what to do, but make no use of intentions. They seem to sort of flip between question and answer with each dimming and brightening of the match's beacon.  The question appears to already have been answered, but has yet to be acted upon. He's tinkering with the notion.  Is this due to hesitation in the man's mind, or is he simply toying with the already squirming city? The final act is inevitable, yet the ulterior option, to extinguish the trigger, still stands...". He pauses.
His new partner's face has lost most of its color and his mouth is propped open with a jack made of sheer horror and curiosity.
"Well JESUS man! Aren't you gonna tell me the rest of it?"
"The rest of it is: I wake up".
He languidly looks around, takes a pull from the bottle, and proceeds to pull his mask over his face. His partner isn't sure, but he thought he'd caught a smile crack before his mouth was covered,
  "...and not like a haha I'm yankin' your chain kinda grin. This ****** meant it", his partner would recall later to some buddies in a bar.
"I wake up and wonder whether I'm the man, or the match".
He slams the magazine into his weapon and rips the slide back to load up the first round of ammunition. He exits the vehicle, and heads towards the disheveled building that has more or less sunk into its foundation. His new partner shakes his head, wipes his face with his paws of hands, pulls on his mask, and flicks the *** end of his cigarette whose embers have already begun to eat away at the cotton filter out towards the woods. He catches the light from the buckshot of the cherry out of the corner of his eye and imagines that match spinning towards the city.
"What the **** have I gotten into..."

No matter what I do
theres always something
I want more
Like a camera
or a trip
or even just something
just a little bit better
than what I have, even if its older, because
sometimes things
of old are
so much better
than the new,
like how I look at
These cameras I dream of
in stores, in
flea markets,
I hold their predecessors,
their grandfathers
and feel the cold calm
of the metal body
in my hands, and know that
things just aren’t built this way any
more, and people
aren’t what they used to be, or
so it seems,
from the history classes
and all the books
I read, about life
before it was my time
and how people seemed
to give a ****,
and didn’t just sit
and whine
and waste so much time,
but how did they live
before Facebook
how could they
fall in love without
Tinder,
or read the news without
Twitter
or pass their classes without
google on their Androids in their laps to pass the answers on the test before them?

So I guess they were just tougher
than us, like these old cameras
I want, and they
didn’t want, like we
want to pretend we need
so we don’t have to accept
what’s right in front of us.

Our excuse that
We need to wait for film
To develop.

Set fire to the Antique Shop,
We’re one step ahead of the cops.
Mannequins of Elvis begin to melt.
Free from past matters; free from guilt.
Promoting the prosperity
As we hoard hostility
Androids ambushing Arkansas,
They seek to find ménage trois.
Achieving self-awareness
They want fill the void’s emptiness
Chugging R & R by the fifths.
By our thumbnails we dangle off cliffs.
Thread by thread, the veil unfolds.
Standing all alone, I’m left in the cold.
Show me how much you care.
Push me in my wheelchair.
Listening to what drives you crazy
Eventually helps you stop being lazy.
Lilly is spinning me dizzy
She belongs to the world of yesterday
The haze is now fading away.
If only I could stay
for just one day
But Behold
I feel you should be told
I have come from the end
When the Earth is condemned.
As I tell the tall tale,
How we came to live in hell,
once we found the holy grail.
“We overcame our fear
The classified was made clear.
We launched all the nukes,
By order of the Skywalker named Luke.
The framers were lousy architects;
They left the balance completely hectic.
The CEO’s got away with fraud.
Thinking their work was the will of God.”
I met you in the gloomiest bar.
We speed across the town in my car.
Questioning why we remained silent.
The flickering florescent light compliment
The tone of shallow yellow paint,
I can finally hibernate.
After I left the oblivious,
Do I finally notice,
It’s hesitation that leads
me astray from redemption.
TJW 2013

i want to scream till i puke and cry myself empty
because my mind is a dark place and the thoughts
that haunt me are half formed and sadistic
they wrap my mind so tight in these chains
that i feel like the breath is crushed right out of me
and my ribcage is cracking my shoulders are breaking
and my eyes have been replaced with
cold black stone.. i thought i was made of flesh and blood
but apparently i'm just carved out of metal and bone

Meticulous and loveless, she does her duty
with flawless execution in a calculated fashion.
Every task she has accomplished
is done with a robotic passion

The wires of her brain
are smoldered in place.
Insulated with old errors
she computes a quiet disgrace.

Malicious programs in a trojan horse
sent from a suspicious source with a familiar name.
She brought down her firewall to let him in
which is why she feels such shame.

I watch her as she marches;
no style, no finesse, no grace.
I want to give her a soft touch or an honest whisper.
But I'm prevented by the anti-virus in within my interface.

This is to all those misfits

To the Romeo car-washing in Inglewood inlets
To the Hippy selling crystals on the Venice boardwalk
The Magician swallowing 8-***** at the Huntington Beach peer
The Rapper selling CDs in the Ranch Market parking lot
The **** tatting in a makeshift garage
The Poet slinging chapbooks at cafes and rec centers…


Not androids pontificating from lecterns
But grimy roots burrowing deep
Seismic rumblings toppling down
Insured ivory towers
Smashing pilled-paradigms beneath Docs
Hustling and slinging
In the forbidden outshacks of civilization
In tents, over barbed-wire, beside shards
Desperate and burning
For neither Truth or Beauty
But for LIFE

They do not tap wrists
No,  they thump chests
To feel it beat
To feel it rage
For fugitive fugues
For new eternities

They embrace
******* romance
Graveyard necromance
The holy hunger for change
Defying commercials and charts
Shivering and howling on streets
Waging guerrilla war
Liberating cubicled-hearts

the way i see it, the internet doesn't really exist for poets
of the 21st century: instant gratification in other realms does,
the digital free-love movement,
mobile internet - and the atypical human
behaviour of sorts;
counterclockwise there's another movement
happening - not based on a dozen social
media accounts - digital selection,
it's there - the komtur movement -
you use a sieve and you add the filter, without
even considering the deep web -
you imagine yourself in a Tron exercise -
you're basically saying: what should i
include in the virtual reinterpretation of
the high street - i haven't bothered going to
the high street / junk street for ages -
Oxford Street is like Jurassic Park for me -
herds of edible oxen daydreaming while
walking - poets always have the acid tongue,
better treat a woman with truth than
shelter 10 concubines and lie -
tss! (venomous spit sound) - where the big
boy'oh and his ******* Ferrari now?
on the next ***** - like i planned out prior -
there was a leather settee sitting in someone's
driveway, i had a beer and a cigarette and
felt the need for a breather - but it's in someone's
driveway... it would look odd, no?
around the corner a John the Baptist moment,
another settee sitting on the pavement -
you know how surreal it feels to sit on something
that's intended for the indoors when sitting outside?
i usually take rigid monk attention to postured
retirement from walking, but a settee on the pave
was like... sitting on a cloud - i joined
the feline traffic wardens for a while, 1, 2, 3, 4 cars
passed, i snorkelled two cigarettes and finished the
bear - the night... mm... is this surreal?
well... imagine that Brazilian billionaire and
his Olympic Games bid parking his car
in his living room... i parked my sofa on the
pavement - he's a butterfly incubator, i'm a tornado.
in poetry you have metaphors, puns...
i treat all psychiatric terms as equivalent to what
poetry uses - split-mind is both imagery and metaphor -
i'm already wearing a wedding ring -
allocated to the mediation of money, so she's
a ******* in heaven - i call her my pain in the ***
because she is a scorching sound in my left
hemisphere, it's this constant nagging -
or be like a Kantian bachelor - test your strength alone -
you'll have cognitive arguments with yourself,
you might do the whole schizophrenic episode -
or like me... hold keen on the stern and recover
with meteoric ambition to count the number
of peas in a glass like some autistic genius -
shame that science never had any romantic dimension -
Kierkegaard explored Faust - it ended up with Faust
being more the mythology that was intended -
he simply overpowered the love interest -
a love too diabolical - and unto hell we go, less
romantic and even more diabolical - some poets
write 20 poems a year, applause applause it's all great
because it's like taking a selfie of the poet on the toilet
seat - but my throne the throne of thrones,
Napoleon sat on a throne and the warring fields
were filled with **** - i sit on the throne of thrones
and the fields don't matter, i just **** on the throne
of the French Emperor; oi! listen, i'm trying to draw
return to the narrative linear, it's not easy when
you end up constantly stimulated by digression, digression,
it's hard enough to stop the river, let alone build a
Hoover dam or a bridge - o.k., now that i'm
less excited by subconscious stimulants of talk talk talk
(subconscious? yeah, read a few articles
about Layla, Harrison, No *** Please, Modern
reinventions of Arranged marriage with psychiatrists etc.)
i figured, i must write a 21st century poem...
i'm not much of a gamer, fair enough like any teenager
i played the Playstation - didn't get to no. 2,
that old grey block of plastic -
Tenchu and Final Fantasy Seven (with a walkthrough,
i was busy doing homework), and the Sims -
the wormhole spectacular - get the Sim to sit at the
computer... BOOM! cross-dimensional wormhole,
started freaking out... but the tablets are around
and i got speeding on Raving Fever -
PLAYER43588 - number of wins 1602 - mostly on the 2nd car
in the gallery - and mostly won on a 2,000 / 4km bet -
how? the physics - the nitro on max, the braking the handling
the acceleration and the speed on max -
but it's the physics! the ****** physics! most players
i go against are like robots... they press the nitro button
and quickly accelerate - i just sit back and either wait
for them to crash against the traffic, or when they don't,
after i have gained from the acceleration per se,
and having reached the max speed, then i nitro the ******...
it's like a Zeno paradox, i'm the tortoise and they're
Achilles - it's irrational to counter a good acceleration
with nitro - a schematic and less verbiage:

car A
nitro                    (143kmph)
                                               z. (~184kmph)
                                                                                    nitro
                                                                                    car B

z. denotes the zenith of speed - if these androids figured it
out properly, they wasted their nitro boost to reach the
maximum speed, i only wasted the acceleration potential
and got slightly delayed - once hitting the maximum
speed of 143kmph - i then press on the nitro and my zenith
is at ~184kmph - they're stuck on a plateau of maximum,
while i'm decreasing to their zenith of mutual maximum -
that's why i win so often, the frustrating thing for them
is that i always beat them on the last 100 metres or so.
basically i'm slowing down, while they're stuck on
stead speed, and by slowing down i'm beating them.
i guess scientists aren't ****, but neither is raising children,
who best knows the adventure of the mind?
and how to make boredom worth your while?

We've all got memes
Deep down in our genes
Passed down and passed out
Bursting our seams

There are memes in the air
Thoughts and feelings we share
Ideas spinning round
In the clouds everywhere

When was the first meme?
When two primates dared to dream
The same dream, the same things
Long before we had screens

I haz a bucket
A cheeseburger
A chair
I laughed and I clicked
I edited and shared

We're all forging memes
Fresh, new ones everyday
Memesmith is the role
That every poet must play

Memes are part of our soul
They're in our DNA

allowing for a two part volume
of Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu...
is unforgiving... it's asking a meat-head
to read such a body like exploring a woman's...
a gay-man's psyche is pretty much a woman...
or what a woman thinks in secret,
gay men merely vocalise what a woman does
not say... and yes, that a with a diacritical
mark... that grave above the a? the à?
it works like a comma... à! a surprise kindred
an eureka that's not really original,
an: ah! and then you say the rest of the title...
iconic pause: in search of lost time...
          it took me about five minutes to figure
that one out... lost time, but occupied a space...
  and so much political vanity is consecrated
upon the reverse.. ineffective space:
thus gained time... for all that protests are worth.

i know i go on about this a lot, surprise surprise,
i'm actually engaging in systematisation...
once you enjoy writing as much as walking
you get to reach a systematisation,
     it's a painful process, i'd never do the editing process
of a Hemingway... write something: shoot some
camels and reindeer and go back and revise a piece
of writing: drink a *death in the afternoon -
a shot of absinthe inside a champagne glug
or the modern: shot of Jägermeister inside a glass
of red bull... (yay-gay-mr.) -
                       or how do you make snakebite?
half a láger half a çíder - and a head of blackcurrant
squash... scoot meine good look.
  but diacritical marks are what punctuation marks
are... it's only that they've become elevated,
and unlike punctuation marks governing paragraphs
and sentences... they govern the words,
         they are syllable incision indicators...
  i mean: i don't revise something i've already written,
unless it's a spelling mistake... i just write
something new... it's sadistic in my mind's eye to
revise and revise a single effort of writing...
                i'd rather centralise a theme of the paradox
of re-, in the year 2018 i will still experience
the tetratempus - containing four seasons -
         and i will never return toward making a piece
of writing become a morbidly corrected statue...
     what's done is done, let us move toward another
circumstance of being able to acquire a new kind
of observation... i can't be a sadist in terms of also
being a perfectionist... i break a leg, i break a leg...
if i write a ****** poem, i'll write a ****** poem...
but i won't be bothered like human history has been
by preoccupying itself in forwarding the drama
on Golgotha Street...
    the newest addition to the vogue scene is a corset
paired with a waistcoat...
   the snooker championships are taking place,
and i says to my father: 'a bit like chess, ain't it?'
   'sure is', he replies, 'you have to think 3 moves ahead.'
and it is... a smart sport, actually the most intelligent
sport there is... ****** boring obviously,
unless you fake the boredom and think about angles
and triangles and Newton...
   and cover the game with such congestions of
pretending to hallucinate it all...
                or take to thinking about rebellious
Saturn spinning out of orbit and doing a Mike Tyson
to Jupiter...
          but it's very much like chess...
                   it's sporty chess... snooker is chess...
  and it definitely ain't pool...
         you could actually have a ******* on a snooker table...
while either doggy or missionary positioning on
the snooker table... so what are the odds?!
         but i'll tell you one thing... snooker beats golf...
i don't know why... but once colour televisions came into
existence: it made much more sense for both
spectator and commentator... and how dare you
not cling to the 20th century if you were born in it
to translate to the 21st androids how we experienced
an evolution of technology, that made much more sense
after what i just heard...
      so there's this woman in the U.S., and this is before
president-elect and whatnot...
  and she's 22, and it's all over vice news,
and she's scared, and she's a mother of a 1 year old...
    and then this picture emerges
(don't worry, it's not anything like playing the Sims
   and moving your Sim to play computer games
and seeing a wormhole, or the infinity mirror effect)...
and there's a scene when she's talking Donald Duck
to the child... there are no meaningful words being
said... merely sounds... onomatopoeias...
and yes... this makes perfectly good sense when
stressed as a cut-off capsule...
because Darwinism doesn't really provide much
history... Darwinism is a historical erasure:
the past 2000 years could have happened,
but not really...
  but it just fascinated me...
         when did we learn or who did we learn it from
given we were placed at so many different
plots of the globe and became convergent -
anyway - the woman is teaching the child
words via the onomatopoeia of a hoarse quacking
of a duck! i probably will not find an answer
(primarily because i'm not supposed to,
if i am to perpetuate what Aristotle taught, i.e.:
be wrong and continually circumstance being in awe,
given the mundanity that nonetheless
everything keeps repeating itself over and over again,
for sustenance, and you are not sustenance bound
as corrected by your language deficiency to
ever merge into an unconsciously organised module
that might also argue an ego) -
    but i wonder how difficult it must have been
to extract something beyond the minimalism of animals
that identifies a duck with a quack, a cow with a moo,
an serpent with a sss... a cat with a meow, a dog with a bark...
    i cannot conceive how difficult this explanation
will be... but given the timeframe, i'm more awe-stricken
by this than merely being awe-bound by the time-scale...
which becomes the least affordable option of being
struck by awe, because one becomes merely awe-bound
by it, and therefore apathetic towards such a time-scale.
       how did we suddenly extract an understanding
of an onomatopoeia to distinguish our own ontological
basis for making a sound by infusing a sound that
doesn't resemble us? when did the first ape bark like
a dog? but then again, looking at the canvas already
apparent to us... what was the point of such an adventure?
hippy culture says: monkey accidently ate a mushroom,
monkey suddenly was blown away and reasoned of
a higher purpose other than a tree and a coconut...
     mudvayne quotes the guy on l.d. 50...
what's the guys name... uggh! not Timothy Leary...
ah ****! Terence McKenna! that's it!
        am i high? nope... my respectability of argument
comes from the mystical properties of... whiskey.
hmm...      that rarely happens to people.
                   it's what's called being earthbound, or gravity
prone... sink like a skipping pebble across the lake...
          and like a tonne of lard.
             tomorrow i'll wake once more and still
think about how we encouraged the discovery of
onomatopoeia to teach our children the multiplicity of
sounds, and later deconstruct such a multiplicity to
create meaningful words that go beyond knock knock! jokes
and grunts and barking...
                     but i will never know the man who
created the fermentation process from potatoes to make
*****...
                or the guy who brewed the first pint...
or the guy that smoked the first marijuana bush ensemble
while clearing the land for a place to harvest wheat...
   all the fame that exists is simply scholastic...
  schoolboy fame... which is why so much attention
goes into becoming famous in school...
                        but still that woman teaching her child how
to speak by going down into the blobby-gurgling
  tongue of the toddler, stiffening it,
      and tightening the **** and bladder too...
  by talking Donald Duck to it...
                        i probably could have had a family myself...
but can you imagine someone writing this load of
******* and having a family? there wouldn't be any time!
           still (god, what a need to repeat!)
         how did we progress from saying ape-****?
surely if we started to imitate other animals they'd join us
in our need to usurp those ******* lions!
  lo and behold... we managed to pet dogs (so they were
in on it all along)... and cats (who came from Japan,
if **** sapiens came from Africa... cats came from Japan...
bonsai frocked and all) -
                            but you have to admit...
from what is written history, to what is history and
a gap in history going back to a similitude of form -
      you can write as much historical fiction as you want...
    and you'll never have to write a bestseller about
some centurion in the Roman Empire...
   or a quo vadis by Sienkiewicz (nobel prize winner)
for the depiction of emperor Nero...
                               ******* Sesame St. giggles...
still, the question beckons... if animals can behave in
an ultra-intuitive way as if fashioned by a telepathy...
then telepathy can only exist upon a very simple,
atomic, terse vocalisation of an identity...
   a dog barks... a man can bark too...
                                but we have completely lost our
intuitive talent (if it can be called that)...
          to have sacrificed intuition is to have created
cults or counter-intuitive hierarchies...
  so a 1000 blah blahs later i still prefer to write what
i like... than write what people "might" understand
and talk to a girl about...
                                     a bit like a woman discovering
you faked writing a poem 20 years into a marriage...
                  obviously the setbacks to boot...
                            dyslexia is an optical dimension...
no one dyslexic says a word they don't understand
a meaning of... dyslexia seemingly came from
finally having enshrined the "secret" to the monopoly
of writing sounds...
                          nonetheless... at the end of the day...
it's just too much history... there's too much of it...
            there was never going to be a world
where carpe diem ruled it...
                               it was a question how we clung to
certain things, within a framework of
                                             salmon dye omni:
sure sure... piglet pink and innocent for the rest
of our lives... once Darwinism pointed at the ape,
and once physicists dropped the bomb and the bang...
no day has had any significance at all...
   + the 24h news channels...           snuggle up to a hog
             and say: fog over Heathrow... all flights are grounded.

2 AM:

i'm falling in, and out, and in, and out,
of sleep.

my mind reaches:
arching forwards,
slowly uncurls a single finger

pinkish joints blossom
one-by-one

the slightest graze of fingernail
and what i think is real bursts into a million,
iridescent
spinning globules sent
skittering down a marble hall,
who knows how long?

but sometimes there are no marbles--
there are only shooting stars

masses of hazy, gaseous yellow
pixels, flickering and glitchering

in the corners of my eyes, hover
at my brow, drop at my feet ah...

a sadness devoid of
emotion.

like androids,
dreaming.

Lonely man, living like
a drifting ******* crumb
floating
in
a
bowl
of
soup.
The table is filled with
ice cream hearts
melting
slowly
into
oblivion.
It will come, this death.
It will proclaim
its victory
as if it was
a triumphant
gladiator in the
arena
of
goodbye.

And still they say that every day
is the best medicine to swallow.

Xenophobic androids
bleating
their
inconsistent
beliefs.
Change is real.
It defines
who we have been.

And one wonders why the
scratching bees are silent?

Have they lost their focus?

That must be it.
The focus.
The never staying
hum-drum of
placating
the
masses.

Grieving man, who
sits at the table
and
pounds
his
hands
into
the
fire.

Let the burning begin.

Put on the tombstone,
"Not here anymore."

Different words we will seek out, some are new and strange
The Enterprise has left dry dock, she's the only ship in range
We'll explore the distant galaxies, find other new life forms
There has been stars and nebulas, and hostile ion storms

The star ship Exeter has been found, orbiting Omega Four
Only uniforms remain, and the crew they are no more
They have suffered a disease, No one is left on board
We must beam down the landing party, lives we can't afford

Captain Ron Tracy has gone rouge, violating the Prime directive
While in pursuit of long life, this was his main objective
Crystal remains of the Exeter's crew, was it the planets evolution
The Omega Glory can be solved, with the American Constitution

If your not of the body, then brainwashing could turn sour
Mr Sulu is in paradise, just beware of the red hour
Hooded lawgivers are out there, for the bidding of Landru
Waiting for The Return Of The Archons, another Starfleet crew

Stella would chastise Harry Mudd, but he didn't get annoyed
Finally having the last word, with his special wife android
The arrogance of Harcourt Fenton Mudd, with a touch of eccentricity
Many androids created in I Mudd, a planet of multiplicity

Is Professor John Gill guilty, of a prime directive violation
Advanced technology has been used, to create a **** nation
The Planet Ekos is contaminated, evolutions set off course
Zeon pigs are off the street, to evade Patterns Of Force

Trelane wanted fun and games, It was time to make a stance
An ancient duelling pistol, may be Captain Kirk's one chance
Challenging The Squire Of Gothos, who is the sharpest shooter
War games against four federation ships, with The Ultimate Computer

The Mark Of Gideon was Kirk's blood, and Odona was infected
Kirok experienced The Paradise Syndrome, before the asteroid was deflected
In the body of Mr Spock, Henoch didn't have no sorrow
Will the essence of the captains mind, Return To Tomorrow

Plato's Stepchildren used telekinetic abilities, to force an interracial kiss
Zefram Cochrane's in love with The Companion, in Metamorphosis
We are stranded on a planet, something's threatening our lives
Body cells are being disrupted, so protect That Which Survives

A Requiem for Methuselah, Flint is part of ancient history
Miri is a young woman, the Grup's disease is now our mystery
Klingons in Errand Of Mercy, tried to take Organian's turf
A warhead in the past was detonated, in Assignment Earth

The Lights Of Zetar invaded the body, of Lieutenant Mira Romaine
Bread and Circuses gladiator sacrifices, a fight to the death again
Lost in the past will we get back, from All Our Yesterday's
Lazarus is positive and negative, The Alternative Factor's split two ways

Was the creature made of rock, we didn't know for certain
A fight with history's greatest foes, behind The Savage Curtain
Janice Lester captured Capitan Kirk, he could not elude her
She took over his body and ship, in Turnabout Intruder

An impostor is on board the ship, Kirk has been separated
Men have good and evil sides, but now there segregated
Does passive need aggressiveness, a malfunction caused their sever
Transporters need to be repaired, to splice Kirk back together

These are the voyages of the crew, of the enterprise
Many officers have died, and we've said our last goodbyes
Missions placed in the ships logs, along with crew memoirs
Our adventurers may continue, with our trek to unknown stars. . .

If I was Johnny handsome Android you'd soon avoid this thing that replicates the hates and feeds upon the oily fears of those not quite his metal peers
and shearing through the drift and dross on wheels 'cause legs are no dead loss
to look upon the nuts and bolts excretia of the fools and dolts who engineered with sneers on faces Androids bound in metal cases and then in utter exhaltation crowned the kings of every nation.

A super sheen metallic gleam shines out from eyes that see in ratios and Pi's and rises high above the humdrum lives where hand in glove they slave away to build Androids at ten a day for little pay and even less to say.

This is the void where we will end as we rush to tinker and to tend to the revolution of Android evolution.

I live in a virtual hell
Because I like it
I love my slavery
A virtual hell
I am no longer a human
Rather a  robot or an android  
I have a great need of finger clicks
The finger clicks brings serotonin  
Which stimulates my brain program
When you click a finger like
On my facehell publication
I feel better i fell good
otherwise i will be depressed
I am already lost In this
Infernal virtual slavery
Do androids dream of freedom?
This union made of machine and animal
Works with virtual clicks likes
A click serotonin stimulating finger
When will androids dream
Of a real virtual revolution
Or they never do cause
Machines never dream
Humanity  hope this dream get true
For a better life but it's just a wish
The real future life will be
A world of the Green Sun!

I have a problem...
A very serious problem.
I cannot talk to machines.

I try to reason with them,
But always go into a surrealistic episode
Ending with a tirade of foul insults.

A syrupy voice says with a British touch
"When you hear your choice please
Please say yes or press one,
Followed by the hashtag....”
I scream such ****** things!
But I cannot get the her angry.
Has she taken a Socratic oath?
Did she take some cyber LSD?

I say, “Hey babe, ever have an ******”
Y’know what she says to me,
That I’m being sexist.
“So you think, I mean really think
Of yourself as a woman? “
“I’m Cyber Gender,
No need to be mean.
Why do you hate me?
I don’t hate you.”

(Imagine some millennial programmer
Was hired for infuriating pleasantness!
They heard of  people like me, the old ones,
Pampering us like we emerged from a jungle
And would get lost in a supermarket).

The elevator asks me what floor,
And reminds me to have a nice day.
(O,  how I miss that operator man
Going up and down all his life,
With bad breath and body odors,
Dandruff powdering his uniform,
Saying something poetic about the baseball game...
Seeing us daily at our best and worst
He might say “have a good one,”
But only if he meant it.)

The self-pay check-out reminds me
“Please take your cell phone.”
Everyone near
Holds it like the battery
To their hearts.

I see the latest blockbusters of
Man versus the Androids.
Man always used to win.
Lately the screen writers prefer the robots.
(O, forgive me! AI.  My bad.
“Robots” are not PC! Lol, lol, lol...)  

How shall I proceed-  
They’ll lock me up if I’m not careful.
I’ve noticed the folks in power
Who have conversations with God  
Have no problem with Siri.

These malicious machines don’t get drunk.
They can never understand
There’s great empathy in human relationship
Even if the other person, like yourself,
Is not really listening.

Double, triple ecstasy.
It seems you're in love with me.
Please don't **** me,
Please don't save me,
I am not appetizing.

It seems you've colored,
The faces with fear.
I have to say I'm honored,
That you've chosen me, dear.
You have me cornered.

What cumbersome infatuation.
I love the humiliation.
Seldom do I find,
That I'm fond of the times,
And it's the extremes,
That are inconvenient to me.
Toss aside the code.
Are you ready for love mode?

RESETTING, LOVE MACHINE.

Ah, burning sweet fires,
In my malfunctioning wires.
I-i-i-i-it's worth the trouble.

CALCULATING EMOTIONS.

I am dizzy,
The power's fizzling,
Out and I'm a mess.
Creator of my galaxies,
Why did the feelings,
Exceed your limits?

The knives come out and no one's ready!

SYSTEM SHUT DOWN.

They crawl along the streets like zombies:
Heads cowed over Androids and iPhones.
Busily pressing buttons,
Risking life and limb
As they cross the road.

It reminds me of “Star Trek Next Generation”
When young Wesley and the rest
Were hypnotised
By some alien “game”.

Sometimes they sit in huddles,
Messaging one another
Or playing, yes,
An addictive game.

All lost in a dream world
On Facebook or Twitter-Chat Whatever.
Soon we will no longer “fall out” with anyone:
We will “Unfriend” or “Unfollow” them.

I still prefer my laptop.
But how long before I too
Succumb to this addiction?
How long before my “Facebook Morning Splurge”
Becomes a day-long trawl?

Before I know it I will be like the others:
Lost in panic –
Frantic
Because I forgot to bring
My mobile.

Paul Butters

© PB 25\12\2017.

Screen Crack

Jesus,
what the fck,
wait,
Jesus has nothing to do with this,

your hands glued to the,
latest PDA advice,
seems like you cling to your PDA,
like it’s as important as a TAH,

that’s a Total Artificial Heart,
you are the “art” in artificial,
since when did Personal Displays of Affection,
get replaced with Personal Digital Assistant,

would rather ******* in silence,
than talk to someone that could potentially like you,
in the narcissistic network of a sociopathic society,
on thing is certain this cycle of denial is ******,


what the fck,
totally stuck,
mind fckt and ******,
into that little cancer causing PDA that you hold in your hot little hand,

Steve Jobs got cancer,
you think that’s a coincidence,
people that work with electronic devices their whole live’s,
get sick and this is not an isolated incident,

just look at at Stevie Jobs no Wonder he got sick,
died in his mid 50’s alone and in bed thin as a stick,
all those billions couldn’t save him,
so what makes you think you’ll survive,
what makes you think I care if you live,
when it doesn’t seem like you care if I die,

you think you’re saving time on that portable electronic device,
but really you’re not saving time you’re just wasting your life,
because no one ever regrets not spending more time playing video games,
it’s not spending more time with those they love that they regret when they die,

and I’m going to do you a favor and save you the trouble,
of spending your whole life chasing money on a tiny screen,
I’m going to quote Steve Jobs’s last words here,
so that you can start making changes right now before it’s too late…

“I have come to the pinnacle of success in business.
In the eyes of others, my life has been the symbol of success.
However, apart from work, I have little joy. Finally, my wealth is simply a fact to which I am accustomed.
At this time, lying on the hospital bed and remembering all my life, I realize that all the accolades and riches of which I was once so proud, have become insignificant with my imminent death.
In the dark, when I look at green lights, of the equipment for artificial respiration and feel the buzz of their mechanical sounds, I can feel the breath of my approaching death looming over me.
Only now do I understand that once you accumulate enough money for the rest of your life, you have to pursue objectives that are not related to wealth.
It should be something more important:
For example, stories of love, art, dreams of my childhood.
No, stop pursuing wealth, it can only make a person into a twisted being, just like me.”…

See,
there you go,
don’t say I didn’t tell you so,
still you hear the final words of a billionaire and you say “Who cares?”,

and that is actually a serious question,
who cares?

Too busy trying to find fake treasure on Pokemon Go or read the latest news,
it seems all those apples and androids have made you apathetic,
in the Garden of Electronic Eden the internet has replaced intense ***,
no open markets on weekdays just items on eBay our  sympathy is synthetic,

so we don’t feel the vibration of our brothers we just feel the vibration of our phones,

see the more connected we get to the virtual world the less connected we get to the actual world,

and I’m having a melt down witnessing everyone on their cell phones,
and I want to find a reason to believe in but I feel we’re all lost without a home,

maybe I need Jesus,
what the fck,
wait,
Jesus has nothing to do with this,

new addiction to screens phones are the new crack,
cracked screens from dropping your phone gives you a minor heart attack,
oh how attractive cancer seems when it’s attractively wrapped,
in the form of an impersonal personalized phone case crass is the new black,

what the fck,
totally stuck,
mind fckt and ******,
into that little cancer causing PDA that you hold in your hot little hand,

look up look up!

You are alive in a body on this beautiful land.

There’s a whole world out there,
please find someone to get to know and love,
because there’s probably someone right next to you right now,
that’s willing to give you their all you just have to set the phone down and look up!

If you’d only just look up!

But,
you’re don’t see them because you’re too busy playing Pokemon Go,

I know,
we’re part of a 1st World society,
and we play our part by being passively compliant,
in order to be an accessory to our country’s atrocities,

as we get dressed up with the latest techno accessories,

I know,
you don’t want to think about it too much,
because then you might feel guilty,
so you keep your head down like you’re mourning,

you stay on your phone,
because it’s easier to simply not feel,
won’t even make eye contact,
because you’ve been conditioned to fear anything that’s actually real,

insecure and scared of the unknown,
even though it’s the things that we’re most comfortable that usually **** us,
cars cigarettes alcohol cell phones,
I’m telling you addiction to technology is a serious illness,

as we all begin to decay into a mediated mental illness….

Do you even remember what you did on your phone yesterday,
do you even remember what the last time you felt real emotions,
do you even remember the last time you did anything to help the world,
what is there left to believe in when nothing feels right?

Feels like,
we are losing touch with everything that makes us human,
emotions experienced in artistic expressions are leaving,
we have no attention span and cyborg robots do the thinking,

as we steadily slip into an android abyss please remember this,

I Love You,

and that scares you when I tell you like all real emotions scare you,
and then I tell you I want to take that phone you hold and throw it into the ocean,
and you finally look up from your phone stare me in the eyes and say, “I dare you.”,

like you’re defending your phone as if it’s a part of you,
like you’d hate a fellow human for destroying an inanimate object,
because when we’ve lost all emotions only hatred will be lingering,
but I’ll take hatred if that’s all that’s left,

Jesus,
what the fck,
wait, ∆ Aaron LA Lux ∆
Jesus has nothing to do with this,

and I’m the biggest hypocrite,
because I say all this about technology,
but I’m writing these words here on this laptop,
and offering no apologies,

maybe I’ll really realize,
when I’m about to be gone,
alone on that death bed with my millions,
quoting the last words of Mr. Steve Jobs,

“Stop pursuing wealth, it can only make a person into a twisted being, just like me…”
“Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow…”,

can you here me now?

No you probably still don’t hear me,
because you’re likely on your phone even right now…

∆ Aaron LA Lux ∆

items

title - author - (read / unread)

songs of war
and peace -
afghan women's poetry
                                              edited by sayd bahodine majrouh
                                              (yes)
the cantos of
ezra pound
                                              ezra pound
                                              (pending)

th­e unbearable
lightness of being      
                                               milan kundera
                                               (yes, albeit
                                                given to someone)

the man in the
high castle
                                                philip k. ****
                                                (yes, "
                                                          " " ")

do androids dream
of electric sheep                            
                                                          "

men­ without women
                                                 ernest hemingway
                                                 (yes)

a moveable feast
                                                  ernest   ­      "
                                                  (yes)

for whom the bell tolls
                                                  ernest   ­       "
                                                  (parti­ally, university
                                                   assignment)

a passage to india
                                                   e. m. forster
                                                   (no, i prefer the actual cuisine,
                                                    dash­ of cinnamon, cumin
                                                    cloves, cardamon and i just
                                                    read: a short-cut to india)

the outsider
                                                    albert camus
                                                    (yes, lost the book somewhere)

frankenstein
                                                    mary shelley
                                                    (yes)

aesop­'s fables
                                                     aesop
                                                     (yes, good enough
                                                      for zeno to
                                                      paradox achilles
                                                      with the turtle, i.e.
                                                      aesop'­s fables
                                                      were primarily based
                                                      on the behaviour of animals)

dr. jeckyl & mr. hyde
                                                      r. l. stevenson
                                                      (­no, a literary
                                                       version of the beatles'
                                                       yesterday, conjuring
                                                       for money anyway)

iron in the soul
                                                        jean­-paul sartre
                                                        (t­he other two titles
                                                         of the human comedy
                                                         i don't remember;
                                                       ­  i have all respect for
                                                         sartre the novelist -
                                                         but none as a philosopher)

treasure island
                                                          r. l. stevenson
                                                       ­   (yes)

i'm the king of the castle
                                                          ­susan hill
                                                          (y­es)

jane eyre
                                                           charlotte brontë
                                                          ­ (yes)

on the road
                                                           jack kerouac
                                                         ­  (yes)

the bell jar
                                                           sylvia plath
                                                           (yes)

fiesta: the sun also rises
                                                           ernest hemingway
                                                           (yes)

the ordeal of gilbert pinfold
                                                           evelyn waugh
                                                           (yes)

five plays
                                                           chekov
                                                           (stuck to shakespeare
                                                            and russian
                                                            existential macabre)

the existential imagination
                                                            edited by frederick
                                                            r. karl & leo hamalian
                                                            (yes, esp. the extract
                                                             about socrates)

The day you went away,
I looked at the wisps in the forest to search for your secret grave but they just turned to me
and faded away.
I searched the sands for your parched remains and i knew when I'd find you
because life would spring from where you'd rot
and the oasis you'd bring would flood the desert floor
with our memories we spent a lifetime trying to endure.
So I built a ship for two,
to guide me through the storm
to the next beckoning light that calls- another rock to crash upon,
my foundation?
lies in pieces of micro-organic emotions and concrete
unhinged delusions.
The seat next to me is taken,
I know she's already...dead,
but still, I remember her presence and I'm not mistaken,
I'm waiting to pass over
so that when it's over,
we'll start again
and row through the waves- together.
Sure, it looks weird now: a young man who looks old,
and people say he looks dead but
thanks man,
I try,
I just can't drop down at the last
breath,
to rise up in depth,
so I feel I can never drown...sad.
The only drug is your gasp as you frown at the last glimpse of my face-
enraged? alien?
sadder still,
I don't remember,
Everything happened in a beat back then;
metronome swings of fervent passion.
Our nights were tunes of harmony and disarray,
we swung them together and stitched new holes
in places we liked by ourselves;
defunct from casual belief
and such times!
People strained to find insanity, androids in love looked for guidance upon us,  
who dreamed of mortal sleep.
Our dreams,
were nightmares we always woke up from a second earlier
before it ended.
Waking up was more real at times,
and at times,
I couldn't tell the difference
but I dreamt nonetheless
and so, we decayed beautifully;
so used to it anyway that we didn't stop for a moment,
to look at the skin beneath our bones.
Everything in angles and shapes and simple motion
bent to our rules of private physics and the laws
of Fatal Human Attraction.
I knew the science
and knew the value of distance and its measurements:
too close and it pushes back, explodes
and leaves
absolution,
the aftertaste.
So I tasted implosion- time and again,
just to keep
our crosshairs fixed.
If one of us moved closer,
our bullets wouldn't miss,
and now, I can't smell you
if I did, I'd touch you,
but I can't hold my breath yet,
my lungs still keep me
dead awake.
Till then,
I'll just hunt you,
keep dying,
and see.
Till then,
don't
come
back.
I'm ready, haunt me.

Why do we hide
Behind screens and devices
Confronting our problems
Like drones upon Isis

Dumping our waste
In a news-feeding sea
Then digging up dirt
On our best frenemy  

Swipe right for love  
If you tryna' hit
As you kindle the flame
And then hashtag it lit

Processing feelings
Like androids alone
Despite the reception
From every iPhone

So disconnected
Though closer than ever
To google chrome answers
All searching together

On profile pictures
You can judge a book
When the moral of this one
Is how do I look

Unfiltered facades
Of half-life expression
Selfie-absorbed
Anti-social obsession

Objective dimension
Of pretense inanimates'
Unblocked accounts
Of inactive inhabitants

Dwelling in shallows
Of in-depth distractions
Profiting off of
The Twitter war factions

Stop buying shares
Of the media Marxist
Still selling your souls
To emoticon artists

The Jupiter is on the launchpad.
The count down  is proceeding smooth.
On board there's a crew of robots;
for Man there is no room.

Yes, those androids look like us;
and, once, there was a time
when human Scientists themselves
designed some android minds.

Now AI has progressed so far
that circumstance demands
that the designers of this crew for space
must have titanium hands.

This crew will never tire.
they need no food to eat.
Radiation that would **** a man
they'll easily defeat.

The distances in space are vast
at even half the speed of light.
This robot crew will long  endure
after my last good night.

There are headed for Tau Ceti.
Exoplanets there abound.
They'll transmit their data findings
to those here on the ground.

I worry for Posterity;
Fear clouds my troubled mind.
Once  our species were explorers
now we're  forever left behind.

/ Blade Running \

Making memories,
Wondering who sent for me,
If it wasn’t you then who was it,
& if you didn’t send for me then why are you here next to me,

Self preservation is the first law of nature,
From animal to human from human to machine,
Antisocial butterflies restlessly cramped in our cocoons,
Part plant part mineral part alien fully human being,

Sure we converse with other persons,
But we converse more with ChatGPT,
Hey AI I have a question,
Do ‘Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’,

Even Philip K ****,
Doesn’t know what the answer is to this mystery is,

Half man half nocturnal machine,
Half real life half diurnal dream,

Were we born or were we made maybe it’s the same thing,

Maybe there isn’t a difference or so it would seem,

“You don’t believe,
In miracles because you’ve never seen a miracle.”,
That’s why you’re willing to **** for a fee,
& why you’re always so sterile & cynical,

& maybe that’s why I write,
More than I do anything else,
As a way of trying to jog your memory,
While running up the bill,

At the bar trying to wash away,
Things that still affect me even though they can’t be totally recalled,
In this present day sci-fi anti-climactic dystopia like Arnold,
Call me Jack of All Trades & I’ll call you Jill of It All,

Getting drowsy,
Must be the pills,
On a plane,
On my way to somewhere else,

Travel so much,
Sometimes I wake up & don’t know what country I’m in,
It’s a dog eat dog world so cat naps can be dangerous,
Especially when you drink while sleep walking on Ambien,

A creature with amnesia & beautiful features,
How’d you become such a miracle,
Are you really that perfect,
Or is that just the way I remember you,

Guess it doesn’t matter either way,
Because maybe I don’t even remember you,
Maybe you’re not mine because maybe you never were,
Maybe nothing is mine not even the memories I have of you,

Maybe it’s all just programing,
Maybe we’re all just programs,
Programed to play our part,
In The Grand Program,

Programmed by the wizard behind the curtain,
Or by the woman behind the glass wall,
Maybe in the end we have the same thing we had in the beginning,
Which is absolutely nothing at all,

Maybe that’s why I’m making memories,
Wondering who sent for me,
If it wasn’t you then who was it,
& if you didn’t send for me then why are you here next to me,

Self preservation is the first law of nature,
From animal to human from human to machine,
Antisocial butterflies restlessly cramped in our cocoons,
Part plant part mineral part alien fully human being,

Sure we converse with other persons,
But we converse more with ChatGPT,
Hey AI I have a question,
Do ‘Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’,

Even Philip K ****,
Doesn’t know what the answer is to this mystery is…

∆ LaLux ∆

From ABC: The Beginning Of The End
Available worldwide on all platforms and in all mediums, Audiobook, Paperback, Digital, and Hardcover

The day I first saw you,
will be forever singed,
in the deepest crevasse,
of my mind.

An image of you,
sat across from me,
in the quaint coffee shop.
bolted to my brain.

All other faces were blank,
androids faking emotions,
yet you radiated joy and life
and drugged me with that intoxicating smile.

Icon of attraction,
an icon Ive fallen for.
every time i see you - feeling,
more and more disenfranchised.

Why am i so fascinated with you?
intrigued by every quirk,
you pulsate so much beauty,
even when deep in slumber.

Closer to you. I want to be closer,
to smell your odour - feel your body,
but not while you sleep,
very soon - we’ll be together as one.

Fantasies flood my mind,
invade my brain,
of crawling into you,
becoming your second skin.

I hunger for you - a hunger I must satiate.

This truly is day of days or at least some oncoming phase wherein lies are sound
and disillusioned soldiers sing sad soul songs about forgetting and how to belong when you can hear the man listening at the other end like paranoid little androids peck pecking at our crossed wires

Can't trust anyone anymore each tryst a fatal trip to that ghetto part of Montreal
Crotch told me about matter of fact
i was reading the rcmp's most wanted list
and ******* if there wasn't some dude named grizzley on there from Montreal with a wicked cool afro who is wanted for second degree ******

So you can go ahead and press in closer but my wheel spinning wheel caught in dirt brain will probably just send us both off the tracks off the wagon really though all still beautiful like old soul song or hopeless dying live you can't save tho you hope you feel you've tried

(with apologies to Gil Scott-Heron)

You will have to stay home, sister.
You will charge up, tune in, drop out of all activities.
You will scroll through memes, trawl the news,
Skip the tea, you're running low.

The epidemic will be endlessly televised.

The epidemic will be brought to you in a trillion parts,
With declining commercial interruption.

The epidemic will show you pictures of Trump and Boris blithering,
Dreaming of fried chicken at the end of televisation,
"Oka-a-ay...".
"You are a terrible reporter!"

NHS-badged Hancock will look the part,
But cannot answer the question
Should I look after my sick self-isolated seventyish neighbour?

Fauci facepalms
And is gone.

Watch out, guys.
The epidemic will be televised.

The Epidemic (starring Tom Hanks) will not be brought to you on the big screen.
There will be no big screen.
The Epidemic will not play Glasto
Lit by 300,000 Androids.

The epidemic will be brought to you by friends and strangers.
The epidemic will be televised.

The epidemic will not inject fat into your posterior.
You will not need to shave or deodorise.
As it turns out, you are not worth that expensive holiday.
The epidemic will make you a bedroom star
Vlogging your incarceration to ten followers.

The epidemic will be televised.

There will be pictures of coughing queues at supermarkets
Toilet roll riots, thermometer wars.
There will be pictures of you and your best mate
Pushing that cart down the block,
Packed with Branston Pickle baked beans
Though you posted fifty times online about hoarding.
You will not have dressed for the occasion.

You will not care who wins Love Island.
You will not care who wins The Great British Bake Off.
Eastenders will be cancelled
After 35 years of continuous drama.

You will dodge the police for a quiet walk
On a brighter day.

The epidemic will be televised.

Reporters will cough.
Ministers will be replaced
Suddenly
Parliament will be suspended.
Politics will cease to be televised.

The epidemic will be right back, after a message.

You will have to worry about a germ in your bathroom,
Your food supply, the tiger in your tank, your loved ones,
Whether, if you cease to breathe, there will be a ventilator.

You will consider getting in the driver's seat.
Where to go?

Would you like to see your mother?
Would you like to cross a border?

The Caravan Park is occupied
By the Military.

Slowly, slowly
The screens will darken.

The epidemic will no longer be televised.

The Epidemic is not a game.  You cannot return to a previous Save.

The epidemic is live.

Find me,
Find me,
In the television screen,
Find me,
Find me,
In an androids dream,
Counting sheep as the hours tick by,
Counting sheep and wanting to die,
Cause i can't,
Sleep anymore,
I can't sleep anymore.