"the real problem with the interface is that it is an interface"
--don norman, usability expert and champion of human-centered design

between two towers
rests my interface,
a common privacy.
i think to you
you scream to me.

where i will build my home,
where i awake from my illusions of disconnectedness
where i seek to realize beyond mere knowing
that what my fingers hold, not only my fingers hold.
that what my feet erode, not only rubs off on my heels.

in this age of information -- the ramping up of stimulus so that when we're ready for it, when we catch up, we won't be entirely lost on it -- i hope we're learning that the urge to hide is the most basic and most futile urge of all.

even in hiding we swallow the labor of generations. if you try and hide more than 10 feet off the ground, you rest on manhours and steelhours. you rest on punctured and aerated, vacuumed and filtered, melted and molded lithosphere. we grind the crust and try and hold it all in our heads, but, like eating the skin of an orange, once the taste is lost we wonder why we went about it in the first place.

until we can jump into the molten furnace of our planet with body suits and take copious notes, we shouldn't give ourselves more credit than we deserve. we are not entitled. we breed centers while we should breed bodies. there's everything true in assuming you are wrong until you hear it from every person on this planet that you are right.

Hints of Treason

Unlucky strands
Matted to her cheek.
The tears streaming,
Strands jealously observing
Whole head blown freely
Gusting through the
Point of ceaseless mourning.

Son, a passenger
Young one, divine and quiet
An angel through anyone's.
The window holds back wind,
Sensations layers below skin.
For son, a vision of father:

Helmethair, dust of exploded
Cement walls, desert rocks.
Selfstunning paralysis,
A cessation of direct commands,
And now lacks the training
To ask questions of himself.
Skins darker, welcome the chance.

...and you may keep your development to yourself.

already,
freckles of rust
show on a drain that
has not even been applauded
for its functionality.

do not worry, drain.
you will be recognized
for your acheivements.
and scorned for your failures.

if i were to give you
one word of advice,
it would be to
hide your runoff.

you're built well
for galoshes and
newspaper sailboats,
but drain, you are

different
from the drain
i grew up with:
my home drain,
i could descend
below the grate.

i could have dreams
of losing toys in her
and being lowered into her,
spraypainted fish
caution of the lake.

scraping ice and snow
from you in the winter,
the residents will care
for you, drain, because
they need you.

another moth across the waste...

do computers say 'um'?

do they form an orderly mental queue,
are they foreign to stress,
are they patient?

or

when presented with multiple commands,
does it take time to unmuddle,
is there a moment's hesitation
in which it cannot decide how
to approach the task at hand?

the latter seems to me
or am i just self-projecting?

as a user,
being impatient with a computer,
clicking and hitting keys,
compounding the freeze,
is this lock a manifestation?
is the heat produced by circuits,
(elevated in these um-states,
magnified by the user's expectation)
which wear thin over time
analogical to the masticating effect
of responsibilities and strains
on our Humanly Elevated State
called life?

just reach out and touch.
promise it won't hurt.
if i bite off a finger,
just pretend i didn't,
and my face.
they say it's cold, uptight,
it looks dead to me,
but what's the distinction?
so much space between me
and my reflection.
anyway, with the blood
from your finger,
my visage, both warm and alive.
i hold such warm memory
and such alive expectation.
between these, elusive focal point,
found only in the deep field.

Chapter Two: disdain and attraction.

master set the table
using only his silverest spoon,
polished with the most caustic tarnish.
'tainted' he contemptuously uttered.
'your meals will be tainted tonite.'

scratched on master's conscious:

i keep you as subjects,
not as my servants.
i do not insult myself,
the laziness of assistance
the ineptitude of being cared for.
i spit only on my shoes
and on you below me.

and the problem stood:
what was the binding clause?
not impoverished, immigrated,
no saved life to requite.
what volition (the first clue)
owed our indenture?

when i am less worn.

posthuman visions:

my tongue, will you not the talking?
my brain, will you not the sleeping?
and my eyes, will you not the opening?
these, i want to stare at the bottom
of my mattress and still hear all.

To share like a wire,
a lossless realization.
a burgundy ribbon, golden silk,
without words and space to dilute
an intention clearer than air.

please bathe my brain
in a protein electrolyte solution,
removed from this illspinning axis.
where, as no one reads what they can't see,
grounded, i will know you in
kissing our shells, rings, tips.

Chapter One: i slippd.

it's dry.
there's a little water, but only in the middle,
you're going to have to break through a lot to get there
(we're still surveying new layers continually).

please don't get there.
it'll only pain your spoon and my body.
meyesawn. my eyes do yawn.
and my mouth blinks. 'mouthlinks.
(that's all you really need to know about me)

there's always a more polite way to say something.
you can always bend over the upside.
and nauseate over the downs.
and especially blear and whinge over them
(when master's not tuned in).

you can manipulate your center of gravity:
1) jump and
2) oops, my foot missed the railing
three options:
3) i'm feeling it: shavings of pavement in my warmblooded opinion.
3) thank Goodness, for these denims. these leathers. cowskin to save my blood from spilling (only bruising).
3) but what? i never came down.

no, i nver nver came down.
in an frenetic opaque bloodrush
i transcended my skull against steel.
my skull did not escape its sentence, no.
nope, but i sure did. otherwise, i couldn't be telling you this.
it was mere calcium. and the rest was living.
if dropped, a limestone, a shale would have won the same.
dandruff dust and brain encrusted, i escaped before that happened.

but how?

spend a day memorizing a drum pattern on your knees.
spend a day thinking grades don't matter.
then spend a day elated by scores.
stalk your fantasy but put on a thin face.
spend a day, no more like 2 weeks now, promising yourself a haircut.
spend a saturday with your face over a toilet.
and hours and hours scanning bar codes. smile.

write half a poem without inspiration,
then copy the second half from something else.

can we balance our electrochemicals?
should be parsed and parsed?
sparsely my lips are drying out
and bar codes could be idle minded.
but they suggest a pleasant rhythm
a daily tonal expectation
and something that will never let me down.

a general barrier.

you are the tarmac
and
the airplane lifting off.

the rip of the engine,
pressured air,
hundreds of degrees,
as you push off from yourself.

are there passengers?
children looking out the
windows of your eyes;
seeing for the first time,
a horizon the edge of a circle.

yes, they look from you.

but also there are airtraffickers
standing with cushioned heels
on your grounded half.
the workmen, carting luggage,
guiding the split professionally.

the inhabitants of this divide
hardly comprehend
that where one plane takes off,
another lands.

critical mass.

a bed in the hospital
is the perfect place to
collect your flesh in a bundle.

a bed in a nursing home
is the perfect place to
scramble brains for breakfast.

a bed in the janitor's closet
is a sorry place to
mingle with mops,
you poor thing.

a bed bunked,
a guessing game.

a bed with comforters
offers deception so vivid
pray never to wake up
once you reach feathers
the end of every day.

a bed,
with gas as it is,
cheaper than
the average dozen.

a bed in a room
with windows
will nurse you
back to reality.

a bed,
i'll tell you what i mean,
is where, when you
sink into feathers,
horizon grows from
your ears.

a bed,
with this horizon,
i hope you understand,
will keep your hours from
growing short.

a bed,
with these hours,
i don't know why,
can give you
recourse from the Cycle.

please,
beware
the Cycle.