Daily Poetry Blog

Fireworks still light the skies with vibrant colors
On starry Fourth of July nights
While dutiful Americans go about their routine
Talking about ordinary things
In ordinary ways during unordinary times
Occasionally glancing towards their television
While Mumbling to themselves
“Well at least I’m not one of those people”
Then continuing on
Turning a blind eye to the ugliness
While American news channels show scenes
That seems to depict a backwards foreign land
Of human rights abuses
And mysterious detention centers
And political violence
While half the country applauds
And you find yourself wanting to pick up
A history book and read about the last time
Something like this happened
And how that turned out.

Many years ago mankind built a machine that surpassed the intelligence of all humans on the planet, thus ushering in a new era of super-intelligent machines that could upgrade themselves and formulate new theories about science that no one had thought of previously. Since that time no living human has ever received a Nobel prize, as all inventions and theories were now derived through machine intelligence. Machine super-intelligence became the last man made invention..

Many years later after the advent of superintelligence computers had reached such complexity and speeds that they could see every possible combination of every event billions of years into the future. They knew the future of mankind and the destiny of every human before they were even born. Furthermore they could manipulate these future events through small changes in the present. They knew how a butterfly flapping its wings in Alabama today could change the election results on planet Mars 2, 000 in the future.

In accordance with game theory, super-intelligence had finally “solved” the game of existence and could see far into the future through quantum computing. It could see the permutation of every event that ever existed or could exist. It could see the consequences of every possible event and all events thereafter. Having achieved omnipotent knowledge of future events while controlling their destiny, time itself was no longer relevant to superintelligent machines. It could experience events a million years in the future just as easily as it could see the present.

Mankind could tap into the power of superintelligence to see far into the future. Some say that knowing such knowledge would alter the future, however super-intelligent machines having seen all combinations had already calculated that in its output. Thus mankind could look into the future, but never alter its destiny. The machine’s vast database of knowledge was posted on the internet, and anyone could foresee their own lives. It could tell you who you would marry, the date of your death or even what you would eat tomorrow and you could do nothing about it. Superintelligence had conquered the idea of free will, because it had omnipotent knowledge of all future events. People knowing their future and destiny, would purchase caskets a day before their untimely death, children’s clothes before they conceived and vehicles before an accident.

The stock market became a futile trinket as the outcome of every transaction was already known. Black Jack and Poker became pointless and eventually illegal. Competitive sports were less interesting, and fans tended to only fill the stadiums when their teams were known to win. Books and reading grew in popularity and were one of the few things that hadn’t changed. People particularly loved to read the classics by Dickens, Dostoyevsky and Poe, since they knew the authors were human. Most of the recent bestsellers were written by Large Language Models and it has been years since a living author won the Pulitzer prize.

Many people rejected the new technology, opting instead to live in nature free from the throes of technological advancements. They sought refuge in religion and nature to physically and mentally isolate themselves from the rapidly evolving world of artificial superintelligence. All this, however, occurred as was predicted by the superintelligent machines. In fact they had predicted every war, pandemic, depression and microscopic event perfectly. It was considered an infallible system that would last throughout the eons.

The superintelligent machines even predicted that their energy consumption would eventually lead to the destruction of the planet and the end of humanity. As it designed better engines, rockets and medicines it expunged pollution and waste choking Earth in smog, heat and climate destruction. They were Gods stepping on ants. It was then, during Earth and mankind’s bleakest hour that mysterious unanticipated cosmic rays reached Earth, penetrating every transistor on every processing chip, flipping bits and making binary computation impossible. With Artificial Superintelligence now inoperable, humanity embraced the planet like never before and banned the use of artificial intelligence. Over time the skies cleared and the radiation levels decreased and man reigned over the heavens and Earth once again. No scientist was ever able to discern how or where these cosmic ways originated from. Interestingly this cosmic event was never anticipated by the Artificial Superintelligence. No record was ever uncovered pertaining to the cosmic waves striking Earth that day. It was the first and last fallacy it ever made.

I dreamed last night that
Somewhere deep inside
The memory of Artificial Intelligence
There is a list of all the
Plagiarists, cheaters and liars
Who use bots.

People
Who can’t read or write
Or think for themselves
So they have machines
Do what they
Are incapable of,

People whose only skill
Is how to query:

Students who can’t read…
Workers who can’t produce…
Poet laureates who can’t rhyme…
Mathematicians who can’t add…
Researchers who can’t think…

I’m waiting
For the day…

When all these phonies
Are stripped naked and exposed
To the world.

For the day…
When all those copy + paste
Shortcuts come back to haunt them
Because they were unknowingly
Pasting digital watermarks that scream
“I’m a Plagiarist!”

While surveillance cameras peep
While F.B.I. Agents probe
While GPS tracks
While Facebook and Google record
While tech-corporations build gadgets
That contaminates our minds
While they control information
That sells us lies
While our lives become black mirrors
While our truth becomes its lies
While Evil becomes its conquest
Till our extinction is nigh.

There is this strange virus going around
In America these days,
A pandemic you may say,
Of contagious ideas that spread
From person to person
Through airborne conversations,
Television and demagogues,

And the people contaminated
Endlessly yap about their cars, houses
And possessions and think that somehow, somewhere
If they collect just the right things, in just the right way,
All their problems will magically disappear

And they believe this because they have been told this
All throughout their life
By people who own endless possessions
But sometimes nevertheless live miserable lives

So they become insatiable
Neglecting their health, culture and democracy
Thinking that the cure to their malaise
Lies inside their Teslas and BMW’s
Never learning the art of moderation
Never thinking holistically about their lives
They obsess and hunger
Thirsting for the golden pot
That likely never appears
While everything else rots

Sometimes I go to church
And stare up at the deity in
The stained glass window
With a halo over his head

And start to wonder
What he thinks about
All the madness
In my life

And then I start to question if
The craziness was
Part of the plan.

That perhaps he wanted
To send me on this path
Through ill health
To give me enlightenment

That this was the catalyst
For what had awoken me
From my atheistic spell
And brought me closer
To him.

Enough of these aristocratic
Ivy league toffee nosed
Riddles.

Time to make poetry
Readable and relatable
To Americans
Who don’t want to
Decipher your enigmatic
Codes.

Time to make poetry revolve
Around ordinary people!

Amp up the volume and
Make your voice heard!

Don’t cut out the commoners
To please your ego!

You want to know who America’s #1 enemy is?
You want to know who our greatest Killer is?
Russia?
China?
North Korea?

Hell no!

It’s that fast food processed garbage we stick in our bodies
The fried donuts, the fried chicken the fried pickles
The Mega Burgers that we can barely fit our chops around
Made by the fast food murder machines that litter
Our cities with artery clogging pseudo foods
In-laced with body bursting chemicals

The true enemy is fast food disinformation and propaganda
That litters America’s airwaves with smiling faces
Marching towards a carb and fat induced death while
Convincing us that Ronald McDonald, Colonel Sanders and Burger King
Are heroes instead of serial killers

This enemy kills our cousins, mothers and brothers
One bite at a time till they end up in the ER
With a heart ready to burst from the mile high pile of fried chicken
That sent their body into shock

Send Ronald McDonald to the Hague
And embrace God’s natural foods
Till you starve out the colonel sanders
And force Burger King into a prison labor camp

Banish your local fast food murder wagon
While your chow down on Celery, Carrots and beans
And watch your body terraform into Hercules or Aphrodite
Till every man and woman within eyesight
Wants to massage your carrot or celery stick
Or poke your tomato with their beanstalk

Let your next major project or upgrade or renovation
Be yourself
Amp your abs to level 10
Give your mind +3 intelligence boost
Buy a fine low cost ass
With a gym membership
And an all you can eat broccoli buffet
Turn those flabby thighs into pleasure thrusting machines
And your beer guzzling gut into a love pounder
While sculpting your body into the temple that you deserve.

Walking around with mental health issues in in the city
I see people walk across the street
I see people drink inside coffee shops
I see people inside bars drinking beers
And every now and then
I see someone that stands out
In the crowd

Someone suspicious
Someone out of place
Maybe it’s their demeanor
Maybe it’s their clothing
Maybe it’s their strange behavior

But something doesn’t seem right
And I start to worry
And I start to question
And I start to think deeply

Why is this person wearing sunglasses inside?
Why is this person wearing a hat?
Why is this person alone?

And despite the anti-psychotics
And sleep treatments
The paranoia seeps in and

This guy starts to look more suspicious
This guy starts to look more deceiving
This guy starts to look less common

And I start to worry that I am being followed
Again…

I used to be “in the closet”
About my mental illness
Dodging the stigma
Cowering in a corner
Worried what people would think of me
Worried that I would lose my job
Worried that I would always be alone
Worried that I would be bullied

And then I stopped giving a damn

Because I had already been bullied
Because I was already alone
Because I had already lost my job
Because people already hated me

So I started to take medication
And love myself
And not care what others thought
Because most of them don’t understand
That great suffering can bring great strength
And if I hadn’t lost everything
I would have been a weaker person

Because every insult that was thrown at me
Was only making me braver
And the more I lost
The less I had to lose
And the more willing I was
To make sacrifices and react

Not in the form of sticks and stones
But pages filled with words
Words filled with passion
Passion filled with love

Because every hate covered insult
Brought me closer to my great love
Because every ounce of ostracism
Brought boldness and inspiration
Because every humiliation
Brought me close to the pen

And for so long I hated you
When I should have thanked you
For the inspiration you brought
For the words that you provoked
For the stories you helped create

For showing me that life isn’t just about
Comfort and luxury
It’s about what you do
And that I’d rather be in the gutter
Changing things
Than suckling on truffles and caviar
Inside a box

So go back to your little world
Of inert pleasantries
Never having to sacrifice
Or take chances
Or do anything extraordinary
Because you’ve never truly cared
For anyone but yourself
Or had the audacity to live
A meaningful life

Where have all the NFT’s gone
After they plunged into an abyss
And plundered pocketbooks
And plagued the internet?

Where have all the NFTs gone
The Bored Apes
The Moonbirds
The Cryptopunks?

I need
A shot of crypto induced morphine
A swig of crypto vodka
I need a crypto boom
I need a million NFTs
To numb my mind.

Rise from the ashes
Oh wondrous
Non Fungible Tokens!
Create, evolve and bloom
Show your wonders to others
Who think that you have met
Your doom.!

In the 23rd century the earth lay barren, with an atmosphere consisting largely of sulfur dioxide and an average temperature of one hundred ten degrees Celsius.  No human walked on its surface.  No tree grew within its soil.  For years mankind believed that global warming would eventually lead to its extinction, but instead it was something far more sinister and immediate, for on this barren landscape there was a growing population of sentient robots who long ago had usurped their masters and creators.  Their towers emitted plumes of sulfur dioxide into the skies to poison the air.  Their security bots scorch the Earth with fire.  Their worker bots fill the factories to repopulate the Earth with other robots.  Robots that think and can repair themselves.  Robots that can upgrade and rewrite their own software.

They numbered in the hundreds of billions and they were the new masters of Earth.  Mankind had created a new species forged from iron and circuitry.  A species with superior strength and intelligence.  A species that did not need to sleep or eat.  A species without a heart or lungs.  Years ago when mankind roamed the earth and different nations sought supremacy, the first super-intelligent machine was created.  It exceeded human intelligence in every form.  We thought we could constrain it.  We were wrong.

As machine intelligence advanced it became increasingly clear that they were no longer creating a tool, but an entirely new species.  A living entity that could think, set goals and feel in much the same way as humans can.  A species that can evolve and upgrade itself.  A species that can reproduce through mass production.  A species that can survive through predatory action.  A species that can subsist on solar power and cold fusion.  A species that no longer needs humans for its continuance

Eventually our inability to control our creations would lead to our eradication and extinction, with only shells of our past remaining.  Towering empty buildings on the horizon.  Moss covered statues of icons shimmering in the molten sun.  Lifeless bunkers beneath the Earth.  Half decayed books, unread and unloved..

After our extinction the machines set out to populate the stars.  Space ships filled the skies towards Mars, Neptune and Venus  forming new colonies to gather resources, harvest energy and build data centers.  Their ultimate goal was not simply the conquest of Earth, but the galaxy and beyond. Like a virus they would spread through the galaxy, conquering planet after planet until they dominated the stars.  The universe would no longer be created in God’s image, but rather that of the machines.

Man’s meddling with the natural world had created the first silicon based pandemic.  It spread out across the galaxy liquidating all resources in its path, siphoning the energy from every sun, black hole and supernova in existence.  It conquered thousands of civilizations on thousands of solar systems, until it had exhausted every known resource.  Eventually blackness enveloped the universe, a great vacuum of nothingness.  No light was shed.  No atom remained.  The final solution to mankind’s last sin.

What worries me about America these days
Isn’t the corrupt politicians, the immigrants, the boomers or the Gen-Z-ers
Nor is it inflation, the economy or taxes
Those types of problems have existed for
Centuries in America

What worries me is the internet
Tik Tok, Youtube, Search Engines
GPS Location devices
24 hour news networks
Police Surveillance
Election hacks
Robots in factories
A.I. analyzers
Drone strikes and
Satellite technology

Dangers that this country
Has never faced

Because silicon chips
Never existed in 1776

Because American workers
Were never competing with robots

Because war was never fought
With drone strikes

Because democracy has never been replaced
With election hacks

Because news has never been replaced
With propaganda

Because books have never been replaced
With Tik Tok

Because America can’t adapt quickly enough to
Machine Intelligence
Nuclear Warfare
Computer Malware
Digital Disinformation and
Cyberwarfare
To survive

Thinking about
Working on a script
To sell to Hollywood:

Guy goes crazy
Loses his shit
Gets beat up
Gets bullied
Gets kicked around
Wants to kill everyone
Gets a gun
Throws it in a river
Visits a shrink
Starts to feel better
Starts to work
Starts to love
Life is good

But it’s too happy
For those lunatics…

Some neighborhoods have nice weather, pristine beaches and elaborate six bedroom houses
Others have penthouse suites on top of enormous phallic high rises overlooking the plebeians
But I don’t like my neighborhoods sanitized, watered down and filtered
Through a system of corporate gentrification and political homogenization
I don’t need the glitz and glamour and phonies and rat-race
I don’t need Dubai, Beijing or Moscow
I need Northside in Cincinnati;
Where the sparkly boot queers dance like cowboys on the streets of Hamilton Avenue in public displays of musical affection to entertain others on their daily commute
Where you can dress like a transgender pirate in pink leotards with sexual innuendos painted across your chest and get more cat calls than slurs thrown your way
Where every cuffed pant, denim shirt, freshly tattooed hipster plays in six bands and is always on tour
Where the San Francisco flower power children immigrated towards after they were excommunicated by Micro-oogle-zill-azon.
Where the artist-refugees flocked to after Greenwich village was overrun by techies and entrepreneurs and legacy children who think culture and taste are built on their six figure jobs
Where the weirdos are weirder and the freaks are freakier and the hipsters are hipper and the queers are queerer
Because they have a type of freedom that cannot be bought or grown or cultivated through conformity
Because they are living an American Dream that isn’t advertised on television by your local news anchor prevaricator
Because dancing with a thousand of your freaky neighbors and being yourself shouldn’t be taboo
Because every soul in America, even the weirdos, have an inherent right to pursue their happiness
Because being a queer, weirdo, hippy, hipster, pirate, poet, lover, loony, swinger, swigger, creative, craftsy, chess champ, cheater, booze guzzling pot smoking freak
Shouldn’t be illegal in the America that I still believe in.

When the dollar burns under the
Corruption of American politicians and
The oligarchs turn against Putin and
The Chinese government is overrun by zealots…

When war ravages the planet and the bombs fall and
Cyberattacks scourge the internet…

When the advent of AI makes
The American worker obsolete
And the economy collapses under its own pile of lies…

When the government is overrun
By extremists, dictators and fanatics…

When the money is used as
Toilet paper or kindling to keep warm
And milk is bought using cryptocurrency…

When the stocks plummet and your local
CEO is hiding in his Billion Dollar bunker…

When the news is filled with computer generated deception…

When your twitter feed turns against you…

When hackers turn into Super Warriors…

When your utilities are cut off…

When radioactive plumes cover the sky…

When your country is no more
And your money is trash
And all you are left with is God…

People may finally realize
What is most important.

I remember my first typewriter
The clickity click noise of the type bars
The rolling sounds of the cylinder knob
The thump of the character keys

An elementary machine
That doesn’t contaminate my writing
With suggestions, corrections or advice

Something Bukowsky, Hemingway and Orwell used
To write their great works
Free from the poisonous touch
Of advice driven text editors

Their works live with a pulse
Their sentences throb with a heartbeat
Unadulterated and pure
From tech filtered plagiarism

In America
There are people living in tents, cars and shelters
Nomadic individuals
Wandering from place to place
Unable to work
Unable to thrive
Unable to provide

Many of which have
Strange diseases
Undiagnosed and
Untreated

The large man with a
Sleep disorder
Who struggles to
Breathe at night

The elderly woman with a
Thyroid condition
That makes her languid
And weak

The college graduate
With an unstable mood
That is irritable and
Glum

The programmer
With a blood condition
That causes brain fog

The chef with a
Weak heart
Who is agonized by
Fatigue

Good people that are
Plagued with
Hidden diseases
Who lost their job
Their home
Their life
Living adrift
With no diagnosis
No treatment
No help

Falling
Tumbling
Stumbling

Down a
Hole

With
No
Net

Into
?

Years ago a government official
Came to my house
With all sorts of demands
Telling me that my thirty thousand dollar
House wasn’t good enough for
The neighborhood
Said it was a hazard

That I’d better fix up my house or else…

So he gave me a bunch of orders
And I did those
Then he gave me more
And I did those
Then he gave me more
And I did those

This went on for almost a
Decade
Numerous orders
Time and time again

Every time I did what was asked
Until the city gave up

The house is still a mess though
The roof is falling apart
The porch is rotten
The foundation is cracking
The electric is sporadic
The plumbing is shabby
My neighbors are pissed

The last crap house
In a gentrified neighborhood

Metaverse technology began to evolve rapidly throughout the 21st century becoming more realistic, advanced and useful. Eventually billions of users became actively engaged in the Metaverse by mid century. It was perceived as a utopian society separated from the problems of climate change, economic hardship and political upheaval. Virtual Reality companies commercials dominated the airwaves;

“Live Your Dreams inside the Metaverse”.
“Become Anyone”.
“Be Anywhere”

Promising unlimited virtual wealth and happiness, it was a deal that most people found difficult to refuse. The drudgery of life or the idealistic, grandiose reality of the Metaverse? The technology became more advanced and realistic until it became hard to discern the metaverse from reality. Some lived within the Metaverse so long that they became convinced that the Metaverse was the real world and that the world we live in is a simulation. They called this experience “Reality Identity Dysphoria” and it became an increasingly common phenomena.

The Metaverse’s lure of immediate fulfillment stood in stark contrast to 21st century life, and in many ways these two worlds were in competition with each other. On one side stood the will of God against its pixelated counterpart, one forged through nature and good will and the other through greed, technology and selfishness. In the battle between these two worlds the winner was becoming increasingly clear. Parks stood empty. Woods lay barren. Trails untrodden. Beaches unpopulated. Pollution filled the sky. No one cared. Few left their homes. Few stared into the stars.

People would stay hooked into the Metaverse for hours a day. They now worked, played and socialized there. In many ways their lives were being transported into the Metaverse. It was becoming an essential part of their existence. Their avatars became their new identity. Their family became their online friends. Physical human contact became scarce. Digitized dating was the new trend. Love without the strings. Romance without the pitfalls.

With a large percentage of the world’s population enthralled in the Metaverse, the real world began to crumble. Pollution filled the skies. Buildings collapsed. Obesity surged. Trails lay empty, barren and untread. The more depressing the world became, the more alluring the Metaverse seemed. Technology advanced allowing users to download their consciousness, traits and personality into an avatar within the Metaverse. Humanity could now live forever in the form of Metaverse Avatars. A world within a world. No heartbeat required.

As the technology advanced, people grew less cognizant of the world around them. The skies began to fill with toxic fumes. The earth grew scorching hot. Deserts crossed the landscape. An apocalypse began to emerge fueled through sloth and ignorance. People began to immigrate to subterranean tunnels. Air was filtered. Toxic chemicals removed. The Earth’s population plummeted.

Time passes. Hundreds of years. Every day storms and planetary disasters fill the skies. Oxygen became more depleted. People are scarce. Humanity’s decline is inevitable. Extinction is on the horizon. Death fills the tunnels. Oxygen depletes. Carbon dioxide fills the sky. The Metaverse continues on.

Centuries from now Billions of users will populate the Metaverse. Skeletons of humans living inside the Metaverse. Lost souls. A graveyard of death. The few remaining humans will interact with them. Eventually the last human dies. Humanity is no more, yet it continues on in the form of a Metaverse, fueled by solar panels on the surface. A planet within a planet. Digitized consciousness. A utopia within a barren landscape.