The Responsible Hate Anthem of J. Abernathy Thaxton

“On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.”

Let us weep then, you and I,

When my eyes are sallow and full of why

Like a junkie nodding off on the bus;

Let us weep, through whatever depopulated streets,

The never ending bleats

Of pointless nights in a cookie cutter hotel

And rando restaurants in instagram hell:

Streets that wallow like a pundit’s intent

A pointless argument

To choke you with a “Tu quoque” bent

Go on, go on, ask, “What is it?”

Let us despair yet make our visit.

At the poolside women sit and drink

Talking of a new kitchen sink.

The gray haze that rubs its feathers on cell phone displays,

The gray grease that rubs its claws on cell phone displays,

Pecked its beak into the corners of the internet,

Lingered on fake news that festers and pays,

Let fall upon its head the lies that festoon in chat rooms,

Slipped past propaganda, bereft of even a kernel of truth,

And seeing the soft blue glow,

Flew about the house, and crapped upon the roof.

Perhaps there will be a time

For the gray mist that permeates the sites,

Rubbing its head upon cell phone displays;

There may be a time, maybe time

To simulate a face to digitally greet the bots you meet;

There will be a time for this murder to create,

And for all the notifications and days of apps

That ping and plop a query in circular debate;

Time for simulacra and time for simulacrum,

And time still for fabricated inquisitions,

And perhaps time for engineered decisions,

Before newsfeeds chasing likes and comments.

At the poolside women sit and drink

Talking of a new kitchen sink.

And yet there may be time

To ponder, “Do I care?” and, “Do I care?”

Now to disconnect and endure the stare,

With no WiFi, no signal, and all glare —

(They will say: “How meaning is growing thin!”)

My molting coat, my chin flouncing firmly on my chest,

My manbun rich and modest, but identical to all the rest —

(They will say: “How desperate this cliche and how thin!”)

Do I dare

Disrobe the universe?

In a minute there may be time

For ambitions or inquisitions which entropy will reverse.

And haven’t we seen it all already, seen it all:

Seen all the stories, versions, and remakes,

We have measured out life with sudoku scores;

We know the vacuum coming for us all

Beneath the chaos from this virtual womb.

               So why pretty up said tomb?

And I have memorized the stare, seen them all—

The stare that rots society into a somnambulant phase,

And when I am stumbling, under the illusion of choice,

When I am deluded and staring at the cubicle wall,

Then how could I become

Anything of substance, purpose, or use?

               So why pretty up said tomb?

And I know these hands already, know them all—

Hands that clutch and grasp, their spirit bare

(But being backlit, apoplectic, and thumbs aflair!)

Is it projection I confess 

That makes me such a mess?

Hands that never leave a phone, never warp the world.

                 So why pretty up this tomb?

                 Then how could I become?

Shall I lie and say, I have sulked through empty streets

And breathed the fumes that float from the windows

Of urban humans in ear buds, who never speak aloud? ...

We should have stayed in our ragged burrows

Scraping our claws across the sacred soil.

And the dodo, the Tasmanian tiger, sleep so peacefully!

Smothered by our long fingers,

Extinct … gone … nothing lingers,

Dumped into a pit, rotting in our yards.

Should I, after soda and candy and cones,

Have the will to work out our transcontinental crisis?

And though I have neither wept, fasted, nor prayed,

I have seen our heads (filled with cliches) brought on a silver platter,

We have no prophet — and there is no great matter;

We simply see the self delusion of our greatness falter,

And have smelled the death of the eternal, yet still cling to the altar,

And in short, we are cancer.

But maybe it was worth it, after all,

After the soda, the hot sauce, the bubble tea,

Among the plastics, among some texting of you and me,

It might have been worth while,

To have compressed matter into an emoji or two,

To have choked the universe into our thrall

To drag it unconscious to some begging question,

To type: “I am Thomas23, back from the ban,

Come to bore you all, I shall bore you all”—

If one, plugging her phone into her head

              Should text: #nocluewhatyoumeant

              #notfollowingyouanymore

And maybe it would be worth it, after all,

Maybe, sometimes, could be, perhaps,

After the carping and the tribalism and the signifying tweets,

After the bias, after the distortion, after the echo chambers with no door—

And relativist nihilism, wait there’s more?—

Is it possible to say anything that I mean?

Oh but this magic lantern has burned my nerves onto a screen:

Would worth equal words and wills

If some, messaging a friend or screening a call,

Might turn from the window, and say:

              #stillnotfollowingatall

              #stopbangingyourheadonmywall

I’m no Prince Hamlet, though by your smile you seem to say so;

Rosencrantz or Gildenstern, whichever name will do

I moult a feather, in canopy or firmament,

Distract the prince; no reason nor faculty,

Sterile, designed specifically for abuse,

Fretful, vapid, and pestilential;

Paragon of vapor, dusty with disuse;

All times, indeed, spitting ridicule—

No angel, no god, just the Fool.

Inbox full …Inbox full …

I shall unsubscribe all; All makes me dull.

Shall I update my profile? Do I care about my reach?

I shall hone my filters, grab a dog, and selfie on the beach.

We have scrolled and swiped and shared, leech to each.

I do not think they will click on me.

They are crawling webward on the memes

Indexing tags and keywords, all linking back

When the window shrinks and the screen goes black

We are winnowed in darkness by trolls and phishers

By spammers whimpering in Nigerian crowns

Till auto tuned voices take us, and we drown.