How Razors are Made

We are resigned to anticipate

time's passage, as it hastens 

future payouts, despite

how that means we welcome deaths

like liberators, because 

that last human in the factory

watches robot ballets 

where thousands of safety razors are cut

from giant spools of steel ribbon,

through foot pounds 

of stamper. While that last human

fails to comprehend, 

the razors are sharpened, tempered, 

sealed in wax paper

to fill the world with danger, and good shaves.

This happens continuously. Unglamorous

needs for pavement, for chat room admins 

whose names are Rebecca, Jose Luis, Todd.

This happens even while we are here together,

the clamoring for EasyMac, the withheld 

judgements--all of it, because

minimum balances and 

something to microwave 

shine days away

out where plans are impossible. 

The First Fifty Years

with fondness, for Arthur C Clarke

it will be "Black, 
Black Coffee" in the sky
written in helvetica
with biplanes trailing smoke
by unemployed fighter pilots 
above all of the cities today,
reminding those scurrying to work
which drug to commemorate
this sudden day of peace 
following the arrival of the Overlords.

Some of us
miss the bull fights,
none of us sleep 
correctly anymore, imagining: 
what they must look like,
which scenario, how long till
we are implanted with embryos
to explode from us, or concerns
regarding general shanghais, regarding
disease, regarding natural resources
and god, how they float above us
shadowing cities occasionally,
and do we get to go with them
when they leave us, to be forgotten,
turned tall-tale by our grandchildren?

We consider this, while our children
conspire telepathically, before 
taking apart the planet like a telephone
subatomic particle by subatomic particle,
while joining hands to become
white, white light.  

five seconds after the dream, before you are all the way awake

so perfect

jostled awake by sunset

across innocent stretch of city

where mayors sleep

deep in the bones of it

having surrendered precious daylight

spring summer whatever you call it

while all of us assemble

like myths out of facts

What happens when you put the phrase "spare some change" into google translate

five seconds every five minutes, dude,

i’m so smart, buckled to a good idea

whose time will never come, till distracted

by any number, aware of all updates, boom, hello

Seattle with its chronic limp, hello,

seekers and thieves. we are all here following the letter

of the translated prophecy (there never were good ideas.)

get the fuck over here. (one good idea.)

except, Jesus think of it. once it all works, think of it,

working, all of us having transcended. maybe then

lawns won’t need cutting. maybe

microbots will make us love each other. Your Majesty

will forgive, perhaps, having

heard all the testimony. many saw. they all said

It was a longer year than most. Your Majesty remembers

all of those hardships. we would never mention them, except

there is no other way to explain our rage.

Why you should take a strong psychedelic now and again.

How could it not be 
infinitely better, were there
gods of everything, intelligence,
past lives, supernatural abilities,
magic, tangible results
from wishing, lost
civilizations to support
all theories rather than the clammy 
handshake of facts--also 
because living in fantasy
has worked so far, friend

your notion of enlightenment 
from truth makes sense,
it does, but beautiful 
lies give us strength
to endure lifetimes. 

Currently

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What Took the Village

Do not fear Saint Anthony's Fire
as it consumes us, as dead grandfathers 
offer predictions to those first touched, as
we twitch, spasm, see the eternal now.
Welcome it, the tongues of God, 
the burnings, the instructions, the prophecy. 

How it happens
like taking off the backpack
of your head, to look inside, how
boundaries loose relevance to geometries,
past and future disappear, everything
right now singing the hum of the afterlife
while infection takes you, your ears 
throb against the poisoned heartbeat
of exploding galaxies transmitted
through the bread.