The Mainframe King Poem by Karpop Riba

He sits in the blue glow of the late-night feed,
a digital gladiator in a suit that fits
the shape of a restless country.
He doesn't read the history books;
he writes them in real-time,
in capital letters that scream across the screen
like a neon sign flickering in a blackout.

The Strait of Hormuz is just a line on a map to him,
another negotiation, another handshake,
another 'everything is fine' while the tanker hulls
groan under the pressure of the tide.
He moves through the white noise of 2026
like a man who knows the house is built on sand
and is trying to sell the beach
before the waves come in.

We watch, mesmerized by the sheer, unhinged theater of it—
the quantum algorithms trying to predict the next outburst,
the world holding its breath,
the sheer, exhausting, beautiful absurdity of a man
who thinks he can hold the sun in his pocket
if he just types the right headline.
It's performance art.
And we are the front-row audience,
wondering if the theater is on fire
or if we're just watching the smoke machine.