I watch myself seeing, looking
at pictures, the Facebook raison d'être.
*
*
eyes sit at the
front of the head, near the middle of a face;
at the back of the head, a digestive organ
where the mind ruminates on what has come
to cloak the meaning of "Friend"
*
*
and the face of this window, transparency
broken by projection
~ what I see, what I am, is
not what is seen,
not what I am to you ~
*
*
however much I open
my eyes, my mind, my
heart, my ears,
and open my throat to voice
a sound to bounce back
*
Echolocation
*
Echolocation
This poem beautifully articulates the strangeness of online friendships.
ReplyDelete"what I see, what I am, is not what is seen,/not what I am to you"
nothing could be more true or more clearly and beautifully said.
Thank you so much, Altoon!
DeleteNot sure what happened to my comment. I hope I didn't sound callous. And, I was responding to the subject of the poem, as I read it, being the issue of friendship and being seen/seeing on FB, i.e., the limitations of it.
ReplyDeleteAm curious if you got my response, as I used Google as the vehicle, and maybe it doesn't work?
I came back to say, I hope I don't "sound" callous or cynical. I actually have made a few strong connections online, and my experience of being seen, as rare as it has felt that I have been seen in relationships, whether online or off, it's not always been comfortable. Even a deal breaker...but sometimes those are the ones you learn the most from.
Sorry for going on a tangent. I am procrastinating getting to my work at hand.
I would like to know if I said something offensive to you, so you deleted my post. G forbid, I've done such thing before, and sometimes don't know when I'm being straight, if it is what is called for.
Centa
Centa
Hi Centa -- thank you for your comments! I can see both of them here, so I'm not sure what happened but things do happen! For the record, I do not have an encryption requirement on my comments, only a publish delay on posts that are over 1 week or so, because I might otherwise not ever see them or know they are there!
DeleteI appreciate your thoughts and don't think you've gone off on a tangent. It's the topic of the poem and you've shared your thoughts - you don't sound callous or cynical to me. Thank you.
I have also made a number of very strong alliances, and some true friends, online. At the same time, I've had some experiences as confounding and hurtful as any I've had in "real" life.
So I guess it is, as I've always suspected, as real as "real life" gets!
I think my previous comment didn't get published, as I didn't go through the encryption test before. Just as well. Thank you for offering up your insights on FB relations. What I said, basically, is that I agree, that FB is not the venue for being seen, for the very most part. That it is all eyes, and some "organ in the back of the head that digests" (I'm taking a Physiology class right now so I will learn about it)...and that it is, by its nature, a dis-embodied experience, and thus not as satisfying as it otherwise might be. But you have many friends that you know outside of FB, several of which I've gotten to know a tad, or their work, at least, through my connecting with you....thank you.
ReplyDeleteCenta