Tag Archives: poem about Facebook

Out There

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Out There

Back when you were innocent—back when you played the clown,
before your mind was jaded by seeking wide renown,
back before the pomp, the glory and the plaudits,
back before the news reports, the surveys and the audits,
back there when a diary preceded post and tweet,
there were words of innocence, secretive and sweet.

Back when every aspect of life was not for show,
back when information tended to move slow,
was there more than one hushed aspect of your life,
secrets not used against you, as lethal as a knife?
Everything’s now out there in selfies and YouTubes—
your angsts and loves and conquests, not to mention boobs.

What is left to grow inside, to flourish and to bloom?
What secrets left confined to the safety of your room?
Everything’s out spinning in the cruel world.
No way to get it back again, no secret ever curled
safely under the covers of a private book
where even your best friend has never had a look.

Do they still make diaries that aren’t electronic
where words languish on pages, quiet and laconic?
Where little girls confide their thoughts to a much-smudged page,
all their secret passions, their hurts and hopes and rage?
“Dear Diary” the sweetest confidant of all?
One that will never tell on you. One always there on call.

What will happen in a world where everything’s on view
forever to be classified, forever part of you?
Never will we ever leave our pasts behind.
Everything is indexed, simple enough to find.
Your sons and your daughters will peek into your past.
Google yourself now. Won’t they just have a blast?

Prompt words today were pomp, diary, jaded, aspect and clown.

I just stumbled upon my old diary from age eleven through thirteen yesterday. What a revelation. Facts garnered: I had someone sleep over at least three times a week, lots of relatives passed through one summer, my best friend went home mad a lot, I called lunch dinner and did the dishes every day, woke up late whenever I could and never revealed the names of secret crushes, even in my diary. I had a “dreamy” boy-girl party the year I turned 13 (a feat never repeated, at least among my friends) and danced with every boy except J (yuck.) Mr. G didn’t like me anymore (perhaps) and we seemed to take a lot of trips down to the Frosty Freeze at night––probably because other kids did the same and we had no other place to gather. Nothing, however, to preclude my running for public office and all easily burned if there were. And that simple event and the thoughts thereafter led to this poem.

 

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Hacked!

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                                                          Would the real me ever publish a photo this rude????

Hacked!

They know my situation. They’re conversant with the fact
that while I was not looking, my Facebook page was hacked.
They commandeered my photos, made off with every friend,
made dumb statements in my name. The horrors never end.
Their “selfie” shots of me are rude. Wherever did they take them?
They’re all of me, but I assure you that I did not make them.
Now my time is spent explaining statements I didn’t make
to friends who may not realize this new site is a fake.
But the worst truth of the matter—the thing hardest to see
is that they like the hacked “me” more than they like me!

 

The prompt word today was conversant.

Facing up to Facebook

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Aha, it has arrived—my seventieth birthday.  Pictured is part of the detritus of a party that will not happen. A few days ago, I called off the 70’s Fondue Extravaganza Slumber Party and Games Night that I had planned. At that time, I was so sick with some mysterious intestinal and stomach disorder and I didn’t have the energy to do the last minute preparations—plus I feared I’d still be ill and have to call it off at the last minute. In addition, Yolanda was with her husband in the hospital and I didn’t have her to fall back on as usual.  At any rate, I’m feeling better today and so I’m meeting a few friends for an impromptu comida at a restaurant and chocolate fondue at Blue’s house later, so there will be some celebrating done.  This morning brings the welcome messages from friends on Facebook and I really do appreciate them, but as usual, they, combined with the daily prompt, have brought me to reflection.

I hope no one is offended by the below poem.  It is meant in no way to disparage the very welcome communication with old friends that such a day brings.  On the other hand, I can’t help but reflect on how our world changes and changes and how the cyber networks have not only brought us closer together but made it easier to drift farther apart.  I am as guilty if not guiltier of this than anyone else I know.  This is not an indictment, but rather a pondering over where we’ve been, where we are and where we are going—the sort of pondering one does at the age of 70, and if one is a writer or artist, probably at a much earlier age as well:

Facing up to Facebook

Facebook quips and tweets with hashes
have replaced  the dot dot dashes
of telegrams we used to send
to functions we could not attend:
birthdays and other days once meant
to celebrate with an event.

But now we sit in different places
pretending we’re exchanging faces
when in fact, for many years
our facial contact’s been in arrears.
They might have better renamed “Facebook”
“Those Who Have Vanished Without a Tracebook.”

It does not bring us face-to-face.
That is simply not the case.
Rather, it keeps us more alone
than even talking on the phone.
Old friend, it’s good to hear from you.
I know, there’s nothing more to do.

I’m just as guilty of it as you.
It’s what the whole world’s come to do.
We’ve simply moved too far apart
except in memory and heart.
It’s the new age’s way of seeing—
avoiding closer you and meing.

The prompt today was dash.

Facebook Sourpuss

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Facebook Sourpuss

Most social network intercourse
has wholesale flattery at its source.
We put our data in their places—
our successes and our faces—
then have a moment of probation
waiting for the approbation
to come flooding back in force,
most of it as praise, of course.

Back and forth the discourse goes.
Pro or con, the talking  flows.
And in the main, the battery
of interchanges is flattery.
And the flaw in any compliment
is that it is only lent.
Whatever charm its giver may lack,
you’re expected  to give it back!

Disclaimer:

(The prompt today was “Disagree,”
and of course, this narrator isn’t me.
I just made up this ornery cuss
who sits alone and judges us!)