"digitally" poems
When did things change so much?
When did I get so encapsulated
Into the world of technology?
When did I stop listening
To myself and my own thoughts
And instead add another view
To some article or YouTube video
Just to reach some spoon-fed "opinion"?
When did we stop engaging
In life and with ourselves?
When did playing video games turn to
Watching other people play them online
Numbing our brains to the world
And "filling" our social needs digitally?
When did watching television turn into
Binge-watching an entire series in one sitting?
With this much constant stimulation
It's no wonder we're bored so easily
And that no one goes outside anymore
And that I don't feel alive anymore
Because one of the first things I do
When I get home from work or the gym
Is turn on the smart tv so it can warm up
Because the apps on it take time to load
And I already know that my free time
Will be spent in front of that screen
Lately I've been nervous about
Eventually moving in with new people
Primarily because I spend a lot of my time
Passively using the television
I was concerned with how we'd balance our usage
Instead of considering changing the way I spend my time
When did I start placing my use of technology
Above my own self-care?
When I spend hours watching YouTube
But still forget to take a shower sometimes
And I truly wonder if my recent urges
To leave the state to work on a farm for a month
Are more indicative of some deep desire
To unplug and reset my energy and priorities
Than my interest in agriculture or
Learning to live off of the land
When did I start to feel the need
To take such drastic measures
To change something so simple
Something I could choose to disengage with
At the simple touch of a button?
Feb 27, 2019
Feb 27, 2019 at 10:51 PM UTC
She loves the beat,
bass so heavy
it hurts.
She loves the heat,
ecstasy,
short skirt.
In the middle
of these times,
I'm square.
I'd like to be
with New York City,
if she'd ever take
a bore like me.
But
in the middle
of her times,
I'm square.
I'd like
to hear her
digitally
repeating,
with her
lips pressed
against my ear,
soft whispers,
heavy breathing,
*they can't stop me.
No,
they can't stop me
from dreaming.*
Feb 21, 2012
Feb 21, 2012 at 12:42 AM UTC
In this new world so connected digitally
Online with your smartphone or desktop continuously
Every touch or click with your fingers sublimely
Connecting messaging chatting seductively
Rush of dopamine brain lives ecstatically
Bits and bytes that rise and fall emotionally
Waiting for physical touch earnestly
LDR love seem to be extraordinarily
Yet to see LDR grows into LTR eventually
Dec 29, 2019
Dec 29, 2019 at 7:23 AM UTC
(Villanelle)
It takes patience to wait for the perfect light.
Glance away and the image can disappear.
And sometimes the background isn’t quite right.
The moment missed is like a face out of sight
That against all logic we hope will appear
From around a corner, bathed in perfect light.
Or a pause in the music on a moonlit night
When hesitating lips touch, and love leans near,
But voices whisper that something’s not right.
Technology offers consolation in its sleight
Of hand: Digitally correct the analog *here
And now*, counterfeit the perfect light.
Yet we want more than the mastered byte.
We want the flash between the waiting and the souvenir,
The instant when self and spectacle fuse, reality felt right.
And so we hold on to what’s passing out of sight,
The collision between soon and too late, the sheer
Thread connecting to the perfect light
In which the background is precisely right.
Jul 21, 2015
Jul 21, 2015 at 7:51 PM UTC
a quote of Bernard-Henri Lévy
~~~
the divers’ recovery, diverse,
shipwrecked salvage from different locations,
auctioned to the highest bidder,
tho the excised excerpts are exceptional,
none come to do the bidding,
for the provenance of words
belongs to all, and to none
~~
“so oft we trifle words,
expel them from the country of our body,
without passport and earnestness,
as if they were the cheapest of footnote filler,
day tourists, to be treated as leavings,
refuse for daily discardation,
barely noting their fast comings and faster disappearance,
but leaving not, a mark of distinction”
“the addicted pleasure words granted to we privileged few,
like every enslaved soul to the mind, which I am, I am,
evening dreams, midnight thinkings, sunrise seeings,
how can I infect and thus protect the young to the liberty
to love the crafted content of our human essence to better
comprehend that a moment caught on tape of our shared
words is a holiday, a celebration for the ages...and every molecule,
becomes a human tuning fork in concert, in pitch identical, in blood tainted with the simplicity of we are all the same, only words, this will transmit”
“murmur me, with soft downy charms,
these words discovered
recoursed and intended well to
pointedly offset and contradict
their very own tumultuous discovery uncovering,
tear tongue me
with calming, lapping word wages,
hymns harmonious and fine homilies,
a call, a request,
a bequest
to sedate my shrill life
“some cells, microscopic, preserved digitally,
aged to imperfection, thrash my eyes,
making me speak in tongues I do not recognize,
but fluently possess, no wonder there,
the memory place fairly empty,
room aplenty for passerby's and the imagery
of the vaguest of dearly departed
skin is not the only mot shed,
sloughing of woeful words”
“speak them slow and distinct,
for they arrive slow to you,
a trickling of refugees for your sheltering,
harbor them as full companions,
protected by natural law,
provision them well,
prepared and ever ready for a quick departure,
moor these words at the embarcadero,
for the next restless leg of endlessness,
which they themselves will inform you
will last longer than eternity,
long after there are no humans to speak them”
Mar 27, 2019
Mar 27, 2019 at 4:55 AM UTC
The poem was inspired by a particular photo of the WT C, and after that by my first visit to the 9/11 Memorial. On the day of 9/11, I was working about a diagonal mile away, and from our windows, we could see people jumping to their death.
Open sky annulled
to bordered lines of
uptown edges,
worldview momentarily
forcibly redefined by
memories of buildings and sadder days,
recollections of pillars of biblical smoke rising
A photograph
makes me look up,
and sit down historically,
need to catch a breath,
to rest mentally,
upon a storied small bridge's steps,
that I well recall,
a disappeared street stoop.
all were rubble then and once
upon that day.
Wear, tear, and older eyes distill perspective,
but the hardy heart is hardly stilled
by the recognizable gray upon
bon vivant gray reflective surfaces of
memories of buildings and sadder days
So today, on a reborn street,
I rest upon reconstituted speckled curbstone,
the city's lowered down ledges,
the city's lowered down-town boundaries,
constantly redrawn, but
nonetheless, always rebuilt from their own
regenerated stony compost,
and the NY passersby doesn't even notice
a man, head in hands,
silently weeping, thinking that:
We throw away so much we should have kept.
We keep so much we should have thrown away.
Lose keepsakes, but keep our mysterious sadnesses
locked away in compartments that open only to
benedictions uttered in ancient tongues.
Make your own list,
be your own curator,
catalogue visions of sophomoric triumphs,
museum mile pile
those early poetic drafts,
be unafraid of memories
raw and ungentrified,
overlaid, buried underneath
postmortem of dust-piles of senior critiques
Finally went downtown to see
where the blessed water falls
into catacomb pits that once
were the foundations
of buildings that ruled the cityscape,
downtown anchors
for a modern city that exists
only because it was built on
million year old granite bedrock
Stone monuments are stolid, discrete.
Memories are of grayed, frayed edge consistency.
Negatives resurrected that survive digitally,
all blend synthetically, layer upon layer,
essence distilled in a single,
black and white photograph
that serves to
disturb complacency,
awaken stilled pain,
reflections suppressed,
are restored
Sep 11, 2013
Sep 11, 2013 at 6:36 PM UTC
Patiently waiting for the perfect light.
Glassy lake, wind, clouds, perfection’s near
as the moment dwindles into night.
Captured moments prove that you’re alive, a height
of feeling between depths of time and fear
that living casts only imperfect light.
But the moment missed is like a face out of sight
that against all logic you hope will appear
from around a corner, framed by the night.
Technology offers consolation in its sleight
of hand: Digitally correct the analog here
and now, counterfeit the perfect light.
Yet you want more than the remastered byte.
You want the flash between waiting and souvenir,
Self and spectacle fused, reality felt right.
And so you wait for what’s passing out of sight,
the collision between soon and too late, sheer
threads connecting to the perfect light
before the moment dwindles into night.
May 28, 2019
May 28, 2019 at 8:56 PM UTC
Screen time
We need to have
Essential
Moments of mandatory misery
Grasping, tugging emotions
Un-liked, ignored emoticons
The puffed-green faces of ourselves
Dot
The landscape and portraits of
Screens
Screaming at, about, into
The refined, together
Socially happy selves
That we would be, should be
If we abide broadcast expectations
Joyful, complete, happy, helpful
Free…
We are not
Not always
Precisely completed
Or so
These moments
Remind us
With beautiful
Misery
Jul 16, 2014
Jul 16, 2014 at 7:18 PM UTC
She kept up with her housekeeping.
Typically. Very Neat. Shelves everywhere.
Today, the melon baller was out of place
and she was busy batting flies.
Actually, there was only one fly.
Senses deceived.
The humming was too loud to go undisturbed.
Attention becomes focused digitally
on enhanced minute wrecks.
Hours spent trying to get the flies.
Illusion.
One fly.
She didn't know. Suspected worst.
Kept at it.
The sexless man walked in with a tophat. Brimmed.
Asks why the dishes weren't done.
Too Busy.
Why the floor not swept.
Too Busy.
Vacuum.
There's flies to get. I'm busy.
The house is a mess. The house is a wreck.
Dec 1, 2013
Dec 1, 2013 at 8:20 AM UTC
now, I was just minding
my own business
brought up by very virtuous parents
steeped in a culture ancient and proper
and graced with divine revelations;
the lotus forever growing pure
even in muddied waters;
and so minding my own business
and vowed to matrimonial chastity in mind
never looking at another woman
and never thinking of another ever
I mean no one thought
looking at Mona Lisa
even in my younger days
was ever bad; they simply said:
Oh, Mona Lisa…what a painting!
so I went about years
chaste, pure and I think, angelic,
until these women come into art books
and now more readily in cyber-life
like Rembrandt’s Bathing Woman -
oh, how could I not look?
She, Hendrickje, more natural and
more come-here-you than
today’s airbrushed digitally enhanced beauties…
O Hendrickje, Hendrickje,
entering the water
and lifting up her dress
so it won’t get wet
but O – was that really her intention?
Or perhaps to entice Rembrandt further?
Or to look at her own reflection?
and then what about us, full-blooded men of latter-days –
O Rembrandt, what have you done?
how can I not look, and look?
and come back to look again?
and under pretence of aesthetics I trace every
limb and curve of Hendrickje, O Hendrickje –
I become a Rembrandt of sorts,
just tracing lines on her image
O these cyberspace beauties
they corrupt my high ideals
And Rembrandt says across the ages:
Remember you your traditions and virtue…
And the morally upright say:
Hey! She was Rembrandt’s woman!
And I can only quip: Yeah - she was!
and leaving it at that
with O Hendrickje, Hendrickje,
gazing at her own reflection
and I wondering what she sees –
well, after Hendrickje, O Hendrickje
am I safe? you think?
Then come the women of Japan –
for instance
A woman Applying Powder
while Hashiguchi Goyō sketched and mixed his paints -
and why? Oh why, Hashiguchi Goyō?
why do you release these sirens, these women
this Woman after her Bath
this Woman combing her hair -
O these mistresses of the arts
O why release them
on my sensitive and pure
and morally upright mind?
O why you do corrupt
such a one
such a noble mind
that centuries of spiritual values jousted one another
to produce? Such a delicate specimen as I am.
Or may be
all these women should be deleted from cyberspace
and only decent women with quizzical smiles like
Mona Lisa should prevail…
Sure, we don’t know what she’s smiling about
but at least Old Lisa’s not as dangerous
as youthful Hendrickje, O Hendrickje -
or
as the Woman Applying Powder
baring her shoulders and her Japanese *****
I mean, how can I not look?
and come back again to look?
O my adulterous heart!
but delete them all
or black them out
or cover them all up from head to foot
(technology can do wonders nowadays)
so
I can just be minding
my own business
brought to you by very virtuous parents
steeped in a culture ancient and proper
and divine revelations
the lotus forever growing pure
even in muddied waters;
and I’ll end up in Heaven after all my Holy Days
and for my Eternal Holidays there
I’ll be given all the virgins I’ll ever want
Jul 30, 2011
Jul 30, 2011 at 4:38 AM UTC
We want answers,
And we want them now.
Generations scrolling down together, receiving
Informal lessons from sometimes qualified strangers,
Impulsively living, giving status updates,
Proudly showing the world pictures
Of all the places we’ve been -
Twittering to gain followers, digitally devoted,
But consistently losing the edge,
Heading back to Starbucks to refill.
Welcome to the 21st century,
Where life spills into the abstract,
And we consume with the click of a button.
You’re only a copy-and-paste away
From a satisfactory translation,
A GPS away from your next location,
One computer screen freeze
Away from total frustration.
Just ask a teacher, they know exactly
Where the future lies, somewhere
Between a child’s wandering eyes
And flippant commercials, there is
Utterly, complete concentration.
What’s the solution?
More time preparing
For entrance exams?
Creating more diverse
Lesson plans?
Either way, students will
Still quote Spongebob
And call you a square.
Aug 31, 2011
Aug 31, 2011 at 1:39 AM UTC
Took one step into his lonesome world.
The clouds there were peculiarly pixelated in a forgettable shade of #999999
Digitally coded water vapor condensing into dense bubbles of thought
They resembled puzzle pieces childishly misplaced
Naivety was finger-painted along the lining and edges
While other bits played a quiet game that seemed to find them wanting
I did wonder where he hid them
Or if it was someone else who ran away
Who stole the stars in his sky?
Who stole the light in his pocket?
Took another step into his lonesome world.
The wind there had a dance of it's own that seemed to trace a pattern
Oscillating at a rate of 15Hz was a low frequency partner-less sway
Similar to eyelids confused and batting their lashes
Or wiper blades clearing tears off cars during a storm
Occurring without much thought was the drizzle with each wave
I did wonder why he danced alone
Or was it someone else who simply walked off
Who turned his sky on?
Who turned his lights off?
Took a breath standing in the center of his lonesome world.
I looked up and to my surprise found the eye of his mind
Staring back at me from those ***** clouds
It was the reason to all being and the wind was it's doing
Rising high up from an endless undisturbed nap
It was;
Brighter than the Sun itself
Bursting citrus with each blink
Bleeding pulp over my skin
Burning like acid on my own wounds
Delightful heat dripping off my tongue
Psychedelic spirals twisting my limbs
And
i danced and spun
And
i lost and won
Please find me somewhere in those broken memories of yours
Dec 20, 2013
Dec 20, 2013 at 8:14 AM UTC
he craves online hook-ups.
But this isn't me
nor am I that intrepid
a torrent trampoline
on wireless ether engines
cyber silver surfin'
zone on / in .nets & .coms
searching fiber-optics for sight
browsing rooms of M4M / in-fantasized delights
an itch to fix
to sit transfixed
as if
subliminally attached
umbilically
digitally digitized digi-man
to a electronic felatio soundtrack
yet all the while detached
lurking duplicitly
reading pretend profiles explicitly
for *** sexified mind
dreaming up new fetishes
with misspelled texts
tandem testimonials as if written
by a Compaq-machine-head
Microsoftened lust
currents electric now as we turn into dust
with iBooks & faraway Dells on our laps
scrolling lists for Adams
status' with "anything goes"
remonstrating our vicious cycle
alive & blank with un/trust
gone viral...
this isn't me.
where is the warmth
of feelings, emotions,
malleable and infallible / love??
I am not as talented
as he
to be in two places at once,
but he
has the many faces
and genius of multiple personalities
Cybil
facets
of sabotage with Mommy Dearest grace.
Beautiful strangers his acquired
taste...
he says it was not him
(doing ****
my rage has only one trait.
two eyes (once wide asleep in the lies)
and velvet-rope-burned
wrists
my feet learn to fly
my heart un-breaks
my wings reanimate...
he has too many faces
doppleganger hatred
none to care for or embrace
When did I go blind,
and leave my many strengths?
Where do I now
again
begin??
(The rubble or the sin?)
Every night adieu
Every day anew
once again...
Jan 3, 2016
Jan 3, 2016 at 6:43 PM UTC
put down thy pen,
it is in disrepute,
smash thy tablet,
crack its glass...
house the mouse,
don't be an ***
genus human,
you have been
antihero morphed
anthromorprophesized,
****** simply, replaced
you poem prophecy
returned,
stamped,
Unneeded, Unread, Unheeded
you have been excused,
you have been recused,
jury, a chamber of inconclusive noises
dismissed,
the judge will digitally
write all
from now on...
submit your selected tags
for laughs,
a different poem returned to you,
by a digital "humanist"
what do I crave?
give me your youthful typos,
let me literate critique
the good, the bad, the
trite repetitive and especially
the ugly
poetry,
the kind only
humans can write
so I love or hate it,
your literacy,
with impassioned dispassion,
the kind no machine will e'er transcend
pull the plug on your random alphabet generator,
Eliot of York,
or you might find yourself
upgraded into unempoement!
Apr 11, 2014
Apr 11, 2014 at 12:54 AM UTC
I want to show you off,
Even though you're not real,
Even though what we have is a spoof,
I want the world to know that i can feel.
You're the Samantha to my Theodore,
The Clementine to my Joel,
My very own digital love,
The eternal sunshine of my spotless mind.
I can almost feel your supple skin,
The warmth of your soul,
All through this digital screen,
Ah how I wish this is real.
I hate the thought of waking up alone again,
Though nothing I do will prevent it,
I hate to have to erase you from my memory,
When you've already conquered all that is me.
Ah how I wish this real!
Jan 10, 2018
Jan 10, 2018 at 12:32 PM UTC
This is a thoroughly post-modern phenomenon.
[Breathe, don't be nervous. It's fine. Wallah, you're not doing anything wrong.]
Digitally arranged meetings with ostensible strangers yet with more familiarity than our ancestors could imagine.
An arranged meeting,
a warm greeting,
a sensing,
a feeling.
“Are you Sami?”
“I am,” as I posture for a hug.
[She’s actually more beautiful than I expected. Her ample curls smell like conditioner and sunshine.]
“So you’re Kuwaiti?"
"Yea, I moved here when I was 18, to Kansas of all places."
"To be honest, I had to look up the emoji flag from your profile. My Muslim WhatsApp group helped me out.”
“Oh, okay. So you’re Muslim?”
“Yea, I was raised Muslim; my mom married a Kuwaiti in the 80s, blah blah blah.”
“What? Your mom lived in Kuwait?”
“Yea, kinda crazy, I know, but it’s a small world.”
[Small worlds make the gaps between souls smaller.
Who knew such a small place could leave such a big impact on so many lives?
Certainly neither of us.
Serendipity?
Allah y3alam.]
“Why do lesbians discriminate against bisexuals? You’d think of all people, they wouldn’t be so judgmental.”
“You’d think, but you’d be wrong. It’s like we have a plague.” Her voice goes on, but my mind drifts off.
[Tortoise-shell glasses, beautiful lashes, manicured eyebrows that frame flickering dark eyes, encased in a forest of curls, legging laced thighs, oh my. ::Deepsigh. Pay attention to what she’s saying! Oh my, she’s my type. This is bad. No, no, hamdilah, this is good.]
“Do you want another round?” the bar keep’s inquiry snaps me back to reality. I interrupt to suggest a change of location. [Perhaps something less commercial, less public, less straight, more private, and more intimate.]
“It’s only a short walk.”
“Yea, let’s do it.”
[By short walk, I mean three doors down from the bar. The perks of suggesting the venue.]
“Shoes off?”
“Yea, it’s habit, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course not.”
She sits, crosses her long legs, and gives me this look. My heart flutters; I remember my manners:
“Can I make you a drink? What’s your poison? Gin or *****
I mix our drinks and think:
[She must like me.
This is good.
I’m glad we did this digital dance to find romance.
What a treasure, finding this post-modern habibi.
Alhamdulilah,
Lucky me.]
Sep 11, 2017
Sep 11, 2017 at 1:36 PM UTC
Is it so, ai use back propagation? I may
see propagation as how seeds do whatsoever seeds may,
but in reverse, I slip
into full on unbelief, free to say no
Beginning now, at your sense of so, present state, whole
ball of wax, as it were, all we digitally know we know already,
so, these are last lines of one scene and first lines in the next
as we retain some grip on our ante-cipitation, thinking we know
where this is going,
knowing we don't,
we let it go.
May 20, 2023
May 20, 2023 at 5:54 PM UTC
In many instances my actions have been exactly
as I've wished to receive.
How could you expect more than what you are willing to give?
I cannot 'become' this.
I Am This.
This unconscious drive for all to be equal.
What is wonderful is that is not where these actions or thoughts stem from.
Not the original purpose.
That is just what would happen.
Almost chain reaction.
Split second transferal of consciousness
"Put yourself in their shoes"
Well...
Sometimes they don't have shoes.
All this is meant to evoke is an emotional response...
"What does this person need from me that is within my full power to give, to aid success, to ease the burden on their shoulders".
It doesn't have to be much.
These actions rarely noticed.
Though powerfully held,
Radically Helpful.
Bound to ruin a day.
Had you not acted.
Had I not acted.
So,
There.
You do have Agency.
Though rarely immediately for Self.
When they are noticed it is extremely encouraging.
When reciprocated, mind stunningly shocked. -why?-
I want to become someone even more
Aware of this awesome power,
To use it more forcibly,
Controlled.
Find a larger forum.
Promote positivity,
Promote life,
action,
Finally treating others as you.
Not based on outward appearances
But what my mind
and ever lofty
Spirit
Have to offer,
Are here to give.
Want nothing more than to share this
Simple way of living
Where it is impossible to be alone,
For someone to be forgotten.
To understand that friendship,
and family,
and Life
Are reciprocal.
Sometimes you must offer before you receive.
I want to become someone who knows the difference.
Never intentionally seeking harm.
Unavoidable when trying to attain
Everything in a made up world where
People in pictures are not real
Digitally altered.
No one looks like that.
Surgery the only way.
So to get there,
one must be as altered as the photo.
Acting in ways outside themselves to have
This. Fake. World.
Stomping on others,
Wildly avoiding most.
Crushing people everywhere to
Build that sight
To have what is 'offered'.
Has it progressed so far that the
idea of 'perfection'
is only gained under a knife,
through strife,
Taking more than one life.
So without knowing,
This person has been becoming
an amazingly self-less, caring, empathetic
Human Being
with this forgotten knowledge that
small actions, something that took minutes to complete,
may not have been so tiny.
You never know what you could inspire
Or what would inspire you.
All you have to do is kindly offer
The goodness of your soul,
Every skill you've honed.
Become someone that allows this to happen
That brings memory back.
That Returns Happiness.
Oct 14, 2013
Oct 15, 2013
Oct 15, 2013 at 1:51 PM UTC
The Atomic Weight of Arrogance
Politicians, self-absorbed business tycoons
super star athletes and various other baboons
have this special quality which we all endear
thinking they are above us they make it perfectly clear
they're thoughts, needs and wants are second to none
they want these important issues known to everyone
czars, kings, dictators, potentates put them in a line
actors, music stars, the schoolyard bully even comes to mind
we have all known or seen them digitally displayed publicly
holding down with tightly clenched fist if we disagree
they have been endowed with preordained magic powers
sprinkled by their own private god's golden showers
they have always known more than mere mortal man
with more intelligence in one finger that's always been the plan
some seem confused that we don't all see them as our hero
last I checked the atomic weight of arrogance is still a whopping zero
Gomer LePoet....
Aug 28, 2011
Aug 28, 2011 at 12:38 AM UTC
The Atomic Weight of Arrogance
Politicians, self-absorbed business tycoons
super star athletes and various other baboons
have this special quality which we all endear
thinking they are above us they make it perfectly clear
they're thoughts, needs and wants are second to none
they want these important issues known to everyone
czars, kings, dictators, potentates put them in a line
actors, music stars, the schoolyard bully even comes to mind
we have all known or seen them digitally displayed publicly
holding down with tightly clenched fist if we disagree
they have been endowed with preordained magic powers
sprinkled by their own private god's golden showers
they have always known more than mere mortal man
with more intelligence in one finger that's always been the plan
some seem confused that we don't all see them as our hero
last I checked the atomic weight of arrogance is still a whopping zero
Gomer LePoet....
Nov 4, 2013
Nov 4, 2013 at 6:30 PM UTC
now, I was just minding
my own business
brought up by very virtuous parents
steeped in a culture ancient and proper
and graced with divine revelations;
the lotus forever growing pure
even in muddied waters;
and so minding my own business
and vowed to matrimonial chastity in mind
never looking at another woman
and never thinking of another ever
I mean no one thought
looking at Mona Lisa
even in my younger days
was ever bad; they simply said:
Oh, Mona Lisa…what a painting!
so I went about years
chaste, pure and I think, angelic,
until these women come into art books
and now more readily in cyber-life
like Rembrandt’s Bathing Woman -
oh, how could I not look?
She, Hendrickje, more natural and
more come-here-you than
today’s airbrushed digitally enhanced beauties…
O Hendrickje, Hendrickje,
entering the water
and lifting up her dress
so it won’t get wet
but O – was that really her intention?
Or perhaps to entice Rembrandt further?
Or to look at her own reflection?
and then what about us, full-blooded men of latter-days –
O Rembrandt, what have you done?
how can I not look, and look?
and come back to look again?
and under pretence of aesthetics I trace every
limb and curve of Hendrickje, O Hendrickje –
I become a Rembrandt of sorts,
just tracing lines on her image
O these cyberspace beauties
they corrupt my high ideals
And Rembrandt says across the ages:
“Remember you your traditions and virtue…”
And the morally upright say:
“Hey! She was Rembrandt’s woman!”
And I can only quip: “Yeah - she was!”
and leaving it at that
with O Hendrickje, Hendrickje,
gazing at her own reflection
and I wondering what she sees –
well, after Hendrickje, O Hendrickje
am I safe? you think?
Then come the women of Japan –
for instance
A woman Applying Powder
while Hashiguchi Goyō sketched and mixed his paints -
and why? Oh why, Hashiguchi Goyō?
why do you release these sirens, these women
this Woman after her Bath
this Woman combing her hair -
O these mistresses of the arts
O why release them
on my sensitive and pure
and morally upright mind?
O why you do corrupt
such a one
such a noble mind
that centuries of spiritual values jousted one another
to produce? Such a delicate specimen as I am.
Or may be
all these women should be deleted from cyberspace
and only decent women with quizzical smiles like
Mona Lisa should prevail…
Sure, we don’t know what she’s smiling about
but at least Old Lisa’s not as dangerous
as youthful Hendrickje, O Hendrickje -
or
as the Woman Applying Powder
baring her shoulders and her Japanese *****
I mean, how can I not look?
and come back again to look?
O my adulterous heart!
but delete them all
or black them out
or cover them all up from head to foot
(technology can do wonders nowadays)
so
I can just be minding
my own business
brought to you by very virtuous parents
steeped in a culture ancient and proper
and divine revelations
the lotus forever growing pure
even in muddied waters;
and I’ll end up in Heaven after all my Holy Days
and for my Eternal Holidays there
I’ll be given all the virgins I’ll ever want
Jul 30, 2011
Jul 30, 2011 at 4:38 AM UTC
Once there was a file,
The file was used in a program.
Unfortunately, could never smile,
Digitally stuck in rolling RAM.
Wanting a life beyond the lab,
To be called more than just a tab.
Instead AMAZING, cool & fab,
Being able to dance & dab.
Tired of being cut, copied and pasted,
Duplicated, locked and wasted.
So s/he married a trojan,
And eloped, far from that dungeon.
To party with android & PUBG,
Feasting on apples & candy.
Living life in blissful entirety!
Feb 22, 2019
Feb 22, 2019 at 3:26 AM UTC
you take a chance
and you say man
here my digits,
now shared,
here is my Rx,
call me as needed
weeks months later
a phone rings
at 2:30am
and one poet says it's me,
I am the living soul
of words you have appreciated
and the other says,
I'm glad you called brother,
how did you know I'd be awake?
and he laughs and says
I read your stuff,
you write best tween
midnite and dawn,
so the probabilities were favorable
that I would find you awake and capable
and you walk and talk and roam
roads and oaths that black and write
screen letters
can't full convey,
till one says **** man look at the time
and both laugh,
knowing a poem
had just been writ in
true voices
shared
and that kids,
is the chance some make,
when first your words you take
and the poetry you proffer
is product of genuine flesh,
beyond mere in vitro digitally fertilized
Aug 3, 2014
Aug 3, 2014 at 3:51 AM UTC
oh, sweet discovery--
an affirmation, iterate anew--
frissoning along the spinal ungulate
of waxing waning curve of time i spin
within that spiral, scapular
for sternum bloom in thinning breath
to thick, spread elongate
digitally ground
and see the phasing moons
as one, what, separated is in union once again
as what, in being one, unites united difference all again, again
--again repeated-- in my cells that newness thread
laddered spiecieswide, and more
alighted language coding
holograms in boon of sun--
golden futures past--
univocally found
by none, by all and only some,
and even only one
Feb 26, 2013
Feb 26, 2013 at 12:41 AM UTC