Disconnection in the Era of Dial-Up
You sit and wait as your ears fill with beeps, trills, and static.
Forget doing research for your paper on Shakespeare
if a call comes through while you’re trying to connect,
the shrill interruptory ring, your mother shouting from down the hall,
Forget doing research for your paper on Shakespeare.
We need the phone. Please stay off the internet.
The shrill interruptory ring, your mother shouting from down the hall,
but one day, panicked, she yowls instead: Your grandmother is dead!
We need the phone. Please stay off the internet.
If a call comes through while you’re trying to connect,
but one day, panicked, she yowls instead: Your grandmother is dead!
You sit and wait as your ears fill with beeps, trills, and static.
8 thoughts on "Disconnection in the Era of Dial-Up"
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Excellent use of form for pulling me through and disrupting me at the same time – the specificity of the scenario and the sound that you capture are all working. Love this!
Wonderful form. You say so many things with the precision of your repetitions.
You captured a time, tone, and feeling in this one!
Agree with Liz. The form supports the disruption.
Excellent choice in lines. Rings harder with each repetition.
Such a cleverly constructed poem!
That last line is so good–a heartbreaker.
As usual, you make me blush with your appreciation of form. And I think too, not knowing what form this is (or if you are playing on one…) that what feels like a fixed French from often has this way of siphoning the reader to a conclusion. And here, you pave the way toward such a conclusion so skillfully. I am in deep admiration of your skill.
What a compliment! Thanks, Jon! It’s a Pantoum, or at least it was meant to be one. I am honestly not at all confident about writing in fixed forms, so I appreciate your encouraging words.