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Steve D'Beard Jan 2013
I should've guessed
by the nondescript response
teenagers glazed
by 'proper' use of language;
'old-speak' as some would see it
yet to be blessed by a words prowess
fazed by more than 1 syllable
seems inconceivable
and yet text-speak sits,
or rather, should be, languish,
as a hybrid of our languages
prompts me to write this
out of plain literary anguish.

each year on birthdays
write a small poem or limerick
the momentary excitement of opening the card
is lapsed by reason
(it does not contain a £20 note)
the thought bubble denotes
they express some disdain
the speech bubble that follows
the spark in the brain
just another of Uncles gimmicks
lacking the imagination to invoke
something more personal
than a hardback book:
another 200 recipes
for the aspiring young cook

they implied they enjoyed lunchtimes at school
instead wanted an iPad or something
equally expensive and cool

So I try to embrace it
this thing they call urban
write something poetic in text-speak
the very premise of it
is somewhat disturbing
the infinite curve of learning
LOLs from actual LOLS;
the mobile language equivalent
of online voyeurs,
the posters of nonsense,
noobs and trolls

apparently a ROFL
is more-or-less as potent as ****
I scratch my head in wonder
text-speak is used by millions
to converse on a global scale
some how

Q: does SUM exist
(as in 'shut ur mouth' )
is that acceptable?

A: not yet cordially invited on the list
(its an actual word
doesn't count as an acronym)
Im told

the coal face of the lexicon:
indigestible
the steep learning curve:
unpredictable

by your 30s its automatically
re-classified:
Congratulations
You are now officially 'Old'

we are merely wordsmith pedestrians
lost in the tide of text-speak equestrians
jumping and leaping and rolling in SETE and S2R's
are we binned as an S4L, the Spam For Life?
(perhaps I haven't got that abbreviation quite right)

in the context of text-speak
they are suitably troll-like in their essence
forgive me dear teenager
I am but a
SNAG in your presence:

'Sensitive'
(on occasion)
'New
Age' and
'Grown-up'
(given the right persuasion)

the riposte would be SUYF!!
('Shut Up You Fool' - said like MR. T in A-Team)
STM and Spank The Monkey
apologise, SOZ, SRY and Apls
or something equally short,
snappy and funky

at this juncture
before the brain has a puncture
simply BBFN, lest I
BBS or BBIAB or BBIAF
[thankfully this isn't a test]

like WCA
(Who Cares Anyway)
but you'd remark WAI
(and thats I for Idiot)
let out a long distance sigh
wave the imaginary fist
at the youth of yesteryear

all you'd get back was
Wicked Evil Grin
(WEG) for a
Wild *** Guess
(WAG);
a WEG for a WAG
and a PDQ x 2

would be the sum parts of the conversation
between me and you

if language and words and meaning was lost
if acronyms and abbrieviations
in CAPS
was all that there was

*** smeared in ***
with APLS for the PMJI
TXT SPK has got me PML
when MHBFY and
M8s on a MOB crusade
AWOL and dizzy for the next API
MGB for your MF device
throw in some GALGAL logic
where GIGO will simply suffice
Warning: PAW and GJIAGDV
(where the latter is Volcano)
include your GF for some cuddly GBH
and some GHP if she says so

its T2Go
be positive with the T+
and all of that Text-Speak CUZ
I'll T2UL and T for your time,
I'll TAH on the whole TBC

next year i'll just slip in a £20 note
and simply write:
Happy Birthday
with LV
from me
I have a disdain for text-speak as a replacement for language but it seems the only way to converse with teenage cousins on mobile, so I wrote this in response to that.
fireworks sparkle
the darkened sky of my memory,
sparkling through my soul in a pleasant wave,
uncovering a walk in the jungle of my heartland

and a guava tree.

I’m in my kitchen, filling my nose
with the delicate scent of ripening guavas from Mexico,
palmed in the chalice of my hands,
feeling my way to that jungle walk with my family when I was three
or maybe two, in Hawai’i

and the guava tree.

as I bite through the fragile skin of the yellow globe,
the seeds, like BBs, take me further into my remembrance,
my family around me sharing
the excitement and joy I felt when I saw and climbed

the guava tree.

after we moved back to the Mainland
to a desert paradise I also loved,
each Spring I came down with what I called my Island Virus:
a deep yearning and homesickness
for my heartland

and the guava tree.


c. 2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater
Maria Mitea Dec 2021
because it  burns  you
you don't like the sun
and the shadow doesn't buy a story,
It knows its edges and the milky ways,
attached to a leaf tail
chlorophyll counts its rays,
***** energy from its light,
- we grow elephant ears,
our heads have shrunk like the peak of a needle
bifurcated,
time does not lie
instead of being permanently bent
head
now it is one meter above the ground
hands / feet / thighs
we do everything we want in upright bipeds
yes,
to get out of africa
we walked thousands of years until we  picked up "the first thumb up"
then again we walked thousands of years,
we raised the thumb up again
thousands of years ... thumb (up) drive one gigabyte,

time does not lie

- i saw you at the țoțora in the polk of medhorotsky,
with the toma from brăila digging  ditches to keep your feet lower,
at a french carnival, you loved a girl and called her by the name
consuelo, mon amour, consuelo, - you wielded swords,
used feathers to write (with the blood) on a soap bubble
you were looking for

the time that does not lie

did you say:

- the night is just beginning to taste like molasses
- from afar, you see love like a bloated balloon lost in the distance
- to recognize the shape of the earth, i have to feel the stars beneath my feet,
to see the one above my head
- people are programmed to see faces even in sandwiches,
to believe strange things, that they can walk on the water or
like in little prince  to believe a talking fox: “though the eyes are eyes, they cannot see,
only the heart can,
tame a flower, and you”ll see that time does not lie ... ”
then what can you expect from the sun
when it burns like a madman in the wilderness and dances like a *****,

hallucinate

they say we are 13.7 billion light-years from the edge,
how  the sun not to like you when it heard you singing a song without a sound,
so simple and clear,
and now every morning it brings you a basket of jackfruit at the gate,

be ”the edge” truth or assumption,
”the foam that forms us and breaks into a vast cloud of styrofoam bbs” (Ken”s words)
who knows, otherwise
it seems that we are close to knowing the real shape of the earth:
jump up, fall on it, is  not  moving,
standstill and solid,
it doesn't matter which way you want to go
you can go in any direction
go far enough
go as far as you can
you will always reach the ocean

did you say:
- we live on an island
Some Person Feb 2015
everything's perfectly aligned on screen
IM windows in the corner,
my several pinned tabs:
email, poetry, music, analytics stuff,
and a book a girl told me about
my desk is a disaster:
a book about curing moods
from one of my best friends
tax papers, pay stubs,
eye drops, spent soccer tickets,
a can of anti-itch spray,
plastic bbs, empty boxes,
and paraphernalia
the clock only keeps ticking
and I wonder if the devil in me
will come out in my dreams again tonight
I hope I don't wake up on the floor again
Ken Pepiton Jul 2023
Next then now, then next
no line, no dot, nothing now

time passes, came to pass,
as a near answer, a near new
point from which to view now.


In my case, my time as part,
smallest difference made,

the air you breathe, once,
I breathed into, and once,

I made you think yourself,
become a being I am not, but

then,
time,
and chance, all things working,
being, by gone, on gone working
to gather the momentum to make
time stretch into another whole mo-
ment, monumental pillar of earth salt.

At this point, next seems inevitable.
So we wait.
Thinking a next like this next one,
has never had a state of being common.

What - all ifery asks, if, imagined, seen, see

we agree and proceed to see, so time's
essence is momentarily mental, we think,
therefore we do many mental moments, we
think we would, or could or should be ready
for ever to cease forming myself, from myself,

slowing time, to myself, for myself, taking mine
and forming some for you to use, to take a second

order of packeted eventuality, side-tracked,
to let the important news of many deaths elsewhere,
make us agree to become so much better informed,

buy the best life has on offer, ready,
read the instructions.
{ lifetime acheivement, never reached}
Chiefest among missers of the mark.

Of course, in the course of human events,
from the playing fields of Eton, to the battlefields
of Afghanistan, what power reigns supreme?
- The Lion came, and brought the Tiger,
- the Bear came, and left, and then the Rat,
- or the Weasle, we can even see a Squirrel
- in the role of first worst case scenario on offer.
VOG - quiet on set, quiet back stage,
mind reengage tongue, taste the fertile reality, who
and what we are, enjoyment, actually, being, mere joy,
ahoy, adrift in all our otherwords, set idle by our tech-logic
- What fear rules the man who has learned his role?
Broken leg, reversed cursing, blessing God, just in case.

-- A day, Ivan Denisovich, Zeks, yes,
man's inhumanity to man, and best layed plans

plotted course of concentration, minds meld, given
incentive to spill over the banks of the feeder canals,

as the hermit's cistern in the Lagunas, topped it's edge,
and he sighs, thinking, so it is, you got a cistern,
I gotta cistern, if yours were to overflow,
it is your fault, or your glory for the joy, in the streets
in the summer,
in the city, back o' yo' neck red and sweaty, you dig,
you become worthy of the daily bread we are given
for righteous duty done, did I do, or did you, did we

sing along with the bouncing ball, did we all?

Thinking, all we do is wait,
becoming old, we wait to finish thinking,
thinking old, old, olden days, before letters,
before
knowing, being nothing, becoming this, these
lines of lettering linking noises used among us
to carry thought from me, myself and I, to you,

the one other at the moment, in the state,
what if, what if, what if nothing makes more
difference than you, one of us, one in our once

in an unbroken history of science and philosophy,
our hours of confluency, our instants in shared
learning, minutes of life's use, as used to make us
up from nothing… to think about a series of every

expansion to our sense of connectedness, seeing
we lieve being true, first proof the priests do lie,

first proof the chaos is not evil, but essential
patient zero, paradigm,
"logical or conceptual structure
serving as a form of thought
within a given area
of experience," Kuhn, perhaps, aligned

any worth, any value, any cost or price,
eventually, any time is too short.
Any vessle filled with experiential wonders
projected on reflective walls, six ways walled.
windowed and doored.

In parts, in passing, taking offerings
left in pasts for hungry spirits, urging

answer seeking, seeming endless, whying,
ifing, framing forms for fitting twos to ones,

as when we agree, we form a two headed
thing, with we agreeing meatily to work
as carnal minds do, given set and setting,

inform a vessle for holding self evidence.

Governing systems, blindman crosswalks,
mandated, ai, remote eye aware, are we,
seeing from television, new form, digitized
bit maps of surprising resolution, if one re-
members learning lessons of scale, how tall,
how small, the ratio, this pattern of whorls,

and that, fingerprint from some once in ever,
there, we all see it, so huge we lack the frame
of referrence, we cannot bear the weight of knowing

we are the tipped point on our wave's recourse
around the laws serving stanchion roles in god's houses.

Pillars formed from promises, to those who find the time,
now, in a given day,
plain old everyday summertime, growing time, passing
as quaint, handcrafted meditation stations, desert fathers,

have we any wool, yessir, yessir, three bags full,
master, dame, and some poor spinner
who lives down the lane… earning daily bread,
as penance for being born in sin, losing all the good God
had planned, I' know a guy,
he can tell this story,
as a called and reconnected son, of God.

And the likelihood, actuarially, as tithes passed,
interesting, heft, umph, to the indulgent users, knowing
good and evil, evil is lazy money, doing no man any good.

Knowing how to grow more money, Midas, reminds,
as do many voices from the tombs, liars prosperity changes

legends, shapes myths, fixes history just so, at the instant,
we knew, we all knew, at once, everything,
is after ever before,
and we have stores of knowns, unbeknownst,
arranged in time and alpha beth order, for habitual
referrence, you know, we all know religions are powers
wielded by Ideal candidates, chosen children, and broken
old ladies,
what mystery is more mysterious than they,
the power they rewield as time stamps, proof, there

that guy was a witness, and he was not there,
on the stair, I
sat, imagining I remembered that, and found it odd.

I have been lied to, and I have lied, to you, I do,
naturally, I am of that class of sapient things, I can
lie, if lying leads the mark into the mark-et try and do,

do, indeed, Yoda, wink. Done, and beheld, now, that
is time well spent.

AND there's more…

Meta Kuhnian Crisis Paradigm.

Four nickles, two dimes, time was,
two novels, or four one reel peep shows,
-SECOND COMING TYPE- ten 2 cent papers
WAR CALLS
PEACE-
times means for holding a cultural bubble,
intact, sticky in fact, tacky to the touch,

RSO and blue stripes… settled hermit state,
from a granite lip of a feng shui breeze,
AI, what do I know - in summary,
a procession
Summarizer
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is a book written by philosopher Thomas S. Kuhn in 1962.12 Kuhn argued that scientific advancement is not linear, but rather a series of peaceful interludes punctuated by intellectually violent revolutions, where one conceptual world view is replaced by another.3 The book offers a general pattern of scientific change, where inquiries in a given field start with a clash of different perspectives.1 Eventually, one approach manages to resolve some concrete issue, and investigators concur in pursuing it—they follow the "paradigm." Kuhn challenged long-standing linear notions of scientific progress, arguing that transformative ideas don't arise from the day-to-day, gradual process of experimentation and data accumulation, but that the revolutions in science, those breakthrough moments that disrupt accepted thinking and offer unanticipated ideas, occur outside of "normal science." The historical process of science is divided into three stages: a "normal" stage, followed by "crisis" and then "revolutionary" stages.0

Of my own volition, if one were to assume
one of my stations in life could possibly know my own will,
revolunteered to lead a raid behind the lines,
out of loyalty to a bucket list
perfect cow dismemberment, check,
tear a sacred cow to shreds and leave it to be ciphered out,
by farmers living high on the Teapot Dome affair,
and its coincidence to great social reformation,
- steam roll, electric mind of Tesla
- and all the unsung genius under Edison, into one,
- as the online entity with roots back to BBS and
- dial tone tricks of a switch…
yes, the burden of the rich, as we saw the similarities,
become the unresolved problem,
- mission drift, art intuited cognosis
have you never read where it is written that we,
we who read
being the only letting being
to let it be known, that we are to judge angels,
- where does this go?
as best messaging noncorporeal beings, wielding spirit in truth,
not some clown troupe trope miss
representing feeble minds reattempting trials,

Not Clarence, or Caspar, or the couple in the Thin Man,
nor Harvey, the Pooka manifested as human in a rabbit hat.

In profile he became the ******* Logo, same rabbit head guy.
Bunny lore, wrapped in chinchilla, soft as kitten fur,

who would ever tell?

--- Business, summer makes me think of winter sales.

No curious use of curio arts, ancient
beta better possible ways, from when we knew nada
at all, zip, zilch, no se, no way, we were babes,

and if we are raised, we become like animals, we sweat.
But, if we are reared, we become as men, we perspire.

As sentient beings who read as readily as we write,
we accept the role of reader as ours by right, or rote
ritual quotidian duty, each day, we plan to finish re-en
lightening the mob, the masses, eight billion of us now,

as we approach the peak, powers of ten, times six,
why six,
cubes stack nice… least heat, cool
enough to seal a preset get,
go, be gone to elicit light,
research into mind mold.
I write for fun, the stuff in entertainment, mental activa, I may suppose.
At least I can never say I'm lonely
Even though the company
I indefinitely carry
Are for the most part
repetitive and bleak
Constantly and consistently
Pointing out my every move
Which I know I made
An insignificant groove
Maybe its others you wish to inform
But mine and mine alone
You are my mental thunder storm
Acid rain precipitates from my amygdula  to my cerebral cortex
A perfect storm creates
The perfect weather
My last bit of sanity to the stem I tether
For better or worse
Well I'm sick and I'm stuck
With you
But I didn't, and won't
stand at an alter with the likes of you
And willingly say the words I DO
Cause I don't
but since you had the shotgun
And I just had my lil **** in my hand
Then I guess you win for now
Cause they say the ***** is mightier than a shell full of little metal projectile BBs that sole purpose of creation is to take the life of anything it's forced at but I've got a trick up my hat and rabbit up my sleeve just waiting for the perfect moment I've been craving
Luckily divorce is legal and it seems kinda like the popular thing to do now might as well get in with the trend
Rowan Jun 2019
I have an extensive knowledge of things
many people might call useless.

I can explain to you the evolution of the Doctor,
the Dalek’s rise and downfall, the breath of a Rose.
Merlin and Arthur live in tandem, two sides of the same coin,
and it’s hard not to see, they mean more than simple friends in their reality.
Castiel, Gabriel, Lucifer, Hael, Michael, Eziekel, Raphael, among many are
the warriors of God, a man who writes comics about the Winchester brothers.
“Yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” is my favorite quote from Russell Howard’s Recalibrate,
and Danial Sloss’s bit about jigsaws hits a note, a truth Ed Sheeran does too, in the last line,
“And before I get to love someone else, I’ve got to love myself.”
Of course, they mean romantic love, it can take someone loving you platonically to learn to love yourself.

I crawl around the corners, searching for this information, the tidbits I can throw at people,
Look and see me, I’ve got things you ain’t never seen before, as referenced to Secretariat,
said by Eddie Sweat. Tiny things, picked up from Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram, ‘tis I, the frenchiest fry’.
I have a store racked with snapshots of a million different stories packed tight in my head and I’m desperately trying to shove these facts to fill this void I cannot fill.

I can tell you blue waffles are Percy’s favorite food, that Nico deserved better and look at me like come and watch the kid with a slowly declining mental health as he attempts to give you what he cannot give himself. Bo Burnham. BBS came from a video featuring a yellow school bus and a fuckton of shouting. Terroriser and Danisnotonfire are comfortable in their gender, and so is my friend Evan. **** the terms and conditions of masculinity, take the signatures and white out the scrawled names, break away from the lines we try to box you in.

Tumblr doesn’t always get it right, often times they get it wrong, but somethings I’ve found on there have helped me calm down a friend from an anxiety attack, have shown me truths I don’t want to see. It also taught me that carrier pigeons could fly eighteen hundred kilometers and were used as early as three thousand years ago. Have you ever seen what fan art can do? The stunning creations made by people who don’t expect any money or expectations? What of the fanfictions? We have to pay for food, water, electricity, but yet we can delve into books, a lifeline for many, for free? Kudos to them.

This is the world I have fought to live in since I can remember. This is the hunger I am trying to sate inside of me, but it only grows and I can’t keep up with it. When I can’t be me… facts, connections, the only places I can feel through are the books, movies, shows, YouTube videos. I make reference after reference, hoping to connect with someone else, to find a place I belong and…

And I can’t stop. I can’t stop. I can’t—
Alice Sep 2018
I want to give you clear instructions on how to make the blood bead up.
You start with an edge, blunt is fine, but sharper is better.
Then, you choose a side, the one less scarred is usually best.
Once you’ve chosen, pull the skin taut, it’ll make the slice easier.
Then draw the tip of your object of choice across the skin.
Do it over and over, until the proper amount of depth is achieved
to create BBs of blood ebbing from the new line in on your hip.
Move on to a different section, continuing to slice until your leg
is sufficiently covered in rubies.
Rinse item, tend wound(s), and repeat the next time
you feel numb inside or like you might explode.
Please be aware this poem contains references to self-harm and mental illness.  DO NOT READ if you feel this will cause you great distress.  And please, if you are in distress, ask for help!  Things do get better :)
Annie Dark Aug 2016
That biology project you do in 7th grade where you put a kernel of corn inside of a wet paper towel, and a week later it sprouts cute little green roots

When Jacob told me I had gunk in my ear, but didn’t know what it was, and that it was disgusting

middle school
Quick moments of total awe and mortification

I think I’m allergic to this face cream I’m using 

EVERYTHING IS SO ITCHY

My hell is someone telling me how to do something, without me even asking

I’m cutting these green beans and barely missing my fingers,
I can’t tell if it’s on purpose or not

They (the green beans) smell like a 6th grade field trip,
where we went to that lake and scraped pond ****, and then looked at its inhabitants’ tiny glass bodies, writher around on top of that hot ***, glass microscope slide. Burning in the focused light. Poor bbs

— The End —