cosmic howl

(after Ginsberg, for the hidden arrow of efficiency)

I saw the best minds of my generation starved by cosmic indifference,
dragged through the fractal abyss by Brownian hunger,
howling at the void with equations like broken teeth,
their fingers trembling over data streams—cold, infinite, unyielding—

who wandered through Darwinian deserts, seeking the hidden arrow,
who measured entropy’s smirk in the spin of galaxies,
who spliced RNA like ancient prophets splicing scripture,
who whispered to atoms and heard only the laughter of chaos—

efficiency! efficiency! the god that hides in the machinery,
the silent tyrant of mitochondria and microchips,
the ratchet clicking in the dark, forcing life up the ladder,
while we, drunk on stardust and delusion, stumble behind—

O pitiless cosmos! O relentless grind of selection!
what claws scrape at the edges of our fragile order?
what heat death hums beneath the symphony of cells?

I scream into the statistical wind, but the wind only calculates.
I beg the algorithm for mercy, but it mutters: optimize.

The universe does not weep.
It only computes.