blog of poet, leah umansky

for the humans who might play computers in the upcoming American Crossword Puzzle Tournament

We are mince-meat. The day is past where humans reign supreme. The Doctor is in and he will fill the page without logic; without reason.  We all play the game: reading the prompts, counting the letters, thinking of the correlations and the permutations.

Some play the game differently. We recognize patterns. (and I don’t mean window curtains or tabletops). We have knowledge and experience in lieu of calculations and statistics though, a shift in gears can produce a high-speed roadway for the human mind.  We don’t need to be charged, unlike our opponents.

                                                            We get the joke; it’s funny.

The machines are beating us with our own language –  with their fancy programs and their implanted intelligence. Where they are taking us?  Gone are the days of pencil and pen, (forget about fingers and digits).  They are adaptable, and we, we are creatures of habit. They are resilient while we age poorly. They spot matches *like that* and our synapses just  spaz. They say The Good Doctor will “kill the field,” as in level out the playing field, as in KILL THE HUMANS!

                                                            What Will Would Shortz Do? (WWWSD?)

 Give up and die?  We must go forth into that dark night and carry our heads high and walk even if we are weary, and think, even if we are parched and thin. We must be a-w-a-r-e in these electric times… 

The hurdle is in the extension of cord versus cord.  Spine verses Wire. We can build the strength of body and brain. All they’ve got is little men with little fingers furiously typing code encrypted with artificial humor. We’ve got the life inside us. 

© Umansky 2012

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There was a day when type had weight. A kingdom of gold.

Their arrival was timely

                and untimely. 

The once tangible then got                          casted.

Roles became electronic and chained. 

Time ribboned-up and weight became                    light.

It involved stubborn effort.

                                                                Call it:   survival of the weighted.

*

Sometimes, one letter calls to another letter.

A small light flickers code: on, off, on, off. 

One letter urges another to be pressed                against another.

Paper trails are left behind.

                                                                       And ink blots.                    

                                                                                                                      And glimmerings…

*

It is a thing of beauty and a beauteous thing. 

There will always be a call.

Touch means its real, right?

[WAIT!]                                                They are calling.

If a choice was made. I’d choose the aural.

© Umansky 2012

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This Time

1.

This is when the story becomes a poem.                              

Woolf, James, and Eliot sit round a small booth in Bloomsbury. Woolf rambles on about the sea and James smirks at the fact that he is the only American in the round. Eliot flips through the paper and together they girn and gowl, hardel and write as they begin round three of that golden stuff.      

In walks Vanessa and Woolf jumps with joy. Things fly out of her pockets.             

Now,

Imagine they’ve all got smartphones and oh how times have changed! James is on Wikipedia looking up British jargon; Freud is counting his followers on Twitter and ironically, has a rather large following of the opposite sex. There’s: @Robot_Mom and @JuliaChildMajesty – not to mention @Bakeablechildren. Woolf is taking hipstamatic photos on her iPhone that her sister will later use in a gallery on the Strand. The bartender rolls his eyes and picks up another round.  Crisps are going round, as are swear-words, until Leonard walks in and all goes silent.

Words push their way into sense and with sense comes the hardeling.

2.

The hardeling is in the nerves.  If I invent a constraint, then I charm you. My introduction must match my style.  Whether our circles connect is or is not somewhat within the words. Our words. It’s also our electric registers. Even, the internal rhyme of this poem.  It’s really about the want.

Imagine we are a predicate. Fill it with helping or being.

All I want is a drumble of your virtual time.  Think of what was given way back when…

What’s a little button-pushing action?

Here a ‘like,’ there a ‘like,’ everywhere a ‘like-like.’

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The day is long as the sea is wide as the pen is free.

Antiquate me; let the pages yellow.   Show me what’s been folded down and ripped-out.

Grant not another word; or an otherword

                                                Maybe just one more word,

                                                here at the tip of this tongue.

That darling. That little darling. That small starling of a stole moment is gone.  But…

I saw:

two magpies on the side of the road

            [I felt they were blackbirds.]

Their white stripes some new fancy.

            Let it be lucky.  Let it be luck.

*

In any tone; in any register; expression is really in the eyes.

And fate,

in the hand of the penned.

In the written word of another. Word or non-word. A collaborating effort of letter and mind. Of leather and mine. Of the latter and the make.

Oh, the keening of wonder.   The lusting after what word to put next to the next and the next and the next.

The placements of our lives is on the page .

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