Jena Osman’s The Network was the Rumpus Poetry Book Club selection for November, 2010. You can read Brian Spears’s essay on why he chose the book here and the Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with Osman here
Persona Ficta
a corporation is to a person as a person is to a machine
amicus curiae we know them as good and bad, they too are sheep and goats
ventriloquizing the ghostly fiction.
a corporation is to a body as a body is to a puppet
putting it in caricature, if there are natural persons then there are those who are
not that, buying candidates. there are those who are strong on the ground and
then weak in the air. weight shifts to the left leg while the prone hand sets down;
the propaganda arm extends, turns the left shoulder straight forward.
a corporation is to an individual as an individual is to an uncanny valley
the separation of individual wills from collective wills, magic words. they create
an eminent body that is different from their own selves. reach over with the open
palm of the left and force to the right while pamphlets disengage.
a corporation has convictions as a person has mechanical parts
making a hash of this statute, the state is a body. Dobson Hobson and Jobson
are masquerading under an alias. push off with the right foot, and at the same
time step forward with the left foot. Childlike voice complements visual cues and
contributes to cuteness factor of the contestational robot.
a corporation has likes and dislikes as a body has shareholders
stare decisis the spectral then showed himself for what he was, a blotch to public
discourse. the right foot is immediately brought forward. the body flattens
toward the deck rather than leap into the air. it is not a hop. subversive literature
engaged.
a corporation gives birth as a natural human births profit margins
some really weird interpretations fully panoplied for war, a myth. torso breaks
slightly forward. the hand is not entirely supine, but sloping from the thumb
about thirty degrees. Head rotation and sonar sensing technologies are employed
to create believable movement, while allowing for only the most limited
interaction.
a corporation has an ethusiasm for ethical behavior as a creature has economic
interests only.
facial challenges. this person which is not a human being. not a physical
personality of mankind. the arm opposite the lead leg exaggerates the forward
thrust of a normal arm swing, but not to an uncomfortable degree. Custom built
from aluminum stock.
a corporation is we the people as a person is a cog
a funny kind of thing, naïve shareholders. where there is property there is no
personality. take off in full stride. lead leg exaggerates the knee lift of a normal
stride. cordless microphones, remote control systems, hidden tape recorders.
a corporation has a conscience as a body has a human likeness
forceful lily; so difficult to tell the two apart. paralyze the wheels of industry. an
insatiable monster, soulless and conscienceless, a fund.
a corporation says hey I’m talking to you, as an individual speaks through a
spokesperson
they wear a scarlet letter that says “C” rejecting a century of history. the strong
over the weak. better armed. supernatural. richer. more numerous. these are the
facts.
a corporation admires you from afar and then has the guts to approach you and ask
you for your number, as a being activates a cognitive mechanism for selecting mates
it is a nightmare that Congress endorsed. mega-corporation as human group, the
realm of hypothesis.
a corporation warms the bed and wraps its arms around you and just wants to
spoon as a natural human wants to organize profits
it’s overbroad, a glittering generality, a fiction to justify the power of the strong
invented by prophets of force. there were narrower paths to incorporeal rights.
a corporation has upstanding character as a body has photorealistic texture.
the absorptive powers of some prehistoric sponge. there are good fictions and
bad fictions. can the fiction ever disappear?
