POETRY





   CYBERWORLD

The blankness of a dead computer screen
Lights into life as the hum of electricity
Surges with powerful vibrations of energy
Seducing you into a bright world of mystery.

Your fingertips tap lightly at the keyboard
In the quietness of late night hours,
As you reach beyond your narrow room
And touch the vista of distant realms;
Magically, you ride the current into cyberworld.

Images spin and swirl as you watch mesmerized,
And before your eyes see conversations on-screen,
Witnessing a living, breathing electronic universe
Where mavericks and hackers roam anonymously.
Soaring, you are propelled by blinding speed
To join the flight of electrical renegades in cyberspace.

The obsessive attraction of this dreamscape
Lingers stubbornly behind your closed eyelids,
And you can feel its rare hypnotic allure
Even when you are in the midst of reality:
There is nothing to compare to it.

Your fascination with this spellbinding oracle
Consumes your mind, and you seem to hear
The beat of low voltage beneath static winds
Rising from the legendary Back of Beyond.

Once there, you feel ethereal, a virtual ghost;
Free of flesh, you are a flight of light.
Your thoughts travel circuitous cables
That traverse a labyrinth of twisted terrain
Where those like yourself are already conquering
The 21st Century frontier known as CyberWorld.
                                              



       CyberLair

In a twinkling of an electron
You are transported there,
Into a virtual cyberlair
Of beasts lying in wait,
Where nothing is as it seems,
Role-playing dangerous games
In a forest primeval, wandering
In a dark wood of anonymity.

Your real identity is hidden,
Concealed by a clever nickname,
And you are assured no restrictions
Apply in this doomed paradise
Of primitive enchantment, grandly
Roamed by those whose black dreams
Are evil in search of violent means. 

You stand at the gates of virtual Hell
And feel you are free, unchained,
Uninhibited by civilized restraints,
Fair game for distorted behavior,
And lascivious acts of perversion,
That those here are involved in their
Wildest, darkest fantasies of desire,
Acted out on the stage of imagination.

Here, there's abandon to secret urges
That run amok, unchecked as you
Witness sexual depravity in castles of old
With dungeons for demented demons who
Stalk their naive prey relentlessly until
It escalates and veers into surreal
Exhibitionist extremes -- such vices
Luring you into this twisted palace
Where your own primitive desires
Are aroused as you watch victims
Succumb in a rush of release
To the wild beasts that lurk
Hidden, forbidden in this cyberlair.

Then in a twinkling of an electron
You return to reality at your computer,
And wonder if your imaginary trip
Into the realm of humanity's
Dark, primordial feast of fantasy
Was wrong, a plague in disguise?

It's only a mind-game
-- You tell yourself--
Yet somehow you feel tainted
By the intimate touch of evil,
And you sadly realize the beast lives
Among us, not confined to cyberspace,
For it dwells within everyone --
And walks the streets everywhere.
                           ©1997
                [Written/Posted September 1996]

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