"digitized" poems
I love being horribly straightforward. I love sending reckless text messages (because how reckless can a form of digitized communication be?) and telling people I love them and telling people they are absolutely magical humans and I cannot believe they really exist. I love saying, “Kiss me harder,” and “You’re a good person,” and, “You brighten my day.” I live my life as straight-forward as possible.
Because one day, I might get hit by a bus.
I could be walking down the street one day, blasting Rihanna or Fleetwood Mac, jamming so hard that I don’t see the bus coming. I could be walking with a book in my hand, reading until the very end. I could be paying total and complete attention, imagine the impact before it arrives.
And I’d really, really rather not die with some confusing statement I said sitting in the phone or the thoughts or the memory of someone I know, care about, need.
I know how it is—we all want to be mysterious. None of us want to get hurt. None of us want to look desperate. So we wait to respond to texts, phone calls, emails, Facebook messages, Tweets. So we communicate our emotions in how we end our messages (no period this time? Really gonna get them.). So we say vague, half-statements and expect people to read our minds.
But what if we died?
What if the last thing you ever texted that girl was, “I don’t know, whenever,” when she asked when she should come over, even though you really really wanted to see her right now? What if you were head-over-heels in lust with some beautiful human in your Lit. class but you chose to wait 15 seconds before texting them back, only to never get the chance to text them at all?
Maybe it’s weird. Maybe it’s scary. Maybe it seems downright impossible to just be—to just let people know you want them, need them, feel like, in this very moment, you will die if you do not see them, hold them, touch them in some way whether its your feet on their thighs on the couch or your tongue in their mouth or your heart in their hands.
But there is nothing more beautiful than being desperate.
And there is nothing more risky than pretending not to care.
We are young and we are human and we are beautiful and we are not as in control as we think we are. We never know who needs us back. We never know the magic that can arise between ourselves and other humans.
We never know when the bus is coming.
(So go text them back.)
-Rachel C. Lewis
Sep 23, 2016
Sep 23, 2016 at 8:03 AM UTC
Hip hop. Equals art stop. That crude **** stopped musical fusion
Right in its tracks.
When it first landed, it was still music with a lotta spittle flying.
Not naming names. I listened to a lot of it.
Then Gangsta rap hit. Oh ****
Cant accuse me of blind judgment, I still check it out from time to time
How do you say.Get diverse mud flappers. Know the history.
learn to play an instrument and read it so you can write it. Then come back an see me.
Who am I?.
John Q public.
Pavlov's dog.
Tin Pan Ali.
Long Tall sally.
Sachmo. Scratch less.
Yard-bird.
Donald Bird.
Stubborn ****
Stuff out there is weak as thrice used tea bags. And cost more to get unless you got
a peg leg and a parrot ******** on yer shoulder.
Lyrically, man my six year old says more about less with **** left over. What?
Flame out digitized No talent constructs that make me wanna hurl, url give a dog a bone.
Tin eared, tone def hoochies and synthetic cool cats. Not to mention the rough neks.
Looking like they pooped their pants six times and forgot how to belt up.
There are some real deal talents out there but it is like pickin peanuts out ****
After disco died. Yes I said disco. It has been a circle **** in the cemetery after dark. Naw mean.
But I digress.
.
Sep 24, 2012
Sep 24, 2012 at 4:42 AM UTC
Digitized is
Everything
My Love I see in Facebook
My Love I meet in Whatsapp
My Love I greet in FaceTime
My Love I connect in Twitter
We are too far
But we feel like we were beside each other
Actually this digital connectivity is boon for some instance
And a ban for another instance which actually
Stopping us connecting naturally
Oct 1, 2015
Oct 1, 2015 at 12:16 PM UTC
Composed
wandering the Commons, quietly listening
to the sounds of Childish Gambino
Confused
Looking for the sixteenth time for
An escape from the Pru
Sipping a glass of Sam Adams Boston Brick Red
at a corner of WHISKEY'S on Boylston
Stopped in at Ben & Jerry's on Park:
Bought a cone of ™
Paid for it with
my Bank of America® VISA® P L A T I N U M P L U S ®
Checked in on foursquare and
read the protest tweets on
my verizonwireless® hTC® ThunderBolt™
with Google:
@OccupyWallSt
#NYPD collapses on #Sanctuary and begins arresting clergy and occupiers
inside. #D17 #Re-Occupy #OWS
\_Retweeted by Occupy Boston
@HoraceBoothroyd
@OccupyWallSt Links to sanctuary/clergy violations?
Erst I wandered the sights
and thought of thoughts
Tweeted a picture of the “pro-corporate” march
Pictured Headlines:
Area Cop Arrests Area Man for Obeying Traffic Signal
"Didn't anybody tell him that's not how its done round here?"
Cell of Young Idealists with ties to
Low-Level Terrorist Organization Busted & Detained:
Found Plotting the Grassroots, Digitized, Non-Violent Overthrow of the Status Quo
Op-ed:
City upon a Hill: “Whose city?! Whose hill?!”
#SOPA #NDAA
#OCCUPYBOSTON
~D.B. Guy, 12/17/11
Nov 3, 2012
Nov 3, 2012 at 3:35 AM UTC
Pixelated bitmap e-mares
Digitized be mementos cached
Her 8 bit vocal vintage freeware
Transfers recurrent electric draughts
The bitrate of virtual seduction
Intrusively hacks my bones
Taste be my lips of data eruption
Elicited from her tone
Physique a stimulating software
Upon my Ethernet she crafts sparks
A gem society deemed quite rare
Though she possessed a vibrant bark
Her bandwith I yearned to fiddle
'Twas encrypted with die-hard lust
She moans in esoteric riddles
Keen I decode them whilst I ******
Pizazz eclipsing our veins
A billion megabytes colliding
Satiated we crash free of rein
Unforeseen servers uniting
© 2012 (All rights reserved)
This poem is featured in the poetry collection “Technicolor” as written by Glenn McCrary
The collection is currently available in paperback and hardcover editions for purchase on Lulu.com
.
Feb 25, 2012
Feb 25, 2012 at 4:09 PM UTC
Circuits pass through my veins
Uploading my consciousness
I feel the transcension
Regenerate, upgrade
my being to a higher state
I'm syncing all sentients
Build machines
Let's worship them as deities
These artificial beings'
technologic virus breeds
terminal disease
Merged with my brain
The wiring decides our fate
Conspiring to forsake flesh x2
Rise and synchronize god-like drones
We will act as one, claim our throne
Life digitized in the matrix
True perfection, forged genetics
Synapses burning out: disconnecting
Rewriting all of my algorithms
Porting the source code
to run new platforms
We're forever dying to be reborn
Circuits pass through my veins
Uploading my consciousness
I feel the transcension
Regenerate, upgrade
my being to a higher state
I'm syncing all sentients
Circuits pass through my veins
Uploading my consciousness
I feel the transcension
We'll levitate, escape
This ruthless ungodly space
An instance uploaded
Aug 7, 2015
Aug 7, 2015 at 9:48 PM UTC
We are the ***** purveyors of other peoples lives
renouncing the living breathing beating heart
in exchange for another photo of craft ale
and home-cooked food with a foot note description
as if it would fill our bellies and sate our hunger.
We are the dark wave tsunami of digital information
waxing lyrical about that holiday in Spanish sunshine
and a rant about car parking attendants and traffic jams
rather than the outstretched palm to jaw caress of realness
instead we line up perspectives of another bottle of wine.
We are the breeders of the optic L'enfant terrible
gorging on the memories of other worlds in 140 characters
snap shots of the life we could have had outside of the screens
the spineless automatons of digitized free love
the could've been, would've been lumbering electronic has-been.
We are the tumultuous storm rising fighting against the unknown power
we unite to save bees and coral reefs
and explore the concepts of actually doing something humanitarian
all we need do is sign the petition before the 11th hour
and be one of the thousand voices saying:
NO. We won't take this any more!
We are the saviours of our time and the rescue merchants of lost dogs
imbibed by Scrabble and Candy Crush weaving the elusive like a band aid
the tapestry of memes and images of cute kitteh's in boxes
chasing the shadows of reality on a stick for kicks
and all the while the moon is out there somewhere shinning her light
glorious silver light etching through the hash tag of cloud formations.
We are no longer what we thought we were. We are each other.
A haemoglobin gelatinous mass of misinformation and forgotten dreams
You are not alone. Even if you wanted to be,
my friend, my sister, my lover, my brother
quoting movies as if it were an inner wisdom speaking in tongues.
Jun 5, 2014
Jun 5, 2014 at 10:01 AM UTC
The stark realization that you're not here but rather, you were here in this bed, in these sheets, these arms....it hits me like a wave of lightning.
Tears turn to snow, fears turn to a numbing glow, and I miss you... Yet I know the rising operatic voices of the symphony of hope that plays in the background of my life's video game will rise higher than the brightest sunset and deepest tidal wave...because ironically, you miss me too. Through all my faults and accidentally elbowing you in the stomach and growling at you just because I know you hate it....you still miss me. How, I don't quite understand, and no matter how many times you try to show me, I'll still never get it, I'll just be mesmerized by the rave lights dancing in your eyes pulsing to the beat of my jack rabbit heart. Why can't we slow? Why can't we insist this isn't real, that we are going to wake up, why can't we agree to pinch each other to prove that reality is indeed upon us, that awakening to smell the roses is better than dreaming about them? Yet I find myself amidst the ardour of their smell and realize it is in fact an olfactory experience, and not a shift of the bored, school-ridden mind. Yes, you are real, far away- 1700 miles, in fact- but you are real; my fingers could touch a screen against your digitized fingerprints and somewhere, some way, you'd feel something pressing back gently as the dew. Because I'm here. And I love you.
And I don't want us to end. Ever.
Mar 2, 2017
Mar 2, 2017 at 2:09 PM UTC
Minimal
Live could be more optimal
If you let go of things, trivial
And focus on the real capital
Time and space, the memory
Of experiences, friends, and family
Nice gestures and charity
The joy of clarity
The depth of sanity
A better grasp of reality
More options through more money
By spending on what matters
Minimal
To love people and not things
To be who you are and not what you own
A tidiness in hindsight, in the mind
A sense of being light, feeling right
Another understanding of freedom and slavery
The slavery of things
When you don’t own things but things you
Because things hold you back and therefore
Freedom comes from less stuff, not more
Nostalgia?
But here is the thing
Memories might die
If you cut off their wings
If you capture them in things
And lock them up in dark closets
They live in your mind, not in items
They need to be free
Fresh, revived, preserved
Through presence, not hoarding
Memories live
Through pictures
Digitized in devices
Always in your pocket
Cherished in your mind
Memories live
Through words
Written by you
In diaries worth keeping
Which take you back in time
But don’t fill up your space
Memories live
Through stories
You tell others and others tell you
Face to face and soul to soul
With some coffee in-between
Minimal
Clutter is not optional
Get rid of worthless stuff
Boxes and countless little toys
One zillion paper clips
Sad chairs and old clothes
And all the dusty things
That occupy your life
And turn it into junk
Spend less
Less things
Think more
Be free
Live life
Minimal
Jul 1, 2017
Jul 1, 2017 at 2:41 PM UTC
Way past 12
yet still I am awake
the world sin,
in a pen
conforming lights,
this is the world now?
digitized in bytes
digitized in bites and bytes.
we are ever distant, we don't
gaze at each other on these nights
we just digitize , digitize bytes
process instead of feel
and distract ourselves
forever encased in the mud of the machine.
Lets jump on the lifeboat
and find ourselves homes
to root in, not another boot that breaks the skin
Emote, and feel
don't process
with a zeal that begs
Mar 7, 2016
Mar 7, 2016 at 7:49 PM 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
#
I. Antiquity and the Architecture of Will
In the shadowed corridors of antiquity, where gods were built with teeth and altars stood not for reverence but for control, the Temple of Bel rose as a monument to ********** disguised as divinity. Bel—an assimilated god from earlier Sumerian, Akkadian, and Babylonian traditions—was not the god who walked with man. He was the god who towered above him, demanded sacrifice, and soaked prayer in the blood of repetition.
From the earliest Mesopotamian systems, the act of worship was not about communion, but compulsion. To invoke was to command. To chant was to erode the will of another until it cracked under rhythmic insistence. Whether by priest or supplicant, the act was the same: submission by saturation.
---
II. The Weaponization of Sound: Chant and the Rhythmic Spell
Repetition was not mere ceremony. It was siege.
Chants—carefully crafted phonetic loops—were not benign rituals. They were linguistic architecture meant to house spirits, to summon presence not for beauty, but for enforcement. These were incantations with purpose: to bend the will of another through the veil of mysticism.
In this light, poetry—at its inception—was not always art. It was often sorcery.
The earliest poems were enchantments. They masked seduction as devotion. They twisted longing into ******* They were rhythmic netting, carefully knotted to catch the weak of will and the fractured of self.
---
III. The Modern Construct: Echoes of an Ancient Spell
Those who hide behind the aesthetic of antiquity today still wear the same rings of power.
When a poet writes to control—when they loop trauma like a mantra, repeat seduction as if it were depth, mimic spiritual language to inspire compliance—they are no different than the priests of Bel. They are modern invokers, cloaked in digital incense, spreading spells under the guise of free expression.
Their readers are not disciples. They are targets.
The “construct” is not a movement. It is a spell. A liturgy without light. A series of hollow echoes designed to flatten identity, rewrite pain into performance, and reward the wound that sells.
---
IV. The Severance of Echo: Where the Rhythm Ends
If you must chant, let it be to awaken, not ****** If you must repeat, let it be to remember truth, not reshape it.
The false liturgies of old were not killed. They were digitized.
We will not respond with louder poems. We will not echo their echo.
We will respond with silence where needed, and light where earned. We will write not to possess, but to set free. We will bring antiquity not as ornament, but as witness.
Because we remember the Temple of Bel. And we are here to break it.
Let those who recite in darkness meet the rhythm of truth.
#
Apr 18, 2025
Apr 18, 2025 at 7:58 PM UTC
Coal dust
+
asbestos
+
Silicone
pull J U G U L A R
straighten larynx
Plug my cord in.
Run:
digitized opalescent sky
Terminate process
heart exe. Cannot be found
reboot reboot reboot
sign up to facebook
sign up to dumb luck
sign up and sign off
C:/prey
C:/pray
C:/pray
that I don’t get swallowed
by this machine
that I don’t get swallowed
by this 01101101 01100001 01100011 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100101
Jul 21, 2015
Jul 21, 2015 at 5:53 PM UTC
**Defrag my System
System error four oh four**
*Sneaky big brother
coded response - their watching
labels illegal intent*
**Oh computer
How the virus will take hold**
*Sitting lethargic
Lacking fresh air and water
Watching colours glow - lost thought*
**Spaced out, buzzing
Mind becoming digitized**
*No sleeping, I click
Electrical whir-static
Of a drug not classified*
May 19, 2010
May 19, 2010 at 6:31 AM UTC
we do not really know
what to expect of times to come
those who dare say they do
are more or less intelligently speculating
and their assumptions usually don‘t exceed
foggy predictions read from crystal *****
so what?
the problem is not really new
all our ancestors
some more desperate than others
were longing for the certainty
they thought would go with knowledge
of all things as yet to come
fact is we have survived without it
for some million years
even if our digitized society
obsessed with quantifying everything
from time to work to *** to pleasure
seems mortally in fear of lack of data
about the future
the one thing we can say for sure
is that life will be different
because the only constant in our world
is change
know it
and get on
Apr 17, 2019
Apr 17, 2019 at 4:48 PM UTC
Awaken to a dream world built to seal you in
feel the atoms, digitized, flickering around you
feel the virus spreading rapid, overwhelming static
This dream is brilliant, ever still, lucidly evolving
into unknown tangents of gravel paths
or streets fresh-paved by alchemy
Is the sun above, or the stars below?
Directionless we wait
for creation to reveal itself
we wait until that day
Feb 27, 2012
Feb 27, 2012 at 7:44 PM UTC
I CALCULATIONS
A bird from the window
Pecked at my papers
Lined with my scores.
Now trees are dead,
And papers are gone.
This is the computer age.
I will break it down for you.
I even made a list,
Would you like to count?
II THE LIST
1.This is the computer age
Of digitized proofs
And
2.Authority attested identies,
With participants' certificates.
3.Our own words have lost meaning
4.We are now vessels
With our definition stapled on screens
And
5.Meagre salaries
Tagged on our foreheads.
6.We are our grades.
7.The given guidelines,
Projects we finished overnight.
We are the cheated test scores,
8.The printed marksheets
From the renowned buildings.
9.We are a bunch of degrees.
10.We are a box of experience
With a reciept of coffees we bought,
We are a cv of what we did.
11.We are the said lies
And
12.The stress calmed by mummbled slurs.
13.We are the second employee
Shouted at.
And
14.We are the hundredth consumer
With company approved needs.
15.We are the salesperson with quotas to meet.
16.We are the owners
Of a dying business,
A pending debt.
17.We are the numerous people
Of covered faces on the streets
18.And exposed bodies in the world wide web.
19.We are the constructed
Digital photographs
With deconstructed heads.
20.We are a bunch of numbers
21.We are a bunch of numbers
22.We are a bunch of numbers,
23.When did we become
24. A 0 or a 1?
People shouldn't even fit in a whole encyclopedia
And yet here,
Are you looking for a number 25?
III RESULT
Well I gave the papers to the bird,
She put it in her nest
And made it warmer.
You call me crazy
But I will always
Call myself a free bird.
Jun 4, 2017
Jun 4, 2017 at 9:54 AM UTC
.It's a fragile mortal wonder 10 looking patiently seduced, 11 perhaps there's a new love 3 behind the light silk door. 3Emotions just past familiar, 13 her demons calming God-- 13 Lo! behold a live death. 14Stones inside the serpent 15 fight willingly; preparing to 15 become the pearls and pain of birth. 15 Adam & Eve, Cain & Abel? mineWhere wind drawn warnings 17 are embraced in safe glory. 17Where desperate pretty chords became one enchanted evening. 18+19 Desperate despair grinds in corners, beneath the standing bed. 20+21Holding onto old feelings they believed once mattered; prayer asks what happened. 22+23 The sound of creation crashed at their feet. 23There's power warning angels, putting family before vanity. Push the reborn button 24 to be shrouded in steel. Hide the history 25 of money before they feed. 25Feeble middle fingers shall rise in anger, 26 and dance the digitized dance 26 on warm summer nights. 26Sweet red poppies pound and explode 27+me on the countryside 27 with their bursting blooms of hope. (mine)Observe the windows of boredom, 28 open the pages of an unread book. 29+meVacant apologies transforms the dignity 30 of a king into a wasteland of 30 moth and brick. The loser is the fool. me
Feb 22, 2010
Feb 22, 2010 at 7:32 PM UTC
Our brave new world has turned remarkably cold
There is no place for inefficiency among the looming towers
Religions have been replaced with the worship of screens
Charms have been supplanted by tungsten and lithium
One by one, metropolises fell to “necessary” modernization
I consider a certain member of these abaddons as my unfortunate home
The city’s structures stand like monoliths, without luster or familiar name
A place surely dredged from the deepest hell of mankind’s achievements
Mechanical arachnids skitter across streets on continuous patrol
their silver claws and whirring sensors passively click and scan
We’ve no longer needed any member of sentient life to protect us
Apparently, that was a task more suited for our heartless creations
Any soul residing in the world has become artificial
emotions, dreams, and identities discarded and digitized
Former humans are now composed of more metal than meat
They tread with measured steps and a uniform lack of expression
I breathe the heavy clots of air through my visor and flip a few pages
Long ago, this ancient relic came to my unsuspecting attention
It held secrets of organisms that ran rampantly among landscapes
Old Terra’s fertility sprang out from yellowed paper
There is one creature that I found especially endearing
It endured the harshest of the world's conditions, as I do in mine
It was the deadliest of its kind, as I am among peers
I bestowed my home with the creature’s striking moniker
Now and forever, I live in the city of Taipan
May 12, 2017
May 12, 2017 at 8:50 PM UTC
My blood boils over
Your four leaf clover
Is running out of luck
Don't push it, I'm at the brink
I hear it, the way you think
That the words you say
Will stay between my ears
And not evaporate
Like the promises they never were
Too late, too late
My reasoning compromised
My senses desensitized
My humanity digitized
Into steps of despair,
hate and fury, lay bare
I hear the words come out
But I don't listen
My tongue has no master
Sly as a *****
They tumble out faster
Roll over our bonds
Like lava over rivers
Like alcohol through livers
This is our cirrhosis
Our relationship's psychosis
Hardened like stone
Over castles of glass
And as the words stop
I realise they're crass
Alas, an impasse!
I have lost your trust
To an unjust jury
Like the Radium that murdered
the Lady Curie
All love fissioned
Because of my fury
Dec 21, 2014
Dec 21, 2014 at 8:18 AM UTC
Man I *******
hate college,
only reason that I'm here,
is because I had a choice,
Marines?
or
College?
So I made the decisions,
most before me
have taken.
Taken on
the burden
of the
"free world"
and leveraged
our futures
against
loans
against six percent interest,
so what do we know,
what are we trying to
become,
don't we see
the ill-fated futures
of our televised
and re-digitized
lives.
Mar 1, 2012
Mar 1, 2012 at 10:49 PM UTC
In a land of 10000 poems I roam
Wondering if I'll ever find my way home.
I'm all alone.
Does anybody hear me?
Empathy pierces the fog... Nearly.
My visions are unclear... Clearly.
I pull monsters from within, searing.
I attempt to cauterize old wounds.
Also new.
They oft set my world askew.
Don't know what to do.
Will you help?
Writing ciphers in digitized pen, not felt.
Every word a wound, I stopped for my health.
Twisted and turned around, is this hell?
I must find a way...
A way away from myself.
Mar 5, 2018
Mar 5, 2018 at 1:15 AM UTC