The conceptual leaning for these three poems is technology, specifically the act of typing on laptops, in relation to communication and literature. ‘Ctrl.end’ has a fixed rhyme and meter, ‘Dial, alone’ is an attempted Villanelle and ‘sea pebble’ is free verse. ‘Ctrl. end’ focuses on creation through technology and the isolation within this; ‘Dial, alone ‘focuses on similarly focuses on isolation, and on written and verbal communication; Sea pebble differs slightly and focuses less on technology and more on writing and the ideas and messages channeled through reading, writing, and communication.
Kerstin Jump
Dial, alone
I am the hound, and I am the crier.
I talk only to cracked, cackling corners and
I'm sending my love through telephone wire
I am the corruption, in wind I’m the flyer.
I find politicians silent and creation’s laws bland,
I call for the empty ways we conspire
You are only a wish, and I am a liar.
Though I cannot pinkie promise, intertwining your hand,
I'm sending my love through telephone wire
I pray to no god in no church-like attire.
We don't talk in a temple, when echoed against sand,
I call for the empty ways we conspire
We try to love and to hope and admire,
Try exist! In that moment, wait! Don't sleep but stand,
I'm sending my love through telephone wire
Though wanting is wasteful, and begging will tire,
I detail for you, symbols, although you can't understand,
I call for the empty ways we conspire
I'm sending my love through telephone wire
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ctrl.end
A lowly mouse runs fast through silver.
Her tail, untied, unbound.
Across the vision, tracing the river
Listens for Its clicked. Sound,
Neglected, warm, beating, forgotten
When compared with arrows head.
Not sharp, but soft, nuzzling the coarse
Hand holding not even bread.
That! Chiselling titan in titanium's foil.
A face seen only when gone
Busies Itself in counting up toil
Blanks rhythms in 1 and prayer and 0.
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sea pebble
As a little beacon, it begins, a small pearl through a cracked oyster shell
Right now, through this net of sand I see its octopus gradient moan
Across the beach below, a trickle of western spit ascends
The great grasping palm begins, plucking the ripe veins – staccato
And it spreads its fingers with moist and sweaty gluttony
I push my glasses up my nose and blink hard - an eyelash loafs upon my cheek
Morning wind gasps at the walls and I hear the sneering tide not yet reset
Ten digits grope and shake, spreading messily a wash of grease
I close my eyes and . . . my collar bone hoarding marrow
But it is unwranglable now, see it come now, I know
As you are watching now it has begun, and you cannot stop it
Fingernails like drool, unstoppable now, curl and reach out of our spectacle –
See, how I have not stopped it – together
We are now, look at this window, the whole sky is white!
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