#plagiarism
- A Manual for the Un-Optimized
I. Ghost Walk: Evasion
Walk until the grid forgets you.
Step away from the hum of satellites,
the cold pulse of notifications,
the ledgered gaze that counts your every breath.
Let the streets absorb your heat without comment.
Let the wind trace your shoulders untagged.
Walk through the city like an anomaly,
a fracture in the seamless feed,
each footfall a glitch in the map
the machine draws of your life.
Listen quietly.
Hear the algorithms strain in silence,
try to predict you, fail.
Notice the space between streetlights,
the shadow that does not mirror your profile,
the corners that do not whisper your name.
This is your static.
Your unoptimized self.
Walk long enough and the city forgets the data it tried to steal.
Walk until your body remembers its own rhythms,
its pulse uncompressed, unmeasured, undesired.
II. The Black Mirror: Severance
Lay it face down.
Watch the glow bleed out against the wood until the room returns to its natural gravity.
This is the first death
the silencing of the auxiliary brain.
For a moment, you will feel the phantom itch in your palm,
the ghost-vibration of a world demanding your outrage, your desire, your data.
Resist the twitch. That itch is the wire under the skin; it is the machine’s way of asking
if you are still harvestable.
Let the glass go cold.
Without the screen, the air in the room grows heavy and strange.
You are no longer a “user”;
you are a biological fact.
Notice how the silence doesn’t need to be filled with a scroll.
Notice how your attention, once a frantic moth batting against the LED,
begins to settle like dust on the furniture.
You are entering the Un-Captured State.
Your thoughts are no longer processed by a server farm in a desert you’ll never see.
They are yours—raw and jagged,
Useless to the market.
The mirror is black now.
Look at your reflection in the dead glass.
You are older than the code.
You are deeper than the feed.
You are a sovereign entity standing in the wreckage of your own distracted life,
finally unobserved.
"It’s a flat circle, Rust said. But he didn’t mention that the circle is made of fiber-optics. To break it, you have to let the signal die."
III. The Unrecorded Breath: Presence
Gather close.
Lean into the room where no camera tracks, no app listens, no network archives your pulse.
Let hands touch without the mediation of pixels, let lips meet without the witness of screens.
Breathe with intention.
The air you inhale is yours alone.
The exhale is secret, carrying nothing for the machine to index, no metadata, no monetizable trace.
Notice the weight of proximity,
the friction of flesh against flesh.
The warmth, the scent,
the tremor of another’s footsteps
all ineffable, all unrecorded.
Every shared glance, every whispered syllable,
becomes a fracture in the system,
a static wave that cannot be captured.
Here, community is insurgency.
Laughter, sighs, shivers, tears
these are weapons!
The algorithm cannot yet parse love
that is private, messy, and raw.
When you leave this room, you carry
nothing but presence.
No tag, no like, no feed.
You are sovereign in your body, sovereign in your breath, sovereign in the quiet communion that the machine cannot touch.
"This is the noise it cannot monetize. This is the ledger it cannot balance. Here, we are alive, and it is powerless."
We stand at the edge of the lattice,
fragile, bleeding, and stubbornly un-optimized.
We do not “sync.” We do not “update.”
We simply are—heavy, physical, and agonizingly present.
The wound is the only thing
the algorithm cannot simulate,
and so, we hold it like a cold lantern.
We hold each other
in the quiet, unmapped spaces,
a conspiracy of ghosts
refusing to haunt the machine.
The light’s winning? No.
The darkness is having to pay for the electricity now.
Jan 30
Jan 30, 2026 at 5:49 PM UTC
If you take my words
you are stealing sand
which belongs to everyone,
there is plenty on the beach,
we share a bucket of language
play, make a tower of your own devising,
the castles I build are mine, and mine alone
Dec 19, 2024
Dec 19, 2024 at 1:50 AM UTC
I'm ****** off with Robert Frost
And the guy who wrote Paradise Lost.
I ain't happy with Aristotle,
And especially John, the weird Apostle.
Don't mention, please, Shelley or Keats,
Blake, Byron, or that poser, Yeats.
Each and every one you see,
Lifted their best themes from me.
Don't look aghast,
Don't tsk and titter,
Their thievery's made me
Mean and bitter.
Just because they said it first,
Doesn't mean I find it just.
It doesn't give them ownership
Of my themes and authorship.
I write of Roads, Good and Evil,
God and Satan, love and leaving.
I know I'm internally bleating,
But I can't abide this metric beating.
Although they're now just dust and bones,
They still don't have the right to own
All the great lines I have sown, like,
The best laid plans of mice and men.
(I thought that up before Robbie Burns).
Let me make this poetically clear;
***If I was there, or he were here,
I'd sue the *** of Will Shakespeare***.
Jan 24, 2024
Jan 24, 2024 at 10:14 AM UTC
Mark Twain to Helen Keller
“Oh, dear me, how unspeakably funny and owlishly idiotic and grotesque was that “plagiarism” farce! As if there was much of anything in any human utterance, oral or written, except plagiarism! The kernel, the soul—let us go farther and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances in plagiarism.
For substantially all ideas are second hand, consciously or unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources and daily use by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them any where except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral calibre and his temperament, which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing.”
Mark Twain
Dec 1, 2021
Dec 1, 2021 at 3:39 PM UTC
My poems may not be all that good
not near as much polish as they should
some of them wither on the vine
but ****** hell
at least they are mine!
Dec 24, 2020
Dec 24, 2020 at 12:56 PM UTC
You took my words
Made them your own
Didn’t give me credit
Or even throw me a bone
The lack of ethics on full display
Front page news
The headliner today
(Make this a safe place to be
For a writer to feel free)
Plagiarism : to copy and pass off (the expression of ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's work) without crediting the source
From the Latin word plagiarius meaning“kidnapper”.
Jul 22, 2020
Jul 22, 2020 at 10:25 PM UTC
Let not rage relieve peace off her duty
That is the mood of a woman when another takes away her beauty
For what is left a shine on the face of iron when it gets rusty
So don't see someone's honouring event as your party
Don't especially with impunity
That's no pay for a person's ingenuity
It's evil coveting someone else's ideas your property
Plagiarism destroys creativity
It is honour stripping activity
Dip your mind into the well of creation and draw out the complexity
Then understand how it is to create
And appreciate how plagiarism makes creativity emaciate
Like a mother hurts when her child is in pain
A creator feels when his efforts are being rendered a vain
Credit he who credit is due
And earn honour for your own efforts too
Jun 29, 2020
Jun 29, 2020 at 6:18 AM UTC
Don't touch my poetry
Unless you're a plagiarist.
It's infectious.
Mar 23, 2020
Mar 23, 2020 at 12:57 PM UTC
I've tried to write
So many poems about you
But you're beauty is copyrighted
And I don't believe
In plagiarism
Aug 23, 2019
Aug 23, 2019 at 2:29 PM UTC
When they look back on me
Let them all swear
He always stole diligently
Oft-times unawares
& If he plucked on your heartstrings
Another man's chords
He only piggybacked to reach higher
Mar 14, 2019
Mar 14, 2019 at 5:53 PM UTC
I sometimes take words that were first used by others
(I'm About to admit I'm a bit of a crook)
Re-hash and re-use them, and make my own covers-
Stealing little known lines from an eloquent book.
I've stolen from Shakespeare, yanked words off of Yeats,
And pilfered from Plato and Brown;
I've probably swiped stuff off all of the greats,
And many of zero renown.
There's more to be heard in the wise words of Wilde
Or took from a Tennyson line
Or the thinking out loud of an inquisitive child,
Than could spill forth from this pen of mine.
So if I've stolen from you, and perchance have offended,
(Yes- I'm about to steal Shakespeare again)
Just think but this, and all is mended;
Nothing original came from my pen.
Which means that, eventually, all that I've ever done
Will be lost in the shadows of time,
Skipped over, or lost, and simply outdone
By your works original shine.
Oct 27, 2018
Oct 27, 2018 at 6:05 AM UTC
I'm born
Airborne
Forlorn
In war torn
Discord
My ripcord
I pull for liberation
Alienation aviation
Away from a station
Of no relation
Where their elation
Lies in degeneration
The fright fair
Nightmare
In sight there
Is a right scare
But light flares
From an illuminated theater
I dive into art
To fill my meter
I consume
Darkened tomb
Screen in room
Is where I loom
Inspiration blooms
From a sense of doom
My separation reparation
That will lead to veneration
My artistic fervor
Drifted further
Drifter's murmurs
Lifted learners
But gifted murderers
Shifted girders
Of shame and honesty
To my grave of modesty
Where they prey upon me
This plagiarism
Layered schism
Cratered rhythm
Of great decisions
Now I make incisions
With repetition
And the definition
Of words stolen from me
They're all I can see
And I can't get free
Or just let it be
Consumption disruption
At this junction
I can't function
A plagiarist
****** mist
Grips my fist
Makes me wish
I don't exist
I must resist
Before I miss
My chance at bliss
They're ****** me
By aping me
Making me
Shaking trees
Of bumblebees
With rumble pleas
On humble knees
Drinking antifreeze
Nobody cares
What's fair
They bear
And share
Blank stares
Up stairs
Of artistic compromise
Integrity lost in lies
They're not that wise
I hypothesize
My baby
Caught rabies
From Hades
Now ladies
Flock to a thief
Giving me grief
Beyond belief
In my coral reef
Sword in sheath
I drown discreet
Aug 28, 2018
Aug 28, 2018 at 2:29 PM UTC
I'm ****** off with Robert Frost
And the guy who wrote Paradise Lost.
I ain't happy with Aristotle,
And especially John, the weird Apostle.
Don't mention, please, Shelley or Keats,
Blake, Byron or Yeats;
Each and every one you see,
(if you're ready for some truth)
Took their themes from me.
Don't look aghast,
Don't tsk and titter,
Their thievery's left me
Mean and bitter.
Just because they said it first,
Doesn't mean I find it just.
It doesn't give them ownership
Of my themes and authorship.
I write of Roads, Good and Evil,
God and Satan, love and leaving.
I know I'm internally bleating,
But I can't abide this metric beating.
Although they're merely dust and bones,
They don't have the right to own
All the great lines I have sown:
The best laid plans of mice and men.
(I said that before Robbie Burns).
Let me make this poeticaly clear;
***If I was there, or he were here,
I'd sue the *** of Will Shakespeare***.
May 11, 2018
May 11, 2018 at 9:31 AM UTC
#**Plagiarism and Biomimicry
Prevalent In Nature
Sustenance Is The Conjecture**#
Apr 1, 2018
Apr 1, 2018 at 7:40 AM UTC
Wait! Is that plagiarism? I need a new title.
Mar 21, 2018
Mar 21, 2018 at 8:26 PM UTC
Your sentences were gated,
And locked within your lungs -
Your words forbidden fruit to me,
The apple of your tongue.
The uninspired oft’ find it hard
To leave another’s song unsung.
So I harvested your phrases -
I burglarized your breath,
And nurtured all your laden words
‘Till there was nothing left.
And living with your hollowed words,
I died a stolen death.
Dec 29, 2017
Dec 29, 2017 at 2:08 PM UTC
A lot of poets put they work in
Just so you can put out your ****
Not a huge message from you therein
It's just plagiarism down to the bit
I don't really wanna do what
All of you seem to be tools
I wanted to be abstract, not like you, but
Pretty cool.
Nov 13, 2017
Nov 13, 2017 at 11:01 AM UTC
Do words stick in your mind
do you visit them sometimes
do you look them up online
and then wonder
are they yours
or are they
mine?
Oct 26, 2017
Oct 26, 2017 at 2:23 PM UTC
He stealthily usurped his favourite poet's celebrated pen
Strove hard to write with a footing on the poet's ken.
In what resulted, others could only see an overriding yen
recognized patently as his; in this shady game he didn't win!
Oct 19, 2017
Oct 19, 2017 at 12:48 PM UTC
To be, or not, to be...
That is plagiarism.
Although, the rested see..
It's the only "ism"
Will I do?
Or, will I do not?
Will I place soulfully, the life before me?
Or, will I defy my end with bitter, confusion.
I doubt them both.
Within my heart,
I chase a rope.
About a time,
When rhyme and cope.
Are one, the same,
Rewrite my hope.
Can one remain,
While others greave?
Burn the bridge,
And meld the seam.
Amassed awake,
Your idle dream,
Don't mind the pain,
Rewrite and leave.
Aug 12, 2017
Aug 12, 2017 at 8:18 PM UTC
"Masterpiece"
I was a masterpiece
Created by almighty
One of the unknown individual
Sharing her thoughts
Dreaming to be the great
Giving all her best to her works
Many things that have been wasted
Thoughts have been messed
Still create a simple masterpiece
A poetry of her own
A works that can be known
A simple paragraph that it has showed
As the young poetess
Craves for more
Ink on her pen
Sheet of paper
To express her thoughts
To give a simple message
To be a good example
and to be INSPIRATIONAL
Jul 28, 2017
Jul 28, 2017 at 6:52 AM UTC
Supporters over haters
Aiming for more likers
Hope to be known
When a real work was not shown
Shown whenyou share it for fame
To be called by a famous name
Cant you feel a lil shame
When someone shows their works not for fame
Show it with notebook and pen
Don't plagiarize just for fame
Jul 25, 2017
Jul 25, 2017 at 2:17 AM UTC