Beware the Vocera & South Bay Psychobabble
Beware the Vocera
(The Vocera is a communication device used in hospitals. In order for this poem to work it is recommended that you place the emphasis on the first syllable of her name [VOcera] and not the second (VoCERa) as it is normally called. This makes the VOcera sound more like a Japanese Monster.)
Not a ring,
not a chime
More like the sound
of your liquid brain
spilling out of your ear,
Your ear, lacerated
By the brittle cry of the Vocera!
Encasing beating hearts
in jars of cortisol!
Her black wings blot out the sky,
Blot out
whatever it is
we thought we were doing!
Sending us running
far and near!
Calling, calling, calling… who?
Me?
You?
(Standing shocked and mute)
“I didn’t understand!
I think you said: ‘Lay the village to waste! Blight the livestock! Scorch the Crops!’
OK, I’m forwarding all destruction to…YOUR… cell phone…”
Who will be called?
Who can accept what is coming?
Me?
You?
“I didn’t understand.”
“Accept?”
“I didn’t understand.”
“Accept?”
South Bay Psychobabble
(Taking the train to Redwood City, 7am)
My father worked in Sunnyvale
before Silicon Valley
was a thing, at
an early computer company
called Autologic.
This is when it took a room
full of filing cabinets
full of paper punch cards
to tell a massive computer
what day it was.
He took me to work
when I was 6 or 7, and I remember
The polyurethane smell
of the stuffed Danish furniture,
sterile expanses of carpet,
clean arrangements of chairs and tables
in silent rooms
sighing with air conditioning.
I remember being instantly aware
that there was nothing to eat
and I became really hungry.
Ashtrays in the elevator,
taking the elevator up and down
(to make sure
that every floor really was
like every other)
taking a pinch of ashes
and putting them in my mouth,
to acknowledge the power of this place
where there is no orange juice
or Count Chocula,
bowing in awe and fear
to this God of grownups
and the jobs they must go to
to suffer and starve and be quiet,
knowing that someday it will be my turn.
I’ve always associated the South Bay with
Anonymous toil
starting at O-Dark early
in places where nothing but pallet piles grow.
All those names:
San Bruno, San Mateo, Burlingame, Hillsdale, Millbrae;
they were all Down There,
South of San Francisco,
Blessed, shrill and shiny San Francisco
which had cereal and coffee
and burritos.
Other places were to be avoided and made fun of,
as if I knew anything about them,
as if,
when I said Menlo Park
Everyone would understand
that I meant “hell.”
Repenting of my stupid snobbery
Turning 59 in
Redwood City, bringing myself wherever I go.