Monday Poem

New Thing
Jim Culleny










I opened a Twitter acccount out of curiosity.

I  admit it, I was born into a far simpler techno world —pre-TV, prime-time radio, number-please phones on party lines, straight-6 engines with carburetors, 78 records with needles the size of ten-penny spikes —an antiquated world.  And although it’s a little murky to me now, we are each what we were to a great extent. So when I finally grasped the concept “Twitter” my first response was WTF?

The idea that an up-to-the-minute account of my thoughts and actions, no matter how brief, would have any value, or would be worth the bother to anyone, seemed pretty absurd.  But it wouldn’t be the first absurdity to take-off like the Enola Gay. 

I first became aware of Twitter listening to political debates and interviews.  It seemed interviewers and the world suddenly wanted to know which well-placed twits Twitter,  and how many follower-twits they’d accrued.  Who knew that something as edgy as Twitter would appeal to dinosaurs in dark suits & red ties, or pant suits with PC dos?

But it makes sense. Politicians think everything they say is worth a listen (and, as Twitter's creators understood, most of us are a little like politicians that way). Twitter’s perfect for Joe Biden for instance, except for the 140 character limitation. And it would’ve been more than perfect for George Bush who could not express a coherent thought much beyond 140 characters.
 
Politics aside, it occurred to me that warped time being what it is, and absolute simultaneity being questionable (in Einstein’s Special Theory, at least; which might easily be up-ended in the next tweet), not to mention that time is money for many. . .  Well (I thought), in off-peak hours (for efficiency’s sake) I might create a queue of tweets I could refer to and post whenever I got jammed up. That way I could take care of business without being too distracted during moments of actual tweet. What’s the difference I reasoned, if I thought or did something now or then (if there even were such things), who’d know and who’d care?

Things change     things hold      they fail to hold      one minute things are        they're not the next     old story.  Maybe the next tweet will bring us all closer together.  I've noticed that new things chronically occur. 

My Twittering Queue

I'm having coffee
I’m dreaming I’m having coffee
I’m scratching my nose with a knuckle
I am not listening to my wife while gazing out a window
I’m imagining a tiny earth-light rising over the horizon of Neptune
I’m having coffee       paper cup with a heat sleeve
I’m playing with two small stones, twiddling them in my palm a la Queeg
I’m remembering throwing stones through a neighbor’s bias
I am sitting, but you don’t want to know where
I’m wondering if death is simply the mirror parenthesis of birth
I’m lying in bed staring at the ceiling slightly chilled     I need another blanket
I’m fooled again
I am not fooled again
I’m having coffee        dark roast, the only kind
I’m wrong about a lot of things          too many
I’m dumber than a stump but smarter than a breadbox
I’m still wondering what it’s all about Alfie
I don’t care what it’s all about, I’m picking asparagus
I’m inside a cosmic question bouncing off its walls
I’m having coffee      Colombian this time
I’m puffed as a peacock but simultaneously beside the point
I’m over the hill and still climbing
I’m loose as a goose and tight as a fundamentalist’s ass
I’m unknown, thank god  — remembering Elvis
I’m anonymous as a blazing leaf in the Berkshires in autumn
I’m having coffee gazing over the rim of a mountain watching a small cloud glide
I’m as unbelievable as your average Mike or Mohammed
I’m at least as believable as your average Mike or Mohammed
I’m beating my head against the wall again painlessly
I’m taking an aspirin just in case
I’m having tea      trying to take the edge off
I’m under the gun     but still over the clover
I am not sure
I’m cock sure
I’m as fraught with anticipation I was when I was twenty,  just not as often
I'm contemptuous of Cialis, so far
I’m remembering something, but quickly switch channels
I’m thinking again of a Dylan line     so many good ones blowin in the wind
I am having coffee
I am not
I am not not, yet