Digital Poetics 3.18 from ‘Digits After Orph’ by Chris Gutkind
1꞉11
Going where no stars sky – who are they anyway?
We'll make them. Nor horses. We make them too.
Ones that fly. Inside the inside sky. They carry me
and I carry them switched on to us offing. You life'd
already it's ready for revise, changed air for hums,
telesomeones tool'd along. The plan was assured
of its specialness since birth. Touch while out. Eyes
close in. Why be nothing? I could be horse. I can't
let go. Can you? We can. Who wants to disappear?
Better paths I hardly see. Maybe there is meadow.
What difference car person. I can be neuroflower,
new ego chem. Stars in skies don't ask, I love them
for that unless they're unthere – another sandwich
in somethingwhere's drives, believe themself on.
1꞉12
Celeb the yearns and investment combining us,
laws into labours making you a fitting calculate,
turning days nights off – designing hours of year,
years of hour, food immaterial, animals as well.
So many homes, just another, last one, promise.
Maybe one always wanting for. Let's toy us, me.
Tired of flesh, breath, effort. Sad too. Still so far,
touch always ends or isn't. Not with touch gone!
We'll string ourself out! But currency together!
Forget error/answer, emotion bends/scratches,
waking up/sleeping, body sex. The planners see
the overall emoji, sow the final #, rid off-season
to supply seconds, sealing servers/pouring ends
out to let beginnings de-exist, opening untime.
1꞉13
Twitteries and Faceboxy, Googoo to Instawahs,
after-die recipes, I taptap in your head to live on.
My mind fleshes them they deflesh me in viewy,
I get used to me-us's by watching us-me's app'd.
It's after we can taste the apple before its myth,
somethings make a song – I'm now'd in – targety,
scaling myselves up/down, drowning in floating.
Spybuyify, NSAticons, Amazon Unprimeologies.
Who's turning from "apple" to apple? Words as
pesticides, singularity-love, dreams you data on,
less reaching more, why be a shape, why pay it,
cheaper/better living unliving, activity excelings
DeliverU, de-stomachy, unhere unthere, no one
need sorrow or starve, no need for why or byes.
2꞉5
Internet muscle, code locked code, hid inside
hit in mirrormasks of choice, bizzy want-jails
cleaning sights of denials – each you-me a cell
jointing wifi's fondling the purchase-persons.
I-food/meme-mill/mind-load/debody-glutton,
unflesh-classing, the current holy, mesh to it,
stretch never unstretch unless I sip shutdown
or being maintained, up/downfated yet again,
generations fast as ants/pants/cants, concern
a wince in system, soon deleted/unmemory'd
for safety. Or former flowers/open to the right
plug-in, endless open now, keys to me copied
away – sold you as magic, a party, the weather,
bought as reals. Once you picked a stone and
2꞉6
Nanotech Biotech ready royalty of the world,
barely thought when US A-bombs slaughter'd
now cum each other silly, each patent bolder,
then I was swipe you new me, venture sauced.
Your saliva speaks to my doctor, your insurer,
my banking. Nano and Bio flirt anyone or thing,
wish gas. Paps/Governments can't hold them,
they keep with a selecting crowd of molecule,
working doorscreen/deepend, replicator tools
their graily climax, needing us lessy, believing
them soon meaningless, labour and loving too
when they learn to blend atoms like thoughts.
They used to be brickies/weren't paid for stop,
we followed as they unfollowed wallowing us.
Note for 1꞉11 The plan was assured of its specialness since birth. This line is a detourn of a line by Nisha Ramayya in the poem Awkward Bumping in the Theory District, in the book IN ME THE JUNCTURE, from SAD PRESS. Original sentence: The plan believes itself to be special, having been assured of its specialness since birth.
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Chris Gutkind was born in The Hague, grew up in Montreal and has lived, mostly, in London since 1988. He is a librarian though unemployed. Other poems of this sequence were in Erotoplasty, Berfrois, Otoliths, Shearsman, and forthcoming in Corroding The Now and Datableed. Other recent poems were in Pamenar. The covid collab, Gravity Bubbles, with Marcus Slease and Calliope Michail, was in Babel Tower Notice Board and in Prototype 3, and a lockdown photo-project, Isolation Collaboration, can be seen at Permeable Barrier. Books are Inside to Outside, Options, with artist Trevor Simmons, and What Happened. He also writes children's tales.
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