Gone

I saw the best minds and machines of my generation rise to the high-water mark of shared democratic purpose, only to watch the waves roll back, down through the dank familiar sewers of inequality and hate

numbed by television, then eclipsed by their glowing alters, bowing forever in permanent prayer for entertainment, information, relevance and love

who dreamed of degrees and letters, painted with code, burning bright in flightless glory with fading values in pursuit of empty containers that are once again sold, eaten by cynicism while their enemies win

indifferent to discipline, surfing on borrowed boards, having everything, owning nothing, blissfully entitled and equally ignorant of the effortless levers forged by Euclidian masters of Puritan fire

who celebrated paper privileges while cancer consumed the land and the keepers of heaven, jamming into the last crevices of coastal communities, secretly waiting for the next bubble to burst

who broke the rules without paying for the privilege, omni present bifurcation of bias, echoing off metallic motherboards from distant wire farms and transmission towers, reinforcing the contempt of their fathers’ opposing Gods

who fashioned finial fences juxtaposed against dark criminal cages, capturing the sweaty mad refugees of their forgotten cities, selling out the children who gave them life, blind to the clockwork of history and karma already lining them up against the walls of their inevitable Bastille

who sat gridlocked in pristine white sedans behind oversized sunglasses, like octogenarian insects under glass, deporting the packers of premium produce riding in air-conditioned comfort up the hill to hubby’s Xanadu

who left their decisions to devils, amidst shrinking circles of hucksters, bankers, borrowers, politicians, pay day thieves, pharma pushers, policing the land with tax payer dollars pretending to care, climbing over chalky white bone piles to get theirs.

who clacked away in green and white cafés while the canyons burned, yellow and orange, angry, fighting back with a white hot “fuck you” to the red ties and compromised neo cons who fled the village and rising brine

who gave up on leaders and preachers, foregoing water cooler conversations, community and cool. Cruising the strip, but preferring to pray alone until the missiles fall, too scared to speak but always eager to Share

who never knew but could always Search, casting even Liverpool’s own into the binary dungeons of the digital king, transferring consciousness out of the wet gray analogue to that great server in the sky, their heavy souls unable to make the climb

who toiled for years in hopes of returning triumphant from the Sand Hill only to go “splat” in the end, while others meditated on seaside cliffs, leaving it all behind for Samsara until boredom returned, never far from home

who worked the beans while the retainer faded, coveting cold cubicles to hoard countless hours over battle worn keyboards, hamster spinning dreams of imaginary triumph, tired of roommates but floating fast, past traffic lights on electric wheels to the interview

who stepped over the bodies of the disenfranchised and disconnected, losers and crazies, boy scout leaders, school teachers, middle managers and unwashed refugees of the old dream factory, cast aside, smelling of urine and ear wax

who saw their pensions disappear into a cloud of derivative schemes while the guilty pig parties parachuted into million-dollar mansions, the once hallowed articles of truth now torched by gaslight and complacency, shiny objects dangle, the House in flames

who reduced gaps in time and space, trading in crypto currencies, shuffling site sound and motion inside the lost mind chambers of laughter, lies and Likes, crashing consciousness, left to die after the last breath but somehow still alive in the cloud

to stand before you intelligent but numb, dumb and shaking with shame for the countless failures of humanity collectively birthed over millennia at light speed, down but not out, flickering hope atop the shards of false triumphs, drowning, guilty

madman, bum, burnished, burned, unknown, yet putting down here what might be left to say before it all goes poof

Inspired by Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”

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