or Why Markets Don’t Work
(anymore?)

The last time we went through total change
even approaching the level we’re now enduring
was centuries ago and what has now transpired
in decades took centuries of forgetful generations
to destroy the old system of information manuscripts
once sacred becoming secular holy libraries of books
as now libraries become this sprawling internet of things
and books mere thin wafers of readout in cloud of unknowing

Where there will be and now is a new economy
entirely something else different than set linear type
of individual module become this relentless bottom line
and the assembly line itself already been transformed now
container ship arrival just on time national state gone gone global
network of total interpenetrating connection inextricably all little bits
organized into this huge overwhelming wholly whole

All the competing succession of empire imploded in supernova
of relationship in one world all one thing just for now together
                             ah, The Great Now
                        (an almost) instantaneous
                            multi-cultural miracle
                                  (ready or not)

 

James Van Looy has been a fixture in Boston’s poetry venues since the 1970s. He is a member of Cosmic Spelunker Theater and has run poetry workshops for Boston area homeless people at Pine Street Inn and St. Francis House since 1992. Van Looy leads the Labyrinth Creative Movement Workshop, which his Labyrinth titled poems are based on. His work appears weekly in Oddball Magazine.