home / writing main / slam poems main / last poem / next poem

 

 

My Room Hums

 

 

My room hummmmmmmmmms

and buzzzzzzzzzes

and whirrrrrrrrrrrrs

and flashes

in the dark

 

I've got

2 alarm clocks,

a laptop computer connected to a printer,

a cable modem and a wireless router connected to

a desktop computer connected to an external hard drive,

and my stereo system through an amp and receiver,

connected to a tv, an Xbox, and a Dreamcast with four controllers each

all on one wall,

opposite my bed,

and they all blink with these green lights and red and yellow lights

and it looks like the deck of the Starship Intrepid,

only the equipment isn't all integrated into the paneling,

but precariously stacked and balanced,

wires exposed, complicated and flailing,

up in, on, and around a bookshelf and a desk

 

and you can just feel the energy surging through my room,

drives hum and buzz, fans whir, lights flash,

and for some reason I can't sleep...

 

so I get up,

play some electronica mp3s on my desktop,

and surf the internet for a little while on my laptop.

 

I've got 20 gigs of mp3s,

but I promise they're all legal...

and

(through a visual interface)

*I am connected to the web!*

 

I've got over a hundred online accounts on different websites,

And you have to remember that websites don't just float around in an ethereal web,

but they actually exist on some distant computer,

it could be in Chicago, it could just as easily be in Scotland,

when I log into the homepage of the Republic of China,

my computer is actually exchanging packets of data with China,

 

*I have connections to China!*

 

all through one thin wire...

so through this thin wire,

I check my email my MyYahoo/SBC/DSL account

update my website on Lycos/Tripod,

log into LiveJournal,

look at the pretty girls on Friendster,

I surf through some online political journals and news sites,

then I write this poem on my desktop where I do all my writing,

and dance a little in my chair to the music pumping through the speakers.

 

and I'm still not tired,

and I wish that it wasn't three am on a winter weekday morning,

I wish it was a summer Saturday afternoon and I could fly,

that I was a bird, a falcon,

hearing no buzzing but wind

no humming but rain,

on my feathers, on my wings, on my body,

and the snap of the back and the last breath,

of my eagle-eye-spied rodent next meal

held fast in my bloody beak,

as I flash-cut through the sky,

then rise from a deep dive.

 

I want to get back to that kind of simple life an animal leads,

a life in which the only thing that matters,

is the skin on my muscles on my bones,

and the cells in my blood in my organs,

and the breath in my lungs in my mouth,

where my next meal is going to come from

and where I'm going to sleep.

 

and speaking of sleep, I need to go to bed now...

 

but this time I'm going to turn off my computers and everything else...

 

I'm going to open the window and lay down;

listen to the wind...

 

I'm going to breathe deep,

my hearts going to beat,

and I am going to sleep...

 

(if I'm lucky I'll dream I'm a bird)

 

 

Copyright © 2004, Danny Strack

home / writing main / slam poems main / last poem / next poem