poem of the day 05.18.12

waves of hubris and ego

one posts about the coming weekend

one stays fastened to the political soapbox

another one can’t stop posting about the job

while the poets have readings and books

that i’m never going to by

the poets seem to post on here five times an hour

surprising everyone that they even have a book to push

for how much time they spend

glued to this thing

one posts song lyrics by an old 1980s band

but the other one puts up the video

some of them are going to the concert this weekend

a few are closing the blinds and getting drunk

but not before they let everybody know

many of the them bomb this site

with photos of their flabby families

with photos of rash-faced babies

then write about how they can’t remember

their life before the little bundle of joy arrived

i read those posts with interest and humor

thinking, sure you don’t,

otherwise you’d probably kill yourself

but this one is always mourning the loss

of some obscure celebrity

and that one likes so many products

i wonder when they have time to breath

one of them is in london

one of them is in san francisco

and i think about robbing their unattended homes

just to teach them a lesson about privacy

several of them play games to kill the hours

giving up information for points

in a ridiculous quid pro quo

many bitch about their favorite sports teams

or push a local restaurant

some don’t post anything of value at all

just type out angry diatribes that seem random and dull

a couple of us push blogs

push our self-serving business down a long scroll

trying to get our own agendas noticed

amidst the rabble one-sided opinion and emoticons

of course, all of us are nothing but old pictures

a list of interests that aren’t very interesting at all

we’re waves of hubris and ego

familiar strangers raising the value

of this company’s IPO

with every like or dislike

christ, i wouldn’t know the bulk of you

if we passed each other in the street

and i’ll be damned if i can remember the last time

i sat across from anyone whom i wasn’t sleeping with

to hear what you had to say

in flesh in voice in blood.