GHOSTS IN THE MACHINE

by Devon Balwit

There are so many ghosts in our machines—their locations so hidden, their methods so ingenious, their motives so inscrutable—that not to feel haunted is not to be awake.  —Walter Kirn, The Atlantic, November 2015

                                                                                                         
We dish dirt over drinks—husbands, work,
yearnings—the room so crowded I yell

to be heard, but still wish our phones
elsewhere, mics disabled, wish everyone’s

locked away, apps always asking
for locations, each talking to the other

in a digital chorus, strands in an unseen web,
vibrating. When the photos in my feed

echo, the upflung arms of child mirrored
in an abstract painting, or when memes

ripple outwards, themes kaleidoscoped
myriad, this is no accident,

the fancy of my poetic nature. Like a
kook in a backwoods cabin, I mutter

about the eye in the sky, but know
my needle port already inserted,

perhaps now running saline, but
at any time opiates or annihilation.

Each keystroke resonates elsewhere,
saved in cold storage by the NSA

in Utah or somewhere in Russia, fodder
for the clever, data points in the on-going

experiment. We’ve been turned inside out,
pockets filched of coin. A single finger

can undo us, and, like any with a knife
pressed so intimately, we obey.

Devon Balwit is a writer/teacher from Portland, OR. Her poems have appeared in TheNewVerse.News, Poets Reading the News, Redbird Weekly Reads, Rise-Up Review, Rat's Ass Review, The Rising Phoenix Review, Mobius, What Rough Beast, and more.

COLONY COLLAPSE DISORDER

by Gus Peterson

Stressed young bees that are forced to grow up too fast could largely account for disastrous declines in populations of the insects around the world, research suggests. Photograph: Qmul/PA --The Guardian, February 10, 2015

At first, it’s a funny thought:
worker bees leaning back from desks,

loosening neckties, rubbing that ache
between two disco ball eyes.

Drones discreetly opening
opaque bottles of pollen pills.

And everywhere the hexagonal:
the creaking swivel chair,

keys on the keyboard.
The ceiling tiles overhead.

Even love is a six leg scramble
with one winner.

No wonder the young fly out
into the geometry of the world

before rain is artillery,
the wind a map to home –

where death stings just once.


Gus Peterson lives in Maine alongside the Kennebec and works in sales.  Work has appeared various journals online and The Aurorean.  Recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize, his first chapbook, When The Poetry's Gone, is forthcoming this spring from Encircle Publications.