Vowel

...

We the a generation
we with tiger parents
underneath hippie paint
b or less only good for a
trip to cubicle coal mines
shoveling other people's load
there's kids in china that would
starve to get this job
some of them already have
we the chairs with rollers
where are these wheels supposed to go
swoop out the door, a flock of
keyboard jockeys, arms spread like
flapping of freedom
to nowhere, like icarus we rise
and plummet to linoleum earth
while our space is filled by
eager replacements with
number tickets

...

We the e generation
we cyborgs, we symbiotes in plastic shells
linked with our hyperness in digital bondage
no base belong to us
we avatars of virtual godhoods
where atheism a nonissue
every server a personal deity
every mod, hax, exploit, lol, omg
an action programmed by someone
other than us
we rattle our chains, these strands of
neural nets, these plans of domination
and dominated, as we struggle to remember
our mortal frames
we unshackled consciousness, embedded
in silicon
we free ourselves from elements and
journey, candy journey, recall to
the only home we know
control alt delete
reset

...

We the i generation
deafen our ears with innocent
buds of blasting volumeness
we the tic tac text
fooled into thinking letters are
people, as we float past skin
and smiles, tears and sins
we blinded by a shiny progress
of supple elegance, when wrinkle
people subject to planned obsolescence
there is no moore's law for humans
we stepping stones of humorous memes
do we step, or are we stepped upon
we microwave our noses with soy
protein isolate, to clean out stench
of warzone smoke, burning flesh like
recycling, foreigners in little green
bins with cycle of life arrows and
it's all groovy because john
sings imagine in our
soap bubble

...

We the o generation
organisms of titillation
celebrity reality with a lusty
hedonism, or places we've never
been, and never will be, tanned
throes of passionate people playing
we voyeurs, like weeds we kill
our televisions to have them spring
forth as culture flowers, hey man
it's the only world we know, since
reality is broken and the flashing
lights I can control, sluice nuggets
of pleasure in my pan because
there isn't enough luxury to go around
we the virtual rich with our digital
mansions, with horny pixels at my
command, because if someone's going
to derive euphoria from this
madness, it might as well
be we

...

We the u generation
we the compassionate mantra
whether dalai lama or jesus
muhammad or abraham
dawkins or huxley
or somewhere in between
we realize our self interest
tied together with usb cords of
group interest, this internet of
patience waits for trolls with
/hugs
we wait for the takers
we makers, we chomskyites in spirit
if not in practice, the true form
of democracy is love, when we decide
to build a vote for everyone, when
we humanity believe this universe
is universal, our fences of prejudice
and language and affluence divide a
shared experience
our inalienable right to
think and feel and lift our voices
to the eternal sky and just
vowel.

...

Collected Haiku #37

Collected Haiku #36

We Are Made Of Dots

...

We are made of dots
fourteen billion years
old, 'fore then cannot
ken celestial sphere

perhaps four thousand
B.C. we sprang from
dust, who's to question
omnipotent psalm

maybe yesterday
memories intact
aggregate birthday
begat with one fact:

when we disappear
our dots persevere.


...

Written for One Stop Poetry Friday Poetically with Brian Miller. 
Painting by Chuck Close.

...

I Live In Stars

I live in stars

with the plasma

people we party party

party party day indeterminate

day radioactive action retains

energy flares fell in love with a

shimmer girl with nuclear eyes

we raced with fireballs we

danced with electrons

smashed from

protons

                                                 till

                             I rocketed into
cold cold space where plasma
                             people will not

                                                 go

...

 Written for G-man's Friday Flash 55.
...

Empire Avenue!

{EAV_BLOG_VER:bf136e2ceffe2e23}

The above code is for verification of this blog with Empire Avenue. Which is unimportant to all of you, but pretty neat for me.

If you don't know what that site is, EA is a lot like a stock market for social media influence.  Like Klout, it measures your weightiness around the internet.  It takes numbers from Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and blogs (like this one) to measure how awesome you are at generating buzz.

Why would a poet care about that?  Well, I don't know about you, but I'm thrilled whenever people read what I write.  Part of communication is having an engaged audience, regardless of the medium, and sites like EA provide a yardstick for me to gauge how effective I am at broadcasting my message.  It's the same reason why Twitter and Facebook are so fascinating, because not only am I (in essence) self-publishing myself on the internet, I'm also able to see exactly how much my value is worth to the people I interact with.

I'm not the type of poet to sit on a lake and ponder.  (Not knocking those that do.)  At some point I want what I think about to be consumed by the populace, and a site like EA facilitates that interaction.

...

Collected Haiku #35