accessing...
browsing...
downloading...
logging...
posting...
scanning, scrolling, surfing...
uploading...
I spend hours online
wasting time...
and I'm so good at it!
The gods are online today,
Updating their laws like software patches,
Fixing glitches in heaven while we glitch on earth,
Typing commandments no one reads,
Uploading sermons no one feels.
They scroll through prayers like spam emails,
Ignore the bleeding body in the dirt,
Reward the loudest liars,
And punish the quiet truth.
In their group chats,
They laugh at those like me —
Broken ribs, broken voice, broken trust —
Another ticket closed,
Another sinner "served."
The village bows to their screens,
Worships the edits, fears the updates,
And I,
I am just a bug in their system,
Flagged for deletion because I dared defend myself.
My innocence is offline,
My pain is offline,
Only the image matters here:
The curated guilt,
The viral shame.
The gods are online —
But none of them are listening.
There are many guys online
Each of them comes for purpose
Either simply for having fun
Or seriously for living curious
Someone as me are just viewers
Wandering online for kill-time
Either for sunrise or sunset to come
We are standing-by as specters
Looking nothing for particular
We are living in a special status
Having rattling beliefs and ideas
And appealing for world being safer
We first met coasting the blurred lines
of the information superhighway. We
exchanged polite words and respectful
kindness, though we seldom saw or heard
each other.
I am the old man of touch and eye contact,
you are the princess of text and illusions.
I adapt to your hot realms, to your affinity
for glittering screens because past and future,
old and young are but shadows cast
over the now.
Once I learned the rules, I believed in you.
You are alive and fragrant within the text
you deliver each moment of each day.
In the photos you send, in the stories you share,
you thrive and brighten my journey!
Social Media Princess,
my apps erect you through your words,
like the heroine I love in my favorite novel,
the perfect Eidolon in my dreams.
You return, making your offerings
again, and again. I somehow hear your
whispering words soothing my
solitary hungry heart. I somehow awaken
to your textual passion and kindness,
to my love and longing for you.
self disgust
and disappointment
for the slip-up
but I need to know
what cheapens intimacy
devaluing myself
devalues anyone
with whom I
would share something
valuable
it's why
I'm detoxing from
all these dopamine pumps
and anesthestics
(gambling and alcohol)
how could online "intimacy"
not be included in
the mix that
keeps me from
feeling
all must go
until this backlog
can be managed
They met online with one click
She was a doctor, he was a prince
Both were liars, each a cat-fisher slick
All of their lives would make you wince
She paid for dinner, he had forgotten his money
In a few days they were calling each other babe and honey
Perfect couple of swindlers and thieves
When they swung by their relatives grieved.
I sit down and write
a poem to share.
I have friends on Poetry Soup—
they’re everywhere.
They’re everywhere
my friends online
who also take the time
to write and post.
To write and post
the insights we share
flicker onscreen
for the world to see.
For the world to see
we seek our muse
to shape our dreams
into stanzas others will see.
The stanzas others will see
bear witness to storied lives
our visions and our strife—
I sit down and write.
T
I can see it in your eyes from across the room,
makes my heart ache, it’s a mistake - why do you
compare the self-view, dark-hue worst of yourself
to the online best of who?
Gosh dammit! I can’t stand it! If I had a single wish –
open windows, heal the widows and the few.
Those who give it all away, feel they fail some way
to the online best of who.
Wanna burn it to the ground, plow it under, put it down,
help you understand your beauty from my view.
Cuz it’s all a bunch of , give it up, don’t look at it...
yeah, the online best of who.
Your avatar’s cute here online
I said, so to make her all mine.
So we met at some place;
I saw her true face
she certainly was not divine!
I had friends
once long ago
who would give
anything for me
and just the same
I was their friend
standing true
right by their side
if they would call
and say come right now
and bring a gun
I would be there
so long ago
so far away
and today
I stand alone
my standards are
just as they were
and duty is
so very strong
and today
if I should call
no one does answer
no one does come
I stand alone
in dark of night
out in the cold
myself alone
when I was young
so very long ago
in a different world
that now is gone
I did not dream
nor did I fear
of the friends
I have online
With high-altitude ambitions,
they climb the hilltop to catch the signal.
They are lush and lovely
as the landscape behind them.
These children of the forest live
in the network-less valley of life.
Masked,
they lose their natural raptures,
cannot regain the warmth they lost in the school
padlocked by the pandemic.
They’ve been installed on the rocks
with their mobile phones.
While listening to the online class,
they forget
the giant elephant foot, tiger teeth, and slithering venom.
Frequent lightning frightens them,
yet they don’t switch off their passion for learning.
It drizzles now;
water wets their dress,
not their dreams.
Under the clouds,
they look forward to the light.
First published in The Literary Hatchet
There is s new online bill, i heard and it gave
Me a chill, to know there must be such a killer
King; thing ' to help no doubt; on misinformation
To route' like the 'so called gender confusion' is
That based on illusion? M n r a gene infusions
Puberty drugs that cancel, usual life growth now
Given rampant dissolution to the cohesion of
The youth..Just where is the truth?? I guess there
We be guidance on good moral fibre, when its
Signed off? this decider, or is it a guider?? So much
We all all need such' lets thank the govenrment to
Apprehend in its, (out-clutch?) to grab and redress'
The last decades miss-approprieated mess.!
I was looking at my life online.
Sure, looks like I’m having a great time.
My world filled with smiling faces;
Look at all the wonderful places.
But listen to me folks, here’s the deal;
Only part of what you see is real.
Just like too much whisky, wine, or weed;
Online excess to dark places leads.
The online world by design deceives,
Confusing what’s real with make believe.
Internet an addictive medium;
Don’t get hooked on online opium.
'May I have the honor of this dance'
sounds quaint in an era of online romance
Yet when a gentleman takes the hand of a lady with class
~ the 21st century can take a pass
i want to be like the girls online
the girls you searched for
sought out on your websites
terms put together in incoherent order
shopping for your perfect prize
which one, which video
curves, lips, thighs, belly, big doe eyes-
her.
she’s the one.
the one that isn’t me.
i want to be like the girls online
no insecurities spoken
(that would kill the mood)
no tears shed
(unless that’s what YOU want)
no complains, no i don’t knows, no buts,
no second guessing no birth control
noperiodsnobodyhairnowomanhood-
if that’s what it takes,
why won’t
my performances work?
i want to be like the girls online
the ones you keep fantasizing about
teasing you with every angle, giggle, moan
you touch yourself and she’s who you want oh and she smiles at the camera and
you smile back at her and
you love her she loves you back and
you finish.
and it wasn’t me,
it was the girl online.
the one that isn’t me.
and she’s like beautiful,
and i can’t blame you.
and i want to be one of the girls online.
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