Screens at hand

[grant hayes]

screens at hand

at work at home

fiction
flesh the flux of trade and friendship
ganging to lovehate all from film to the fallen

framed

a mirror fingered with all our faces
inflected endless

reflection barred in the flickered

speed in the infinitesimal wire of the feed
parade of parts and pets and the fuel for screaming
need in the seen-alone places

the teeming corners

where we that gaze die only for seconds and others
perennial others

will always never gaze again

distended in infancy or spread a hundred ways
in another routine detonation
pixillation

swipe the page

and while away the raging sun

my lovely

lie
so fetchingly lit in the pits of joy

the frames

the swept and held and human
herd you headlong to toy of a mordant billion

[amenOra]

It took me a bit to really get this as I thought it would be intended. and it fit well, it's challenging I think because of how the words sit, you mentioned it recently, different rhythmic patterns. as for that, and the tones and 'inflections', I really thought this worked well with the bit of "concrete" poetry (what else to call it) and the terseness. but it was more musical because of all this.

swept up in it i lose big picture for the "individual" one... all of this began with "screens". And ends with "you" .. "to 'toy' of a mordant billion", which works really well to my tastes! Kudos-- nice handling of "form" and meaning/illation with musical rhythms I mentioned.

[grant hayes]

I'm afraid I've broken some of my own rules with this one, amenOra. I tend to eschew abstractions in a poem, and there are a fair few in this, like perennial, and infinitesimal, and reflection (and all those other -tion words). Ugh. I'm hoping the flow bears them along. Thank you for giving this one a chance, so generously.

[AlexandratheLate]

To me this is like clips of people in their lives and then finally clips or frames like in a movie of one person. I liked the format Grant.

[grant hayes]

^ The format is a bit unusual for me, Alexandra. I guess I was experimenting a bit.

We spend so much of our lives interacting with screens, and I've tried to write about this several times. This is just the latest iteration. I hope that eventually I can find a way to create a substantial work about these screens.

[Johntee]

Swipe fugitive instants
to find
no matter of moment.

[Parkinsonspoet]

I enjoyed this. It is good to break your own rules once in a while. All rules should at some point be reviewed

[grant hayes]

Indeed, Parkinsonspoet. All sunshine makes a desert.

[RhymeLovingWriter]

I am fascinated by this GH. So much motion & emotion (sorry for the 'tion' words ). It puts me in mind of kaleidoscopic blinding, turning, whirl, but these lines

where we that gaze die only for seconds and others
perennial others
will always never gaze again

stir me to action...to NOT be an observer...for time is short and I need more.

Bravo on this! I love this direction you've taken!

[grant hayes]

Well, I may have gone a bit preachy with this farrago, Rhymist. It's a case of certain phrases that I like embedded in a context that I'm not all that happy with. I'm content to leave it in the 'experimental' parts drawer. I may recycle the following at some point:

ganging to lovehate all

flickered speed in the infinitesimal wire

where we that gaze die only for seconds

... spread a hundred ways
in another routine detonation
pixillation
swipe the page
and while away the raging sun
my lovely
lie
so fetchingly lit in the pits of joy

the swept and held and human
herd you headlong to toy of a mordant billion

[Rhymeboy]

It took me a while to get through this because of the format which I thought was interesting because it draws your attention to the actual visual nature of the words themselves for example I didn't really appreciate that the word ' infinitesimal' was as long as it is. It is actually longer than 'Mississippi' Lol! It seems like this poem is actually an outline to a very good poem. There are flashes of brilliance such as:

"fiction
flesh the flux of trade and friendship
ganging to lovehate all from film to the fallen

framed

a mirror fingered with all our faces
inflected endless
reflection . . ."

Whether you do further work with this piece or not . . . It is both visually and conceptually appealing. Well done grant hayes!

[grant hayes]

Rhymeboy, in a poem, I usually use words of only one or two syllables; three if absolutely necessary. At six syllables, 'infinitesimal' breaks my rules, but it is the right word for the context.

Thank you for your generous and encouraging appraisal of this atypical (for me) piece.

[Rhymeboy]

Keep using those big fancy polysyllabic words grant hayes! How else are dummies like me going to learn how to spell and expand our vocabulary?!!!!!

[DWAYNE]

Mr. Hayes, I always marvel at your range of style and diction!


I read this as an indictment of our incessant digital voyeurism, our detachment from the world in which we live.

It struck me, as I have recently had this conversation with several colleagues of mine.

Love this stanza:

a mirror fingered with all our faces
inflected endless
reflection barred in the flickered
speed in the infinitesimal wire of the feed
parade of parts and pets and the fuel for screaming
need in the seen-alone places
the teeming corners

The lexical surgeon operates again!

[RhymeLovingWriter]

"lexical surgeon' - I'd forgotten that - but it's a great moniker!

[grant hayes]

Ah, Dwayne, my dear fellow; welcome back. I have often wondered how you're doing. Yes, I think I may have got a bit soap-boxy in this piece, though I did not set out to; it's just the direction the thing took. I let the horse take the bit between its teeth.

For so many of us, our minds are no longer seated behind our organs of sense; they are outside of us in these smooth slivers in our hands, the possession of a vast device with no operator.

[Muttado1sb]

Reading this on my iPhone makes the format even more of a mix. Reading this on my iPhone also plays out the subject behind the words. While the format may be different for you, grant, the feeling it invokes is the same.

[grant hayes]

^ Mine is an Android, Muttado, and it distorts the formatting somewhat, which may strengthen the poem's effect somehow.