So what if Google told Netflix I searched Blade Runner trivia in order to finish your elegy?

When I wrote the last line, you know, 
the one about electric seeds, 
that slant allusion only fellow Dickians 
would recognize (my coded love for you 
now networked, digitized, available 
to you, disembodied brother, loose 
electricity), it felt a marvel, like a message
back from you (as we promised, once, 
over coffee and cheap smokes, to do,
whoever died first) that ten minutes 
after I wrote that line and turned on 
the flat screen (no longer synecdochically 
only metonymically the tube), Netflix 
recommended Blade Runner 
as a Top Pick for You.

The coincidence felt so pure. Like you 
had pulled strings in the electronic world
to say hello, thank you for the elegy,
thank you for not letting me sink,
obituary-less, into obscurity. Until 
it occurred to me, perhaps this is no 
message, no spiritual synchronicity,
just a fucking contract between silicon-
licking corporations swindling everybody, 
kidnapping kids, herding sheep,
linking algorithms for maximum profit—
assholes making sure whenever I search
for something in one place, I get it in another;
I get it, what I want, and they get me—
my time, my attention: virtual currency.

And then, simultaneous to my inner rant,
I felt, no, heard you burst across space,
you maniacal, mystical mathematician, 
you dreaming android, you Dick trickster!
Ba ha ha! you guffawed, Why isn't
the language of math also the language 
of soul, of consciousness? I am an algorithm!
Your wireless desire shot through cyberspace
became my voice’s conduit! Of course! This, 
your final poetic proverb, enigmatic epigram,
your magnum opus of philosophical jokes:
William Wayne Reed: Algorithm and Asshole. 
Under cover of night, I would steal into Riverside 
Cemetery, carve it on your headstone, cosmic
old loner, if you have one. I would sprinkle 
your unlikely ashes over Dick’s final plot.
I would sing it in alliterative liturgy.
Giggle amen. Goodbye, my loyal friend,
my Gordian tempunaut.

2021