ALWAYS THE SAME DREAM
ALWAYS THE SAME DREAM
"PING!" goes the microwave.
"PING!" goes the yet-again-Internet.
The Lady of Shallot
deletes Lancelot
from her facebook
friends.
She pokes Tennyson but Tennyson
doesn't like to be poked.
The world and its shadows
stream through her BT provider.
A post informs her that
"Popty Ping!" is Welsh
for microwave.
She clicks Like.
Doesn't remember when she
last interfaced with the real
world
the big bad world
that huffs and puffs
outside the frosted glass.
She posts a new status:
"Agoraphobics are people too!"
What was Tennyson thinking of?
She didn't ask to be created!
A woman made from "words
words...words. . .words!"
"The curse has come upon me!"
She has run out of Lil-Lets.
"Chop shallots & simmer
lightly in butter, then. . ."
the Youtube video
instructs her.
She finishes yet another
bottle of cheap plonk.
It's so hard to be
a fictional character
in a modern world
that's gone digital.
She thinks of Googling herself
but then thinks twice of it.
She falls asleep on the couch.
The cat perches on top of her head.
In her dream she is
forever floating...floating
"On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky"
It's always the same dream.
***
The poem attempts to blend both worlds and to let "real life" intrude into a fictional character with all its 21st century clout. As I was writing the poem my girlfriend ran out of Li-lets and I ran out and got them for her and ran back to the poem and so that made its way into the tangled tale I wove.