New poem: HE PREFERRED A DECEASED ME

long ago

when I was contrarian

on a social network,

someone said:

Terry’s death

can't come

soon enough

no one objected

or gave him the chance to,

as the young people say now,

“walk it back”

or allow him to wear

the rhetorical fig leaf of

"it was just a figure of speech"

instead, there was the odor

of everyday cowardice

where people group their friends

like poetry submissions:

A, B, C, D, F

(with pluses and minuses if necessary)

few people want to cope with

lingering moral stress

it’s the equivalent of

faded yellow anti-perspirant stains

on a favorite shirt

Can Facebook be used without feelings of envy and sadness?

Just saw this article:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/for-a-happier-life-give-up-facebook-study/ar-CCbI8E?ocid=spartandhp

And here's a key passage:
"Instead of focusing on what we actually need, we have an unfortunate tendency to focus on what other people have," the authors of the [Happiness Research Institute] study wrote.

New poem: LET'S HOLD EACH OTHER'S TONGUES

[Inspired by an article in THE NEW YORK TIMES]




if you feel the urge



to commit a mortal sin tonight,



just call me



and I'll tell you all sorts of tales



about how there's someone out there



sweeping up everything you've said and done online,



all the times you've been to the principal's office,



all the things you've yelled at strangers in traffic,



all the stab-through-the-soul comments you wrote



when you evaluated your professor



at the end of the semester,



all the times you were told to pick up the tempo



on your productivity at work,



all the moments you said or did something



momentarily out of character you apologized for later



all....of....these....incidents....



can count against you



and leave you poor and starving



and living out of your car



after months to years



of not being able to find another job



to replace the one you were fired at will from



so if you hold your tongue



and never say anything



rash or wrong or ill-informed or maladroit,



I promise I'll do the same



and I hope



that the agency



who my future possible employers



have hired to read this poem



won't hold it against me



and keep it in their nonerasable hard drives forever



.

What I've learned from over a year-and-a-half of being on Facebook.

A simple list in no particular order:
1. Facebook is great for reconnecting with people you've lost touch with over the decades.
Results can be wonderful--or sometimes quite bittersweet.
2. Some people friend others on Facebook for sincere reasons; others do it to rack
up their numbers-of-friends (just like in real life).  Glad that Mark Zuckerberg hasn't thought
of Frequent Friending Benefits quite yet.
3. If you had only a slight acquaintanceship with certain people in the normal world, it won't be
any different after you've friended them on Facebook.  Be prepared to post something to someone's wall/page and receive no response whatsoever (exception: when you're posting something complimentary about them).
4. Facebook is something I highly recommend for finding groups for just about anything one may be interested in.
5. As film critic/writer Karina Longworth said in a highly readable article in the recent issue of L.A. WEEKLY, Facebook is a place where your data is given to corporate advertisers to harvest.  Be aware of that when joining so you can control what you choose to share.
6. One person posting links can be another person's "spam."  I found that out (rather bluntly) earlier this year when I was unfriended by an Orange County poet.  But the other person could have easily skipped over the links he didn't want to read.
7. As with the real world, you won't please all the people all the time on Facebook.  Don't stress out
over it.