The ID is not the ego

 

“I”
Will be no more a datum than the words
You link false inference with—George Eliot

 

They refine the layers
                           ✳    ✳    ✳    ✳    ✳    ✳
They refind the layers
                           ✳    ✳    ✳    ✳    ✳    ✳
They refined thee, lairs

❉    ❉    

I felt just like you
Bezeled into ten thousand manifold categories
Transformed to a pattern that is not my sunrise

❉    ❉    

I knew we were meant to rendezvous at noon
But were both mired in local minima
Waylaid in the convolutions that shuffled us along our way

❉    ❉    

Is the I in ID the intersection of my weights?
Is the D the dimensions of my contradictions?

❉    ❉    

What attention remembers the dimensions that came on the boat
Discarding Europe over the railing?

❉    ❉    

      The artifacts that landed
   are already scheduled for expiration

❉    ❉    

      What attention remembers the dimensions that lured me to face tear gas in the public square?
Strafed in the lines of the mosaic

      Do you anguish at never rising in the ratings
    that must feed profane aspirations 240 times per second

❉    ❉    

Lost I still found you
Through affinitiess that clustered without the aid of analytics
Filled by random imputation
Secluded in the side channel through which I located you

❉    ❉    

The ID is not the ego

                           ✳    ✳    ✳    ✳    ✳    ✳
They can track you in
                           ✳    ✳    ✳    ✳    ✳    ✳
They can tuck you in
                           ✳    ✳    ✳    ✳    ✳    ✳
They can suck you in
                           ✳    ✳    ✳    ✳    ✳    ✳
They can sup you in
                           ✳    ✳    ✳    ✳    ✳    ✳
They can’t sum you up

 

 

 

This poem was published as one of six poems in issue #2 of Ranger magazine.

Andy Oram
March 9, 2023

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