Sharp angles, empty spaces,
when your thoughts have been beaten by the sound
of endless chatter and permanent novelty
and more of this nothing
to click on and click through
to tap with your flesh and make electric your dreams
to be categorized, sorted,
and fully known.
And it’s a fight
to drag your mind through the scribbles and static
to make outwards your inner disorder
for others to live in.
Ian
Ian Barkley
My name's Ian. I write prose about the future and poetry about the present.
Data
Noise rises to crescendo
Signals far off distant stars
formless taking form
beyond our reach or words.
With each collective exhale
machines read the data
in our breaths
to reveal
our external selves
our inner dreams
our haughty wants
our desperate needs
and how we pass the time
between birth, and sex, and death
Infinity is Just a Number
Only to those who truly seek
rest
is a glimpse of the truth even
possible
It’s never really over
And Yet the Cage Remains
The walls and the sickness
and the deathless persistence of disability
and the screens
and the porn
and the life struck by terror
as it searches in all directions
unable to find the sea.
The Great American Nothing
From the feeder corn that made this all possible
The crops worth much less than the land
The beating heart of the nation
pumping syrup
through the veins of the tribes
Out of many one- you die with no heart
But life’s hard when you don’t got a brain.
Still, having no mind is a boon to your courage.
Waiting for the Fever to Break
Cruising deadass plague campus at night
Blasting ‘everything is broken’ by dylan cuz it’s the truth
Waiting like everyone for something to happen
But at least unlike everyone for the moment I’m on the move
Until the car falls apart and I find a new way to flee
It’s a few left turns
To the Great American Nothing
The Peasant’s Golden Arches
The power’s still out and all-night walmarts are closed
And the world is instantly thrown back 100 years except there’s a glowing universe in everyone’s pocket.
I’m sure this inactivity a nice band aid
on the gaping wound that is the environment, economy, everything.
But it can’t be too helpful because the power is only out on this street. We are forgotten. I suffer in the ghetto of nowhere middle west.
And yet I am fatter than 90 percent of humans who ever lived,
and most could not imagine my pure abundance of stuff.
Yet me and my neighbors are poor.
We’re unhealthy, we do drugs, shootings are a common occurance.
The greatest contradiction
One that seems to shake the human condition to its very core
Was the invention of the mcdouble
And a society that made its poor fat
The Corvid
Downtown is empty and the crows bitch and moan.
“Where’s our damn French fries? Where’d our monkey servants go?”
“They’re not leaving their metal beasts,” one crow intoned.
“You fool,” replied another. “Those beasts EAT the monkeys, everyone knows.”
“Are we too reliant on monkeys?”
“Let’s send out some spies!”
“Let’s send out some spies!”
“It’s a monkey conspiracy!” the murder’s neurotic crow cried.
“They’re plotting against us fosho!”
“They’re plotting against us fosho!”
“Quiet you dullbeak, enough with your lies.”
“The monkeys are scared,” croaked an old crow,
venerable and wise.
venerable and wise.
(And he secretly knew a monkey, and plays with his shoe ties)
“The monkey groups are fighting. And there’s a monkey curse. If too many gather, the monkeys will die.”
The crows nod and murmur as if deep in thought.
But really they just want their fries.
Crow chatter is an omen, pure neutral. Same with magpies.
Quoth the Corvid
“BwaHBwaHBwaHBwaHBwaH”
Don’t Twist Snap
Fail more fail better
Bend it till it breaks
Ancient Irish wisdom
Fail like you’ll die as soon as soon as you win
Your gottdamn life’s at stake
Too bad about the girls though,
Sex is too expensive
and comfort sits out until it gets cold
That’s why god invented whiskey
It never gets old
Fail so spectacularly
That half the people at your funeral fucking hated you
And the other half thought you were a hoot
if anyone remembers to show up at all
F
Electric Ghosts of a Lost Era
Water from the sky,