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Patricia Lockwood, POEM FOR J FRANZ (Poem for Jonathan Franzen, Poem Called "Death of the Book") And they cried for it was called a Kindle, and they cried for it came to burn books, and burn all books like a first-growth .........forest. Made by wizards! And full, they claim, of magic e-ink, that assembles itself in the dark like crowds. Because someone’s getting burned on the bonfire later, and his name is Book, The Book. Some homeless guy. He’s gross. We hate him. Stay in your cardboard box, old man! The Book sleeps in his box and dreams, and dreams of dirty oral, and is awakened by big hands lifting him out. The crowd of e-ink whispers to itself, the crowd of e-ink huddles together, held in the hand of some- one larger. And there goes the match, ...............and there goes the newspaper. To read the first Kindle by the light ...........................of a homeless trashcan fire – the experience beggars description! Makes description a beggar wearing finger- less gloves. He got holes in his pockets and holes in his socks and the soles of his boots they open to speak. Every time he reads a word it slips out of him somewhere. It slips out and the beggar cries. He just wants to be able to hold again what happened to Anna Karenina. Killed by the train of progress, beggar. Killed by the demon belching smoke. The arms that would hold her own book lopped off! And the reader staring down at the tracks, watching the e-ink assemble around her, “Oh the youngest technology, Anna Karenina!” cries the crowd out to her body. “Oh she is cheap and light and everywhere!” And all of her penny-elongated, and 99 cents ..............................on the Kindle.
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Dec 4, 2013 11:21
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| # ¿ May 13, 2024 10:22 |
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Wilfred Owen: Dulce Et Decorum Est Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of disappointed shells that dropped behind. GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And floundering like a man in fire or lime.-- Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-- My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.
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Dec 4, 2013 11:22
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