In the past I posted numerous poems to the site PoemHunter. When I visited the site recently, I noticed the poems had an audio component created by a computer-generated voice, which I found very entertaining. Here are a few examples.
In the past I posted numerous poems to the site PoemHunter. When I visited the site recently, I noticed the poems had an audio component created by a computer-generated voice, which I found very entertaining. Here are a few examples.
Last night, in the process of looking for the original wording of a poem I wrote more than fifteen years ago, I discovered a collection of unpublished work stored on an external hard drive. The poems, short stories, essays and short film scripts had been written on two old laptopsâa Dell and a Gatewayâand they remained unpublished for the simple reason they were unworthy of print. But as I fell into the Word doc rabbit hole, I came across a few items with potential.
One was a poor, unfinished essay with the opening sentence, âSometimes I wish I could âgreen screenâ my life.â I played with the line spacing and edited the essay into a poem. Itâs certainly not the poetry of Whitman, Dickinson, Mary Oliver or Billy Collins, but I am pleased to have revised the words into a finished pieceâwhich is now saved on my current computer for future use.
Green room, green screen by Jared Tarbell via Wikimedia Commons.
Sometimes I wish I could
âgreen screenâ my lifeâ
alter the circumstances,
change the background,
transport myself from
my furnished studio apartment
to a Northern California bungalow.
Employ artifice to shape existence.
But life is a reality showâ
just without the scripted confrontations.
And there is no green screen
to fix the disparity between
what I am and what I hope to be.
We achieve our dreams,
continue striving toward them
or give up altogether.
Life provides no special effects
to bend reality to our liking.
©2020 Francis DiClemente