Author: grid

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escape from technology

Nothing like taking a metaphor and running with it. I guess I feel like every really good metaphor deserves a poem written about it. Maybe that’s back-asswards, but I like those one-meat-a-phor poems. There’s technical jargon for them, I know, but I can’t be bothered to search for it right now, what with the words coming hither-thither and all. It’s raining outside you know, really getting water into everything.

Probably nobody’s noticed, but I write a lot of these poems after midnight, then backdate the entries to look like I wrote them the day before, usually right at 11:59. This happens when I’m about to go to bed and realize I haven’t yet written a poem for the day.

Yes, I realize they haven’t all been about technology as I’d promised. Especially the last couple. But it’s almost like I’ve been thinking about technology so much that when it comes time to write, I want to escape it rather than exalt in its glorious majesty. This last week I have found myself more and more thinking about code when I’m not working. Maybe it’s the eight-hour days, but suddenly I am a programmer in my non-working hours too. I have a project whose deadline is ostensibly the end of this month (but the client has been taking their sweet time approving things, so I’m sure we can push back on that date), anyway, I’m getting a little worried that I haven’t started the programming yet. So I woke up this morning and was defining the database tables for it in my head. This is Friday. My day off. My day for me. What am I doing?

The night before last, I looked over at Laura after a silence, I forget which of us asked what the other was thinking about, but we’d both been thinking about work. How does this happen? I used to be so good at separating work from home. I have so many favored forms of escapism in my arsenal. I’m going to go find some…

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[ I have ideas like salted wounds ]

I have ideas like salted wounds
words poured from a shaker stinging and
flung over shoulders superstitiously
and if the slug of cohesive thought
were to crawl over those ideas, it would
burn or melt or something, and anyway die
and what would happen to the words?
some no doubt mixed with my blood, would
become part of me, or anyway, dry onto me
like a shell of masochistic poetry
and some would have mixed more with
the burning melting full-on thought
which would also dry to my skin, unless
I brushed it away, wishing for less coherence
as if that were possible

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[ standing in front of the bathroom mirror ]

standing in front of the bathroom mirror
naked but for my chesthair
which I have noticed swirls
above my nipples disturbingly
in two places like the top of someone’s head
but twice, and brushing my teeth
I spit into the sink, I think then
looking for the white still left on my tongue
from the milk I drank ten minutes before
but it matches the toothpaste scum
and I can see nothing in there
but the toothpaste scum
that I spit into the sink
where it swirls with the water
clockwise down the drain
like the top of someone’s head

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bugs

sticky hangman’s knots
pisspore fleshspawn sorespots
like I’m using inkblot eyedrops

all I see are brittle nooses
my paw keyboard-mashingly produces
code-train’s derailed cabooses

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from passively informative to passably informative

media has transformed again for the new millennium
from print to radio to TV and now to web
from reading to listening to watching back to reading
from passive to choosing to be passive
from words to sounds to pictures back to words
but words with pictures and sounds
an exchange of words
from words to sounds to pictures to
conversation

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boring monday recap

I wrote some poetic crap today, but nothing worth posting. Usually when I sit down to write, I can mold something I think is worth reading from all the crap that spills forth in the meantime, but not today.

I feel like I owe about fifty people emails. But I woke up today at about seven to carpool with Laura to work today, and my brain is mush. I’m sleeping in tomorrow, no doubt about it. I may also work from home, as my throat has been kinda scratchy, and I don’t yet know if it’s the lack of sleep or what.

Tonight a bunch of us all saw Team America: World Police, and I swear it was just about the funniest thing I’ve seen, maybe ever. I’m not even a huge fan of south park. I like the show, but don’t generally seek it out. But this was extremely funny. My sides hurt from laughing by the end of it. Obviously it’s “their” type of humor, “irreverent” puts it mildly. I don’t know what else I can say about it other than… I highly recommend you go see it when it comes out on Friday.

I started reviewing some movies on netflix today. I wanted to create a “list” of the best science fiction parody movies, and realized that I couldn’t do that without writing a couple of reviews first. Not only that, but my reviews have to be approved before they show up on the site.

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on my desk now

Canned air, a hand-held tape recorder, a box of
Ear plugs, speakers, a letter opener, scotch tape —
Two dispensers, single and double sided —
Hundreds of scraps of paper with
Phone numbers, dates, notes; empty boxes with
Video game instruction manuals,
A motherboard still in box,
Another box full of old Pentium CPUs,
Blank CD and DVD media,
Dust, a fountain without water in it,
A date book, pens, sharpie markers,
Two boxes of checks, a stack of
Return address stickers, unread computer books,
Two keyboards, a mouse, a stack of DVD movies,
3-ring binder, bills, coupons, a calculator, cigarette lighter,
This monitor, post-it notes, (some attached to the monitor),
Five stand-up Budas that Mike brought back for me from Alaska,
A stand-up photo album, two empty
Subway customer appreciation cards,
Unused jewel cases, volume controls,
Cable modem router, 4-port switch and
Wireless hub, empty envelopes — security and “invitation” size —
An unused calendar, set of precision screw drivers,
Worn Bitstream mouse pad, a few random floppy disks,
A poem that I wrote on the back of an opened envelope, and
My wrists.

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two short poems and an ice cream cone

I didn’t write or post a poem yesterday. I did write a 1200 word short story (that doesn’t actually feel finished quite yet). In a few minutes I’ll post two short ones as penance.

Last night Laura and I went to see Low, Kid Dakota, and the Fog at the Tripplerock. It was an alright show, but toward the end of Low’s set I found I was having trouble standing up. My big toe joint was seriously in pain. I decided to check out the merch table one last time before we left, and I’m glad I did, because I’d somehow missed Dosh’s new album lying there. (Not in stores till Tuesday.) I wanted to make sure it wasn’t the third release of his first album before I got it, (since I picked up the re-release not knowing it was the same album with a different cover — in retrospect a third cover for the same album would be extremely unlikely, but what do I know?), and when I asked him about it, he said he’d have to cut me a deal to make up for my buying the other one on accident. He basically threw in his live album when I bought the new one and the new single. He was really nice about it, seemed like an awesome guy.

After I post this, I’m going to go see John’s art exhibit at the Tilsner in the St. Paul Art Crawl.

There is no ice cream cone.