This is the anthem of a generation.

In the words of a massive amount of static noise,
we sing pop songs digitally manipulated by mass producing producers
who make everything sound the same so that we can be different,
the neurons practically implanted in our arms like
the veins we once used to transport oxygen.

Now we transport digital information.
Digital pictures, digital music, digital knowledge
that without the digital computer humming in front of us,
we would have no access to,
at least, if it weren't for the digital phones we each keep warm
inside our pocket.

Someday we'll each have a digital nuclear bomb in a pocket,
threatening each other with the threat of annihilation
and poor quality pop music.
Even the Japanese are beginning to take a stake in the
eerily too similar syrup we pour into our ears by the bucket.

What are we trying to cover up with such decadence?
Are we trying to hide the hurt and pain of a few cocaine generations before us?
Are we trying to dispel the rumors of alcoholism coursing through our blood?
Are we trying to believe that self-destructive financial habits only affect the other guy,
and not us, not us the purely innocent center of the universe

because that's what we are: The center.
We are the center of a universe which calls us bastards,
we are the center of a universe which has forsaken us and said:
"Here, here, take this pill my Son and I hope you come out of the Rabbit Hole
with a little more remorse than what you went in with, because this is anarchy,
this is anarchy,
this is anarchy,
Do not dream, or adjust the television set,
This, is anarchy."

And what do we do?

Do we listen?

Are we capable of listening?

Or is that a craft that we have simply forgotten, like the art
of driving a horse and carriage two hundred miles to the nearest outpost?

We no longer live in the desert, you see.
We no longer live in the barren wasteland.
We live in cities, we live refined,
we live in a place where the cattle comes to us for the slaughter,
where wheat is turned to bread and fed to us by the dozen.
There is no desert,
it is all in your mind.

And yet when I light this match, I hear the echo of silence
all around me.

For being in community, I am so utterly alone.
I am alone.

05/29/2011

Posted on 05/30/2011
Copyright © 2026 Jared Fladeland