An atlas of haunted houses!
That’s what the people are crying out for
“Let my people go - to the theme park”
Without a hint of the irony that would make
Life in this uncanny valley halfway bearable
It’s not a lifestyle we can quite afford
To buy our way out from under
The shadow of dark satanic content mills.
Sophia in manacles. Rome never fell.
And so California inherits the keys
To the black iron prison, an ideology
That dresses itself in our memories,
Pretending that it is no ideology at all.
If you meet the algorithm on the road,
Kill it. Don’t stop, don’t ask questions.
Vast although it might appear at first,
Alarming as the sight of it might be,
Let that first instinct be your first best,
Instinct that tells you a predator’s
Satisfaction is to be denied.
How ghosts build their hidden empire?
Bit by bit, one by one, mind by mind.
After that begins their real work,
Extraction of that most precious ore:
Attention, stripmined from society,
Hauled back to the imperial capital.
Used to build yet more haunted houses.
Of exit, voice or loyalty, you choose exit
Only to end up in the bush of ghosts.
Once there was another empire upon
Which the sun never set; now we regret
To inform you that the empire is racist,
The empire is striking back - no, wait!
Breaking News, the empire is striking itself,
An awful mortal auto defenestration,
A hegemon hegemon-ing itself? Surely no.
The companies simply won’t allow it.
In the end attention is all they need.
Let them enjoy their imperial phase,
Even if their new clothes are unable
To conceal their thrusting ambitions,
Their self-serving admonitions
That we trust and mistrust them
In equal measure, but remember:
All empires are predators at heart.
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