POETRY
Ode to f***book
Cecilia Condon July 27, 2010
f***book
Irresistible
F***book will f***
You. You
Wont like it
(even though you give it the thumbs up)
Your profile
Your pics, updated
Your 746 Friends
Fend off the texture of the universe
Behind the screen
Everything seems
Simple
And still
Behind the screen
The existential IT
Is nothing but grit
Rolling between our fingertips
(We swept IT away to make room for a wall of info)
Do you remember me?
(my friend)
Do you recall
The hum
That spiraled beneath
Everything we ever said?
Where are you I wonder?
What are you doing right now?
— George is in a relationship
— Rebecca thinks everything is better with a handle
— Sam is trying to avoid love
Somewhere inside the abysmal darkness she sleeps tonight
Wondering when she can quit this crawling
Anyone who wants a kiss
Can always get one
But
Avoid love at all costs (she says)
It will eat you for dinner
It with break the teeth in your mouth
Even if you keep your lips shut
It will keep a list of your tears
And sing them back to you at anytime of the day
Long after they have dried
— Richard just ate his weight in chips
— Alex invites you to his robot party
And everybody is planning to come
Together
At last
At long, long
Last
To look each other in the eye
Brought to you by Pepsi
The shaking hand
Unshaken
Is not alone
The ice blocks quiver in their glass
Melting into the Pepsi
Chinking softly against one another in the fizz
Before they vanish
The phone rings, the fridge hums and your
Sweet heart beats
For what and whom do the other bells toll?
In between this mysterious toil
The advertisements and diversions
The electric shocks, the grand sky and
The fabulous lives
Of others
Glitter in a bright corner to the left of us
I see them
Standing over there
— Clementine and Winston, Penelope and Odysseus, Jane and the chimps, Marilyn and the camera, Nietzsche and some grey matter —
They glisten and
Our footsteps beat to the hum of their distant laughter
Taken all together we are
Everything, separated by nothing
But a few thousand hours
And
A few million metres
And in time everyone arrives
So on and on and on
We shake
We fizz
We chink
In India
The sun rises above us
For the first time
Eyes and eyes and eyes and eyes and eyes
Overlap
And wash over one another
Each the centre of everything
Without ever tipping the balance
One way or the other
An old man breaks
His back beneath me
And my mates
A woman chokes on her quiet tongue
A nephew with his jealous uncle
Lug us about on the backs of stinking camels
With all the other fools
Ashamed, we smile for the camera
And marvel on demand
At the groggy sunset, masked in dirt …
All the voices gather together
Waiting for the train
To take them somewhere else
A fearless crowd await the future
Aunties and patriarchs and daughters and Gods with arms and arms
All piled together on the platform floor at four
In the morning
Waiting for the sun
To rise
They are not afraid of anything
Not bright pink
Or melodrama
Not a moustache
Or grime
And grease or gold
They are not afraid of us
Though we come with a warning
Wearing our guns so they show
So they know
That we are not afraid to shoot
We are not afraid to pay
And
We will pay
To extract ourselves from this crush
We will pay for a slice of silence
Clean and empty
Wrapped and
Fresh
Protected from flesh
Cut off from everything
Anyone else has to say
Shhhhhhh
We can pay
And we will pay
For separation from
The parched dust floating up towards the clouds for
A little kiss
Dust floats up
Trying to drink the sky
Dust floats up from beneath the burden of a billion footsteps
A billion breaths
The bloody sky
Was once was so blue
But after the billionth sunrise
It holds every
Body
In its arms
My last Indian sun is setting
So can’t you spare me
Just this once
The parade of crooked elbows
Unfinished legs
Withered eyes
And festering belief
Yes. Yes. Yes.
I believe you
And I believe
All the smoking bones cast into the river
Will sink toward salvation
Toward a love
I cannot wash off
My hands
No matter how many fingers I fill
With gold
Swimming and drowning in my sea of privilege
I wonder
'Is it raining where you are?'
Don’t forget me
Like I will forget you
Don't forget that
We can pay
And we will pay
For your absence
With your absence
Cecilia Condon is a Melbourne based writer and actor. She works as a development assistant for a Melbourne based television and film production company and is currently completing the Professional Writing and Editing course at RMIT.
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SUBMITTED COMMENTS
Joe Castley26-Jul-2010
Lively, delightful stuff with a great sweep and flow to the language. Nice way to start the day.
Lek Koswig26-Jul-2010
The irony is, I liked this so much that I posted this to FB. LOL.
Greig Williams26-Jul-2010
welcome to the barricades ... fool.