I'm empty
So I look to my finger tips
To scavenge the internet
Looking for meaning
Or emotional leaning
I've never really found it
Whatever it is I search for
But I keep coming back
Despite my record of regret

Buzz, beep
Demanding glare of a flickering screen
Hands rifle through pockets and purses
Find validation in rigid thumbs
Hands forgot to join in prayer last night
But glide over a keyboard
I woke feeling zero
Turned to her blinking monitor eyes
I heard her smile
Nothing more than Morse code for
Error four-oh-four
I woke feeling one
Huxleyan white noise
Of pixels impregnated with the passions of the ignorant
Feel me
But do not touch me
For I am no different than those fools
Making love to the Device
Half-hearted
And I can’t help but wonder
Why I’m even attempting Poetry
In a world that cannot read its own digital tongue

My dictation program has an accent
It types out the most unreadable things,
When I say something like " my bunion stings",
It types back to me about onion rings.
There have been embarrassing moments
When I was chatting along quite normally.
I found myself feeling very thankful
That I hadn't been chatting formally.

The conversation needn't be special,
Nor use any esoteric phrases.
But some of the crap this program prints
Astounds, stultifies and amazes.
It can't be brushed off as an accent thing;
My speech is quite non-dialectic.
Sometimes it seems that Apple, Inc
Wants to render me apoplectic.

But, the way it is I have no human beings
That I can focus my frustration on
When something that company sells at a store
Turns me into an unwitting pawn.
As it is it's an iPhone and I can't pity it
When I hit "send" too fast and seem an idiot.
It’s possible I am asking far too much
Of the current reach of technology.
Even though our phones seem part of us
They aren’t really part of our anatomy.

Shopping outfashioned hunting and gathering,
Processed beats fresh,
Groceries replaced fruit trees,
Malls superceded forests,
Churches outnumbered temples,
Countries dissolved to territories,
Places devolved to areas,
Paths broke down into highways,
Commodity converted to currency,
Laborers submit to machinery,
Masters engage in humbug,
Apprentices reduced to students,
Knowledge downgraded to education,
And education is deducted to a show of grades,
While schools are the stages,
And the corporate world is the bigger runway,
With work slumped to employment,
Wisdom demoted to profession,
Where in jobs are the only future,
Careers are the only success,
Clicking and pressing buttons are skills,
Computers are correspondent to brains,
Information refers to news reports,
Intelligence means up-to-dateness,
Browsing is preferable to reading,
Studying is in demand more than learning,
Viewing things flashed on screens yields awareness,
Transportation is to traveling,
As buying is to the three basic needs,
And needs embody worldly possessions,
Worldly possessions define happiness,
Happiness is due to selfishness,
Selfishness is traced to the lack of love,
The lack of love draws from the lack of faith,
Because faith stands for religion,
And religion stands for membership,
Where politicians are the gods,
Celebrities are the preachers,
And the preachers are the enemies,
While networking is equal to friendship,
And connection equates to communication,
Experiences require photos,
Memories necessitate uploading,
Souvenirs can be downloaded,
Smartphones are substitute to pets,
Gadgets are toys,
Holding controllers is playing,
Watching TV is exploring the great outdoors,
Internet is recreation,
And technology is a way of life;
While humans are scientists,
Nature is a guinea pig,
And the earth is a laboratory,
Where prices are misidentified for worth,
Processes are miscalculated as progress,
Impoverishment is confused with improvement,
And getting more is mistaken as getting better;
And then we wonder why
Homes have become houses,
Family members have become boarders,
Nations are separate species
Composed of tired and hungry citizens,
Children are monsters
Who are biochemically rascals,
Teenagers are zombies
Whose adventures lead to delinquency,
Adults are robots
Who just clang when touched,
And life is not so simple
As how it is said to be.

I am a writer in a generation where words are a dime a dozen…
Chicken feed
Technology is all anybody ever needs.
The only thing worth attention is video streams,
Nobody reads…

Slowly losing sight on the important things in life
Stuck on screens, different scenes
The endless pursuit of happiness
Just another day wasted by…

Living in an outside jail
Losing track of the beauty made
Seeing the world through postcard mail
Overworked,underpaid

Taking the same road
To the same place
For days on end…
Caged,in the same routine

Living in an outside jail
Losing track of the beauty made
Seeing the world through postcard mail
Overworked,underpaid

Just keep smiling
There will always be another sunset on the horizon
Just keep tryin'
One day we'll be sitting,looking out on the ocean...

Here's to all the concerned gaurdians
Who enact an internet firewall
And here's to all the witty subjects
Who find ways around it all

Nostalgia
is a poor excuse
for ignorance

yet it pervades
with a tenacity
stemming from fabricated desire
for the smell of ****
we're told
is roses

and it's blasphemous
to question potential "isms"
lurking behind the veil
of Saturday morning cartoons
and black and white family sitcoms.

Yet by the time the sonic *** organs
have lain into us with repressed emotion,
the holy spirit has spilled its ***** in the dirt
to traverse onward floating apparition
out of the room and down the hall
closer towards progress.

and we are left reeling
stumbling into the hallway
buttoning our blouses
and yanking at our zippers

wondering what could cause
such great haste
and we follow blindly
in the wake of the first high

or we turn backwards
and plunge into fading bricolage
as a means to cope
with the rapid and fleeting *******
of the electric eye
in its shape-shifting pylons and appendages
getting smaller in the naked eye
and gargantuan in the mind.

Clutching our *******
in great amorous heaves
of lust
or donning our father's clothes
in a mask of artifice
and enlightened cultural pretension.

Moaning for the days of youth a week ago,
the epoch squeezed in the space between thumbs,
looking for treasures in the trash
craving something tangible
in an increasingly intangible world.

The semblance of touch lost on a generation
who knows only of emotion through hieroglyphics
and never through direct sensation.

So we dig through the toy boxes
and leave Generation X puzzled
as we dig into their records
in Guns n Roses T-shirts
and high waisted jeans.

We're just looking for an immaculate conception of something palpable.

if my fingers could scratch past the glass,
to reach your bony hands,
i would never stop trying,
to hug your thinning body,
to rub warmth to your fingers and your soul,
you have shown me love like i have never known before.
i wish i could break the screens,
to get to you,
so that i could somehow save you,
i could be there for you no matter how bad things got,
we could stop fooling with i miss you's
i really want to see you,
if only,
i could get past the
SCREEN