Why should important men care to know what we think?
Unless browsing store window, officer scram with all due respect
When merchandise is available for sale, it will become obvious.
Until then, the bureau can render its own thoughts, or hire creative.

The search engine, that ever giving genius-making research instrument,
From another vantage point is a mind probe of individual and cohort.
If that reads sinister or Orwellian, alright you are comprehending.

Wishing faintly perceived scrutiny ops didn’t intertwine with campaign
Won’t reveal the machine’s greater scope. Not like Gibson’s Neuromancer.
Or Nelson’s “Eight O’Clock in the Morning,”
The short story informing Carpenter’s They Live.

Make some homework from a dystopian film screening,
Of the Wachowski brothers-cum-sisters’ The Matrix.
In a darkened quiet room,
The transformative potential may be appreciated.

by JEREMY TOMPKINS.  Originally published June 11, 2024. Art & Commodity thanks the Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization building “a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form.”