FIRST: Still hanging in the Garden for NaPoWriMo, where Imaginary Garden With Real Toads’ Aprille challenged us to write a “double dactyl,” which is best explained HERE. Not sure I managed form correctly; I would love any constructive criticism. This is also at Poets United on the right “crawl.” Finally, my prayers to anyone else out there with PTSD, because I don’t know about anyone else, but I was hyperventilating into a paper bag last night. Too much.

Pointless (double dactyl-ish)

Ever since Boston, the
TV preempt, I’ve been
breathing through paper bags,
tot’lly farklempt.

PTSD holds me
in its sad thrall, what’s the
point of my watching the
TV at all?

© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
——————————–

SECOND: A free-verse rant about media in general… with specifics.

“Liking” Murrow on FaceBook

Yesterday, some hundred years ago,
we used newspapers for news flow
Radio then put us “In the Mood”
TV babysat us, totally glued

Roof antennae, CBS on the air
Dad adjusted via attic stair
Test patterns nightly, with droning tone
Cronkite and Murrow stood out… and alone

Then came the cable, a crapfest galore
With QVC “gotta-haves,” plus prime-time gore
Televangelists weeping, shouted HOMO
Then they begged money on bottom-crawl promo

All-night-long movies, MTV Michael
Later, the twenty-four hour faux news cycle
Now, the addiction is this Internet
Needn’t leave one’s snug abode to get

housewares, clothing, and even free porn
(Hide your identity, saves you from scorn)
Facebook, all social networking, damn!
Farmville, un-friending, broadcast nastygram

Huff Post huffs and puffs ‘bout the Right
By day, the Tea Party (dons hoods at night)
Hackers and hucksters, scams and teen passes
Internet: Opiate of the new masses

© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil

The bottom of my email signature has a list of causes I support, along with a tag line: “Stop complaining; become part of the solution!” Seems like folks blow off steam on Facebook and via email forwards (some network blasts from Tea Partiers I know have been answered by me with calm, bullet-point questions and even suggestions… these are often answered with one line, like “You’re sadistic” or “Stop pushing your homosexual agenda at me.” (Ahem, who started the “dialog”?)

Manners are gone. Thing of the past. All that matters are angry birds, more cows for one’s farm (cyber-greed), and ranting online without doing much of anything other than spreading the word. Some is vitriolic, some is obscene, some is so darned funny I laugh my butt off and am immediately ashamed (as with Jim Carrey’s recent “Cold Dead Hands” song on a Hee-Haw set).

The Net is good for calls to action such as petitions, but the best action of all is LOG OFF AND MAKE A PHONE CALL. I have all my legislators’ local offices on speed-dial, plus the White House for my daily “Please stop the drones and bring our kids home” call. Most of the volunteers who staff those lines know me by now!

Log off. Pick up the phone. Give ‘em all hell, because they wheel and deal while you and I suffer and end up addicted to this interactive Oxycontin. Peace, Amy


Posted by in POETRY Tags: , , , , , , , ,