Contests : Wergle Flomp Free Poetry Contest : Past Winners : 2009 : Senyo Whyte
PRELUDES
I
The endless flow of kilobytes
Addicts them to the Internet
At 4 am.
All have forsaken REM
To bind their carpal-tunnel hands
To sticky keys,
To fix their eyes on laptop screens
At 4 am.
The World Wide Web's corruption taints
All members of humanity
Except for me.
Because I'm deep. Because I am
A poet.
II
My browser comes to consciousness
That Sam is "bored."
"It's Complicated" with his wife.
And seven SuperPoke invites
Grow stale beside
A message from that guy I met
In the elevator when I was going to get my driver's license renewed. Among
The countless missives and invites
For useless apps,
One is hard-pressed to find
A friend request today. why God
But it's cool. I'm okay.
III
You sat with my laptop before you,
With frown and folded arms you waited
For pleas for absolution for
The thousand sordid images
I viewed through Google.
Well...
. . .
. . .
I'm sorry?
That’s what I'm supposed to say, right?
IV
I don't mind sleeping on this couch
In front of the apartment building
Beside the vacant lot she won
From me in the divorce proceedings
argh how'd she get everything
On which my thoughts would settle if
I weren't so busy leveling up
My Druid.
V
My soul stretched tight across the Web
Confined to dim computer screens,
And passed over for friend requests—
Not that that means that much to me.
The acrid poison of Web Two
Point Oh does not pollute my veins,
Though I still have to check my spam from match.com
And Profile page before it rains.
Wrap your arms round your stolen Wi-Fi, and kvell,
For the world does not revolve around
Those Facebook whores with vacant lots.
Sent as a joke to PoetryAmerica, this poem was a finalist in the 2009 Wergle Flomp humor poetry contest sponsored by Winning Writers.
About Senyo Whyte
Senyo Whyte is a sophomore and pre-medical student at Iowa State University. Because his science-dominated schedule leaves little room for the liberal arts, he reads and writes stories and poems in his spare time.