Premiere Generation Ink.


Sifting through the pictures and the sounds

I am a vessel,
we are all vessels.

If I listen (when I listen) I can hear the static whispers
of the merger of a thousand keystrokes met with fear
(I cannot lose this job, oh god),
mixed with the endless ring (that will be the--)
ring of voices broken down to simple sounds,
1&0&1&0 and I am the fourth cube in a row of cubes
that become an office, that become a larynx,
the throat of industry.
Destructive crunches of body and bone
brought up with air to the monotone, suggestive voice,
"how can I help you today?"
(I will fuck you, you know)
"and if you buy and if you sell
and you will not see us coming
you did not see us coming
you do not see us, you do not."


       What is sacred is what can be counted,
       held and priced I represent 40 man-hours per week
       160 per month, 2080 per year.


Across alternating squares of black and white,
I find myself waiting anxiously to serve.
Born into the lower middle of the upper lower class,
I can move one space forward (two from birth)
but can only solve a problem indirectly.
My power is in angles,
the I-move-one-you-move-three,
I come at you, but you come first, and farther,
infusing the vocabulary of Monday idols
into the altars of unprofitable gods;
making a CEO of a king,
a dollar of a queen,
and a chip of a rook, to move between seams.


Sean Ross

This poem appears in the Poetry Journal
Premiere Generation Ink. Volume 2 Number 1


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