Tag Archives: tweeting

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.

 

,

Tweeting Kim Kardashian

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Tweeting Kim Kardashian

I recall that picture, but you’ve modified it some.
I fear it’s rather naughty to photoshop your bum!!!

Prompt words are recall, picture, modify and naughty. Here are the links:

https://fivedotoh.com/2019/04/14/fowc-with-fandango-recall/
https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/04/14/rdp-sunday-picture/
https://onedailyprompt.wordpress.com/2019/04/14/your-daily-word-prompt-modify-april-14-2019/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2019/04/14/naughty/

Absence No Longer Has the Chance to Make Our Hearts Grow Fonder

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Absence No Longer Has the Chance to Make Our Hearts  Grow Fonder

When I was young, I wandered far from relative or friend.
They had no idea where I’d been or where my trail would end.
Months between our letters and years between each call,
how I fared from day to day they didn’t know at all.

Although I moved from place to place, each new spot I was in
was the only place I was, the last place where I’d been
was fully left behind me. Only memories bound me there.
As I moved ever on alone, Australia to Zaire.

No cellphone in my pocket, no Facebook there to see
what friends had for breakfast or congratulating me
on my latest hairstyle or showing me their hives
reporting the minutiae of their daily lives.

Back before the internet made contact never-ending.
I could simply concentrate on my present wending.
But this was how I wanted it. I wanted to be lost.
To fully live a new life, my old life was the cost.

Absence no longer makes our hearts grow fonder ever fonder,
for it’s impossible to leave our loved ones when we wander.
We see them every day on Skype, each minute a new text.
They tell us about yesterday, then what they’re doing next.

We are no longer absent from anyone we know
anywhere we wander, anyplace we go.
At any given moment, no matter where we roam,
our past invades our present, bringing us back home.

In this era of devices–– laptop, tablet, phone––
we’re in perpetual company. We never are alone.
The longest that we’re ever safe from texting, tweeting, beeping
is probably the hours when we leave them just for sleeping!


The Prompt:  What’s the most time you’ve ever spent away from your favorite person?  https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/my-favorite/

The Old Ones Deign to Tweet

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The Old Ones Deign to Tweet
(With Character Counts)

Immanuel Kant
on the subject of building “platforms” for
blogs, websites, Twitter accounts or Facebook:

. . . the favor of the multitude is seldom got by honest and lawful means.
Seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them. (140)
*

Charles Dickens
on the subject of tweeting, texting , e-mailing, or other social media:

Electric communication will never be a substitute
for the face of someone who with their soul
encourages another person to be brave and true. (140)
*

Mark Twain:
On the subject of those (like me) who resist
tweets, texts and ubiquitous handheld devices:

One who stops learning is old, whether 20 or 80.
One who keeps learning stays young.
The greatest thing you can do is keep your mind young. (140)
*

Me:
And, a further comment about those tweets:

Mind without heart conveys no wisdom.
Where brevity is the only rule,
larger truths may be lost. (96)

We must remember that “character” has two meanings
and count our truths as closely
as we count our keystrokes. (109)