Author’s Note: This poem is a triptych of contemporary technological life.
“Acme: A Poem in Three Parts” read by its author:
=Illusory meanings=
“Move fast and break things.”
Silicon Valley’s obscene mantra.
A vile Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ for
enacting the unmaking of the world.
Destruction packaged as progress,
violence marketed as benevolence,
exploitation peddled as freedom.
=The world as factory=
All of humanity Zuck’s standing reserve,
board-feet for building an empire.
The robot-man with his robot-heart
busy harvesting his unrenewable resource,
hewing us down with our own fears and
floating us down rivers of our own pleasures
then putting the unsuitable slash to flames.
=Human-techno-human relations=
Where there was once “I-Thou,” only “I-It.”
In place of real humans flattened images
stripped of dignity and meaningful proximity,
inconsequential pseudonymous NPCs,
objectified Others meant for consumption,
the new-and-improved Soylent Green for
our insatiable hungers and unnatural delights.
Biography
Robert B. Markum is a PhD student at the University of Michigan School of Information. His work draws upon and seeks to synthesize spirituality, philosophy, poetry, and ecology with the aim to establish a new groundwork for the philosophy of technology.
© 2022 Robert B. Markum, used by permission
Technoculture Volume 12 (2022)
