[Automata I]

Its wrong to treat a book like a living person. They should be kept cleaner, in climate control.

I think you should tell me what to do from here, in a series of passages grabbed from screenshots. Because I don’t think I totally belong in the place I currently hold.

I think music should be much bigger than it has been up to this point. In this I mean, something enormous and hideous. I think music should be much harder to control than it currently is. I’m concerned how its lead me astray.

I asked what they were moving all that food for, pig carcasses and ears of corn and what-not. The automaton replied, “to feed themselves.” An answer worthy of my lacking imagination.

Still, I remain concerned…at how its lead me astray.

[This is what it sounds like]

This is what it sounds like
Thoughts climbing walls
A new echo
This is the sound
Your voice in high res, closer
This is the sound of getting closer

Cadences of the Bible rang in my ear
From the right
And down the wilted ear-system

/

It concerns me
She doesn’t talk how people are supposed to talk
I don’t talk how people are supposed to talk
We’re not long for this world
Good thing it quit us first

You answer in an inhuman rattle and click

It concerns me

/

It turns out, alas, you were just a visitor
In this
My tiny world
Encased in a crystal glass
Automatic – screamed
The snakes want out
At this signal
Good for them
Now that they got me in

[Automata II]

History has ceased its flow, no need to refer to it any longer.

Look at what happened to my legs. 17 years I was educated, then for a few pretended, and now I aspire to educate myself. But it isn’t easy to ignore a noisy caravan of ideas. Even when you aren’t imagining them in a digital distance. Internalize...Whatever unrecognizable forms my memory takes later on, let it.

I’ve rephrased nonsense and learned things by hearsay. I’ve not been a part of my times…

[My past influences]

At a certain speed
You’ll manage to slip off
And sound like the rest of us

Wound up that
The opening in your side

Your desires on display…
For automated replay

/

At this signal – ruined

Bells every morning
The book at my side
Everyone knows now

[Automata III]

The trick is illuminating every corner that you can. In this way, to refocus on one point, is to make a statement on everything.

Every comment I hear has its own running commentary…in my own brain…Everyone has been lying to you…now I’m lying all over again, feigning interest, feigning support again.

This is why art can be important. It doesn’t know whether your listening. So it isn’t lying to you. At least it shouldn’t be. If its any good. If it cares. If it has a heart.

[Long, low passages]

…
“long, low passages”
“main plot interrupted”
…

/

A cavernous space to crawl from.

/

Echoes, rattle and hum
Encased

Eyes were the key to pretending
To guard a past that wasn’t there
Turns out most people thought this way
A lack of experience on my end
Would likely come as no surprise

People couldn’t care less what you have to do
Whether you are trying to let them know
Or not
So try to enjoy the solitude
The greatest thing this planet has to offer

Most of earth won’t have any use
For one another
A few thousand to run the machines
In your nonsense,
I’m forced to defend what I hate
And to deny things I used to care about

In your nonsense, this becomes a cavernous space to crawl from. To dig out of.

[Automata IV]

“If you have any imagination, you’ll find it far from easy even to kill a fly.”

The dedication required to…use specific events, objects, as representative – is astounding. A window on enormous concepts. Love and, mostly, loss, loneliness. Waves of fashion, political or otherwise. This as opposed to the other pull – to write these terse sentences as they stagger around in a brainspace. This was the easy way out, but an honest one.

[Art can only be awful]

Is it always older and slower
And uglier and clumsier
Or is this just how
What was once familiar
Spends its time
When I don’t look –
Now that I can’t walk as far
Now that I can’t read as deeply
Now that I can’t listen as closely
Now that I can’t speak as thoughtfully

/

Don’t get discouraged

Turns out a lie I had any desire to be attached
Play bait with sympathy

Mostly idling and quiet
I can see this now
Art can only be awful
I know this now

Ghost of myself in the corner –
“You’re too clever for them now”
Don’t tell me that
Don’t you know I won’t create anymore

You know these things, you’ve been told these things
So get on top of them before they’ve hounded you
Cowered you

You’ll get discouraged

Don’t get discouraged

[Automata V]

They’ll be lounging outside in a warm paradise, while you’re inside, The Fall yanking on your exposed veins. Everywhere points toward free prescription drugs.

If you’re cold enough, jealousy can be a valuable tool. It’s your perch, it’s a windowsill, it shapes the perspective that you can take glassy and cold, a glare through dead eyes. To come up with some cleaver phrases or a T-shirt. To program into the new machine at the end of the literary world. Spits out a number – your circulation.

[In the next room]

A distraction
Finished
My
Sentences

I heard
sobbing
in the next room.
“Why, Wanda, why must I always hear you cry?”

I’m seeing terror in your eyes
I have no idea how to get myself there
What depth of feeling that takes

Bad art
Hideous

[Automata VI]

“Thus another star lights up another prison.”

What star was I born under? At eye level, its undue influence is a threat to my mode. I can’t address your concerns, the answers are too obvious.

[Enough]

Don’t ever give them enough to know

/

Don’t ever let them see through you

[Automata left]

This is how I dug out of myself…