words

welcome back to use without thought,
the endless changing of the television
second on second, frame by frame
the thousand channel madness
that brings days to a slow drawl
and nights to a definitive pause,
this infomercial insomnia.

there’s nothing on, never anything on
and we stare, we stare like the dead
at this mess of mediocrity and sadness,
the kardashian curse, this encephalopathy.

change, change, always the same,
flat faces and canned laughter,
color and sound all floating by
impressionless, uninspired,
something to keep the mind moving,
something to fill the empty hours,
anything to keep from looking at the sun
and counting down this certain doom.

flicker in and nothing out,
it all gets caught up and fed in,
the brain on fire, smoking and looping
at this terrible need for a shock,
a buzz, an instant gratification
for an action that takes no effort,
requires no depth but gains everything
in the space of a blink, a blip,
an acceptance of transmission through
to the center of some primitive circuitry.

flip, flip, keep searching
for the hit that will bring it all
to a climax, a necessary splicing
of all these frayed wires, loose connections,
flat faces and canned laughter, choices,
all these distractions, all this waste,
all this redundancy and meritless stimulation.

-S.C. Martinez