Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Oskar Erikson Mar 27
it’s only i get a little scratchy across my shins at 1:33
forehead against work desk
leant down to run a track on my legs
phone untouched, shortcuts retraced
HTT ..PS//
ishouldntcheckyoursocials.      us.

couldn’t make me an addict of loss
which really is the untapped potential
for the future internet of things
safari, waystone.
safari, favourer of webpage rerunners,
safari, guide me back to a bookmarked
cliff-edge of ache.

cookies know me better than my housemate who’s sweetness blocked his accounts before something broke and we’d have to talk about it.

once the whiter lines appear on shinskin like my algorithm
I can sit back up
if not satiated at least appeased
the sound my lungs make isn’t really laughing or crying but
a wheeze.
Robert Ronnow Mar 19
Books to the library
photos to family.
Paint cans and lumber
from renovations years ago.
Most of the furniture
including the piano.
Fastest way to do this
is rent a dumpster.

On the internet
nothing’s permanent.
I like that.
Photosynthesis, evaporation
as if your spirit disappears
when the sun appears.
It’s a burden lifted
not to have to persevere.

Edits
for clarity
and brevity.
One owes the reader
a respite from
the tonnage of
fructifying English.
To drown one’s book is devoutly to be wished.

Coupla trumpets,
big comfy couch,
four beds and dressers
and the contents of closets.
Tools we don’t use,
surge protectors and chargers,
lawn and patio accoutrements,
table settings for ten.

Lamplit underground,
the stray branch,
synchronized chaos,
a red fez.
One canary,
map of Antarctica,
three deaf little otoliths,
six or seven sybils.

Extra salt and pepper shakers,
sharpies and crayons,
a printer and a scanner,
the Bible and Koran.
Kaput calculators and computers,
subscriptions and prescriptions,
a host of vitamins
and the ghosts of ancestors.

Time itself
but not nature.
Wealth
and most of culture
but not my health.
That I’ll keep,
and sleep—practice
for perfect rest.
Francie Lynch Feb 14
There was once a time of quietude.
If I said something;
Showed you something,
Or did something; and,
If it was warm and loving,
Interesting or whimsial,
Controversial or agreeable,
You might nod, shake your head,
Sigh,
Maybe gesture with a hand-
Yes or No or Maybe.

I'm reading.
There's too  much noise.
Some friends, many strangers,
Laughing... loudly...
Out loud;
Smiling, hugging, liking, Wowing, loving, tsking. crying...
So much emotion.
I can hear them.

Not long ago,
But mostly gone,
Like silent films
It was quiet.
LOL WOW *** :)
Kagey Sage Jan 29
I sense loss and yearning all around
I used to chalk it up as a personal hurdle to jump
or just the feeling of aging while the youth still goes on
Yet I think I this malaise is widespread
Impacting all of us in our glitching global trade

I used to think the issue was there’s just too much now
Too much to watch, listen, and taste
You don’t need the hunt anymore
Don’t need to wait or pay some exorbitant price
I used to feel overstimulated by the streams
and just could not decide
I still feel, it’s not that we want to do the thing,
but we yearn to want to want to do the thing
again

Is that all that’s changed?
Those who are not ready to be creators
will certainly not be ready to be curators
Freed ourselves from DJs and TV programming
but what control have we flailed ourselves into?
Wasting hours a day watching 30 second videos
whose categories are heavily curated
impersonally, just for you
Remember when user preferences worked
and in searches they wouldn’t hide the whole list
of all that was relevant and new?
Kagey Sage Jan 26
I don’t play my mandolin everyday anymore,
let alone my guitar or tin whistles
I can’t let this die
I listened to 7 year old Japanese math rock
and want just a speck of that
An identity where I can sift right through
all this mediocre destruction all around
No one even has the gall to admit they’re killing
or the decency to even cover it up anymore
They videotape themselves dancing and
murdering kids for lebensraum
then turn around and say “no we’re not”

I’m tired of surface level house maintenance
followed by immobile phone scrolls
I’m looking for that lesson we’ll all learn
after finally going too far
I won’t play the victim or the hero no more
I did my part and now I’m too old
I need deeper art to escape samsara for good
and maybe that’s the best I can do comrades

I’m sick of details grown so scattered and thin
My whole past feels like entrails
smeared across vast desserts
There used to be rainforests here
but now it’s hard to find the pictures

Just when things almost get too competent and nice
they let decadence do its worse
out of fear that the improvements would make goods and services
too cheap not to be free
Socialism’s bad for business owners
so we lay off the workers and overcharge even more
Let the octogenarian billionaires buy up more water and air
to keep the fellas in the favelas gnashing and grim

Bunker complexes, spaceships, missiles coated in spent uranium;
these are all more important than starving children
Why do the poor keep having poor kids?
Still a conundrum
We gave them a chance to compete
some ephemeral time ago and they blew it
What can we do?
We tried to teach a man to fish…
Imagine Jesus Christ just giving folks fish and bread
for nothing in return?
Anais Vionet Oct 2023
In realms of cyberspace, I fly
searching out treasures in disguise
skirting advertised merchandise
the ordinary, the overemphasized
to anatomize the marginalized
values overlooked otherwise
on the dusty, neglected, virtual aisles
of small sites not over-commercialized
or google ranked and over-publicized
some unexpected payoffs materialize
glittering swag, patiences prize
“Oh, my God - Look!” I vocalize
My girlfriends can’t believe their eyes
“You can find anything,” they surmise.
Joseph C Ogbonna Sep 2023
As information is sourced, we knowledge add.
Entertainment is accessed by each ipad.
The cost of research is by the net reduced,
whilst addiction to **** is by it induced.

Banking transactions are by it made easy,
so does the convenience of a shopping spree.
We conveniently send mails by speed of light,
and connect to old buddies beyond our sight.

Its flash of lightening promotes the breaking news,
so does its ill wind the fake ones for our views.
It mocks distance with commercial activities,
and lures perverts to their ****** proclivities.

It does our world flatten with mobile services,
its not by distance hindered for con men's vices,
neither will it the distant swindled protect.
It does the deeds of distant bullies perfect.

Transnational love has by it been produced,
when love birds electronically are introduced.
Global link that binds us all like a cobweb;
Old and young alike, each enslaved by the web.
A poem about the internet. Its pros and cons.
Grace James Aug 2023
I see strangers on the Internet
talk about healing their inner child.
It made me go inward.
Think
and think
and think.

About little me.
Three, five, seven years old.
What she wore
what she ate
what she watched on TV.

How she danced,
twirled on and on
without a care in the world.

And as I saw her in my mind's eye
and felt her in my soul,
my heart was filled with a Great and Terrible Sadness.

Oh, how I've failed her!
I've abandoned her laugh
her warmth
her light.

I traded her valiance for fear,
her voice for silence.
Her smile and bright green eyes
for a dull film over too-pale features.

Oh, my poor, sweet child.
I am endlessly sorry.
I have failed you.
Failed you.
Failed you.

Those strangers on the Internet
want to heal their inner child.

But now
I wonder...
Can my inner child heal me?
David Cunha Feb 2023
Time skips in between screen time emptiness
Mind's fuzzy with the traffic sounds
Eyes blinded by the flashing lights
Hands struggle to reach something pleasurable, at least,
As the heart beats excited for the minute-lasting serotonin blast

The hair grows an inch each week,
The numbness comes in days and leaves for a couple hours by bits,
The blood's rage meets the grinning face of guilt,
And the will to change is temporary.

What will it be when I'm 70?
What will change in me?
What will it be like when I'm not me?
And if I'm not me, who else should I be?
Why should I care for the fate of the world?
Why can't I be cozy for 20 years and die alone, slowly?
Why do I have to get up in the first place?
Why do I have to belong to the human race?
Racing indefinitely
Pretending to wear the shield of bravery for someone else's dream-****-like-fantasy,

What are all these brands and all these bands of crows?
Eating fleshless people with money for bones
Why is the circus always in town?
Why does the TV lie?
Why does the Internet lie?
Why do the people who run our money lie?
Why do the people who run us lie?
Why is it all so fake and sly?
What is all this bellyful hunger?

What is it that I can't grasp?
Is our nature really all that nefast?
If this is peak humanity, why should it last?
- David Cunha
february 8, 2023
4:00 p.m.
neth jones Aug 2022
please-please   add your waxy scrolls
   truths   to the panic pyre
madden   an inflamed swarm of intelligence
worm warrens    into the collective of our brain
maybe
   having been riddled
      it'll collapse under the corrective strain
      and start blinking a genuine signal
process recognized    compassionate inkling
(46 words)
Next page