PROMPT #14: write a poem that bridges the seeming divide
between poetry and technological advances
From our earliest infancy Ancestors, thuggish, Chest-thumped and knuckle-dragged— Simian, sluggish . . .
The ancients were brutes Barely down from the trees, When the species was stirred By a Darwinist breeze:
Some brilliant hominid
invented the Wheel
And it’s been uphill since then.
(We are not created
In the image of progress.)
In the primitive past
Humans were limited
To hunting and gathering
Reading bestsellers
Navigating by celestial markers
Chipping spearheads
Grabbing fish by hand
Downloading tribal apps
And building massive edifices
Of seamless stone slabs
Which survived earthquakes
And millenia
To mystify us.
(Being unintelligent, our forebears
developed no smartphones.)
The myth of an ignorant past Shall be shown as an error at last Were our ancestors dumb? No. That’s what we’ve become. Homo Sapiens proving it fast.
When wickerwork whirled and turned itself into pottery, obsidian, chip off the old block, set its filial face like flint and with iron will, sparked the powderkeg of progress. Still smoking, Gutenberged into vapor, railroaded across the continents, we forded rivers of internal combustion, petro-chemicaled ourselves into particle board and plywood paradises. Atomic pharmacologies lit the way to our current zenith of global brilliance. Teens twerked on Tiktok.
The forefathers, dumber than rocks Could design neither engines nor clocks They merely built temples Those shoddy examples Of dim children playing with blocks.
Yes class, we have evolved in a dizzying parabolic curve, from the walls of Machu Picchu and Baalbek, from pre-dynastic basalt and pyramid schemes of megalithic misanthropology up, up, and up to disposable diapers, unlimited data, fentanyl and ongoing drone-strikes.
I, Nomad Monad, lost myself in the amusing mazes of the amazing muses. With apocalyptic vision and a longing for eternity as traveling companions, I set off to seek individuation in pursuit of autonomy; I lived on poetry and starlight and whatever the denizens of the infernal machine had left or thrown out. There IS a free lunch. I consistently found it—and I feasted while others merely ate. The soundtrack of my voyage was every beloved song ever downloaded to my soul. I set off for the celestial Zion, the name of an impermanent city never to be found on earth. I was sure I could, through continual movement and transience, leave behind the Babylon of striated complication and flow into the continual present of smooth space. But in the process, my hermeneutic dimension imploded. I found myself thirsting and stranded in a mirage; the mirage of absolute freedom. Even as I pursued the shimmering waters of this mirage, they receded before me until the longer I contemplated the ideal, the greater I became enslaved—and the greater grew my thirst . . . I tried to maintain a continuous line of flight, slaking my thirst and seeking escape through the virtual window of art and memory. I sought in this way to transcend the ontic redundancy of my own identity, but in so doing, I marginalized myself into utter misanthropic irrelevance and lost myself in multiplicities of bitterness. If it was not for the mercy of God, I would have shattered into irretrievable fragments. But by the grace of the Lord, I was able to find my way back into the data-driven quotidian banalities that pass for settled life and respectable citizenship. Now I am no longer a traveler. I am a plebeian with reveries born of philosophy, and I know that on this sin-cursed earth I have no continuing city. Life is less intense—but also more manageable now. The colors are muted, I get tired earlier; but I sleep and I dream and I still love that verdant music.
Beholding God’s marvelous color, shade, Rustling textures, and million tones of green; The organic beauty that He has made— Do you think He wants us glued to the screen?
I share my mind and bare my soul to those travelers or ex-voyagers I esteem as worthy. I mistrust and shun the tyranny of the mediocre majority.
What, oh fellow student and fish in the school of life,
is your story?
PROMPT #12: write your own poem about a remembered, cherished landscape. At some point in the poem, include language or phrasing that would be unusual in normal, spoken speech – like a rhyme, or syntax that feels old-fashioned or high-toned.
CONNECT/HOOK 