22.1.5 (BUT I'M A HUMAN AND I WANT TO HAVE SOME)

Hologram, I’ve been feeding local crows 

apples, hoping this can be called true love.

And seeing a snake consume anything

is amazing: the bird’s muffled chirping,

the exact moment of death. No one can

walk away scot-free. I spent my birthday

this way; it was raining, the glitchy streaks 

making pixellated scenery. Earth

became phone wallpaper, a floating GIF.

What I’m really addicted to, or craving,

is something behind the glass, the looping 

quiet snow, empty spinning ferris wheel.

Something like nostalgia. The blue light

of cold, of real sky, of my fingertips.

58.1.3 (ONE CANNOT REFUTE IT)

Hologram, I am afflicted with lust

for commercials, unable to refute 

the mono-myth that is America:

tits and explosions, the razzle-dazzle

and risk of a full-on reset. Some keep

score this way, a running tab of who knows

the most obscure shadows. Mannequin girls,

ceaseless screaming, guns and beaches, a lack

of sleep, colors turned up to eleven.

We can’t stop this now — it’s a tradition.

And you bring yourself to every movie,

wanting to be the cowboy that We the 

Audience see long after the dream ends,

when the lights go up and everyone claps.

51.1.4 (TO STOP SEEING CERTAIN COLORS)

The hope was not completely unjustified, 

though it turns out to be rather empty

since everything has a wave function in

your many algorithms, Hologram. 

But this is where the calm comes from: its lack

of any logic compared to the “real” 

of life, a passive-aggressive kind of

world dominated by proxy wars, third 

party defense contractors, and unmanned 

aerial vehicles, white birds from Hell.

Given the relevant data, we can

predict the future, see something we can’t

look behind yet: a moon lit only by

the globular halo surrounding it.