By David Stallings © 2008
I click the latest international news
documenting my daughter’s public recovery
from Internet obsession—
il Repubblica, NYT, Today Show:
“52 Nights Unplugged!”
“A Secular Sabbath!”
Blogs aflame, the Zeitgeist twitters, senses
an addictive flaw—
and need for new web sites
to explore the malady.
Outside my window
a varied thrush, dressed
for upland migration,
beckons. I step onto the porch,
hear a spotted towhee as it shuffles […]
By David Stallings © 2006
Today loneliness
trumps my flair for
solitude, and I ache
while checking e-mails.
Suddenly
a box appears
on the screen.
My daughter
wants to e-chat!
But I’ve
never chatted—
how do I make it work?
I start pushing
buttons.
(No. 60 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
By David Stallings © 2005
Anasazi watchtower,
cylinder of stone
atop mesa remnant.
Green River meanders
far below. Near the
river, sagging log cabin,
pioneer way-station
for TB patients boated
to sanatorium near Moab.
Overhead, jet
contrails in translucent
sky, hundreds of people bound
for places
unseen.
(No. 87 in a series of responses to Han-shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
By David Stallings © 2005
From my phone machine,
Two-L Willson spoke pleasure,
thanking me for suggesting
he Google “padlock parts.”
With a few strokes he teased forth
a reluctant key word
to turn a recently crafted
lament.
Though it’s charming when a shapely
word leaps to caress us, sometimes
it must be sought and wooed.
A true word Romeo stops at nothing,
however mad, bad, or dangerous
the seduction.
Brother Two-L,
you are
welcome.
