Photo by Sean Ferigan on Unsplash
There’s Documented Evidence of Telegraph Operators in the Distant & Almost Completely Isolated Operation Stations of the American Southwest Falling in Love, Despite the Century Beginning With 18, the Tumbleweeds, the Single Iron Wire, Poles Impersonating Cacti, Dots, Dashes, Omissions, Hesitations, False Starts, & At-First-Unobvious-Yet-Still-Horrific Anti-Indigenous Propaganda
So don’t tell me your love
is somehow lesser than
just because you used
an App, even if her photo
was a beta version of herself
& technology is still mostly
understood as magic until
it's really understood via
experience, as when one
woman wanted to impress
a traveling fella & thus tried
to pour her famous homemade
thick tomato soup down the
telegraph line. Electrocution
isn’t never a laughing matter,
especially for distant writers.
When are you going to
shift from survival mode
to living mode? There are
only 37.5 billion acres of
land on the planet & no
one other than the Dutch
& the random South Pacific
volcano are making more,
& not even enough to keep
pace with the ice melting
in your fizzy glass of Coke
& a smile, so what are you
going to do with your
mortgaged .3 acres? Build
more fences in a desperate
attempt to avoid the idea
that you’re just a placeholder?
Exclusion often comes down
to which side of the fence
you’re on, & savagery gets
defined differently depending
on if you’re the conquered
or the conqueror. Barbed
wire’s invention led directly
to Americans having heart
attacks in droves, as once
you fence in cattle, you can
contain, hyperbreed, & soon,
at least compared to evolution,
Mmmm bacon cheeseburgers.
I fell in love when I was
least expecting it, her breath,
perfume, & pheromones
the only technology on
the wind, & when you full
stop & think about it, owning
earth is as ridiculous as
owning air, another, or
magic itself, so are you
going to continue to focus
on possession, or for once
finally admit, given the
documented percentages
& actuarial tables, for once
finally realize that if we
really wanted to be sticklers
about it, we’d call Earth
Water?
+ Inspired by The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's On-line Pioneers by Tom Standage (1998), Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World by Simon Winchester (2021), & “Having a Coke with You” by Frank O’Hara (1960).
Bob King is an Associate Professor of English at Kent State University at Stark. His recent poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming from JAKE, Paddler Press, Aôthen Magazine, The Purposeful Mayonnaise, Spare Parts Literary Magazine, The Viridian Door, & Ink Sweat & Tears. He lives on the outskirts of Cleveland, Ohio, with his wife & daughters.
