Black Mirror
Television is imagining for us
dreams we’ll never have
It’s manifesting them
faster than we can with
all our prayers and crystals, in real time
O, it is.
For this reason so many Americans
are glued to the screens whether
to dream or simply,
to sleep.
I told my girlfriend,
“You shouldn’t watch TV,
read a book instead.”
But the brain is a funny thing, rewired
with all its trauma, rewired
into image, our god. Our god
foams at the mouth, that’s ok.
As long as he wears a happy face, and cracks
some jokes.
Get the audience roaring!
We stare with mouths drooling laughing at
the great joke.
We think it is life, but maybe
it is only time our place in it our politics.
Silver screen has never felt
so near, so close, never slept with
us in so many beds, monitored our
every conversation, come between
so many pillows, heard
the sounds of so many arguments in the bathroom, viewed
with its beautiful eye our very
hopes and dreams in the camera taken with a click,
swipe of the hand (just like Jeff Bezos who tinkled
“this is mine now. what’s your’s is mine”
“this land is your land, this land is my land”
“from california, to the new york island
what’s yours is mine”
“my land is your land”)
no, “your land is my land”
“is mine, is mine” I dream
on my pillow, my phone
dreams beneath me
they dream on
their pillow their phone
dreams beneath them
As above, so below.
The brain hums, its own
body double, the body keeps
the score doesn’t it?
It keeps the score, then
The next day at the therapist’s I confess “I don’t know why
I’m so unhappy today. I just know
there has to be a reason!” though I know
perfectly what the reason is, I can’t allow the knowledge
to infiltrate to my mind because
if knowledge heals it also drives you insane.
Maybe the ones on the street screaming about
Jesus are actually sane and the rest of us
are duds with needles in our arms hoping
to save the world.
(share the needle, bro
“what’s yours is mine)
is mine, is mine”
The world cannot be saved, it can’t be,
O no, no, not even if there were
more time or money or energy or both, or more
Books instead of phones
because when we look up all we see
is a mirror and it is black.