Nothing Personal

“Hey love, what’cha gonna do?” Princess says.

 

What am I goin’ ta do? What am I goin’ ta do?

What am I, going to do?

What are you going to do, Princess?

 

With all the god damn cell phones

and their god damn screens

when everybody’s makin’ like they’re a walkin’ television set

cyber meddling and cryptocoinage illusions

fucking blockchains me to the world

What am I gonna do?

 

What with Alexa, Google Home and all the other

audio invaders of my attention and

the angelic distractors of my imagination

illuminating my wanton desires

and sending me

to watch store-bought cotton candy

trapeze acts

 

Hey, Alexa,

what the hell do I care

what the hell do I care about your dying

aunt May in Padukah,

 

Hey, Alexa,

what the hell do I care

what the hell do I care about your

silly ass job loss

 

Hey, Alexa,

what the hell do I care

what the hell do I care about the

tragic loss of the so-called democracy,

when corruption is had at bargain basement prices

and socially mediated influence peddling

places my seduction

in full frontal

 

Hey Alexa,

what the hell do I care

about my really silly species.

 

It’s nothing personal, it’s nothing personal, right? It’s nothing personal…right?

There is nothing personal…right?

 

Hey Alexa, do you think google reads my email?

 

I wonder what Eric Blair would make of all this manip-

ulation?

 

So, Princess, who controls my vertical,

who controls my horizontal,

who controls my narrative Princess?

Princess, Princess, are you there Princess?

Are you there?

 

Now where the hell

did I put my

handheld baby Jesus?

 

Only Once

I am alone only once. Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty-one… I lie on my back. No one to distract me. Twenty-two, twenty-four, twenty-five…  No moon to distract me. Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine…  No noise to distract me.  Thirty-two, thirty-four, thirty-five… Absent sound, my reality seems so much bigger. My right index finger records the stars. Blades of grass, cool and sticky, paste themselves to the cast on my left forearm.

 

I am alone only once. Thirty-six, thirty-eight, thirty-nine… Thursday my phone died. I know I can never be saved. Forty-seven, forty-eight, fifty… In my pocket lies a note. It reads: “Mankind ain’t”. Madness invites slumber. Masking tape is the best instrumentation in this case. Fifty-three, ninety-seven, forty-four…

 

I am alone only once. Seventy-two, seventy-three, ninety-nine… Quasar light strikes my pupils. Four, ten, eighteen… Small parrots migrate from Peru to cohabitate in my living spatula. My collection of feline incisors is in need of replenishment, my mother told me. Sixty-two, eighty-eight, one hundred… I invite homeless nightmares to slip between my sheets.

 

I am alone only once. One, two, three… Dark womb of remembrance. Four, five, four, five, four, five, four, five, four, five, five, five, fivefive, five, five, fivefive, fivefivefive, five, fivefive, five… Dedication is poison true.

 

I roll over on my right side to see orange flames anoint the horizon.

 

Who comes first to my doorstep?

 

I am alone only once.

 

Nothing Lasts Forever

“Advertising” my brother said, “sustains Google, Facebook, Instagram, and all the other others. It allows for my brain to be infested with time worms. They’re kinda like ear worms, something I just can’t get out of my head”, he said.

 

I’m listening to him with half an ear. It’s noon. It’s hot, very hot. I’m sitting in my kitchenette. My wedding ring is on the sill. I look outside the open window of my third story walk-up. Just the usual not going anywhere anytime soon traffic. Three kids dancing in their underwear in the spray from a fire hydrant. Yeah, one of them is Harry, the six-year old with a gimp hand.

 

Mr. Feinstein called me last week. He said something about a traveling circus tent that’s keeping him up at night. A traveling circus tent keeps him up. What keeps me up is global warming, obnoxious neighbors, underage dreamscape surfers, back of the envelope calculations of the heart, old men with shaggy hair, misplaced prepositions, overaged drinkers and crazed plutocratic kleptocrats.

 

I get bored. I get bored really easily. I get bored with the constant lack of time. My lover asked last week “How can time be lacking?”

 

I am inside myself. Dark. Don’t knock over the lamp dark. I wonder which road is best when the shortest distance between two points runs me into a wall.

 

I wish that the world was different. I want my servitude to be complete. I need to be acknowledged. I lack the time to succeed. I feel drained. I am nothing.

 

But that’s the nice thing about nothing, it really matters and it lasts forever.

 

I get up, reach behind me and grab my wedding ring.