Poem for the Week

I Forgot the Power Cable

I am disconnected.
It’s harder than I expected.
No buttons, no screen, no news, no sports.
I sit alone on the boat, in the ports,
In cafes where the young and the pretty all come.
Here on the islands it’s all about rum.
And tattoos that begin at the lobe of the ear
And end where our plans and our tans disappear
At the top of the rear.

On Culebra it’s Bacardi with citrons and limes
Nobody’s reading the New York Times.
Laughing and smoking and flirting and swearing
No one but me seems to be caring
That they’re not hooked in, that they’re not aligned
With the ladder they labored to leave behind
Those meaningless jobs, those useless advances
And hurtful romances. Here, everyone dances.
Nobody’s bitter.
Nobody Twitters.

I’m a wave in someone else’s ocean
A slave to what I think is motion
But isn’t really. Just information
Packaged and repackaged. A disunited nation
Of couch potatoes phoning it all in.
I need to swim. I’m on vacation.
I need to snorkel.
Dive through the portal.
Turn off the power.
Seek the immortal.

But let’s be honest, I’m talking defiance
But I also know that the Dodgers and Giants
Played two games already, and I’d like to know how
My Lakers are doing, and if Obama
Is doing OK. And also my Mama.

I’m not anxious to return to my little cave
And I don’t like to think I’m a toadying slave
To Steve Jobs and his gobs of gigameg RAM
Maybe I’m not. But maybe I am.

I am disconnected.
I have been infected.
By Puerto Rican Caribbean DNA
I’m declasse
But I still have a mission
Though it's absurd
I'm in remission but I'm not cured
The blogged word

All night I dream the craziest dreams
They crash against our berth.
They’re not of Earth
And not the sea. They’re just me.
My synapses are healing.
I’ve been doing too much typing
Not enough feeling.

At three am I walk up on deck
Under a million billion stars
And a full to bursting moon.
I’ll be home soon.
But I won’t forget.
Not yet.