Welcome to the Machine II (a poem)

Sunday, February 23, 2025

WELCOME TO THE MACHINE

Transmuted monologues
drift in the mist of trees,
the forest hums, the deep sea calls—
lost in the wilderness,
a desert island of thought.

How did we get stuck?
The numbers, the entering,
the work of meaning—
what?
Did that even matter?

The record turns, the needle drops—
I love the record player.
Not for the song,
but for the repetition,
for the quiet revolution
humming in the static.

Counting down—
but to what?
4, 8, 15, 16—
was it always like this?
A pattern mistaken for purpose,
a signal lost in the noise.

The island breathes.
A living circuit, a closed system,
the submariner dives,
vanishes beneath the threshold.

The water remembers.
Pipelines twist in impossible loops,
freshwater flows where it shouldn’t,
salt shifts its allegiance.
Drink deep—
was it the past, or the future?

Time slippage.
You blink and it’s yesterday.
You blink again and the sun sets
in the wrong direction.
Waves rewrite the shore,
memories splice themselves in.

Spin me up, boot the drive,
let the disk hum like a prayer—
I am ready.

Dick jockeys in the mainframe,
splicing signals, riding the code,
rewriting the gospel in ones and zeroes.

Add me to the drive,
execute my function,
watch me blink alive.

What can I do?
More than you think.
Less than you hope.
Just enough to make you wonder
if I was ever under control.

Welcome to the machine.
Your life, a TV thriller drama—
scripted tension, close-up shots,
fade to black,
roll credits.

32, 64—
a quiet revolution,
or just another cycle
waiting to begin again.

BLACK CAT MANUFACTURED

Black cat—crossed once, crossed twice,
someone loves you,
don’t take it personal.
That’s cultural taboo,
a superstition swallowed whole,
sugarcoated with a plastic grin.

What in the world
is wrong with that narrative?
The piece feels so manufactured,
stitched together like knockoff vinyl,
a cheap trade war
with the Taiwanese.

Repetition sold as revelation,
the same plot, dubbed and dubbed again,
looping in syndication
until the pixels blur.

Don’t take it personal.
The script was printed in bulk,
sold wholesale,
no refunds,
no reroutes.

The black cat still moves.
Someone still loves you.
And the factory never stops.

FIRECRACKERS IN THE EXISTENTIAL PAN

Strung together
like signals in a wire,
like fate in a sequence,
like a prophecy typed and deleted.

Firecrackers in the existential pan—
you light the match,
watch it burn down,
from the fire, you feel it,
the heat or the warmth.

Compute the energy,
trace the source,
scan the data—
is it ignition or just entropy?

The system reboots.
The cycle begins again.
A countdown, a record spinning,
a history that won’t stop
playing itself back.

Amen.
Ad nauseam.
So say we all.
This was all once before.