waiting for the electric man
to cut the power —
an afternoon of no devices
sounds kind of nice,
if you look at it in a certain way…
more time for paper,
more time for pen,
less distraction,
less screen fatigue,
no emails for several hours,
and more attention
to spend
on the peculiarity of flowers…
I got up early,
made sure to take a shower
because a cold wash
would not be fun…
the electric man is running late —
wonder when he’ll cut that cord
and get on with his repairs…
the books are waiting to be read,
the page, it craves the verse —
an afternoon nap is in the cards,
and my offline shit is fully charged,
so there’s music if I need it,
there’s life out there if I’m willing
to see it —
it’s not quite spring,
but the birds are ready,
and I am ready too…
so power us down
and let me roam
Garbage Notes:
I remember writing this a couple of months ago. There was a power outage in part of the house and it turned out we had to have some guy come around to replace some shit. I don’t recall the details of what was actually wrong with the place. But the short of it was we’d be without electricity for the entire next day.
I couldn’t even recall the last time I had to go an entire day without power. It was kind of weird. And I remember my first instinct was like, oh, I’ll go to the library or Barnes & Noble or something and camp out for the day with all my devices. But then I thought, well, it would be interesting to just enjoy the day without using any power or internet or anything at all.
So that night I mentally prepared myself to not have power the next day. I did charge a few things so I could at least type something out in a word document if I needed to. Or listen to some music. I’d have my phone, obviously, so I made sure that was fully charged. But I also decided to do other non-electronics-related things like go outside for a while and read a book for more than, like, a half hour for once.
I found it refreshing to disconnect. It was nice to not have to check my email or be on Medium checking all my notifications or getting distracted by Youtube videos or Twitter or anything like that. It was just nice. It was like how things used to be when I was younger before we were all constantly jacked into the web—into the constant stream of information that connects every goddamn living thing on the planet.
So yeah, a nice little nap here, a little poem on paper there, walking around in the park, listening to the birds, studying the flowers and the trees. Turns out this is what the natural human inside me wanted to do. Not harnessed, restrained, or constantly attention-drained by the rampant and relentlessly power-hungry internet of things.
Franco Amati 2023
Thanks Franco. Good description of a brief reprieve from our slow electrocution. I especially liked the sentence:
Turns out this is what the natural human inside me wanted to do.
Yes, there is a natural human inside us--who wants freedom from the excessive regimentation and alienation of industrial civilization.
This natural human is wounded and hurting. The collective festering wound of humanity drives much of the hatred, violence, polarization, and self-destruction currently ravaging us unwitting frogs in the electric frying pan.
The solution is reconnection with nature, others, and the natural human within. Love is the magical elixir. Unfortunately, it’s in short supply--even though an unlimited quantity is buried deep beneath the wound inside all of us.
Okay, I’ll get off my soapbox! 😂
You know I read you everyday that I'm online when I'm not too sick and I just wanted to say thank you very much you're inspiring and creative and interesting and it shines through your poetry