This deceptively simple poem contains a limited number of verses scheduled to change from one to the next so rapidly that all but the unchanging final line is unreadable, unless you click and hold the mouse button, which stops the text. That is all the control one has, basically allowing random access to the verses. Fortunately for those who value closure, this is not a combinatorial work at the level of the line (which would probably create more permutations than could be read in a lifetime of clicking), but at the level of accessing the verses, which don’t seem like they have a meaningful sequence and progression. In other words, one can click on the poem enough times to get access to all or most of the verses and formulate a sense of what Jhave is trying to say with the poem.

Three ideas seem to inform this poem, from most likely influence to least:

• Futurism: Particularly in its manifesto-like tone and use of different typographical sizes, particularly as seen in the Vorticist manifesto Blast.
• Eternal return: The idea of time and matter in the universe as cyclical is replicated by the poem’s structure, making the idea of the reboot as a creative re-launching of ideas.
• Total Perspective Vortex: the way Jhave portrays humanity and its discontents seem to justify the need for a regenerative self-destruction, reaching a far different conclusion from E. E. Cummings in the final lines of this poem.

Okay, there are four influences.

And there are more than 100 words in this posting.

Perhaps it’s time to

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