Shadow Waters
The water-bearer leans his urn silently,
pours starlight over forsaken streets
where neon lights flash their final confessions
and shattered promises accumulate like rain.
Here in the reverse trickle of time,
where advancement is lost in its own reflection,
the era turns in, searching for explanations
in dregs of what we believed we'd gained.
Electric prophets air hollow gospels
while the crowds scroll through ghost lives,
each contact another strand that entwines us
to this tapestry of lovely despair.
The constellation turns above, unchanging
those very stars that once held out liberty
now witness us tumble into the labyrinth
we built from our own radiant ideals.
In tower suites and lower-level clubs,
the children of the future sell their souls
to algorithms who recognize their secret names
and dole them out in morsels, afterwards.
Yet, still, the water flows, unceasing,
carrying seeds of something not yet born
perhaps redemption sleeps in darkness
of this shattered, brilliant age.
The carrier's face away from us,
sloshing the future drop by drop
while we stand dry in the flood,
suffocating in our own lighted shadows.
Pixelated, dark, and with word I did not know,
I met you with that mask.
And though I’m sure I have memorised it’s crevices,
Your shirt, the glasses.
I feel guilty about it still.
God is something of many that connects us,
Something that loosened our ropes,
And your cross is highlighted in my moonlight,
And yet I’m drawn to you still.
Your wisdom outshines mine,
And you bask in it well,
And your tan fingers ran over my route before me,
I follow along, to my peers’ disdain,
And I look up to you still.
For, my dear, you have been through hell
And with each of my beats the ache grows,
And your scars match my own,
And your lack of an ichor leash let the worst inside,
And we fall today still.
And my protection I do wish you had,
Though our locations do not align,
Shared nations, interests,
And realising you may know me best,
Yet I have not met you still.
I’m tired of the teeter-totter polemics
that pass for profundity.
I’m tired of the see-saw tug of war,
the streaming regurgitation on every channel.
Yes, I’m weary of the predictable posturing,
the vapid, barren landscapes of the oligarchy.
I am groggy in the dull fog of capitalist pretense,
the plutocratic hubris sold by carnival barkers.
I am worn down by the endless banal chatter,
the mindless daily clutter flooding all our
electronic screens, all our senses.
Scientists in a million years will
try to decipher our primitive etchings.
Our digital scribble will remain.
Will they recognize our AI ventriloquism?
Will they distinguish us from chimpanzees?
I don’t have answers in my advancing years.
I’ll find cozy books and trees instead,
while we still have them.
Where a series of
messages fly across
profiles inflated
in balloons of
hot air.
Where a model with doctored skin
sells better cells to cover your acne,
where people 'blackout' Tuesday
and appropriate taking a knee.
Where truth is a golden ticket, impossible to find,
where 'likes' replace juries, and we forget to #bekind.
Where stories are created at the push of a key,
replacing where dreams and drafting used to be.
Where a voice called Alexa can order, suggest and locate,
but also listen and through silent algorithms manipulate.
Where faceless Gemini can offer names for your new-born,
an ironic namesake, a duplicitous invader on your own front lawn.
And most of the time
those ongoing anonymous
messages simply
ghost
jingle tingle of the night
wind moving everything in sight
internet down it isn’t right
what do I do? Go fly a kite?
Internet should be fixed by nine they said.
Wasn’t fixed by eleven, when I went to bed
Got up at two am to check, and it was still down.
Any minute said a notice, written by a clown.
For that internet did not come up until four
Down twelve hours, for some a little more.
The internet down is difficult to deal with today.
We use it so much in our work and play.
forest limbs swing wide
tails vanish betwixt the leaves
hands learn to hold stones
muscle and thought entwining-
shaping the first fragile edge
soul entered the fray
moulding spiritual form
eyes afire with zeal-
humanoid stalks the garden
a king calling the beasts names
flint sparks in cold caves
shadows dance on raw stone walls
stories find their voice-
the stone mason stands upright
stone flint and fire seize the day
now man shapes in steel
threads thought through silver-net mesh
words flap without wings-
man beyond his own making
ejects the flaws he once bore
circuits wear the crown
king of beasts remade in steel
hands that never tire-
maker bows to better made
behold the mirror ascends
the internet is down
no biggie
I think I’ll watch TV
ha!
That isn’t happening
I thought I could type a poem on the computer
Wrong
Word says
Cannot save, check your internet settings
I do not have to check
I know
the internet is down
on parallel shore
I wander where waves caress
no footprints online
only brine, rock, and seabirds
to echo that I'm present
screens flare like lures do
hooking the curious in—
I keep eyes blinkered
knowing one slip starts the plunge
into hours I cannot spare
my life is fragile
ink seeps slowly into grain
behind the latched gates
I paint in colours unseen
where regret can't get a breach
no mast light for me
no beacon on shoreline gleams-
I sail without charts
my course drawn by phantom steeds
into the void in your world
I burn my candle
past the eyes that never blink
past networks alight—
your grid can't trap my shadow
your feed can't name what I am
I live analogue
unseen on parallel lines
that starves intruders
wanting to click, like and feed
on clocks that don't keep your time
no mast light for me
no beacon on the shoreline—
I sail without charts
my course drawn by unseen stars
in the space between your worlds
Don't like the look of what's going on
seems to you something's wrong
the smell of corruption in the air
look around it's everywhere
can't place the feel of what's happening here
could it be something to fear
the sound of conniving on the wind
a warning call for all thin-skinned
so round and round and round we go
where it stops no one knows
it takes two to tango or so they say
but that was then not today
ask a question and they hand you
the same old automated two-step quango
one foot forward two steps back
while standing in quicksand
pose a query they'll sidestep the issue
and the matter at hand
giving you the light fandango
they'll look you in the eye and deny
it's all a web within a web
behind a web of total lies
Artificial intelligence
created simply, because we can
to easily, lazily, complete tasks we plan,
and ones perhaps, we cannot do on our own.
No incentive now
to pursue knowledge or grow
no need for humanity to learn or know
how we are succumbing to boredom flow.
Now, all our bridges can be burned
our very words to be reinterpreted and reformed
disconnecting any or all need
passage of learning to our progeny.
Machinery, rote computerized mind thinking
solvers of the cosmos blinking
as all living entities are seized
to impregnation of the mind's slow disease.
Already most are lost to creative goals
incapable of educating hearts and souls
more dependent every day of the powers that be
making every decision for you and me.
today, yesterday, tomorrow an artificial intelligence sea
will rewrite our history
with little need of any input or discovery
from you or you or me.
You know you've hit rock bottom for sure
when you find your track
in a used record store
under a stack at the very back
of the ten pee CD rack
(does anyone buy them anymore?)
and you know you've hit the all-time low
it's a sure bet
when you don't see your song
in any list at all
on the worldwide internet
rock bottom don't get lower than that
from up to down at the drop of a hat
better to be a has-been a player in the game
than a never-was because
they may have been the best of times
and tho' memories will last
I won't spend the rest of my days
living in the past
First it came like progress, cold and clean,
With circuits bright and wires unseen.
It took our hands from honest toil,
Turned bread and sweat to data spoil.
Then vanished choice beneath the screen,
Where algorithms picked what dreams had been.
We traded sleep for sleepless feeds,
And fed the dark on silent needs.
Now history flickers on the glass—
A question shaped like shattered mass.
And one remains, alone to see:
Was this the end, or just... a plea?
A woman splayed upon a lofty beach—
the drunkard’s stumble-street-strut-jumble-key—
BUY NOW, AND GET THE SECOND [this/that] FREE!
—and what’s this cracked out weirdo got to preach?
…”about the senate’s 3rd bid to impeach…”—
.(Get lost.-)—.IF YOU THINK YOU’LL NEVER BELIE—
look,look!a man crushed by a falling tree!—
—(“oh!—my God!”)—nvm—it’s…freedom…of speech?
Get real! Wake up! Which trope must I invoke?—
(Uh?)—GET REAL RELIEF FROM [this.that]for cheap…—
(Am I getting déja vu?)—(Wait a minute…
)—"everyone’s already way deep in it!"*—
(Who’s telling me that?)—it crawls like a creep:
*Deconformity,(am I just a joke?).
Worlds within a screen,
Connecting minds across lands,
Knowledge at our hand.
©bfa042825
I hit post and send my words
into this busy, glowing website
where I’m fifteen, the youngest voice,
surrounded by grandmothers’ stories
and grandfathers’ quiet smiles,
moms who cheer me on
and dads who nod like it matters.
I don’t mind being the baby here
your words feel softer than home.
You read my late-night poems,
drop comments like warm blankets,
and make me feel safe
when walls at home feel cold.
You’ve cheered my every awkward line,
Took the time to read what no one else does,
and loved me more
than I’ve ever known in my real world.
Here, I’m more than just a kid,
I’m part of a little family
built from hearts and usernames.
So thank you for each encouraging word,
for telling me to keep writing,
for being my virtual grandparents and parents,
for becoming the safe place
I never knew I needed.
I’m grateful for you all,
my internet family,
who love me more than home.
Specific Types of Internet Poems
Definition | What is Internet in Poetry?
Poems Related to Internet
cyberspace, world wide web, information superhighway, www, arpanet, w3, hyperspace, infobahn, information highway, national information infrastructure, online network, the net, the web,