RIP Hitch Bot
Singularity notwithstanding
The robot is an alluring entity
Its gender lies in vocal programming
Not between the legs
Everyone said “he” or “it”
But this robot was a girl
Her voice-box told me so
Loving scientists set their
Light metal daughter
Out on America’s easternmost road
And said “Go West!”
When they found her parts & pieces
On the ground
I heard the uninspired keyboard shout,
“They didn’t program it
To give blow jobs! hand jobs! blow jobs!”
Blowjob-handjob robot
Would’ve gone far
Slut-shaming, victim-blaming I thought
No wonder
And knee-jerk self kicked back so hard
I finally lost my head—
The head I’d stapled and taped on all year long
Because losing it would’ve been all wrong,
Wouldn’t have kept the world from piling
More people on its plate
At the endless gunpoint buffet–
But I lost it when I saw those broken parts
No genitals or skin tone
Just the stupid enlarged heart
CAMPFIRED
For 80 billion years
We’ve been sitting
Around the campfire
Telling lies
Everyone taking turns
Finding the right hyperbole
To butter the starched eyes
And pat the ears
With spoken streams
I never found my voice in that circle
Always silenced by the snaking
Of someone else’s story
I never knew my truth
Could loosen their borders
Their
Tone-mute deaf-drone
Shock-value
Me-manifesto marshmallow-point
Poker-lectures
The narratives began
To confuse me, zeroed in on my
Gristly mind in its isolation hut
Their mouths evolved
Into
Pockets, craters, sinkholes
Aggrandized galaxies
Where the tongue is more magnetic than
A keyboard’s horizon
Speaking of gravity
I was a hollow drum
I never extended my tongue
The fire spat and checked the facts
BLOWN AWAY
So much to count in this urban time-out
There’s no ‘I’ here but
I’ll begin
With five colossal walls closing in
Now I parse the tiles into holy icons
Virgin, Elvis
Snoopy, Oprah
Fire-breathing Pokemon bird
The bench is an easy one
Though it isn’t meant to be
6 legs, 12 slats
And a third arm carving, shanking the spoon
The sign lies. And it leans
Right, saying one thing
But meaning another
West is always left
Over my shoulder
(if I were here)
The industrial spectre
Of the air intake
Hovers,
Venting loudly as I try to count its blades
Alien Buddha Press 