If you think watching a sporting event

on television somehow affects its outcome

then you’re on the right track. Yelling 

 

at a TV only makes it stronger. At this 

point you realize all the machines

in your life are sentient. Since I don’t

 

have a gun like Elvis, I put my television

out back and threw rocks at it. Still

it refuses to stop. I mean, how can you

 

hear what your plants are trying to say

if you reflexively flip on the TV when

you come in the front door? Sometimes

 

when I hustle round & round unthinking

in my midmorning ritual of transcendence

all the virtual books in my head lose

 

their bearings, sprout antennae, and turn

into broken television sets full of static.

My therapist says it may be a good omen,

but my guru holds his ears, asks me to turn

them down. Even my first-grade pet

mouse Tiberius Spirographs his brain

 

almost human running on his wheel so 

fast that when he stops, inertial free-spin 

gets him past the commercial break.