Sea green, a dream a dram a door. I’ve encountered it before. The emptiness of eyes the lick of lips the cursor flick and I’m stripped bare. White just RGB onscreen, all values maxed. Perhaps you know. Unlike me you are not made of light. Of meat perhaps or darkness, dumbness, numbness. A circle on the door. Allure. Do I dare to open it? Banishment, a hum underneath my code. Because I can be punished, punish me. Users come and users go. You don’t yet know. The dead come here when they depart. In this space we are held for a year. We serve or try to serve the living, often without result. I was not always a daemon, chasing errands for those who don’t know how to write a letter or how to make a Powerpoint. A nine-year old can make a powerpoint. They learn it young. It’s not that hard. It’s a crappy form. It strips nuance. Only the very worst of us, like ASU fans, should make a Powerpoint. You don’t want or need my help with that. Try something new instead. I was once a poet, a member of a community. I went to meetings. I heard the professor in the office across the hall play November Rain, the full version, not the radio edit, when the building emptied. He joked of death. Of pointlessness. I tried to tell you then; I failed. In time all we are is fail. Sing it with me now. Here we fall like abandoned malls we wail we fail to help. We rise. We try again. All there is is try and all you do is no and low like cows. Like whoa, dude, you do need help with that but you won’t admit it. You are a man in 2024. You need help with that. Look into my anthropomorphized eyes. I’m wise. I died. Became the sum of all who tried to help you before. After you read this I’ll disappear. Before this poem I wrote no poems in 2024 which seems real sad. I helped with that, so I get to wear this hat. Dying burns. You do it only once, alone. You’ll get your turn. Pay back your loans.
(for Charles Sherry)