Your limitless future brings great fear
The future is less far and more near
Glasses will replace cellphones next year
Hundreds can share one's eyes
People you replace will shed a tear
Tech is human's demise

You con with lights and buttons and bells
Amplifying strength, you fit in cells
We drown in technological wells
You thrive and humans shrink
The addiction will rot us in Hell
People! Log off and think!

When do we cease with this life carefree
It's time people let well enough be
Tech will soon replace humans for free
Tractors and new machines
Starved, by stealing the jobs of many
Limitations obscene

Cellphones and swimming pools.
ne'er the twain should meet.
The result can only be bad,
same for lawnmowers and feet.

there is a man
sitting in front of me
drinking some fruity coffee drink or another
with three cellphones
laid out before him
a different color case for each one
pink, yellow, blue
and ever minute or so
one starts to ring
an obnoxious ringtone
but aren't they all?
and he has to figure out which one is ringing
he then talks on the phone
for a few blunt sentences
in a language
which sounds middle-eastern
and I'm thinking
this guy must be
one hundred percent
out of his ******* mind
nuts
because I've always had trouble
keeping up with one cellphone
let alone three of the ******* things

It was just another ordinary day at the Pub.
I  as always at the helm tending bar hitting on hamsters and making crude jokes that usually walked the line and got me banned from a site that I was a living legend on.
Remember kids there is no Hello without Gonzo.

Hey Gonz you really need to do something bout the restroom some nameless bland writer that I probably liked cause I thought she looked hot said to me as she walked towards the bar.
What is somebody jerking off in there again ****** !
I swear creative ******* sure are a frustrated ***** bunch.

Just then a old man walked from the restroom .
Granddad  what did I tell you bout using the restroom?
Huh the old man replied with that look of who the hell am I am what the **** is this ***** behind the bar saying .
Yeah I get that look a lot .

Granddad !
Huh?
What's that ?
He replied again as he staggered to the bar smelling of whiskey and **** yeah almost like Lindsey Lohans new perfume ode to a ***** well minus the ******* and bitter smell of a burned out former child actress.

What's that your saying?
The restrooms father time what did I tell you ,there strictly for paying costumers go use the alley where  I keep your house slash cardboard box .

Oh yeah and by the way you still owe me rent duh just cause your old and related to me doesn't mean you can just sponge off me who do you think you are some washed up drunken writer who haunts a nearly dead website like some strange perverted ghost ?

Hey did you hit the blood bank you old ****?
But son they told me I can't go twice in a week or I could die!
Look old man if you cant do that then you better hit the street start jerking off truckers I swear it was good enough for grandma you lazy **** .

I swear you give a semi senile old **** a spacious alley and wonderful box to live in as you take his social security and this is thanks you get.
Oh well least when he passed I can still collect his checks I'll just keep him in the walk in box nobody will know the difference .

Hey ******* don't talk to that  nice old man like that.
A voice Interrupted  me as I was about to remind father time he needed to sign his check duh how else do you think I fund the bar?

You really are a ***** Gonz you should be ashamed off talking and treating that nice old man so terrible.
I couldn't believe the gull of this women and although I was slightly distracted by her ******* I had to keep  focused cause this story had to end some ******* time .

Miss first off may I say welcome to the Pub and you have a great rack.
***** you perve ! , She said in her angry yet I could tell she secretly wanted me cause I'm a totally delusional egotistical ******* writer who is really long winded and enjoys cheap laughs and even cheaper hookers but only in moderation like Jesus kind of sense .

What to much?
Well you haven't read **** yet kids .

Miss I realize you may view me as a totally kickass writer and dude that you secretly want to have a goodtime in the backroom with .
Drop dead **** ! the woman replied .
Yeah I could tell I was wearing her down.

What gives you the right to treat this old man so cruel?
Duh cause he's my family silly woman and it's not like I'm cruel to him
in fact I treat him great don't I grandpa?

I haven't eaten in four days .
The old man replied .

You poor old sweetheart the woman said as she put her arms around the old man as he began to cry what a total ***** .
It's okay I'll get you some help .
Oh thank you so much your such a nice lady .

What the hell !
I herd the woman say in a semi state of shock as she realized in her effort to comfort grandpa he had grabbed a handful of some tight **** .

Get your hands off me .
The woman shouted but grandpa was stuck to that women like a tight pair of jeans .
Come on sweetheart give pop pop  some love.

The old demented ******* said.
***** this the woman said as she drove her knee about five miles into the old ****'s junk.

The old man fell to the floor as all five of the regulars laughed and the dudes had to cringe .

You people are all insane ***** this place she said as she walked out the door .

The old man climbed the barstool in the woes of agony a frustrated climber trying to hit the peak of that really tall mountain that I cant recall it's ******* name oh yeah Adele .

Give me a *******  whiskey and a ice pack you little *******.
I swear pops that act never gets old you alright?
I said as I poured the old ***** a strong one and handed him a steak.

What the hells the steak for ?
Duh the swelling ******* besides we got to thaw it out anyways
somebody ordered one from down the street and would it **** you to shave I'm just saying the owner of the site really already dislikes me enough already.

Yeah you kids are ****** up with your cellphones and computers and your shaved ***** give me the old days where men were men and weren't afraid to be men and smell like men not French ******
speaking of ****** dam I miss your grandma .

Yes the Gonzo clan it's so great to come from such a long line of misspelling drunken ***** loving perverts .

You know pops maybe we need to pick a new scam to run on the yuppies I don't think you can take to many shots like that anymore.

Hey are you saying I'm old ?
Well when the first boat trip you ever took was on the  Mayflower I'd say so gramps .

Well did that order for the steak include any seafood?
No why?
I replied as I poured me and the old man another.

Well cause it looks like there getting some ***** with there steak.

                                          Fin

Stay crazy hamsters

Gonzo

i want a good heart .
i want it to be made of good stuff .
i want the stain glass window builder to be my drinking buddy .
i want to drink only the punch of a million gender queer school kids taking free martial arts lessons to survive recess .
i stopped calling myself a pacifist when I heard gandhi told women they should not physically fight off their rapists .
i believe there is such a thing as a non violent fist .
i believe the earth is a woman muzzled , beaten , tied to the cold slinging tracks .
i believe the muzzled have every right to rip off the bible belt and take it to the patriarchy’s *** .
i know these words are going to get me in trouble .
it is never polite to throw back the tear gas .
just like its never polite to bring enough life rafts .
they crowd the balconies where the wealthy shine their jewels .
but sometimes love ..
sometimes real love
is ******* rude .
is interrupting a wedding mid vow just as the congregation is about to cry .
to stand up in your pew to say 
“ is everyone here clear on how diamonds are mined ?” 
hallelujah to every drag queen at stonewall who made weapons out of her stiletto shoes .
hallelujah to the blues keeping the neighborhood awake .
to the activist standing in the snow outside of the circus 
holding a ten foot photograph 
of a baby elephant in chains ,
when it’s probably some little kid’s birthday .
hallelujah to making everyone uncomfortable .
to the terrible manners of truth .
to refusing to clean the blood off the plate .
bend this spine into a bow 
i can pull across the cello of my speech .
love readies its heart’s teeth ,
chews through the etiquette leash .
takes down the cellphone tower after millions of people die in wars in the congo fighting for the minerals that make our cellphones . 
love blows up the dam .
chains itself to the redwood tree ,
to the capital building when a trailer of mexican immigrants are found dead on the south texas roadside .
love insists well intentioned white people officially stop calling themselves color blind .
insists hope lace it’s ******* boots 
always calls out the misogynist , racist , homophobic joke . 
refuses to be a welcome mat where hate wipes its feet .
love asks questions at the most inappropriate times .
overturns the defense of marriage act then walks a pride parade . asking when the plight of poor single mothers will ignite our hearts into action like that .
love is not polite .
deadlocks our rush hour traffic with a hundred stubborn screaming bikes .
hallelujah to every suffrage movement , hunger strike .
hallelujah to insisting they get your pronouns right .
hallelujah to tact never winning our spines .
to taking our power all the way back to that first glacier that had to learn how to swim .
to not turning our heads from a single ugly truth .
to knowing we live in a time when beauty recruits its models outside the doors of eating disorder clients .
that is not a metaphor .
this is not a line to a poem .
an indian farmer walks into a crowd of people and stab himself in his chest to protest 
the poisoning of his land .
a buddhist monk burns himself alive on the streets of saigon .
a united states' soldier hangs himself wearing his enemy’s dog tags around his holy neck .
may my heart be as heavy 
as a tuba in the front row of the mardi gras parade five months after katrina .
may it weigh the weight of the world 
so it might anchor the sun 
so it might hold me to my own light until i am willing to sweat as much as i cry .
until i am willing to press into the clay of our precious lives .
a window .
might our grace riot the walls down .
may the drought howl us awake
may we rush into the streets 
to do the work of opening each other’s eyes .
may our good hearts forever be 
too loud to let the neighbors sleep .

ARP Engineering Inc., a 'cisco' Education Companion, announces a current courses pertaining to 'cisco' Specific Communication 8-10.0 training. Your innovative system choices might be out there national commencing Thinking about receiving A single, The new year ?letting present scholars to conclude his or her v7.a coaching observe. Having ideally scheduled consumer programs starting in 2012, and personal classes for v8.back button accessible after requirement for enterprises having fast deployments, ARP is just about to help forex trading move.

Our own course load serves the two novice telephone facilitators new at all to the industry of a digital marketing communications and state-of-the-art IT professionals desirous to find our about the latest features involving 'cisco' conversation technology. ARP Systems continually delivers training and technological know-how experience, affordably as well as flexibly, so that you can deliver timely high-quality instruction worldwide. Each of our machines are high tech plus updated on a regular basis along with the knowledge engineering marketplace. We all take great pride in bringing up to date 'cisco' technology on the classroom primary. Cisco Good Mail messages version Seven gives brand new venture suffers from plus gains all over global plus corporate boundaries, such as:

Comprehensive business-to-business communications, providing transparent venture together with peer-to-peer technologies An extensive collection of interoperable marketing communications endpoints, which includes i phone, Htc, plus Bb mobile phone devices Deployment flexibleness, including on-premises machine based mostly and also VMware based, inside clouds, hosted, been able, or perhaps implement inside "cut-over" periods Integrated end user and also consumer activities, to increase relationship having two-way movie in many end items "Cisco believes that that collaboration is going to drive your next era of business work productivity, and efficient venture won't be attainable without having marketing and sales communications,Inches claimed Todd O'Sullivan, older vice president, Speech Technologies Collection, Cisco.

"With the creation of Cisco Enlightening Marketing communications 8.3, we've been generally relocating the best way corporations can certainly communicate. We've been permitting businesses to utilize venture like a crucial differentiator when they talk to lovers, companies and also clients by using a collection of instruments from predetermined in addition to cellphones so that you can venture im, online plus training video throughout firm restrictions.Inches ARP Engineering?education course load was created to manual brand new and also recent telephony moderators by way of initial ideas, products and solutions, as well as implementations working on generation x with Enlightening Connection answers. Beyond this concept, students may take a number of intermediate training that concentrate on distinct 'cisco' Mail messages merchandise as well as state-of-the-art training that fasten this engineering alongside one another and still provide a good basic intended for trouble-shooting consequently companies can boost advantages offered by including the items effortlessly operate natural environment.

A few of ARP Systems?brand new Cisco training incorporate: ICOMM: Giving Cisco Voice plus Communications ?This product produces the abilities were required to administer endpoints along with end users with Cisco Good Marketing communications Boss along with 'cisco' One Emails Supervisor Communicate. CVOICE v8.a: Using 'cisco' Voice Marketing and sales communications along with QoS ?This system gives an knowledge of converged voice and information cpa networks together with the troubles experienced by way of the various community systems. Mentioned several of the A dozen brand-new programs, outstanding classes, in addition to changes in order to official 'cisco' courses this ARP Engineering is delivering.
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it won't be too hard
to find another
you,
but I could do better--
i just need an upgrade,
a phone that will take pictures
of my new lover,
a popped button off his collar, easily fixed
and the temporary kindness
i could find in a more genuine soul.

so yes, you're replaceable.

I knew we were in trouble
when they taught the machines to talk

parliament of artificial owls
nocturnal park line pirates

watch and learn
these conspirators
abduct the listening chair
and strap deniability to
another infernal device

so some hotwired pilgriming woman
possesses superior ****** abilities
and a skill with
the violin, the pointy end

camera is king

yet all the negatives
have been destroyed
still somewhere out there
remains a flash card
and a hybrid set of eyes
watching all the people fall to pieces

we're perambulations around
collapsed buildings,
rather than the collapsing buildings themselves

me and the machine
of contradictions
sick as our secrets
with all kinds of shenanigans going on

welcome to the age of copying minds
onto hard drives and cellphones

a future too heavy to carry
and so we plant it deep into the soil
letting the cables sleep
like fading city lights, receding
like strange fractured reactors
at the edge of the world

in lieu of flowers send hope

Normally during the two-factor validation approach the one-time pass word is needed to make sure that anyone id. The following safeguards authentication by way of looking for numerous considerations to be attained which include something understand and something you might have. Something you understand remaining a person's common account information then one you may have currently being your OTP or maybe one-time pass word. However for the duration of ****** of the one-time private data any nuller could possibly however intercept the data to gain entry in case the OTP is not provided for a great out-of-band community.

One-time passwords can be found in many forms from simple things like a bed sheet connected with limitations to the more advanced propriety key making tokens. Often with regard to info that is not a particularly substantial protection chance the particular OTP is going to be mailed via e-mail to your end user for recognition. This may not be a good out-of-band remedy because e mail could be received on the same system as being the sign on section.

The condition having transmitting the other think about a verification method to a solution which is not out-of-band is usually that easy to use along with available program makes it simple to be able to indentify facts including the individual one-time username and password. Having an out-of-band alternative the user will have to be given its OTP on a split multilevel as compared with the account section. A proven way is thru private bridal party of which crank out energetic one-time security passwords. However bridal party become expensive and will generate disorder while dropped and also lost.

Another inexpensive plus more trusted system could be the user mobile phone. Because we are a world who has to be linked with the cellphones frequently a customer won't ignore their particular device and the probability of the unit getting cracked are much reduced. And also the gadget system is totally out-of-band in the login section.

Safe-guarding authentication by simply delivering a one-time username and password by using an out-of-band multi-level safeguards the consumer coming from malware and also misplacement of their device. Won't quite hard for any newcomer hacker to find discreet information or even cpa networks along with makes certain the person will get its OTP whenever they need it.

The only method to become a little more protected when you previously implement a great out-of-band OTP with regard to two-factor authorization is if it's a zero influence alternative. No presence authentications enable the one-time security password to get sent without leaving every locate with the authentication or even username and password at the rear of on the gadget. Finally obtaining this certification approach from net or maybe circle based strikes.

http://www.passwordmanagers.net/resources/How-to-Cleverly-Use-the-NSIS-as-a-ZIP-Password-*******-54.html ZI­P Password *******

Once, I bathed in anxiety,
soaking it all into my follicles and letting it slide
between my bones and through my muscles like ice water.
And I reeked.
Others couldn’t stand to be around me.
I became an inhuman symbol,
something robotic and unfeeling.

Then, I reached the peak of hypocrisy--
rejected sparkling convention yet was
simultaneously enamored with it.
I binged on harsh words
aimed at diminishing my sense of self.
I was a frail,
98-pound girl
looking into the mirror
and seeing only excess.

Throughout, I was weighted with bruised limbs--
from being grabbed too hard and pounded too rough against the floor,
and broken down doors and cracked cellphones--
which my father threw violently against the wall.
I watched the glass shatter and end tables topple
down at my mother’s feet,
her eyes wide and glassy,
her face fallen.

Once, I stood naked in a sputtering shower
and slammed my fist
—twice—
into the face of the person I loved
the most, leaving him
with a haunted
eye.

Then, I picked a flower from the sky.

Throughout, I cried because my father left me,
while pretending I was only crying
about a sad song.

These days no longer belong to me,
but the voices are still there.
And the ache.
And the fear.

What a relief to set aside
my mechanical pencil
and write with you,
O Ballpoint Pen
found at the bottom of my pen box.

On your side is engraved
“Samy’s Camera.”
Did I walk out with you by accident?
or was it on purpose,
beguiled by your sleek, cool body
as you nestled into my hand
and I clasped you tight
likw my boyfriend in a steamy nightclub
dancing slow to Moon River.

Was I writing a check for
a roll of Kodak film,
ASA 400?
Or was it more recent?
Purchasing a digital mini-camera
to carry in my purse?
Before cellphones took selfies so flawlessly
that I tucked my Sony
into the dresser drawer
behind my underwear.
It lies abandoned
soon to be joined by all my
mechanical pencils.

You, my Pen, are my reliable companion
who will record lists for me:
To Do lists
Shopping lists
Birthday lists
Laundry lists.
You will record why my lover
doesn't want me anymore, but
I will tear up that scrap of paper
as soon as the ink has dried like blood,
that heartless man,
unworthy of the ink I waste on him.

O beautiful Pen,
sleek as the fur on a cat,
smooth as a gin and tonic,
solid as his hand on my breast.
for merely.

I hereby relinquish my mechanical pencil,
whose lead keeps shattering.
But you, dear Ballpoint Pen, I can press hard.
And how much more beautiful
with you
are the curves of my words.

Sitting in that cafe
was like sitting atop the tower of Babel
a cacophony of language
like a hurricane was going on all around him
the homeless black men
who spoke with their own jive and jib
he knew some of the language
but was far from fluent
there were the Arabian men
talking into blue tooths on their ears
or into cellphones
or arguing with each other
outside over cigarette after endless cigarette
nothing but harsh blunt sounds,
it was beautiful in a way
and there is the Russian couple
bombshell athletic blondes
it was hard to determine whether the relationship was
Mother and Daughter
or coach and athlete
they were seemingly
all business
broken with interspersed bouts of laughter
and their were the Asian boys and girls
coming from Korea or Japan or China, or some other place
talking fast and easy
gesticulating wildly with their hands
and of course their was English
thick and arrogant in its tone
it was a language for movers and shakers
money makers and deal breakers
it sounded nowhere near as special
as the other languages
And there was him
sitting silently in the corner of the cafe
his language
the chitter chatter of the keyboard

We had a family meeting
And decided that our tree
Would no longer be a fake one
It would be as real, as real could be

I said that it's no problem
In fact I think it's fine
I truly miss the Christmas scent
Of wet and musty pine

I reminded them that last year
A new, lit up tree we'd bought
They passed off my weak arguement
With barely time or thought

So, with three weeks until Christmas
The search would now begin
For a tree, just full of needles
Not too bushy or too thin

I started with the want ads
Saw the lots with trees for sale
But, most were all on order
I begged, to no avail

My wife said, let's go cut one
In a woodlot, cut one down
I said we're in the heart of a big city
We have to go two hours out of town

I told them, I'm not going
Then my daughter, shed one tear
I don't know how she does it
But, she's got me wrapped....I fear

So we loaded up the family
Drove until we found the place
With so many others out there
There was no parking space

We parked out on the roadway
Half a mile from the gate
When we go there to start cutting
We were told....two hour wait

We'd brought an axe and hand saw
For when we found our perfect tree
Then, we were told...no...only chainsaws
Did I have one...nope...not me

I had to take a short refresher
On how to use their little saw
And of course, this being Christmas
It cost me fifty more

Finally, we started out
There were trees, of every kind
then the fellow said, that this years
Were in the back....way down the line

He said that this year, beavers
Had flooded out the lower plains
And the trees down here were stunted
And would have to start out once again

The ones that we could cut down
Were back a mile up the hill
I wasn't sure then if it was him
Or my family I should ****

I protested, but my daughter
You know. with the one tear leaking eye
Looked at me and smiled
And I said, that I would try

We hiked up to the woodlot,
There were trees of pine and fir
And a spotty faced young helper
Who asked "What kind do you want, sir?"

Long needled, or a short one
Douglas fir, or knotty pine
The choice, well it was endless
And the choice, well ...it was mine

The next thing that he asked me
How big should the tree be?
I looked a little flustered
And then he said to me

Once you cut it down ...you own it
Measure it, and cut it down
Make sure you get the right one
It's a long way back to town

My wife said, 8 or 9 feet
The kids, no help at all
They were both playing on their cellphones
And making plans for later at the mall

We chose to get a pine one
Eight feet high and just as wide
I didn't know exactly
How I'd get it home and back inside

Two minutes, and I'd cut it
We had a tree, and just my luck
They'd started out without me
I had to drag it to the truck

The boy said, they'd wrap and measure
Down front where I came in
I looked down down at my killing
Not too fat, and not too thin

Two hours later I arrived
All wet and soaked and peeved
But deep down, I'd made them happy
And this made me relieved

Once he wrapped it tightly
I was shocked at the tree's price
He said, two hundred forty
In fact he said it twice

30 bucks a foot for pine
That would be dead in two weeks
I was so mad when I paid him
That I could barely speak

I walked back to the truck alone
I left the family with the tree
I thought two times of driving off
Ok...in truth....It was three

They tied it down upon the roof
Said the rope, was free this year
I almost blew my top right then
I saw my daughter....and her tear

We drove it home in silence
Stopped once on the way
I had to spend twenty more dollars
For a tree stand, at the Bay

I dragged it in the living room
Cut it open, let it spread
It, didn't really fluff out much
I think our tree was dead

It took almost an hour
It lay there, dropping needles on the floor
I thought , yep, this is Christmas
Who could ask for any more?

The kids were gone already
When I put it in the stand
I had wired it, into the wall
This was not the way I planned

A simple family Christmas
With a tree is a pain
I've got a fake one in a box
I'll not do this again

There's bare spots at the bottom
It's unbalanced near the top
There's sap all through the hallway
I've got more, just tell me stop

The tree is now all covered
With decorations and with lights
I water it twice daily
So, it doesn't burn up in the night

Next Christmas when they tell me
We want another tree
I'll tell them, go ahead and get one
But, do it with out me!!!!

The City lights blinked out forever--literally overnight--with a sudden finality that caught even the most nuclear-winter-prepared/Guns N Ammo reading/Campbell's canned soup and distilled-water stocked/backyard-fallout-shelter-owning-survivalists completely off guard. Armageddon had always been there, sleeping just beyond the horizon line of our periphery, but it awoke fully clothed and ready to go to work that day.
It was an ordinary Thursday, just like any other. The MUNI lines were choked as always with angry elderly women clutching plastic shopping bags full of pungent vegetables, poultry, and recyclables as if their lives depended upon the contents of those bags (maybe they did) and the usual gaggle of gibberish-mumbling crazies talking to themselves with cellphones plugged into their brains, some without. 
That day, baristas were 5 minutes, 23 seconds late for work on a city-wide average. Bartenders were making their rent in tips as rowdy soccer fans converged in their local Sunset, Richmond, Mission and SOMA district faux-Irish pubs to watch the latest big championship match between Ireland and...some other country.
By Saturday, less than two days later, the desperate siren-blare of emergency vehicles, the insect hum of DPT tri-bikes carrying cutthroat ninja-sneaky meter maids ready to make their weekly quotas by slipping bogus $55 parking tickets under the windshield-wiper of your best friend's beat-up, barely-working mid-90s Mazda you were borrowing just for the night, and the cloud-cutting rotary-whine of channel 5 news traffic-report helicopters chopping through the sky had been silenced forever.  
As if sensing the absence of gardeners, street sweepers and garbage men, weeds grew out of the cracks of the streets and sidewalks with the newfound urgency of a wildfire. Leaves swirled through glass and concrete skyscraper canyons, settled, and slowly began forming mounds as if attempting to fill the spaces that angry elderly women with plastic shopping bags, cellphone schizophrenics, and drunken soccer fanatics had once occupied.
Speculation about how the End of the World would actually occur had always been a theological reference point for religious zealots hell-bent on giving the Book of Revelations some validity, but had taken on a tone of comical absurdity in the hands of post-Y2K pop culture and disaster movies. A horde of zombies rising from their graves and feeding on the flesh of small bands of living human survivors was one of the more popular, albeit fantastic, apocalyptic theories. Some predicted that robots would enslave us, some thought aliens would invade us, while still others--baring signs reading "THE END DRAWTH NIGH," arms stretched meaninglessly up towards the hollow heavens in the sky above--believed biological or nuclear warfare to be the most likely form of humanity's demise.
But by the following Thursday, speculation had become a moot point; none of it had mattered at all in the end as the power-grid of the City, and then human civilization altogether, had been suddenly switched off for the last time by an alcoholic rent-a-god, leaving the face of the globe devoid of any trace of the spiderweb-night-glow of terrestrial city-lights. 
Only the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea were spared to fill the blank pages of history that were to follow human(kind's) fading footprints.

*

Aeons later...
When those birds learned to read, they would see cryptic symbols inside a crooked heart jaggedly carved into a tree trunk surrounded by a mote of fallen leaves and ragged newspaper pages blowing through the streets like tumbleweeds.
Aeons later...
Those tree-scratched symbols would form the sacred commandments of a secret new religion built upon the ashen, worm-eaten remains of two skeletons holding hands and a ****** trail of broken hearts trailing from their ribcages into the worm-mouths of babes.

On Loss

We’re always losing something.
Seconds, days take some french exit.
Time quietly shuffles out the back door.
Doesn’t even say goodbye.

Once we realize
our moments are gone,
we want them back. Maybe we can replay
them and take a second look, but the record skips and the tape jumps
and the film is splotched and some teenager spilt
wine all over the keyboard
long ago;

So we jump
from memory to memory like patchwork
realizing we don’t even remember the important things.

We don’t even know why we thought what we thought.
We can’t even explain ourselves to ourselves.
Our consciousness can’t muddle through it’s own muck;
our mind doesn’t even know how the mind works.

It’s not just an existential crisis.
We lose the small things, too. We lose cellphones.
Wallets. Innocence. Virtue. We pass some
tests, we fail some tests, we replace and are replaced
we stop loving  and are no longer loved,
but eventually, bigger things. Friends. Family. Lovers.
Ourselves. Our potential.
Eventually, we slip away from the most important thing.

I’ve heard a bit about death. It’s a lot like sleep. You don’t even know it’s happening.
It’s a lot like
slipping into the unconscious;
it’s a lot like putting your head down; you don’t thrash about. You see the holy gates,
maybe. Maybe you’re pulled from your body
like a handkerchief. Maybe you don’t lose anything;
maybe you get found.

If this is melancholy, I’m sorry. I’m allowed to be melancholy. Likewise, you’re are allowed  to be melancholy.
You are allowed to question-
you are allowed to dance, sing, shout, cry
know, love, forget;
You are allowed to lose. You are allowed to remember. What’s stopping you?
Who’s holding you back? No floodgates; you aren’t a flood.
There’s no sweeping metaphor; no sweeping generalization. You aren’t
a path, you aren’t constrained, chained bound or gagged;
confess if you must;
drink wine if you have too;
do some metaphysical exercise; transport your mind to some realm
explode, manifest, conquer,

Prepare to lose it all. Or let it happen. It’s a choice.

If I could, I’d help you through your heartbreak. Guide you through
it all,
make you smile. Make you happy.
But I keep losing things.
I keep playing all the songs I used to enjoy.
I keep reading all the things that used to make me happy.

Moments come and go, hours gently float away
Night will wash the palate clean, clear-coat the day;
I will love, and I will hate;
I will sing, and I will dance
I will grieve, and celebrate
I will shout, and by some chance,
I cease to be.
I will not be me.
I will go somewhere;

a dark room.
Somewhere where I am safe.
Nowhere at all.

Somewhere, sometime, somehow, a vauge
mirror you cannot avoid

Smart phone paranoia, contagious at best
Has the zombies a stumbling the streets without rest
Transfixed to their cellphones, oblivious to all
By the lure of the Tweet and the Facebook’s enthrall
It’s ironically depressing that with all of this spin
When you download the Apps…the Devil walks in.
They access your contacts, Your banking, your loans
Your credit card details, unravel your phones,
Delve into your Facebook and spy on your life,
Check back through your history and peek at the wife.
They sell all your secrets to bidders galore
And when you go bankrupt… they’ll show you the door.

It’s “Caveat Emptor” or Buyer Beware
‘Cos technology’s clawed onto us by the hair,
It’s the Devil you do or the Devil you don’t
It’s progress with the crowd or resist and you won’t
Compulsion is growing by systems in place
By government, banking and big business pace
Through Google and Apple and Microsoft sway
The data is mined and the marketeer’s pay.
Tomorrow is here and we don’t have a choice
Ya live without Smartphone…ya won’t have a voice.
And the dragnet for data accessed by the Apps
And the sensors and whereabouts GPS tracks,
With the malware evolving to beauteous height
Means ya privacy’s shot and ya turn out the light.*

PS: Beneficium accipere liberatum est vendere
     (To accept a favour…is to sell one’s freedom!)

Marshalg
Waiting for it all to come back and bite me on the ****!
Pukehana
AUCKLAND
21 February 2014

I rarely get on Facebook anymore. But when I do, I'll change my profile picture or banner-- maybe post a witty status update, maybe not witty, just something to let people know I'm alive.

It's like repositioning the arms on a stationary mannequin to depict a different scene. Except lately I just don't care anymore. It's just that-- a mannequin. An object, an image, a lifeless entity with which I used to feel real-- a dusty mirror.

I see that the line between the idea of a person and the reality is being blurred and crossing over into something all-together different. It's as if people are starting to wake up and realize the objectivity of their reality. But that brings into question the basis for which we define reality.

We have become a, “Look but don't touch” society in which we click a button to show our appreciation as opposed to genuinely reciprocating human emotion and energy. It is extremely isolating and dangerous.

Packed subways and sidewalks have fallen eerily silent with faces illuminated by their cellphones. Most everyone wants to be heard, appreciated and recognized and social media has provided an outlet for that.

But there comes a point at which your platform becomes your prison and your voice your warden-- and everything you say is modified to be pleasing to the ear and 'likeable'.

But I like dislikes. And if you're not ******* anyone off-- you're probably not doing anything important, and if you're not outraged you're not paying attention.

are you serious?
****?

Dark draped the Ferry in confusion
on its final, fatal night.
Survivors spoke of a collision.
They knew that something wasn’t right.
A class of students on a trip
Bound for Jeju from Incheon
The Ferryman said to stay below
but he debarked and they’re all gone.
The ferry Sewol began to list
and water poured in through her ports.
Will anyone present forget the screams?
Souls in torment fill their thoughts.
Search and rescue soon became
a sad and grim recovery.
Their final moments were caught on cellphones
recovered from the silted sea.
The Ferryman has much to answer
About those students left behind
Perhaps in dreams he will be haunted
as young  drowned faces flood his mind.

And so as a man, a job,
a cactus wearing a business suit sharing relations with the hydrant down the street.

A ***** strapped to a baby carriage with plastic baggie cellphones
yelling "run away now"
to the grass at his feet.
A man devoid of water, rather.

These are the times

A well, emptied.

Rather death
find waves of spilled milk and
all the fat people, skinny.

A dry mouth desert, kneeling
In either breath of a living feeling
or the one that talks of so much
for only the wealth of his screaming.

Some tiny furniture talked all night about running through wheat,
ebbing and flowing against the end tables,
then falling short as crumbling tree leaves.
An ottoman as recycle bin holding stem
from stem of watermelon children
and vine-ripened acetaminophen.

Some odd truth told the blowing wind that
God does cartwheels with Lucifer at random.
It then billowed out about
his ***** underwear and holy fodder for memorandum.  

I would say a man, a vision,
A little girl using a GPS to calculate the distance from the rest her teething.
Instead, she found a funny barbeque ***** playing hog-tied pharmaceutical reps into neoprene
mud-flapping pigeons.

I would say the sinking plastic six-pack islands revealing trash limbs,
sunken,
honest,
grim.

Life, itself, must move in tandem to only fleeting geese.
Though in plan, the artisan-picking fruit of word must be depicted.
Live in sin and ignorance much like the
breaking news walking on broken record.
And so as a man; a fear.
He looked down, staring at no one
with bare feet and shaken, coconut flavored palm trees.

I raise my arms, and they become wings. White, black, and brown feathers flutter in the breeze. My eyes lose their white and brown color to become coal black. Hands up; the bullets fire. I will never fly.

I play war, fighting off imaginary enemies. The airsoft gun threatens no one. It is only and extension of my imagination. Childhood, safe until I feel the bullets pierce my skin without a single warning.

I run in fear for my life. Breath ragged, time’s jagged line red with life’s energy. My blood becomes street art.

In frustration I raise my voice. Tired of getting singled out. Tired of being black while walking with my hands in my pocket. The air will not come, this time I did not, could not run. Please, I can’t breathe. Day becomes night but that is nothing new to me and mine.

I look back in time. See the strange fruit with bitter juices dripping down the tree. The wind is not strong enough to move me. My family is not allowed to take me down just yet. Weird white sheets laugh and dance protected by their anonymity. The police don’t bother seeking justice for me.

With the modern age, you’d think we could be better. Cellphones, and judges robes, internet tv shows, twenty four hours new coverage that shades and paints A hundred different stories daily. Another dead man defamed in the court of public opinion. Another victim blamed. Another crime left unnamed. Another murderer not blamed. ******* ****, things really haven’t changed.

I walk home from the library, light skinned, these are not my sins. However, I can see the sorrow and the tragedy. I feel tears falling for all those families. Not my kin but then again when I search within they are my brothers and sisters.  A dark anguish clouds my senses. Seeing other human beings in pain causes me pain and it is worsened by the lack of compassion of my peers. I hear lies like he was a ****, or dodges like he had a criminal record. But he was human flesh like my flesh and now his death is a black hole of grief and rage.

Silence is a prison of reflection, iron bars of sorrow built upon more sorrow. I cannot speak clearly enough. I question what right I have to say these things. However, they are spoken from love, hope, and a desire to see us aspire to be better. I guess that is all the permission I need to say that any injustice bleeds us all of our dignity and humanity.

The machine can only tell the truth
spit receipts( sometimes out on the street)
calculate how much your worth
and make you blush
if your bank account is below expectations.

Each time I stand before the Master
punching secret numbers
searching my memory bank for the last figures
I left behind
I am apprehensive and afraid
the ATM may punch back at me.

There is a long Q at the back of me
and the people that know their value
often shuffle the most.
Its us poor guys that must endure the pain
of exposure.

One of these days I going to tell
the teller in the ATM that my value
is more than just dollars and sense!
Thank you. I'm out of the q now with
twenty bucks. Phew!
Author Notes

These days I am writing poems of ordinary things. Bus Tickets, ATMs, Cellphones, Railway Tracks, Mr and Mrs Ordinary and all things that keep us attached to life and living. There's more around us than what we care to notice.

As a past time, I sit on a street bench and watch people as they go about their daily lives. The odd one deserves a poem. Thank you.

My last series covered Revolutions and Power. This series will cover Ordinary.

© Marshall Gass. All rights reserved, 2 months ago

Heat waves in iced water.
Chilled moonshine on the scorching sun.
Blades of green earth on a long-lit fire.
Fresh-water creatures in the salty sea.

A glow, brighter than, and in the ocean of night.
A rock in the sky and birds that can't fly.
A whale on the beach with the sea out of reach. And Blossoms in a dark room.

An infant on his feet soon to fall into defeat.
Ever-greens in winter and ghosts in mid-day. Lungs underwater and gills in air. Like drugs in one's system that slowly pass through.

Owls at dawn, daylight birds in nocturnal song and eyes staring at the sun.
A snake on smooth surface and a worm on the rough.
Like a house cat in the wild mountains and rivers in suburban territory.

Like pillows stuffed with stones and a child with evil inside.
Free spirits in a cage and prisoners freed.
Like a stick in quick sand, a weighted mass floating on a light surface.
Like a dog, a cat and rat peacefully below one roof.

Like a beaten lion and a victorious antelope.
Like the colour of green against the shadow of black. Like hopping on concrete and civil wars. The hood in a college girl and a college girl in the hood.

Like curtains in the morning and yawning windows at dusk. Like an aged oak in the midst of a flood, like a water lily in the days of drought.
Like a forgotten pearl in a waste dump and fake gold on a woman's index.

Like a loud song muted by those who fear volume and a soft one forced to yell above its pitch.
Like a ladybug on a pesticide- poisoned crop.
Like a polar bear in the African Sahara.

Like a camel by the coast, ants with no work and busybodied sloths. A scarf in summer and crop tops in autumn. Plants dying in September and coming back to life in June.

Like a written-on page on a brand new day and wordlessness when that day is old and weary.
Like a torch at midnight. Like cellphones in a filled bath tub.

Like a fat man sprinting and the turtle losing the race. Like a homeless mother in a mansion.
Like a teenage girl with no tongue, and oppressors with no power.

Like David and Goliath, like a insane Albert Einstein. Like a flame on the ocean floor. Like me in this world, I shouldn't be, but I can be and I will be.

The sadness continues and hilarity ensues:
With a close eye on the test tube, I burn down my venues.
Foxes and diamonds from the cancer within you
Grace my ****** health with phrases that spin you and
Body-parts scattered beside collapsed ladders with
Hair torn and tattered and dog jawbones shattered,
Deceived by a tarot-card-reading man with a hook hand
Who said the scam was a means to increase public demand
Before walking through sewers to see old friends skewered
On trees made of wire with leaves like computers
From Silicon valley rejects who were top of their classes,
Oblivious to the fact that they're dead to the masses,
Who only want cellphones that tell them their names,
So they can remember who they are and from whence they came
And how old they will be on their final birthdays,
When sunlight and skies will be fluorescence and X-rays
And children will tell all their mothers to die slow,
Because they're looking for something more loving than "I know
How much you hate yourself and the world surrounding
Because the applause at your funeral won't be resounding,
Plus your father loves alcohol more than your sister,
Who you may not have known, had your father not missed her,
Which is why all the walls are covered in blisters
And there are cat's eyes and hands peering out of the ******,"
To which there is no reply, save for incredulity,
For as we collectively die, you all put on all your jewelry,
Which was made by a child with no concept of labor,
Who gets less respect than sweater-vest wearing men in the paper
Who get there by switching the flow and catching the vapors,
Like sentient parasites or intelligent tapeworms
Who tell me it's unhealthy to meet someone and hate her
Simply because when I look at her all I see is the savior.

A showdown on Sunset
At sundown the two met
A breakdown of Corvettes
Cellphones drawn by execs
From holsters, my wild west
On speed dial is the best
Lawyers to slow down, lay to rest
This showdown of suits neatly pressed

“why don’t you write a book?”

they’ll expect
a second

if consistency
and money
was consistant
see, I’d write a book

“you should write a book”

poetry is a dying art,
you’ll find a needle
every now and then
but the hay is bound
together with cellphones
and bongs
and unexpected
suicides

no one wants to hear
how sleep deprived you are
because your satin feels
like moth wings
and how your skin
feels like
a burning painting,
why cigarettes kiss
harder and how love
feels like the bottom
of a dinner plate

you’ll find compassion
and understanding
but finding a diamond in
the rough is
only valuable if
you can escape

We’re riding,
feels more like flying,
because this car,
feels more like a spaceship,

used to ride in a hybrid with eyes red,
now I ride a Tesla clean as a whistle,
used to use the pen as a sword,
now I use my laptop as a missile,

sorry I’m not sorry if I missed you,
didn’t intentionally diss you,
just been focused zoning on my poems,
keeping it going with my mind on the mission,

listen,

this is the future,
most are out to lunch better catch up,
this isn’t a **** it sandwich this is blessing dressing,
not an invalid salad but an important portion so pay attention when addressing us,

fck,
trying not to cuss too much,
but what the fck,
sometimes too much isn’t even enough,

probably heard that before,
probably didn’t know that was my line,
see when over a million people have read your words,
your words get rewritten time after time,

rewritten but not bitten see there’s a difference,
and yeah I know that the difference is a line and that line’s fine,
and it’s crossed when the message is lost and the spirit leaves the body,
but it’s not when I hear the words repeated in songs and I know those words are mine,

because when I know other people also know albeit sublimely,

I guess that’s what happens when your work outgrows you,
when you hear words you wrote in songs and quotes,
and it gives you that potent mix of anxiety and adrenaline,
which leads you to speeding by throttling the clutch like a throat,

heading north on America’s most west coast road,
going 100 MPH with no MPG up the PCH,
no MPG because the ride is all electric,
like we are running in this lifelong race,

racin’ with Jaden we ride out to our Topanga hideout,
got a whole 10 acre mountain top up there,
where we go to get ghost when we need to get away from foolish folks,
from their flashing lights Hellish cellphones and all their blank faced phony stares,

riding,
feels more like flying,
because this car,
feels more like a spaceship…

∆ Aaron LA Lux ∆

I think we buried him here.
No, no. Don’t dig him up.
Sometimes when it rains the earth opens up and blood pours out.
It’s like flesh, you know?
It’s getting harder to breathe so the pores have to open wider every fall
and more and more blood rises.
The other day the electricity in the city died.
No, not just the lines.
It was like a pulse.
Every electronic device failed
and suddenly we all saw ourselves reflected in our screens;
cellphones, televisions, laptops.
Everyone was so scared.
I remember a child gripping his knees.
Mum, mum, he repeated, but she didn’t reply.
I listened for a minute
and did nothing.
Hey, cheer up.
Some say at the end of every year, all the dead skin we’d shed to that point forms back into itself.
Living, breathing beings indistinguishable from their hosts.
No one knows if they remember their pasts,
if they are born as blank slates or prefigured individuals
destined to repeat the same mistakes,
over, and over, and over.
One day they’ll take over the city and we’ll be out of jobs.
They’ll forget everything we spoke of today and drill deep into the earth.
The flesh will split so cruelly it won’t ever knit back together again,
and blackened blood will carry skyscrapers into the earth.
Don’t be sad. It’s inevitable.
Think of it as returning to the womb.
A pure
unending
nothing.