Where We Are This Week

a poem about wikipedia, advertising, and nuclear apocalypse.

I can’t really write about the Middle East every week, can I? And I’m already sick of the election and we’re still over a month from game time. So, it’s poetry week again!

In Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which might as well be my favorite book with the amount that I think about it, the Vogons come to destroy Earth to make way for an intergalactic highway. I’m not spoiling anything, it’s the first few pages of the book.

The Vogons are an awful, cruel race of space creature. They’re the bureaucrats of the galactic government. Makes sense, no?

The Vogons are said to have the third worst poetry in the universe, and they routinely use it as torture for any poor soul that has the misfortune to hear it.

That’s kind of how I feel when I publish a poem.

nuclear time suck

21st Century Paranoiac Bumpkin Blues 

I
when the bomb drops
we'll be on our phones
frozen in time
backlit by the shadows of our homes

what's your opinion
of the end times?
let me watch 1000 react videos 
and I'll tell you mine

Egypt built pyramids
Russians gave us literature
the Greeks thought of philosophy
and we just got our food delivered

when I was told about the future
I didn't think it would land
on a five inch mirror
in the palm of my hand

the gene pool's drying up
no one to share your bed
when IRL is such a bore
and all the apps are dead

II
take me to the feelies
take me out for the night
oh - the colors, the sounds, the sphere!
what time was the fight?

a YouTuber builds wells in Africa
and pays for the blind to see
well, isn't that a mitzvah?
or is content never a good deed?

'I spent six years in poverty!'
an instant hit on the algorithm parade
coincidentally, it's also
how the buddha was made

'Everything I eat in a day'
is a much shorter clip
from a Brazilian favela than 
the LA vulture with a yorkie on her hip

Babylon reconstructed
religion 2.0
the service is terrible
but at least there's a show!

III

betting on an afterlife
with a 5000 legged parlay
yeah, you've seen the face of god
but have you seen it in 4k?

when David slayed Goliath
did he know it was a sign of his whiteness?
down with the sun, down with the moon
and down with their likeness!

it takes a billion dollars to be president
a fraction of that for some time on your screen
and an undisclosed amount
for a quiet place to think

I got a double-reverse-balloon mortgage
and an interest rate that looks like violence
but the lady at the bank told me
I didn't have credit for a moment of silence

ancient battles on wikipedia pages
state the details like it's not up for debate
the flattening of history
on one all-you-can-eat plate

IV

scrolling the socials is cleaner
than the books on the shelves
plus it's not as if
the walls of Jericho will double-tap themselves

ain't it wonderful?
being surrounded by all your friends

ain't it grand? 
how you never have to feel alone

ain't it clever how you can travel the world
without ever leaving your home

'isn't it funny we're in total control
but have no idea what it means

that we made the world in the image of ourselves?'
said the people with the lowest self-esteem

To a better next week,

Cheers,

~FDA