Texapportive

There's a plague and decay in fullest form
raining white hot ashes on silver streets
over which we skid and slide, our blood pressure rising
neath blackened skies laced with cyanide
Our destination: Labour; and the fruits therein
a vicious craving, but a place wherein
we lose our conscious lust for life
The passions printed in paint, prose, poetry & performance
an orchestra of colour becomes a monochromatic kazoo
And we, we feeble dependants, allow this to happen
We, purveyors of creation would contain ourselves
And all for the cash to purchase the gas
to get us back to work again
These words come from an office where the only windows are on the computers
This is a grey scale nightmare
A place where imaginary friends go to die
It is the home of Sisyphus in the digital age
The tragic hero Cubicles, whose only charge is to aid
the less tech savvy in their day to day, though the unspoken truth
is a wave of abuse spit twixt split lips into the open ears of a human trying to help
Because we, we are not human beings.
We are a disembodied voice with the gall to ask you to help yourself a little bit
We are just a limb on an enormous corporate corpus,
and our primary dedication is the express ruination of all that is your life. Right?
We have watched our world go digital and silicon blue
right before our eyes, and the unbelievable ease
of living with machines has rendered us helpless.
The lack of a functioning television moves a person to tears,
and I wish above all else, that that was not an exaggeration
We are so convinced of our dependence that we would rather berate a stranger than read a book.
We have grown so accustomed to these devices that hand us everything that we cannot bear
the idea of learning anything. Not even how they work. Learning takes too long.
We refuse to acknowledge or appreciate the complexity of the system before us.
And because of this self-imposed ignorance, we grow to rabid fury when presented with a problem.
But if I must, I will seek inspiration in what this place means to do to me.
It would kill what I am. It would re-shape a form of love and words and tool it into an answering machine.
Write. Sing. Dance. Pretend. Play. Paint. Whatever it is. Whatever expression is in you, do it. And always do it.
Do not become an answering machine. Do not become a hammer.
Take what would make a tool of you, and make art of it.
Thank you for calling tech support. My name is Dan. How can we help you?
I've got a better idea.
Thank you for coming to this poetry slam. My name is Dan, and it's wonderful to be here.