Change the channel (a poem)

Sunday, March 2, 2025

JESUS CHRIST, IT’S AN INFECTION.

A spread of disinformation.
The flood, the proliferation.
Beyond absurd,
And we’re all nodding our heads,
Like zombies at the display walls.

Change the channel,
Pass the salts.
Change the channel,
Pass the salts.

Redirect. Misdirection.
What magic—
The axis of the public neck,
Tied to a billion twisted,
Woven threads.

To see through it,
Or to even think,
To believe—
To be marked extreme.

Polarization.
Polarization.
No basic psychophysics allowed.

The rambler, the piper,
The aglow, the corralled communities.
The simplistic, large narratives
By which we control the whole thing.

That rudder, for the big ship,
Spun into motion
By a story machine.
By a story machine.
Gotta keep the steam pumping.

All ahead for the Americas.
Full ahead,
Beyond impulse power,
The calculated,
The stratagems,
The matrix,
Fixed points,
And a bottle of Xanax.

The flood, the proliferation.
Change the channel.
Pass the salts.
Pass the salts.