Planned Obsolescence

The Mart hung in the distance like an obsolete super-computer

Overcompensating for its faulty wiring,

While nervously waiting for the next big thing.

In a field, I stood in the epicenter, across from this epiccenter,

On an uneven ground of weeds, dirt, gnats, puddles, trash.

 

In the limits of vision, I saw the par-king lot

Balancing its inputs with its outputs

Into the super-computer.

-> In went bleak, gray, hungry bits of code

Out came obnoxious, colorful, fat bits of code <-.

 

I – usually bleak, gray, hungry – approached the Mart,

Pulled from the dirt-tangled field

By the electromagnetism of the straight angles ahead.

 

As I closed closer,

There emerged a binary to these bits.

And the Mart proclaimed, “Let this be man and woman,

And let their sacrificial computations be predictable, timely, and manipulateable,

And above all, let the 1 of woman and the 2 of man serve separate functions

To my Consumption Processing Unit.”

The Mart looked over all that it had made, and behold, it was very good…

 

My heel hit the hard of pavement and rolled up to my toe;

And as this became a recurring action,

My feet dealt distance with subtraction,

And the bits of code, post-transaction,

Grabbed my eyes with curious attraction.

 

These ostentatious outputs carried colorful cases,

Walked with manufactured importance,

Slapped smaller outputs and told them, “When I say stop, that means stop!”

Sputtered and spat at the ground,

Rolled toward their steel boxes like medicine balls in the wind,

Held the reins of their belt-buckle stallions, bucking for a fight,

Or yanking their buckles over their bulbous bellies,

With crooked smiles, crooked laughs,

Crooked plans, but straight paths.

 

The par-king lot carried the code

The best that pavement could.

Should cement lament it would.

 

I tried to think up a better system:

-Maybe a cloud based application (?)-

But my thoughts were sparse,

So, instead, I joined the cement sojourners,

Rolling toward my own steel box,

And together we awaited the next big thing.