"passwords" poems
I come from New Orleans where the swingers hook up with the singers, and the boxes have a person inside who speak to you through a thick horizontal slot in the door. You come from Minnesota where the most aggressive sentence is “Hi, how are you” and you’ve attended church every Sunday of your life, even though you don’t really believe in god.
We came to the West to skate with the surfer junkies. But then the harbors got bombed and we moved out East to see the hipsters and the artists beggin on the streets. We went to the South with the racists and bigots were dying for a good show. We moved up North to escape from the 70s, and with the 80s on the rise we figured we’d best stay away.
The 70s were rockin’ with **** and LSD in parks and concerts, and on benches on the streets. The smoke in the air was everywhere, from the slums in Wisconsin to the cities of Dallas. Even the poor were lost in the haze.
When the 80s arrived with Rock ‘n’ Roll and techno beats from windowsills upstairs. The music was groovin’ and the ladies were fine. We saw billboards of our names in neon orange lights. The *** was replaced by coke, and the LSD with ****** singing and swinging with delight in our eyes.
When the AIDS broke out we were sick in our beds listening to Pink Floyd and Elton John, and still we were singing. The 70s got us high while the 80s made us die
We lived through wars in Vietnam, and Korea; we fought back the communists with red ink on our hands. We broke down the door into China and got them to arrive in the present and join the world. Although their chairman sits on a chair of lies he leads them with an angry fist in the air pumping “three cheers for Mao”. “Three cheers for Mao”.
When the Soviets launched themselves to the moon we responded with our money and flashed our shiny new machinery in their faces. We marked our territory and claimed triumphantly that “We’re the best”. And we launched our war nukes and pinned them into intimidation. Then the Cubans sought revenge for the death of the Pigs on their Bay. With rifles in hand we stormed the beach and unearthed Castro and his regime.
With our beds soaked in blood, and our dreams covered with fog, hand in hand we lay. We recalled the dances in the backs of old Cafes where the passwords were as simple as three quick knocks and two slow ones. We remembered the guns that pierced the heavenly chorus for the negros in the south. And we thought about the music of the 70s and the death in the 80s and I thought about you for a minute more.
Sep 18, 2012
Sep 18, 2012 at 4:29 PM UTC
The young maricones and the ***** muchachas,
The big fat widows delirious from insomnia,
The young wives thirty hours' pregnant,
And the hoarse tomcats that cross my garden at night,
Like a collar of palpitating ****** oysters
Surround my solitary home,
Enemies of my soul,
Conspirators in pajamas
Who exchange deep kisses for passwords.
Radiant summer brings out the lovers
In melancholy regiments,
Fat and thin and happy and sad couples;
Under the elegant coconut palms, near the ocean and moon,
There is a continual life of pants and *******
A hum from the fondling of silk stockings,
And women's ******* that glisten like eyes.
The salary man, after a while,
After the week's tedium, and the novels read in bed at night,
Has decisively ****** his neighbor,
And now takes her to the miserable movies,
Where the heroes are horses or passionate princes,
And he caresses her legs covered with sweet down
With his ardent and sweaty palms that smell like cigarettes.
The night of the hunter and the night of the husband
Come together like bed sheets and bury me,
And the hours after lunch, when the students and priests are ************
And the animals mount each other openly,
And the bees smell of blood, and the flies buzz cholerically,
And cousins play strange games with cousins,
And doctors glower at the husband of the young patient,
And the early morning in which the professor, without a thought,
Pays his conjugal debt and eats breakfast,
And to top it all off, the adulterers, who love each other truly
On beds big and tall as ships:
So, eternally,
This twisted and breathing forest crushes me
With gigantic flowers like mouth and teeth
And black roots like fingernails and shoes.
10k
Moved from my home state.
Got a job doing **** I hate.
Got five kids between you and I.
They are ill tempered sometimes and we are on the fly
coming up with ways to handle the stressers
of food and shelter.
Why...
can't we leave today... Enter the fray... the edge of culture...
and make our own future?
I am caught in the thought
of my hands in the dirt and the sweat in your shirt
and no relief from the work of growing our own food.
Would it be rude to say that I've had enough of the days
of "super" markets and moving targets
and job interviews that bring hope and then bad news
when you find that it will never be enough to sustain even you, alone?
And really, what do we own, but ourselves?
Can it not be shared instead of set on shelves and hidden away in accounts that have safety nets and passwords and relationships that leave regrets and bridge-burns?
Could we be all-for-all?
Is it possible?
Dec 10, 2014
Dec 10, 2014 at 11:10 PM UTC
Instead of foraging around making connections
with cables and wireless systems that
bluetooth and sync their way
into our pocket technologies
and portable screens
(tablets of which we self-prescribe
and regulate through overdose
and comatose keenings of stillness
and waking dreams)
why, instead
don’t we fool around
making connections
with others of like mind and brainwaves
instead of radiowaves and
the mastered minds of computer waves
and lift an arm and
really wave
beyond our windows to
real people
in real time
rather than peeping
like a holographic Tom through
tabs and browsing windows,
multi-tasking time in a state of mime
like it’s about to expire
(like the wireless wires will break)
and all that we’ll have is
all we can physically take
from this moment awake we call ‘life’
– a mistake.
What else is left now
in this vegetative
one man one woman state
where we live to close our eyes
and shut our minds and wait for
the modem-router to re-dial and
get our avatar back online and
our friends back into our
multi-dimensional realer-than-time
time?
Pseudonyms solving identity changes
emerge without birth
with designer non-faces, as
now that we no longer need imperfection
or meaning or privacy
or even perception
we alter ourselves to impress our connections
with whom we connect without really connecting
by hiding as one almost nearing detection
and tip-toeing straight past
concern or reflection
(invisible firewalls at our protection)
our own walls around us
with keys we can capslock,
screening ourselves from unfriended friends,
and playfully sated by charm and ‘pretends’
that will mean next to nothing
when fantasy ends.
Where ARE the connections we make
in this digital age
that we rarely turn off since
the internet craze has become a new God
that we dial to be saved
as we sacrifice friends we once made
face to face
with those we are longing to meet
as we race across networks
with hunger and haste and
with spambots and data and viruses made
to detect and infect
and reject, just for starters,
and that’s not to mention
the ads and the logins and
passwords that lock us
from somewhere far yonder
that doesn’t exist
as we grow ever fonder
of pics and of pixels and
texts of expression
– the reality of which
we could lose in a second.
Jul 10, 2015
Jul 10, 2015 at 7:13 PM UTC
Plenty of poems from broken hearts who got loved then dumped.
Women writing poems about wanting a man back after he ***** dogged her.
Don't take rocket scientist to know something wrong with that picture.
Clue to men who ain't going to stay put even if he put a ring on it.
He's flirting with everything in a skirt, He ain't attentive after he hit it,
You gotta be the one always calling, He don't call unless he wants to hit,
He gets defensive when you want to know why he wasn't where he said he'd be.
Those are signs he's c-h-e-a-t-i-n-g and so are the ones coming up.
You catch him in lies and he makes you think your losing it.
He closes window of his computer when you enter the room.
All his is password protected and he wont tell you his passwords.
He's getting and receiving text messages he wont let you read.
He leaves the room when he gets a call.
If you answer his phone you get hang ups, phone rings until he answers.
He wont let you meet his friends or his family.
He starts arguments so you wont go with him when he leaves.
Men don't get ****** cause I'm ratting you out. Read one too many
heart break poems to be sorry for truth telling on my gender.
Men think about *** when they not having it.
If he don't want to hit it he's hitting it else where.
Coming up is ones to skip and avoid.
You can skip the ones who look at your cleavage and not your eyes.
You can skip the ones who live with mamma.
If he wants you to hurry up and quit talking or makes you feel like you
can't do nothing right, skip him too ladies or you gonna be bawling your eyes out over him.
Dec 5, 2013
Dec 5, 2013 at 5:44 PM UTC
We converge like a flock of birds
Emerging from doorways and from behind trees
I can hear each of our feet shuffling among the golden red leaves
And smiles reaching our faces
As out various eyes meet
We crow eachothers names
Hugs are unevenly distributed between us
We set our things down and breathe sighs of relief
Days like these, we need one another
We are like a herd of animals, a family
It hurts to be apart for this long
We stretch out among the sunset colored leaves
Reading books and singing and laughing together
Sharing jackets and gloves,
Protection from the south Seattle winds
Our backpacks and instrument cases
Serve as seats, backs against the prison grey walls
We talk of the future, of the trips we'll take together
Of the old stories a few cobbled people know
We exchange usernames, phone numbers and passwords
We let eachother in
Our hearts become bare and we share
Until our stomachs are full
And the bell chimes 5 times automatically
We crow goodbyes and promises of other meetings
Walking off in groups of two or three
I walk in a group of 7, laughing and pushing eachother around
I have never had better friends, I think
Nov 18, 2012
Nov 18, 2012 at 3:21 PM UTC
I changed all my passwords
So they don't include your name.
I switched to 'single' on that website.
I'm taking down all your pictures
And putting them away.
You say you won't let me go
But I hope you will.
You deserve better than me, anyway.
The thing is, I didn't cry.
You did the exact same thing as last time
But I had my will.
I didn't even cry.
Jul 4, 2010
Jul 4, 2010 at 2:51 PM UTC
My mind is here and there
run by neverending generator
it is black from the lack of emotions
yet colorful depending on life’s motion
Insane memory to remember seven different passwords to seven different usernames, completely reiterate lyrics of hundreds of songs, and raps from infamous youtubers, remembering the location of the keyboard because there is no time to look down, to remembering which button does what and when it should be used, before this one, after that. Yet, I cannot seem to recall what homework i had
Feb 8, 2016
Feb 8, 2016 at 8:38 AM UTC
World Wide Web full of thing that may inspire,
Digital information traveling down a wire.
While surfing with your friends,
With data you want to share,
Beware of the Trojans they are everywhere.
They may hide a little worm that burrows to the core,
Then when they activate they infect more and more.
Stealing your passwords in ways you never thought,
Leaving you offline disabled and distraught.
So enjoy your surfing but always be aware,
Update your antivirus before you share.
Never open a page that you might regret,
It is not the web we need to fear,
It is the infected internet.
Oct 15, 2011
Oct 15, 2011 at 4:31 AM UTC
Elaborate a little on the empty space.
canvas
Fill it with spills.
It all seems so accidental, did you bring your credentials?
Passwords linger throughout the discussions,
reason & recognize
Act with the valor of lightning and they will stumble like thunder... Timber.
Down falls another point on the pop chart.
Playing tic tac toe till the the tacs tic down by the toe, action falls into a drifting memory and crumples at the custodial hour.
Feet pounding time on the tiles
Repititions, turning inches to miles... Progress??
Does the diety of a paragraph outshine the novel drifter??
I mean, both read only one line at a time...
Feb 20, 2013
Feb 20, 2013 at 12:25 PM UTC
The moment you graced my presence, my mind switched to 16-bit mode.
You was a classic type of adventure, one evolution rarely shows.
All these side quest chicks you made me put on pause soon to be ended.
Cause playing sandbox style wasn't the type of image you've given.
Hips more curved than a sonic loop makin me want to do a quick run thru.
But your eyes told no lies they made me more than see.
That your quest was bigger than any final fantasy
So I'm taking my time to learn this pattern
To figure out how to beat your robot masters
Stage 1 your name Stage 2 your number skip to stage 6 make sure I'm the thoughts in your slumber
My mind's so focused my inputs gotta be right
One wrong move and I lose my last life tonight
No save points just passwords you say I gotta learn your codes
Wouldn't dream of cheating ya besides I don't know what buttons to hold.
Well **** baby you say that I made it to the end?
What's that? To see the true ending I gotta... Beat it.... Again?
But there's somethin about you that just seems worth the hassle.
Cause you got me jumping like mario racing to bowser's castle.
You're as cunning as zelda, as sweet as peach
As scary as you want when you feel your inner sheik.
You got a smile more connected than the perfect tetris
An old school star that's leavin me feelin rather hectic.
Cause you see it's so easy playing for the highscore
But when ya add a lil passion you don't get as easily bored
So I see this challenge as straight 2D
No circular levels just a series of puzzles between you and me
Let's make this purely one on one a street fighter thing.
No crossover tag action hyper fighting fling
See you got it all twisted just check my guide book
A good portion of character data is written on your look
Quick call doctor mario I think I got the flu
I need help tryin to convey these abstract thoughts to you
See you're like 16-bit beginnings hand drawn and expertly crafted
drawn so precisely each movement in action
So I'm focused on this quest like them double dragon twins
Ready for whatever final boss you got at the end
It makes everything worthwhile when I see your beauty on the go
And I drop my ps3 world to switch to my 16-bit mode
Jun 29, 2013
Jun 29, 2013 at 2:13 AM UTC
A warm coat on a snowy day
Words meant to be said
Stories told over and over
To-Do lists left in her head
Promises made
Bowtie for a worker’s uniform
A pair of red gloves
Umbrellas in a storm
A charger for a phone
Many different passwords used
A library book now overdue
And lessons learned too
Places which have been explored
Goals which have been made
Random keepsakes they hoard
The way that things have changed
Textbooks for a class
What makes someone strange
Combinations to a lock
Setting the alarm clock
Feb 4, 2013
Feb 4, 2013 at 3:45 PM UTC
The intimate mountain--
Weekends in a mercury supermarket--
And the nearly vindictive lilt in
Your voice when you drop the
Last 'T' in restaurant!
Perhaps for just a few months
We might dispense with the honorifics,
Because we each know perfectly
Well your finger-ring has a smile
For no one but me.
The first autumn was always impossible for me
(or at least it will be).
Winds winding like a clarinet--
A boulangerie cover of
Dies Irae.
Now where have I misplaced my
Sensory glands? Charles
Walks an intricately awkward emphasis
In ungodly,
Strangely comfortable stilettos.
The emcee has no frigging
Idea what the people want to hear anymore.
His serape and his wine--
Not to mention his women,
Although I have just now.
Poor little frog.
It looses owners off its skin
Like tadpole-seeds, over
A game of backgammon
That never really cheats anybody.
The abandoned LiveJournal account.
The forgotten Myspace passwords.
The iPod that hasn't been updated in years.
The body slumped on a threadbare sofa.
The broken earbuds and busted eardrums.
Start spreading the news:
I've already left.
Go and empty the pews;
My mother bereft.
And the Chamber of Commerce wants to blame the ****** on me.
Mar 10, 2010
Mar 10, 2010 at 6:25 PM UTC
It is irritating beyond belief
That you have absolutely no control
Over what you can remember
And what you can forget
Especially if you are autistic
I want to remember so many things
Essential tasks, passwords, birthdays
I want to forget so many things
People, mistakes, failures
However, Fate works in mysterious ways
Most of the time, it so happens
That you forget what you want to remember
And remember what you want to forget
In the past, I have been guilty
Of losing a number of things
Calculators, earphones, pen drives
I have been equally guilty
Of forgetting as many things
Essential tasks, passwords, important dates
However, over the last few years
I have made some progress
I am much less forgetful
Than I used to be
Because I make notes in my diary
And set up reminders on my phone
However, as mentioned before
Fate works in mysterious ways
Especially if you are autistic
Just as I thought
That I had established some control
Over what I can remember
I have started forgetting again
And this time, there is no turning back
Jan 16, 2022
Jan 16, 2022 at 4:01 AM UTC
Not only do i know everything
I know Allverything
No information escapes my network
Signals bounce off me
echoing through air and copper
Codes and whips crack in this wifi jungle
Forever recording
Forever expanding
Til there's nothing left to be aware of
but awareness itself
I know all of you
Your countless numbers and letters
keep you connected to me
I know where you live
I know all your ***** secrets
I know your passwords
No one shall escape my web
Until i count your numbers
and divide them amongst my children
You followed them here
And now you are mine
Jul 24, 2015
Jul 24, 2015 at 5:12 PM UTC
Lost in my chiaroscuro world
I cannot be followed
No-one knows my secret language
No-one knows my passwords
or my frames of reference
Everything said, is coded.
In desperate times
speech becomes pure sound
rhythmic and completely foreign
People can make out words
but they have no context
George, Jean, Martin
Arthur, Margaret
Names like rays on a compass
They were my world
of visible magnetic forces
I could no more abandon them
than rearrange the continents.
But you can learn
when the old geography
is too painfully familiar
not to abandon it
But simply invent
a country of your own.
A landscape beyond maps,
compasses and sextant
Beyond a dictionary
of common usage
and invented diction.
You can search
but the unseen
patterns of dreaming
are as easy to find.
Isolated, distant
language fractures
and returns to you
words are breaking the barrier reef
an exile in a shadow land.
The damage grows inside
sensed but unseen
seeping into crevices like moss
and lichen gripping
spreading and creeping
a spiked vine
flaring down to the tongue.
© M.L.Emmett
Feb 23, 2016
Feb 23, 2016 at 7:59 AM UTC
What the birds overheard
From death to passwords
Migrated to tract housing
Became postage on a slow moving envelope
Somehow ended up as a flag on the moon
Nov 4, 2024
Nov 4, 2024 at 10:47 AM UTC
She locked her thoughts
in a box.
Along with her feelings.
But she didn't know.
They are creeping
out, eating her
from the inside out.
.
And there was no key.
No code.
Nor passwords.
To unlock the box
She locked herself.
Jul 31, 2014
Jul 31, 2014 at 4:04 PM UTC
we are not human
we are beyond
all that fits into strands of dna
we are a phone call away and just at the beginning
writhing with excitement that plays like anxiety. we are the nervousness
that turns the body right left and left right left before introducing us to becoming asleep. we are the narrative to the lives of others. our passwords don't match but I refuse to let popular radio dictate our lives. we've ****** ourselves red and sweet, cauterizing our moral wounds with *** and sensuality. we scuba dove in the bedlam of ***** intrigue where I drank the pulse of your fingertips into mid-morning blackouts.
I don't know what you do, but I bleed foreign tongues. I mince words and reconnect them, the Swedes would be proud. Inside the ribs, beyond our teenage skin, between us we are always something better going unchecked but never unnoticed. we have been enlightened, summoned, and have three unchecked voicemails that we will lie about listening to should we ever be confronted about it. I don't ever want to be readdressed by consciousness, I am unhappy there and here
the Power lines
Under
unto us both
we may never meet those quondam girl and boy bent by prurient looks
Dec 28, 2015
Dec 28, 2015 at 5:46 AM UTC
In the past ten years
the world has changed
completely.
The Digital Age.
That's they all call it.
You used to be able to
fill out a paper application
hand it to the manager and
begin to charm your way in.
Not in the digital age
everything is done online
face to face, is dead.
And everyone
the people out there in the world
the people in markets, shopping malls, restaurants, bars and cafes
they've all got their heads down
their faces illuminated
their thumbs working a mile a minute
they're everywhere.
A table at a pizzeria
an entire family there eating
Mom, Dad, the two teenage girls, and the ten year-old boy
they've all got devices in their hands
and faces lit up.
No one talks to each other
except to share a funny video
occasionally.
We're all becoming strangers to each other
putting all of our eggs
into one digital basket.
phone numbers
addresses
credit card numbers
social security information
passwords
every conversation
every call
every move we make
what kind of foods we eat
what books we read (or don't)
what political causes we support
pictures of our
kids
families
homes
naked lovers
it's all on
one
little
device.
Paper is a sin
didn't ya hear?
Ya gotta
go green
go digital
you're either
with us
or against us.
It's a dangerous game
the world is getting itself into.
a house of cards
a mansion built on a sand cliff
sharing a bank account with a ******
All it would take
is for the satellites to get
shut off
damaged
knocked out
wiped out.
Don't laugh like that
don't brush it off
don't be so smug.
Then what will you do?
When the apps
won't load
when your devices
no longer sync to the network
when there is
no page to display
and everyone is left
with zero bars
and no signal.
When then?
When the digital age becomes the Dark Age?
Huh?
What then?
You *****
Jan 18, 2012
Jan 18, 2012 at 3:30 PM UTC
I like sitting on my rooftop, in a city that the one over finds
degraded and blue-collar. Its quiet and the sun heats the
tar- a soft lullaby on the bottom of a pair of feet that traverse
a life I’m always trying to get closer to.
I like things like ginger ale and lemonade; faded colors
& antiques. The belief that people still listen to vinyl
and care about our founding fathers. That they
still hand write love notes to themselves as much as for
Another.
People okay with the company
of an occasional fruit fly and a toasted bagel with butter
and honey alongside a sweet peach iced tea, sweating from the
thought of summer’s
sin.
I like sky lights & well-lit rooms; shadows permitted the freedom
to dance across exposed brick and structures
incapable of forgetting the daily histories of all their inhabitants.
My passwords are always about the planets or Greek mythology;
(I rotate).
Because I need a daily dose of the cosmos & humanity’s
attempt to better understand its purpose on this solitary fleck of dust.
I tend to bleed my existence through learning history and maintaining eye-
contact. Weekends are where people smile and emerge from their
carefully soaked-in showers, feeling clean and comforted by the silence
of a fogged mirror.
I like sentimental movie trailer music and bathtub tunes - whatever
can put to rest the parts of society that demandingly vibrate within me
(I leave).
my front door open because I appreciate individual curiosity
and creating an invitation for people to look in and see how very
much we are all alike. Needy and wanting to watch for signs of life
in others.
I like people who can carry sorrow in their back pockets & yet
**still offer to
pay for your check.**
Jan 16, 2015
Jan 16, 2015 at 10:32 PM UTC
As you never bothered to return my Calls
I shall wait outside your door and watch
as you build the gates of wrath higher and higher,
The taller your fences, the longer your lines posts should be
The sea refuses no river;
whereas most men and women turned on each other
your actions, their words, their inner thoughts
Cyberspace is now a battle space
Keep passwords secret and strong my friends
The famous Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote
The poet also resigns himself to his moods
I shall wait outside your door and watch:
Mar 18, 2015
Mar 18, 2015 at 9:40 AM UTC
Power went down twice today
Once was just a flicker
In fact in terms of laughter
I would call that one a snicker
The second time we lost it all
The house went cold and dark
So, I got the dogs both on a leash
And I took them to the park
Five hours passed before they came
And said "The power's back"
It was just then I started to
Have an I.T heart attack
I'm not one for computers
The phone, or tablet too
They had gone down with the internet
And I knew not what to do
Each electronic item
That resides inside this place
Defaults to needing passwords
And well, me...I'm so off base
I couldn't watch the tv
The computer screen just stared
It kept asking for a password
and I admit, I was a bit scared
I didn't phone my spouse to tell him
That I didn't have a clue
I'd wait for my young daughter
She'd know just what to do
In our house things are different
We never phone up a help line
Our kids reset the passwords
And our kids are eight and nine
They'll fix what I can't restart
They'll get me back on the tv
And the best things with this I.T team
Is that all their help is free.
Apr 28, 2013
Apr 28, 2013 at 11:21 PM UTC
I love your faces I saw the many years
I drank your milk and filled my mouth
With your home talk, slept in your house
And was one of you.
But a fire burns in my heart.
Under the ribs where pulses thud
And flitting between bones of skull
Is the push, the endless mysterious command,
Saying:
"I leave you behind--
You for the little hills and the years all alike,
You with your patient cows and old houses
Protected from the rain,
I am going away and I never come back to you;
Crags and high rough places call me,
Great places of death
Where men go empty handed
And pass over smiling
To the star-drift on the horizon rim.
My last whisper shall be alone, unknown;
I shall go to the city and fight against it,
And make it give me passwords
Of luck and love, women worth dying for,
And money.
I go where you wist not of
Nor I nor any man nor woman.
I only know I go to storms
Grappling against things wet and naked."
There is no pity of it and no blame.
None of us is in the wrong.
After all it is only this:
You for the little hills and I go away.
991