Tuesday, January 31, 2012

POEM FOR J FRANZ

Poem for Jonathan Franzen,
Poem Called "Death of the Book"


And they cried for it was called a Kindle,
and they cried for it came to burn books,
and burn all books like a first-growth
.........forest. Made by wizards! And full,
they claim, of magic e-ink, that assembles
itself in the dark like crowds. Because
someone’s getting burned on the bonfire
later, and his name is Book, The Book.
Some homeless guy. He’s gross. We hate
him. Stay in your cardboard box, old man!
The Book sleeps in his box and dreams,
and dreams of dirty oral, and is awakened
by big hands lifting him out. The crowd
of e-ink whispers to itself, the crowd of e-ink
huddles together, held in the hand of some-
one larger. And there goes the match,
...............and there goes the newspaper.
To read the first Kindle by the light
...........................of a homeless trashcan
fire – the experience beggars description!
Makes description a beggar wearing finger-
less gloves. He got holes in his pockets and
holes in his socks and the soles of his boots
they open to speak. Every time he reads
a word it slips out of him somewhere. It slips
out and the beggar cries. He just wants to be
able to hold again what happened to Anna
Karenina. Killed by the train of progress,
beggar. Killed by the demon belching smoke.
The arms that would hold her own book
lopped off! And the reader staring down
at the tracks, watching the e-ink assemble
around her, “Oh the youngest technology,
Anna Karenina!” cries the crowd out to her body.
“Oh she is cheap and light and everywhere!”
And all of her penny-elongated, and 99 cents
...................................................on the Kindle.

11 comments:

Emancipated Granules said...

is this intended to be a diss track

Ms. Moon said...

Heh-heh.
Love the beggaring descriptions.

Anonymous said...

i love this. love.

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9b7CgTIRKU

Thanks,

Bunny Tyler

Anonymous said...

Is this kindle, as in 'kinder' who like to light fires, or as in 'kindle' stuff used for lighting fires, or perhaps Kindle, things used for making the paper used to light fires obsolete?

Michael Goldberg said...

read it on my kindle, meh

Arjun said...

This is awesome and filled me with much mirth.

beth coyote said...

Yep. There is nothing more pathetic than the vacationers on the beach trying to read their auto-readers in the sun while I dribble water and sand all over my paper book and I don't care.

hahahahahaha suckas!

Anonymous said...

You are great.

shipssail said...

Thank you for being an amazing poet. And thank you for using Blogger and making me feel like my using Blogger is the right decision and that using Blogger can be cool.

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