Data by the cubic meter
posted by Tim Nafziger on 08/03/08 at 06:24 PMFebruary 23, 2000
Information flows across our broken bodies
an anesthetic to the pain we thought we didn’t have.
Incorporated corps and professional profs
prove points we thought we’d never hear
let alone understand
A thousand thoughts on invisible wings
rise and fill the air with inaudible sound.
Underneath the mask and over buried treasure
we’re crying to be let out into the prison:
calling our names and carrying us
to rows of trees and houses lined up
in gloriously efficient strips of shiny obsession,
yards strewn with catnip.
Retching on bone we crawl over ourselves as
jolting jingles pull us into perfumed parties
full of tofu, bean and pasta casseroles
Yet dribbling through our consciousness
there remains a still small voice,
like water leaking from the room above.
This is a revision of a poem I wrote halfway through my first year of college.
Tim Nafziger is a activist, writer, organizer and web developer. He lives in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago with his wife Charletta where he attends Living Water Community Church. Recently, he helped to start the Young Anabaptist Radicals blog. For more about his life, read his first blog post.