This Is An American Synthetic Lyric
What blood was squeezed by stone from skin
while being rolled?
How have hands given way to calluses
from sores
open and wet?
*
remember back in the day
when a cyborg was new,
shiny, and shy?
*
theres a saying. maybe even plenty more than that one that nobody says anymore or ever did and so silence is sort of a cliché and alternatives are another sort of jargon. nostalgia has a vernacular. anticipation, a slang whose intentions are good but whose sight is failing and thus all it sees is misunderstood.
and when the robots
are filling the junkyard
will the factories
have a moment of silence
for the spare parts?
how does the old cyborg
compute and equate
human adjacency
especially when people are
so prone to becoming zombies?
*
if the fingertips had more prep time
would they change themselves
when the nerves
finally
send them the signal?
could the details be in the dermis
or maybe this time
small means fine
as a toll to be extracted
a cost in a course of digits
hardening,
less flexible
but can still be counted on
*
this café could house something more than the acoustic. give space to something other than folk. in the air of wooden notes how knotty and knotted is the melody holding onto older days? who first made the mistake of making listening so easy when hearing is so temporary and transitory. hard to catch a meaning before becoming an echo.
*
when memory can fill to capacity
be more selective with sentimentality
don't let a little sensation
become
more input
than it needs to be
needs are for flesh
cravings are what crash the grid
*
unused files are stored on devices / devirtues
in digital formats less susceptible
to degradation
cached advertisements are a background
painted into the pastorals
of slopes
of which there are rocks
and hard places
and no moss to speak of nor to gather
as descent isn't so much slippery
as eventual
*
the future is fragmented. history, inseperable.
party animal free to find
a new way to enjoy anxiety, dread
this moment the moment a moment
is contraband
*
Chorus:
1 credit 1 automaton
1 credit 1 automaton
1 credit 1 automaton
nano, please
better get them bitcoin, android
better get them bitcoin, android
better get them bitcoin, android
shit, wish a microchip would
malfunction
collect all them cryptopennies
keep it all away from the archaisms
of the analog
*
and the hatchet buried in scene 1 will return in act 3 as settlerspeak. in a colonial colloquial. a tongue left in a locked room could just as easily lead to the reveal as to be the weapon itself.
*
the pebbles and sand are wet
are red
are proof of purchase
no buyers remorse
the brand was trademarked
before the product was patented
before the codes were uploaded
before the laws,
punishments were still distributed
instituted
dried riverbeds and rubble decimated
rarely remember
when days were good
before the oblivion
meant to forget
left the land catalogued, categorized,
catfished
***
synthetic, electric, mechanical
designed, debugged
repurposed with each new performance
*
inorganic, pragmatic, retooled
existence is a proposition adjusted
retold as details unfold
*
machines on liquid diet of oil and gasoline to satisfy the fantasies of movement and maneuvering but there is no now only tomorrow and day after that with life as only a concept/code. nothing to wait for. nothing to live for either. but to continue on forever or as close as nature allows.
*
part and part
imparted
departed
built to be conflicted
rust and wrinkles
*
stainless steel stated bliss
knives, bread, butter
crumbs down for the count
*
unwelcome to this strife, stride and struggle. home was what it wasnt and thats how it went. it isnt always what it is. transformation and fluidity rule and break the rules of every world in every aspect.
*
Language communicates in terms of what is already known; it chokes up when asked to deal with the entirely unprecedented. (Vivek Shanbhag Ghachar Ghochar)
*
now, the rain has been soft, has been hard. questions can come to a volta. to inquire can become a spiral. inside as well as out may push and press. lungs flood as easily as gutters.
*
in the . . . in the . . .
where the sun don't ever shine
anxiety rules
the whole night through
*
troubles switchback up
bushwhack through
problems find new lines
to hide between
Kenning (FKA Kenyatta) Jean-Paul García is the author of the notvel OF (What Place Meant), They Say (West Vine Press) and several lyrical speculative ebooks such as ROBOT: the Waste Land Reimaged. Xe is a diarist and performer living in Albany, NY. Xe has degrees in English and linguistics but has spent xyr adult life doing blue collar work. For a dozen years xe worked in restaurants doing everything from dishes to managing. These days, xe is a maintenance worker in a massive two-story box store. Xe has been doing the graveyard shift for 11 years now so writing is the day job but not the job that's called xyr "real job." In addition, xe posts way too much foolishness on social media and tries to go to lots of conferences around the country preferably by train. Xe is also an editor at Rigorous.