The conversation’s changing.
Where we once betted on the odds of rain
or complained about it soaking our shoes again
our sighs are reserved for internet tides,
wifi droughts and downloads shy as brides
while all around a hurricane of data flies
so seek the stillness at its core. If you lean
your curious head out, seeking more
it will toss you about like a toy
but on the inside, everything’s joy.
Watch the furniture dance in its
ludicrous attempts to allure
watch the frames grow dustier
– it collects as you resist –
and the longer you hold back
from tumbling in among the grist
in this vortex of desire and need
of unsatisfying gut-mind feeds
the anger in its frustrated call
blows red and heavies the wind
with firestones and curses.
You counterculture scum – you dare
defy the raging wheel of dunya?
It will pelt you with fearful rocks
pepper you with doubts against your cause
and it seems so hard and physical, but stay
in this tranquillity; don’t take the hooks it throws you,
let them drop. This wall of wind believes
it will keep twisting on forever.
But it was born of lunar high tides
silent moon gazing in love and
whipping up the whistling waves
that roll in shaggy tubes onto the beach
and end up in rock pools and homes for
crabs, anemones. That force
was forged by other powers
and every one of them
comes out of stillness
and in stillness it meets
its match.
Great poem Medina. Here’s one I wrote in 1995 called ‘Cyber Gape’, just before I embarked on my career as an (Inter)network architect:
Cyber-Gape
“How will we fill the infosphere that we create?
What will flesh the skeleton
Of pumping data, cyber-systems, tele-networks and the rest –
Where will we find emotional colour and finesse
To give it life
So that it’s not some Frankenstein,
Or monstrous Moulinex?
How will we learn again to reach into our hearts
And pull out the sincerity and worth
We’ve tried for years to shut away,
And grind into a bone-dry dust?
Will it be just a stupid, rigid, useless gape
That grins about the awesome cost
Of what we’ve lost?”
Brilliant! I’d love to see a whole chain of poems linking arms in the comments thread…hope to see you guys before you head home. Salams