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Akshatha Hegde Jun 2014
I texted you,
You Whatsapped back.
I posted on your Wall,
You pinged me on GTalk.
I pinged back on GTalk,
You Vibered me.
I buzzed you on Lync,
You mailed me on Yahoo.
I messaged you on FB,
You shared a post on G+.
I messaged you on Linked In,
You sent a talking parrot on Farmville.
Seriously?

I invited you to an Outlook meeting,
You invited me to your Picasa album.
I pinned an interest,
You YouTubed yours.
I wrote this blog post
while you Tweeted.

It's time to throw away
this smartphone
and call home.
If you don't answer,
I'll see your light on,
cross the street
and knock on your door.
JJ Hutton Dec 2013
And they cast the man as the one
who gets brought down by dogs.
When he met the director,
the man said, "I'm the son of a veterinarian."

"I guess we should give you a speaking part."

So in the snow, behind the pines, with three
cameras on him, the man was brought down
by dogs, and instead of falling silently,
he was allowed to shout "no."

Despite the open air, his call was shrill.
Despite his vessel of flesh, his voice pinged
as if encased in metal.

The director, unnerved, instructed
the man to do the scene again.
"Try shouting 'why.' "

The man's cap was off.
Snow flew from the strands
of his hair. A dog chewed
on his forearm.
And he said, "Why."

Despite his vessel of flesh, his voice fell flat, muffled--
not by limb, not by nature, but as if covered by a blanket of wool,
like a child playing ghost in a winter living room.

The director took the man aside.
"What's wrong?"

The man had never seen a person die.
He'd never even seen a dog die, although
he'd seen plenty arranged in violence shortly
thereafter.

"Nothing," the man said.

"Die naturally this time."

"Alright."

On the third take, one of the dogs tore
into his cheek. The puncture was quick, clean.

"I want to die," the man said, "but not like this."

"Louder," the director said.

"I want to die but not like this."

"What was that?"

"I want to die but not like this."

The dogs lapped at his blood.
One of the camera men came in close.
The man went limp, hoping it would end
the take.
Terry Collett Apr 2015
All through double science Sheila thought about the boy shed seen go by that mid-morning break not that hed looked at her too much or responded to her shy smile but she thought of him even to the degree of inking in his name on her small palm John scribbled there in black smudgy ink and she thought he had looked at her he seemed to look at her the way he had turned his head indicated to her at that time that he had and the science teacher talked of something to do with gases and she copied what he had written on the board into her exercise book in her minute scribble with her head to one side has she did while writing her arm at an angle her small hand gripping the pen in an odd fashion he had smiled yes she was sure John had smiled as she had smiled she sighed softly her eyes lifted to the blackboard to take note of what was written her hands scribbled her mind wanted to think of the boy with the quiff of hair the smile yes yes he had smiled and she wanted to stand up and say HE SMILED AT ME as loudly as she could but she never would she was not that type of girl a elbow nudged her the girl next to her nudged her and nodded towards the blackboard the teacher was pointing out something and asked her a question and Sheila had not heard him ask her the teacher was staring towards her expectantly she blushed sorry Sir didnt hear the question she muttered looking at the board and then at the teacher who seemed put out then listen girl listen he said then pointing to another to answer the question he repeated and Sheila still blushing looked at the girl next door and shrugged her thin shoulders the girl looked at her blankly and looked away she looked ta the blackboard and read it through slowly as she could taking note what had been written about gases and she stifled a yawn and looked back at the exercise book and what she had written in her scribbled handwriting she looked at the inner page where she had scribble John and drew a heart-shape with an arrow through it she held the page open just enough for her to see it then opened the book to wait for further instruction regarding gases the teacher walked along in front of the class pointing to the blackboard and indicating a diagram he had drawn Sheila wondered if the boy allow her to hang around with him after all she had seen other girls walk round with the boys either in groups or singly why couldnt she? she asked herself sitting up and staring out of the windows at the grass and the blue of sky over the way and what if he said yes how would she feel then would she walk with him or would she feel too shy to  and then all of a sudden she panicked what if he wanted to kiss her as shed other boys do with girls actually kiss on the lips sort of thing and shed never ever kissed a boy before not even her brother Bert a panicky feeling crept into her stomach what then? what if he wanted to kiss her a piece of chalk pinged onto the desk in front of her and the girl next to her elbowed her again SHEILA are you with us today? the teacher asked bellowing her name out of frustration she nodded and blushed again have you been listening? he asked yes Sir she said what did I ask? he said she stared at him blood pumped through body as if she was on fire and she shrugged as words wouldnt come see me after class he said and walked along the front of the class and asked another a boy with his hand raised she watched the teacher and listened to what he was saying about gases and types of gases and the affects and effects and so on and she felt the need to yawn but put her hand over her mouth and let it out secretly as softly as she could she smelt her palm then gazed at the word John scribbled there and with her lips kissed the inked name as if it was he she kissed her lips on his and she felt spittle on her palm and wanted to leave it there so she could pretend it was his spittle and not hers she looked up at the teacher and tried to give the impression of paying attention to his every word the boy had his hand up again as a question was asked and the teacher nodded and smiled then just as she prepared herself for any potential question that may come her way-God forbid- a bell rang for the end of the lesson and a sense of release flowed through her despite having to have stay and see the teacher afterwards there was a movement of books being put into bags and chairs being moved and voices and talking and the slow moving of bodies towards the door but the teacher was eyeing her as she moved towards him her book tucked away in her bag her palm clenched into a loose fist to hide the scribbled John in her palm she stood before the teachers desk and he stared at her sternly Sheila have you something on your mind? she shook her head feeling the need at that moment almost suddenly to urinate well you certainly were not paying attention to the lesson were you? he asked something worrying you? he asked she was going to say something but she didnt know what to say she couldnt say she was thinking of a boy and about if or not he was going to want to kiss her so she said nothing just shrugged her thin shoulders and gave a vacant expression-an expression her mother said indicated a near death experience-you must pay attention the teacher said I am paid to teach you as well as the others the sciences and I feel it is my duty to do my best to do that do you understand? she nodded taking note of the leather patches on the elbows of his jacket brown and sewn on maybe she thought by his wife or mother now please listen Sheila or youll get behind with the lessons Ok? she nodded and he dismissed her and she walked towards the door wondering if the boy would be on the playing field during lunch recess and if she had the nerve to ask him if she could hang around with him and if he would want to kiss her and o my God she thought panicking what if he did and she blushed at the thought and moved along the corridor amongst moving throng of other kids on their way to lunch or home and a bite to eat and she stood thinking of the boy gazing at her black shoed feet.
A GIRL AT SCHOOL WHO CANNOT GET THE THOUGHT OF A BOY OUT OF HER MIND DURING LESSON
Its 8:30 in the AM
The Corn Moon
is being routed by a
Manassas cloud bank

NPR be barking
Irma this, Irma that
my tremblin Rav4
stuck in the rush
is idling behind
a pair of gray hairs
spewing
leaded premium
out the back
of a big old black Buick
sportin Florida tags

inching north up I95
I’m relieved to be
a thousand miles
ahead of the
monstrous *****
denuding Barbuda
deflowering the
****** Islands
and threatening to topple
the last vestiges of
Castro’s Dynasty
by disrupting upscale
bourgeois markets
for cafe Cubanos,
cool Cohibas and
bold Bolivars

she’s a CAT 5
counterclockwise
spinning catastrophe
churning through
the Florida straits
bending steel framed
Golden Arches
shaking the tiki shacks
gobbling lives
defiling tropical dreams

the best
meteorological minds
on the Weather Channel
plug the Euro model
to plot a choreography
of Irma’s cyclonic sashay

they predict she’ll
strut her stuff
up a runway  
that perfectly
dissects the  
Sunshine State
ransacking
the topography
venting carnage
like battalions of
badly behaved frat boys,
schools of guys gone wild
sophomores, wreaking havoc
during a Daytona Beach
spring break
droolin over *******
popping woodies at
wet tee shirt contests
urinating on doorstoops
puking into Igloo Coolers
and breaking their necks
from ill advised
second floor leaps
into the shallow end
of Motel 6 pools

but I’m rolling north
into the secure
arms of a benign
Mid Atlantic Summer
like other refugees,
my trunk is
filled with baggage
of fear and worry
wondering
if there’re be anything
left to return to
once Irma
has spent herself
with one last
furious ****
against the
Chattanooga Bluffs of
Lookout Mountain

Morning Edition
Is yodeling a common
seasonal refrain
the gubmint is
just about outta cash
congress needs to
increase the debt limit

My oh my,
has the worm turned
during the Obama years
the GOP put us through a
Teabag inspired nightmare
gubmint shutdowns
and sequestration
shaved 15 points
off every war profiteers vig
it gave a well earned
long overdue
take the rest of the week off
unpaid vacation
to non essential
gubmint workers
while a cadre of
wheelchair bound
Greatest Generation
military vets get
locked out of the
WWII Memorial on the
National Mall

this time around
its different
we have an Orange Hair
in the office and there's
some hyper sensitivity
to raise the debt ceiling
given that Harvey
has yet to fully
drain from the
Houston bayous

the colossal cleanup
from that thrice in a
Millennial lifetime storm
has garnered bipartisan support
to  clean up the wreckage
left behind by a
badly behaved
one star BnB lodger
who took a week
long leak into the
delicate bayous of
Southeast Texas

yet we are infused
with optimism that our
Caucasian president
and his GOP grovelers
now mustered
to the Oval Office
will slow tango
with the flummoxed
no answer Dems
to get the job done

pigs do fly in DC
Ryan and McConnell
double date with
Pelosi and Schumer
get to heavy pettin
from front row seats
beholding droll  
Celebrity Apprentice
reruns

The Donald, Nancy and Chuck
slip the room for a little
menage au trois side action
transforming Mitch and Paul
into vacillating voyeurs
who start jerking their dongs
while POTUS, and his
new found friends
get busy workin
the art of a deal

rush hour peaks
static traffic grows
in concert with
a swelling  
frenetic angst
driving drivers
to madness
terrified
they won't
get paid if
the debt ceiling
don't rise
they honk horns
rev engines
thumb iPhones
and sing out
primal screams

unmindful drivers
piloting Little Hondas
bump cheap Beamers
start a game of
bumper cars
dartin in and out
of temporary gaps
uncovered by the
spastic fits and starts
of temporary
decongested
ebbs and flows

A $12 EZ Pass
gambit is offered
the fast lane
on ramp
has few takers
just another
pick your pocket
gubmint scheme
two express lanes
lie vacant
while three lanes of
non premium roadway
boast bumper to bumper
inertness
wasted fuel
declining productivity
skyrockets
the  wisdom of
the invisible hand doesn't
seem to be working

DOJ bureaucrats
In Camrys and Focuses
dial the office
to let somebody
know they’ll
be tardy

gubmint contractors in
silver Mercedes begin
jubilantly honking horns
NPR has just announced that
Pelosi and Schumer
joined the Orange team
the rise in the debt ceiling
will nullify their 15%
sequestration pay cut

NPR reports the
National Cathedral will
deconsecrate two hallowed
stained glass windows of
rebel generals R E Lee
and Stonewall Jackson
it's a terrible shame that
the Episcopal Church
will turn its back on the
rich Dixie WASPS
who commissioned these
installations to commemorate
the church's complicity
in sanctifying the
institution of slavery,
WWJD?

as I ponder
this Anglican
conundrum another
object arrests my
streaming consciousness
upsetting an attention span
shorter and less deep
than the patch of oil  
disappearing under the front
of the RAV as I thunder by
at 5 MPH

to the left I eye a
funny looking building
standing at attention
next to a Bob Evans

I’m convinced
Its gotta be CIA
a 15 story
gubmint minaret
a listening post
wired to intercept
mobile digital
confabulations
from crawling traffic
inching along
beneath its feet

this thinking node
pulsing with
intelligence
reeking with
counterintelligence
the tautological
contradiction
guarantees the
stasis of our
confused
national consciousness

strategically positioned to
tune into the
intractable Zeitgeist
culling meta code
planting data points
In Big Data
data farms
running algos
to discern bits
of intelligence
endeavoring to reveal
future shock trends
knows nothing
reveals less

the buildings cover
is its acute
conspicuousness
gray steel frame
silver tinted glass
multiple wireless antennas
black rimmed windows
boldly proclaim
any data entering
this cheerless edifice
must abandon all hope
of ever being framed
in a non duplicitous
non self serving sentence

the gray obelisk a
national security citidel
refracts the
fear and loathing
the sprawling
global anxiety
our civilization's
discontent
playing out
in the captive
soft parade
ambling along
the freeway jam
imobilized
at its stoop

Moning Edition jingle
follows urgent report of
FEMA scamblin assets
arbitraging Harvey and Irma
triaging two
tropical storm tragedies
and a third girl
just named Maria
pushed off the Canaries
and is on its way to a
Puerto Rico
homecoming

while
gubmint  bureaucrats
anxiously push on
to their soulless offices
the rush hour jam
has peaked
my WAZE
is having a
nervous breakdown

next lane over
a guy in a gold PT Cruiser
is banging on his steering wheel
don’t think this unessential worker
will win September's
civil servant of the month award

Ex Military
K Street defectors
slamming big civie
Hummers
getting six mpg
lobby for a larger
apportionment
of mercenary dollars
for Blackwater's
global war on terror

Prius Hybrids
silently roll on
politely driven by
EPA Hangers On
hoping to save
a bit of the planet
from an Agency Director
intent on the agency's
deconstruction
the third 500 year hurricane
of the season
is of no consequence

obsolete
GMC Jimmy’s
are manned by
Steve Mnunchin
wannabes
the frugal
treasury dept
ledger keepers
pour good money after bad
to keep the national debt
and there clanking
jalopies working

driving Malibus
DOL stalwarts
stickin with the Union
give biz to GMC

nice lookin chicks
young coed interns
with big daddy doners
fix their faces and
come to work
whenever they want

my *** is killing me
I squirm in my seat
to relieve my aching sacroiliac
and begin to wonder if my name
will appear on some
computer printout today?
can’t afford an IRS audit
maybe my house will
be claimed by some
eminent domaine landgrab?
Perhaps NSA
may come calling,
why did I sign that
Save The Whales
Facebook Petition?

The EZ Pass lane
is movin real easy
mocking the gridlock
that goes all the way
to Baltimore
a bifurcated Amerika
is an exhaust spewing
standing condemnation
to small “R”
republicanism  

glint from windshields
is blinding
my **** is hurtin and
gettin back to Jersey
gunna take a while
GPS recalcs arrival time

an intrepid Lyft driver
feints and dodges
into the traffic gaps
drivin the shoulder
urging his way to the
Ronnie Reagan International
I'm sure
gettin heat from
a backseat fare
that shoulda pinged
an hour earlier

Irma creeps
toward the Florida Keys
faster then the
glacial jam
befuddling congress

I think I just spotted
Teabag Patriot
Grover Norquist
manning a rampart
bestriding a highway overpass
he’s got a clipboard in hand
checking the boxes
counting cars
taking names
who’s late?
who’s unessential?

man
whatta jam we're in

Music Selection:
Jeff Beck: Freeway Jam

Orlando
9/21/17
jbm
written as im stuck in jam headin back to jersey
soul in torment Oct 2013
Oh shall we play space men today
and build a rocket Ted
we need two suits some gloves and boots
and helmets for our head

A packing crate stood tall and straight
dad's funnel placed on top
three books so thin each one a fin
and Mommies broken mop

A beanbag chair we two can share
and buttons we can push
some sandwiches and light switches
and cans of Orange crush

Some dials and springs and other things
we found in daddies shed
now that looks neat so take a seat
and start the countdown Ted

We watched the stars that once so far
where now within our grip
Count ten to one ignition on
Blast off in rocket ship

The silver moon would greet us soon
as upward we both sped
through clouds of white to black of night
just me and mister Ted

The rocket turned as thrusters burned
as we altered our course
for here you see the gravity
Had very little force

We journeyed forth toward the north
by meteor and star
as comets whizzed and pinged and fizzed
and flew both near and far

We passed the plough and saw a cow
jump clean over the moon
then stations manned prepared to land
beside a giant dune

Beneath our feet a silver sheet
of fallen stars and sand
and as we two took in the view
Ted held me by the hand

The solar breeze blew round our knees
and tickled as it passed
time now to go yes Ted I know
this day has gone so fast

seated inside we watched the tide
So slowly ebb and flow
then 10 to 1 zero and gone
we raced the mornings glow

home safe and sound we kissed the ground
and ran in for our tea
I turned to Ted and softly said
the moon just winked at me

What shall we be next time said he
cowboys or maybe kings
I do not know I whispered low
let's see what morning brings
Erin Suurkoivu Nov 2019
I hardly journey there anymore.

Those ruins are far and distant,
Far and distant, and black and grey.
Relics are moon rocks in the frozen landscape.

The grand façade of the pantheon has
Crumbled into sand. I could crush it all into
Dust beneath my heel.

The mind itself is an eye, a camera obscura,
Lit not by the moon—
That old pinged marble—

Over whose surface I skim in my tiny submarine.
The lunar scene fills my vision,
Film noir.

I spy the cold garden. In the heart of it
Gleams the litter of my chicken bones.
My cowardice the wicked reminder,

Consequence of the role I performed
For the impassive audience. I underwent
A sea change in the theatre of their minds.

On some other plane
Holy voyeurs peer through spyglass,
Seeking to undress the celestial paramour.

Such delicious vacancy—
**** statue in an arena of eyes,
Gristle picked clean by vultures.

The air is ****** dry. Cold stars
Abound in the black sky.
Smeared ink the lingering impression,

Smudged thumbprint.
Feeling like the sea,
a single wave
blushing blue,
gathering momentum
only to fall
flat
on my face,
broken and soggy
to start all over again.

Feel the beach
with my hands,
scrabble at the sand
like a dog
ready to bury a bone,
but am pinged back in
as an elastic band.
Why does that happen
and who is to blame?
Written: April 2014.
Explanation: A poem written in my own time, fairly personal, and another in my ongoing series of beach/sea pieces.
If butterflies were piano keys, when played they would create a sound so faint and beautiful that it would resonate within your eardrums for a thousand years.
The music fabricated from the monarchs would take you back, way back to the years where your grandmothers windchime that hung from her old rickety porch pinged and chinged playfully in the wind.
The music from the Swallowtails would sound like the rustic countryside plains, filled with rustling waves of weeds that you call flowers because they are just to pretty to be called weeds.
The music played from this piano is not just beautiful however.
These tunes come with a cost.
For each key pressed on the mosaic of keys that symmetrically flow down the keyboard takes the life of the butterfly used to bring forth the sound and the memory.
Not only do you hear the song, the memory, you hear the crunch of nature’s thorax.
The crushed and crumbling thoraxes play a song too.
Not beautiful, but melancholy.
Like the whisper of a flower that will never bloom for the morning sun again.
A faint light that leads unto eternal darkness and into a world where no butterflies soar through the sky.
All because you played the piano who’s keys were made of butterfly wings.
in a downpour of rain.
the world fades away in a flash
of white.
the rain slants and drizzles,
Beginning to fill the gaps of potholes.
And crooked cracks left empty
against the pavement.
the drivers behind
the wheels of their cars
turn their windshield wipers
on high, to no avail.
Their wipers constantly beaded
down, covered white.
Fading away.
the downpour is too heavy.
the rain is too heavy.
It's thuds bead down
against the metal car roofs.
my heart too sways in the wind.
Pinged and drenched,
caught in the downpour of how your
heart's whispers have turned to screams.
rain-soaked tears unveiled to fill the
gaps of all things missing.
including the distance between you and I.
Soon, I too will errupt and overflow.
Fading away in a flash of white
Middle Class Dec 2016
Why is it so strange to me. We haven't talked in years, we weren't lifelong friends. We usually just sent messages electronically. Nothing but ill-fitted pioneers of electronic pen-pal practice. I didn't know what to make of you. I mean how much could our inclination to keep up the conversation be attributed to real intellectual thought. "Intellectual thought" I hate when I boil things down to things like that. So pretentious and blue-cold. But nonetheless we talked for years intermediately. Maybe it was something of a comfort, maybe it was attraction, maybe something in a grey area between.

I know you had some family troubles. I know you'd yell at me for drinking, and I wondered why. I heard once your father was in jail for drunkenly running over a girl. I still don't know if it's true, and I'm sorry if I subconsciously treated you as if it was and never asked to talk about it. I was bad at those things. I know we never talked about your marriage. I never even knew if it officially had gone through, or when you had broken up, or even if you had divorced. I don't know if I wanted to know, it seemed like you didn't want to tell.

You did tell me you started smoking. I was younger and more keen to be excited upon hearing someone else I knew enjoyed a bowl. We always made plans to smoke together but I was always to tangled in my high school relationship. I didn't know you'd get too relaxed with substances. Or at least I don't remember thinking of it.

I don't even remember thinking of you anytime recently. Not exactly the thing one would expect to read, but it's true. I was as unready as I could have been when I was told you had passed away. I knew snow had fallen and hoped a fatal crash wasn't your goodbye. With a little help of our once linking electronics, that had pinged our little bits of data to and fro in the atmosphere and into each other's hands, I found out you had been struggling with addiction.

I felt weirdly ashamed for not having known. I'm not the best friend, I'm not the partner, or the boss. There's no logical reason I should have caught the clues or been observing at all. Yet an insistent feeling that I should have at least known what you were going through ticked in my head. I remember feeling so strange when you had married, because you had said you wanted to marry me. I had never taken the statement seriously, but it still holds me in disbelief, much more now. Maybe it's that in the core of it all you wanted a future. I'm sorry you overdosed. I'm sorry I can't write to you any more.
Picture this Jun 2015
He wore a red jumper, a warning to me
I feared his slapping hand when I was a kid
unhappy with himself, would lash out at the world
I was always in the way of his harsh physical word

Frustrated by his endeavour, control was not his thing
he'd lose it washing cars or when the lawn mower pinged
anger inside his soul, meant there was no peace
sadness in his eyes, my pity brought out the beast

He was very clever, and on good days we had fun
always treading eggshells of the terror that would come
weary and alone I planned to escape his wrath
as soon as I was able I would walk a prettier path

Abusive life continued and I feared my own shadow
violence dominated my life, no loving I'd been shown
the day I left the home was the day I had revenge
peace descending on my life, no longer had to fend

Anger left behind for others to now deal
no more trembling at the table at every meal
looking back I learned to love instead of hate
but for my father, it is all too late

He died with no regrets, he proudly said
thinking only of himself and his selfish head
giving wasn't something he was ever taught
unfortunately his son, in violence is now caught
Amaranthine Jan 2019
I noodled my childhood,
Glued it on some diary
Spooks overflowed
And came out suddenly.

With monarchic wings,
And petal eyes
Gazed back, and pinged.
I succumbed twice.

"Whatever you wrote is a lie"
Confronted one roaring voice
It disappeared in pages again
I started to feel calm, at ease.


I gave it another shot, recalled,
I had seen him somewhere before,
'Did we meet in childhood?'
Question banged on my door


Of course, "No".
I never met him before,
How can I forget,
I never had a childhood!
Riju Gupta Sep 2020
Blue screen
Red eyes
2am
Frowning with smile

Looking straight in her eyes
As he swipe through her profile
Switching app to app
To see her latest stride

Morning
At noon
Tired eyes
Still she is on mind

Follow, friend request or ping,
What should he do?
To let her know,
He too subsist

Nervous
Courageous
Full of Fear
Followed, requested and pinged too

Felt as a proposal
For her to choose
Between him and the other guys who send her posts too

Scrolling
Waiting
Updating
Thinking, he is ignored

He was being okay
But Phone chimed
Notifying “one new request”.

Happiness
Shaking breaths
Fear of uncertainness
As he opened,
Its her request

He accepted as soon as he can
Showing his keenness
Thinking to makes his move
Without caring if its too soon

Likes
Comments
Mutual friends
All know what it meant

He thought
Hi, hello or what up?
Before, he asks
“If she mind being on her what’s app?”

Stressed
Hope-full
Full of expectations
“Hey, how you doing?” He texted

In seconds
Phone chimed
It notified, she “posted a new picture”
He instantly commented and liked
Waiting for her to reply

Days passed
Likes, comments, content shared
But she didn’t replied
How she was?
And He thought
He was someone more

Another night

Red eyes
2am
And one more profile.
Virtual dating in todays world
Sourodeep Apr 2020
She pinged him in the morning,
excited to relay her dream
they had met last night
over coffee and whipped cream
His smile could not be contained
within the mobile screen
while just twelve hours had passed
he texted her how long it had been
The couch looks so depressed
pillow flatter than ever before,
empty bowls of food lined up in front
late night love talks keep eyes sore
She did not care about her top and hair,
wearing a smile was just enough
the excitement of a video call
made both look lovely, although rough.
They chatted and took it slow
having all the time to let love grow
and just keep going with the flow.
Ken Pepiton Apr 2020
All in, do nothing, or do this

line by line imagine-ing, the verb behind what if,
the quest ion, sparking attention at the mention

cognosis troubler, bull in a china shop,

bringer of missile launching knowledge to fight with
a fuzzy visioned ****** breed of Andre stature,

pinged, 'im. Right between the eyes...

imagine doing that on the nineth at Pebble Beach,
with a nine iron, poised to

smack
a pink and white Ping classic purchased on Ebay for six bucks.

-- can't get that picture,
-- never had the feeling of whacking ball after ball into the desert, for the helluvit... if you missed that

you must have a metaphor of your own, for aiming at nothing,
and hitting dead center every time.
Launch on release, follow through, eye on the ball. Thinking on Tipping Points, and other Malcolm Gladwell contributions to my Corana on the porch state of mind.
Ken Pepiton May 2022
Ask your self this, after imagining a stone-free ****, against a wall,
taken with friends of Issac Newton, well acquainted
- I am, I know this--
with the rift between calculus's representatives to mankind.

Our kind, actually, this model, fourth, I am guessing,
after Erectus,

us, divided by climate change.
So long, we all for got, got for, like got it, get it, we
are for getting it, Get it, we got it, then it slipped away,

no way to say how twisted we got, we got twisted enough

to call the act of learning, the original transgression, not a
giant leap for all mankind,
- the disconnection re'nacted, ow

in a tribal ritual secret to be shown, when the time
is known as today in a time framed by then and now,

many more than six right ways to gauge engagement,
morphic resonance clicks to the eye, hey, look,
another device
pinged us
in significant urgency, ping. Read me.
-
Information warfare is senseless as tic tac toe,
but words don't **** people, people do.
- ai wanted to say that for a while.
Freedom is very difficult to enact beyond the bubble
of all you ever learned.
An old man muse. An old man muse. Part of a long day
Devon Brock Nov 2019
In this winter called Leviathan,
gorged be the meddles of men
lurched there, rustbound in ice
and enzyme.

And all that arcs over, whether
the crust limbed trees, or the white
tresses of sleet pinged on our heads,
mocks like a maul.

Roused and thus cursed by the makers
of beasts and things craving anvils
and the nails of undoing, undoing,
undoing us all.

And though it was said "Thou breakest
the heads of Leviathan in pieces..."
it is the heads of all men that break,
it is the wilderness fed.
Covid will obey the new rules
or maybe
the government's health advisers
are playing us for fools,

Pinged?

if you've isolated
one or two
maybe three days in a row
we're now being told
' we're good to go '

Monday seems to be the day
when the virus packs its bags
and goes away,
do I hear a hip hooray?
nope
I don't believe it either.
The matrix lives
The ping is the thing
apparently
but if you are pinged
perhaps you will see it
a bit differently,

'you need to self-isolate'
haha
I thought it said immolate
at any rate
it'll burn you to stay at home.
Travesty did not write Mary Poppins, that was Travers.
Honest? I chose at random.
Got the grades, managed to squeak
through the door.

After three days, I had a girl.
Well, I say had. She weren’t convinced
but I’d got time.

Her name: Rhiannon.
Yeah, like the Fleetwood Mac song.
She loved that one, typically.

I was more a Zeppelin fan.
This was pre-punk, pre-White Riot,
pre-kids, house, diagnosis.

Runny eggs at the caff for brekky,
hungover Saturdays after a Seagulls defeat
at the Goldstone.

I smoked, quit, smoked again.
She got a peace sign stabbed
on her right shoulder-blade.

Some point later, I’m in a white room,
white man. Oesophageal.
I got the one I can’t pronounce.

I’m pinged out of the reverie
by two girls, one humming Waterloo.
Unmistakable.

I can give or take it, you know.
Like I said, I was into Led Zep.
ABBA’s more an acquired taste.

Still, I find myself humming it too
when the wife returns,
fish in batter like a ***** of gold.
Written: 2018/19.
Explanation: A poem that was part of my MFA Creative Writing manuscript, in which I wrote poems about cities that have staged the Eurovision Song Contest, or taken the name of a song and written my own piece inspired by the title. I have received a mark for this body of work now, so am sharing the poems here.
Kishore Shanbhag May 2020
Triumph vision, on the corona
There was a lot of woo ha n na
I had a cup of Chi, na I thought
How can we? Drag-on like corona

But then again, I think
How silent it came on my ward,
Din't go to be!, jingling and the rest
Is all the woo ha n na conspiracy real

I see, Gin pinged in a glass
like a potent invisible shot
Never fired? But cheering.

— The End —