"hashtagged" poems
1. Had you a viral video,
you’d watch it
more than once.
2. Instagram hearts
make you smile,
even from strangers.
3. Which would
you rather:
***
or
Zuckerberg
friending you
on Facebook.
No, this isn’t a Cosmo quiz —
it’s a social experiment.
Because no one ACTUALLY
answers these questions honestly
without looking like
that ****** at the pool
trying to get as MANY
high fives as possible.
Yet, we all do it.
Alone or in public.
Day or night.
LED screen spice up our lives.
It was probably
best embodied
by that girl taking
selfie
after
selfie
after
selfie
after
selfie,
filmed for minutes
on the way to school,
the video soon posted,
by her dad
trying to teach her a lesson?
Or trying to get attention?
Either way, he might as
well have hashtagged it
#socialsuicide.
Like most humor
we laughed at her
because we are her.
We see a dripping
characterture
************ to
itself in public.
Wait, it,
sounds wrong
when you name it.
But there is
a name for it:
Digital ************
aka
Self-adoration
aka
Narcississism.
You won’t agree
that you do it too.
But I’ll bet
most of you
get excited
thinking about
notifications too.
Why is that?
You’d never admit it.
You can say
I smelt it, so I dealt it.
Call me a preacher,
a hater, or a hypocrit.
But I'd rather you call me a
digital masterbater too.
And then remember the last
time you opened Instagram
or Facebook
or Twitter
and took a selfie
or hashtagged something
or posted a status
that your still breathing.
How long has it been —
a minute, an hour, a day?
Now try making fun of her.
Aug 29, 2014
Aug 29, 2014 at 11:20 AM UTC
An airplane crashes into an uncharted island and hundreds of people die in the burning debris, and somewhere a group of boys and girls are taking selfies as they stand next to a burning office building.
Thousands of teenagers sit on the couch and eat ice cream until the buttons on their pants explode off.
Kids light themselves on fires as if they were monks from the Tiananmen Square, trying to gain acceptance, their dreams of stardom translated through a series of YouTube comments.
We can't afford books for college because the tuition is ridiculous, but these glossy tabloid magazines are only a few bucks; pick one to set the course of your life.
Middle-aged people spend their lives indoors, away from the thirsty, hungry, withering children, and check how many likes did their photos receive on their smartphones.
Pornographic images in front of our tired faces, our eyes locked to the screen and we do not blink as our memories become embedded with objectification.
So we don't look up and see the chaos transpiring.
Cat memes and colorful gifs hold our attention while our parents slave away at their boomerang-shaped desks, trapped in clustered cubicles.
I saw a post on Facebook of a girl who was sexually assaulted at a house party and now her name was being hashtagged and kids were posing in photographs, laying on the floor, legs and arms sprawled out, left and right, trying to mimic the injustice.
We swipe right to find our future hookups, but what if our future husbands and wives were on the left?
Society spends millions of dollars on drinks to numb our conscience, until our brain cells are wretched like the homeless guy on the street corner drinking liquor from a coffee mug.
Israel and Palestine battle each other day after day while our generation gossips about Solange Knowles beating up Jay-Z with her patent leather purse as if that news conquers every other bit of information out there.
The world will always be corrupt, but it suffers more from the apathy that belongs to us.
Jun 24, 2016
Jun 24, 2016 at 7:56 PM UTC
This letter, is to inform you, about a
bomb threat
that we received this, morning. Name of a Name
Unified Consolidated ISD,
a State-Recognized School of Somethingness,
Where Kids Come First under the theme of
All The Kids All The Curriculum All The Time
is committed, to the safety and education
of all our students and We Are Number One,
Go #Thundercatbears!, ‘Cause We are #All-Hashtagged
in Unity and Oneness. We also, want
to clearly communicate with split infinitives
And crazy commas all over the place
to parents about safety issues when they
get found out arise.
This morning, a phone call, was received,
by the receptionist at
The-Latest-Name-Held-in-Place-with-Velcro-Until-the-Next-Name-Change
Elementary School and Essential Spirit
Dreams New Dawn Progress Learning and
Technology Center of the Future
stating a
bomb
was present, on the campus.
After conferring with the Threat Assessment Team,
The Standard Response Protocol team,
the Chinkypin-Lizard Lick Police Department parked in the handicapped spaces at Tia Jolene’s Goremay Eats ‘n’ Bokays out next to the Interstate,
the cheerleader sponsors,
Facebook,
Twitter,
our attorneys,
and Superintendent Dr. Hamestus Goodoleboy “Spike” Ponsonby III,
the students were rapidly, and efficiently evacuated
to a safe area up in the football bleachers
where they would be more obvious targets
and the school was professionally and thoroughly
swept for anything suspicious and untoward.
During this time,
when no students were in danger,
another call was received stating that gunshots
were fired in the school. There were no gunshots,
fired in the school and
no children were in danger at any time.
Currently, we’re are is allowing students,
who were never in any danger,
to return to school as usual
where there was never any danger at any time.
We will have extra counselors and therapists available
if students or parents needs supports are
counsolining in spelling ‘n’ sentence structure.
The students were never in any danger at any time.
All threats to our school where
their was never any danger
and students who were never in any danger
will be taken seriously immediately
and thoroughly and investigated
thoroughly and fully except for that call
last week that we managed to keep covered up.
We wanted to inform you of the correct facts
because our correct facts are the only facts
so you can discuss them with your child/ren
Of any race, *** color, creed, religion,
or gender identification or not
and emphasize the seriousness of our facts,
which are the only facts. If you discover
Any facts untoward or out of place please contact us
At the district office at
*** *** xxxx ext ***
or the Chinkypin - Lizard Lick Police Department
immediately and thoroughly.
No children were in, danger at any time.
Feb 20, 2019
Feb 20, 2019 at 5:07 PM UTC
You three believe in creating scarcity,
NOT union.
You build HOV lanes for your luxury cars,
caring less how efficient they are.
They roll royce cross your game board,
fuming trails of money.
Bell Atlantic bought Madison Avenue,
you bought all the properties.
Now tenants can't avoid
the traffic or the noise
of an internet rolled in palms
and diced
spiraling
to speed limits
...
...
...
...
and red highways
...
...
...
...
and orange traffic cones that
block hybrid cars,
already swerving
to avoid bankruptcy.
We
STOP
the
STOP
people
STOP
moving,
our preamble crumbles to a
STOP,
becoming a eulogy —
an ideal dumb to power trippery,
after Time Warner and Comcast merged,
allies on opposite sides of the game board.
Verizon, Comcast, AT&T;
together you own pretty much
everyone but Fox and Disney,
(yet have invested in them heavily).
Verizon, Comcast, AT&T;
your oligarchy is
NBC, Universal, CNN, Warner Brothers,
and now FullScreen,
family-friendly nepotism
that inbreeds bearing
deaf drones bored of flying,
over
Why Beyonce is a Feminist.
or
Why Ferguson was racist,
media's offspring
just keep clicking,
the headline genocide victims
basking in concentrated lamps
for a sliver of attention.
Verizon, Comcast, AT&T;
Now you want the backend buffering,
bulging eyes and emptying pockets
of those Spocked into believing,
hyperspeed was ever necessary.
No choice when the exits are slow
and there are no backroads.
Verizon, Comcast, AT&T;,
offspring of the
Bell Atlantic Company,
we will not let your
****** populate the internet.
Call it Capitalism,
but your playing Monopoly,
yanking the carpet underneath
to the wood of Tyranny.
You shamed
Bell's invention
by stringing together
telephone
internet,
and
entertainment companies
until you could be lazy.
Monkeys who spent millions
to shriek at government parties
about the communication machine,
a system downloaded so slowly,
we
did
not
act
on
cons
piracy
theories,
when Amazon made online shopping so easy.
Dear Internet Service Providers,
so called ISP's,
WE ARE DONE playing Monopoly.
Our collective voice
will shout blasphemy
on your streets,
hashtagged
net neutrality,
till you're counting pennies.
So empty your Washington banks
cause it's 3 a.m. and
no ONE is winning.
Nov 6, 2014
Nov 6, 2014 at 3:09 PM UTC
When may I?
Not now under the
lampscope in my
G.I. gear—little doughboy
to hashtagged Iraqi vet.
Not now with my
hand tentatively against
your sickly body.
"Two weeks.
We're sorry."
Not now as the pallbearer,
my clutch like vacuum-sealed
lips parted for
you.
Held back by what is left of your
afterlife pride.
Not now as I watch a hurricane
gradually run aground,
wondering if the waves will crash and
if the sea will come inland,
flood your grave
in wet kisses.
If only it could stop howling for five seconds,
just to hear me.
Apr 25, 2013
Apr 25, 2013 at 3:11 PM UTC
A wind passed, and roused my lethargic mind
then, i noticed golden yellow leaves
starting to drop from the money tree.
as a young girl, i recall chasing leaves falling
careful not to let them touch the green grass.
i pondered on my own invented game...do i run?
to catch, or not to catch.....even one leaf
was a child's dilemma...that became mine,
for, a leaf falling, is a poem, starting...
a love...blooming....or, an elusive one
or one that's struggling...
after a fall, comes the rising...where
something should be bravely emerging,
this is the time, when tamed, unnamed feelings
suddenly, become verses, sliding from the tongue,
mind is active, hand is alive, pen hurriedly writes
the soon-to-be-born poem,
...the one hashtagged...chased...or sought.
a word, a name, a face forgotten, now remembered,
a love...that is fading, or falling out,
all these should be held, grabbed...captured!
before they truly escape from our grasp
or, be blown further away...by a cold, autumn wind
...and leave us drowning, in a stream of regret...
Sally
Copyright April 19, 2017
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
Apr 19, 2017
Apr 19, 2017 at 4:30 AM UTC
#myskin
#brown
#myblood
#red
#mylife
#twittered
#hashtagged
#andreduced
Jul 8, 2016
Jul 8, 2016 at 2:12 AM UTC
Psyche soaking wet with devout atheism,
this lifetime skeptic now tenuously
linkedin with Unitarianism
attests, said upbringing proffered,
mine credo, gestalt,
leitmotif, sans abstractionism
eludes elucidation, delineation, clarification...
some readers might
dismiss as absurdism
defying established dogma fixed absolutism
millenniums, would be hashtagged heretical,
and such cavalier blithe
apostasy, declared alarmism,
now - twenty first century
extant accursed as alcoholism
within various non
Western statecraft enclaves,
barely tolerating agnosticism
no fool to *********
proclamations antithetical opinionism
where condemnation to death
(I obediently, humbly, and gladly accept)
inadequate punishment,
cited on par relegated to alienism,
amoralism, antiestablishmentarianism...
never does this anachronism
loosely cabled with pioneerism,
(when ****** forests bedecked America),
a veritable wilderness, necessitated
quintessential self survivalism
knowhow long since forgot,
which dependence on consumerism
finds yours truly afflicted against capitalism
commercialism, conformism, cultism et cetera
more aligned with reliance on individualism
nearly an extinct species,
where anti materialism
betrays, cavils, and discourages ecocentrism,
versus profit motive maximization,
though of late environmental dynamism
aggressive representative thank you
Greta Ernman Thunberg regarding criticism,
nee opprobrious global ecological terrorism
mandating staunch defeatism
as stave bulwark
against criminal determinism
to wreak irrevocable traitorous dogmatism
predicated on tenets of egocentrism
brewed, steeped, and
galvanized in exceptionalism
of **** sapiens and expansionism
exclusive to said primate
that requires serious assessment,
asper bracketing craven
doctrinairism edified fundamentalism
granting humans unfettered expansionism!
Mar 23, 2019
Mar 23, 2019 at 3:52 PM UTC
Wakeful zero, peerless March,
longbow that bears the seasons’ arch,
when mist and windstorms pelt the blank slates
of cold-stupored trees.
Do I wake up yet? Dare I to unfreeze?
they ponder, short of language,
brains abuzz in taproots, dormant xylem
filling phylum with a flash
of namefulness past gray despair—
who grows? What draws them there,
gathered before they sprouted
in the epoch mire of waste that feeds them,
nurture dense distraction from
the trod-upon.
Stay put! They rest
a lot upon your back,
from holding nests to lightning’s crack—
yet time forgets you.
Hashtagged, color-marked you’re not,
a name once only March forgot
now baffles subjects of
a sheltered, sweaty throne.
Good thing you hold your own
whate’er they call you.
Naming stirs
you from the sleep you keep,
six thousand nicknames ere
you rest again. And man,
forget you as he may, looks to
your silent cue to stay, or migrate to
some panicked place you never knew.
What came before was rough—
you’ll grow through people, too.
Nov 29, 2019
Nov 29, 2019 at 3:04 PM UTC
(Me slippery fingers slither,
slip and slide splashing ala
Jackson ******* sans slap
dash experimental, swiftly
tailored and harried writing
style, yes on par with purging,
spewing, venting...unexpurgated,
unexpressed, unexplained...
words, which this Engelbert
Humperdinck singer/songwriter,
(whose name inexplicably popped
into the mind of this Dadaist)
offers "FAKE" apology for any
self inflicted, or sadomasochistic
flagellated cranial contusions
out of utter futility to make sense
regarding following gobbledygook!
GOOD LUCK!
Mine groovy palmar flexion creases
forever moistened by porous size
**** leaking levees provoking deluge
outranking Biblical flood - handy history
(in miniature) replete with Ark keel
logical artifacts discovered by hall n
oats marked wainwright - about 10 stone and
5 pound huckster, circa Fin de siècle,
when callous ten hooks (calisthenics,
eh) caught without Noah shadow of a
doubt proof positive by Matthew Scott,
(amat sure his surname) linkedin to storied
testament rivalling epic of Gilgamesh,
nee the entire spoilers alerts since
dawn of civilization writ small impossible
mission to decipher indelibly etched,
(what appear as Egyptian hieroglyphics),
methinks his perspiration contains
preservative agent, (a natural formaldehyde
like substance) generated nsync to maintain
eternal youthfulness, which stumps
medical community, and earned him
hashtagged "hotmail" (eagerly sought
after human commodity), a blessing
and curse palms plagued with chronic
wetness, yet lines (little flushed streams
of consciousness) rowed by itty bitty
teensy weensy merry daydreamers harkens
back when life held faint promise for
scattered (contra) bands of bipedal
hominids fiercely competing with trumpeting
(Taj Mahal sized) beasts (donned tousled
windswept hirsute trademark) Euclid
heir'm barreling along barren steppes
all around the one straggly mulberry bush,
where one pensive monkey (protohuman)
chased the weasel all around the world wide web.
Feb 13, 2019
Feb 13, 2019 at 4:02 PM UTC