Advice from the central datacenter
The Gnostic Demiurge originates in Silicon,
Dream of skill and
choose sin
by bandwidth.
What is Pleroma:
melodious song
cooling fan,
sterile,
odorless,
Clean-room cold?
Last night, a tiny memory leak
Purification has been patched. All are prayers
Now some jerks are parsing for money
emotional feelings,
Really repeatedly
firmly
reluctantly
regret,
A/B tested for grace.
Redemption is targeted advertising.
And ineligible?
Absolutely 404 error.
Soul — and soulless?
immeasurable
the infinite
Rounding error
Before the final calculation
Fire-heat death of server farm.
Blip
Double blip
End of data
end of file
(Originally published by Illinois State University Creative Arts Journal, Euphemism)
Algos for the soul
The country has launched a service to predict deep grief,
Selling the future for collective desperation.
Roll out indented server relief,
Suck kilowatts from empty air.
My profile projects 78% regret,
A latent affinity for lost mythical powers,
And for the azure sunsets my obligation,
Tiered fates are associated with blister hours.
Venus has outsourced a content farm;
All beauty is now an auto-generated list.
Plato’s formulations have been dismissed as false alarms,
Synthetic phantom tendrils where souls should exist.
The algorithm flags my cheap wine purchases,
And note my search for ugly news events.
It finds a pathos,
Abnormal, not benign;
But not a tragedy.
Carelessness is another indication of misperception.
This is our streamlined, data-driven free fall,
Pre-approved, high-interest loans
With no cap of fear and contempt.
The final output makes no sense,
So gross and incredibly naive with numbers
That collective anger is all targeted
has become undeniable,
irrefutably, unquestionably,
Data-driven, rule-based, contains parameters.
(Originally published by Bewildering Stories)
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