communication ‘05
Janet Kuypers
I
now that we have the information superhighway
we can throw out into the open
our screams
our cries for help
so much faster than we could before
our pleas become computer blips
tiny bits of energy
travelling through razor thin wires
travelling through space
to be left for someone to decipher
when they find the time
II
i checked my email address book recently,
and the people i email the most
are the people that live in the same city
as me, all of whom i know the phone
numbers of, all of whom are only a local call away.
in fact, one of my friends lives a block-
and-a-half away from me,
on the same street as me, but
i still email her as much as i call her,
even though i could just walk over to her house
and have an actual conversation with her.
III
now that we have the information superhighway
we can throw out into the open
our screams
our cries for help
so much faster than we could before
but what if we don’t want to communicate
or forget how
too busy leaving messages, voice mails,
emails, pager numbers
forgetting to call back
what if we forget
how to communicate
IV
i got a program for my computer
it’s a phone book program,
and it sorts people by name or company,
lists their phone number,
and has a complete file for them
where you can store their birthday,
their address, past addresses and phone numbers,
faxes, email addresses, there’s room for
any information you want to store about them
and i love this program, i’ve created a file
with all the phone numbers i’ve ever needed,
i always add information to this file,
i keep a copy of it on my computer at home,
on my computer at work, on my laptop,
even on a floppy disk, in case there’s a fire at
work and my hard drive at home crashes
but it always seems
that every time i desperately need
a phone number
i’m nowhere near a computer
any computer
V
now that we have the information superhighway
we can throw out into the open
our screams
our cries for help
so much faster than we could before
people want to instant message
people buy their name as a domain name
people get e-mail accounts
people set up web pages
and you know, I got a cell phone
I’ve got a land line
but my phone isn’t ringing off the hook
it’s like I’ve gone fishing,
sat on the boat in the lake,
put out the bait
and no one’s biting
VI
i wanted to get in touch
with an old friend of mine from high school,
vince, and the last i heard was that he went to
marquette university. well, that was five years ago,
he could be anywhere.
i talked to a friend or two that
knew him, but they lost touch with him, too.
so i searched on the internet, to see
if his name was on a website or if
he had an email address. he didn’t.
so i figured i probably wouldn’t find him.
and all this time, i knew his parents lived
in the same house they always did, i could just
look up his parent’s phone number
in the phone book,
and call them, say i’m an old high school friend
of vince’s, but i never did.
and then i realized why.
you see, i could search the internet for hours
and no one would know
that i was looking for someone.
but now, with a single phone call,
i’d make it known to his entire family
that i wanted to see him enough to call,
after all these years. and i didn’t want
him to know that. so i never called.
VII
now that we have the information superhighway
we can throw out into the open
our screams
our cries for help
so much faster than we could before
but then the question begs itself:
who
is there
to listen
Copyright © 2005 Janet Kuypers.
All rights reserved. No material
may be reprinted without express permission.
| 
Watch the YouTube video below
(8:18) at the live Jesse Oaks live “UNcorrect” feature 06/21/07
