I'm sick of the media
I want to block it all out
Make it all stop
Stop showing me
All the wrong in the world
Stop showing me
How to act
Stop showing me
How to dress
Stop showing me
What the perfect body looks like
Stop showing me
How imperfect I am
When compared to everyone else
But even if it all went away
There will always be people
Relentless unforgiving people
They get louder and louder
Until others join in
Each trying to outshout the other
Until all you can hear
Are the cruel words
Flinging through the air
Jumping into my ears
And surging through my body
Every single inch
Of my body that I feel is
Getting bigger by the day
Bigger by the hour
Bigger by the minute
Bigger by the second
Until one day
I can't handle it anymore

The hurricane winds are a bore
When they’ve been pushing you around
For two-thirds of a century
There’s nothing surprising about what torsion can do:
I know, I know,
It’s real but it’s all in your head, both at once,
Your collarbone is at 227 degrees toward Polaris
And meanwhile your left hip is rotating in a
Hyperskewed dimension only plottable with
Imaginary numbers, which is a problem
For peristaltic functions dependent on
Newtonian mechanics – sigh, shiver, burp,
Keep your awareness don’t fall over
BORING.
You’ve been on orange alert since Ike.

Let’s run down the repertoire of available distractions.
Jokiness? Sometimes worked in small
Person-to-person settings (you see the current problem)
But amazingly hard to pull off in text;
Mentally mugging the innocent online?
Leaves a bad taste.
Obliterating lust? Seems to have annihilated itself
Except in pain-in-the-*** dreams, the actually-asleep kind.
Guitar, or similar toys? Only fun as long as you keep finding
Novelty – which turns into, you know, work.

Drowning your mind in other people’s stuff?
This is the scary part.
Sometimes, still, for a little while; but never for long;
Not the freshest, not the most age-old time-tested brilliance;
Metaphors fall apart – the plot devices cannot hold -
You blink twice and the wind’s whipped the page out of your grip
And twisted your neck down up inside your ******* again.

So blowblowblowblowblow, babybrainballoons,
And Crack Your Cheeks,
Coz the only shred of hope is that if we all keep
Caterwauling our pissant poetic brains out at maximum vocal volume
Preamped and reverbed by global satellite systems to some
Unpredictable transhuman force it might eventually
OutShout the drone of Earth’s idiotic entropy
Kuz krist I’m bored of standing up in the wind

The obits I've read, 
are one sided.
He or she was always 
dedicated to their family...survived by....in lieu of flowers....
And that was it.

I'd like tell you about a friend, 
and say, among other things, 
what else Jack's obituary should have said.

We got along, off and on, for many years.

His most outstanding characteristic was,  
he was a sponge for facts and ideas--
science, politics, cultural trends
That was his thing.

Many a lunch hour we and others ate,
solving world problems. 
On a good day, we could smother conservatives with facts,
and outshout them too.
Jack leaned liberal, but carefully reasoned his positions,
which meant that I mostly agreed with him.

He was thin-skinned and a poor turn of words,
he would silently seethe.
That was the frenemy part.
Afterwards we avoided each other,
until after some time, 
once or twice as long as a year or so, 
we spoke again, 
almost like nothing happened.

Jack read a lot, mostly nonfiction 
Lots of science, with some Asimov in his past

He was dedicated to his profession and stayed current.
Customers trusted him and he served them well.
He only worked at one place, 
mostly because he liked the job
and some of the people.

But if a project didn't appeal to him,
he could also be Mr Passive-Aggressive,

He followed the arts and drew,
building a rig for two point perspective,
his doodles were marvelous.

Jack's character was as complex as his  interests.
He described his diversity with "I'm just a dabbler."
Humble, yet proud. sincere but a little perverse.
But not really a dabbler-- he dug deep, a lot.

His passing was sudden and his obituary had gaps.

am i i am mechanical man
have i i have mechanical man
what is is what mechanical man
is there there is mechanical man

mechanical man, mechanical man
hear me hear me mechanical man
mechanical melancholy marauders this man
mechanical emotions mock this man

this is is this mechanical man
see it it sees mechanical man
shoutout outshout mechanical man
Inside outside mechanical man

mechanical man, mechanical man
mechanical men, mechanical men
over and over, mechanical men
again and again, mechanical men

am i am i mechanical man
are we we are mechanical men
what is what is mechanical man
is there there is mechanical men

mechanical man, mechanical men
this is, is this mechanical men
we see, we see mechanical men
we are, we are mechanical men

nuts and bolts, mechanical man
am i, am i mechanical man
scarecrow, scarecrow, mechanical man
help me, help me mechanical man

mechanical man, mechanical man
need not heed not mechanical man
scarecrow, scarecrow, mechanical man
nuts and bolts make up this man

gone, gone, gone was the mechanical man
with his mechanical whims and his mechanical hymns
nuts and bolts made up this man, and
run, run, running was the mechanical man
and his mechanical friends followed the man
they asked, mechanical man, what do you see
scarecrows, scarecrows, working fields of green
their metallic hands that reap but never sow

tell me, tell me, mechanical man
are we are weall just cogs in a machine
scarecrows, scarecrows, said the man
a cog can jam, a wheel could break
we are but men, so live, live like a man
robots are but machines, doing things
over and over, over and over,
over and over, over and never again