I can only write on the computer.
And I suppose that that’s not really the right thing to say, because people are going to say that I really am part of the next generation who survives solely by technology.

I really do try to write on paper, but I can only use pen because pencil smudges too easily and the end gets so dull,
So when people say that they can’t send me a link to one of their favorite poems because it’s on paper, my respect for them goes up by about sixty percent.

The part of writing on paper that scares me the most,
the part of speaking in real life that scares me the most

is that I can’t delete words.

On Microsoft Word, I can go back and add words into the middle of my poem, I can look at it as a whole and as a half and everywhere in between,

I can delete half of it and forget about, and that half will be lost forever.

But the way my fingers sometimes stick to the keyboard reminds me, I think, that the words that I’ve deleted stick with me forever, no matter how lost they are.

They’re not in some vast, infinite vacuum of the internet-

but stuck to my fingers because that was the only physical presence of those words at the time they were given life.

(Baby ducks follow the first moving thing they see when they hatch,)

And it’s some weird, modern folk tale, how the words got life, and how the words died.

So maybe if I’m the only one who can’t write on paper, then this word carrying curse is the punishment?

It’s a special flaw that makes the protagonist unique but relatable, (along with making her not able to spell anything and not able to talk to people)

And if poetry is just rambling and writing is ranting, then what are words.

The cancerous cells in a slice of bone marrow?

More likely some hellish creature that comes out of everyone only at two in the morning,

or the sticky stuff that I feel sometimes on my keyboard (or is it my fingers?)

Because my sticky fingers are a word’s physical form,

and if you think about it, you really can’t ever touch a word. They’re either soundwaves or dried ink on a dead tree, or pixels on a screen.

(or on your fingertips or your tongue.)

And I carry them with me everywhere, on my tongue and on my sticky fingers.

For seventy or more years TV
And radio ruled the world,
Along with telephones.
But then computers made their mark,
Soon followed by mobiles, Smartphones,
Ipads, Bluetooth, Wifi and who knows what?
In no particular order.

So herds of sheep migrated
Into Cyberspace
Even Myspace!
Then on to Planet Facebook
And Terratwitter.

We talk with people we’ve never met,
And meet folk with whom we’ve never talked.
It keeps us occupied I guess,
And gives relief from stress.

These images that yet fresh images beget,
I’m sure Yeats would agree.
I tolerate these adverts flashing in my face
And soak up knowledge to my solid mental grace.

A world of wonders beckons in
The depths of Cyberspace,
And as a Nerd before they were invented,
I have to say I’ve truly found my place.

Paul Butters

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