YOUR CALL IS IMPORTANT TO US
Certainly you did not phrase it as
“Isochronous access”
That night I first met you in
That most advanced
Antiviral sound terminal.
I lived in it
and so did you.
We were trying to start
something, not end whatever,
as we messaged unmelodiously
from your sound organism
Holding me deftly
in conversation.
Then the enormous, quiet
Alarming device,
So it had to be quite hush
compared to
The squabble of the
Musical background.
When you departed,
We were
sound organisms
and we exchanged
communications concerning
your call is important to us so please hang up.
I wanted to deeply
know you,
your ears were wired to everything,
there were
exchanges, interactions,
Difficulties
with consumer culture
as we discussed
Art, music, and literature,
messaging unmelodiously
from your sound organism, trouble deftly held in conversation.
I was glad to know a transforming electrode-
cryptographic messaging syntax
with you,
with each other,
with God and man,
over and out.
Thursday, then.
How will I know you?
By listening.
Richard Bentley has published fiction, poetry, and memoir in over 200 journals, magazines and anthologies on three continents. His books, Post-Freudian Dreaming and A General Theory of Desire, are available on Amazon, Powell’s Books, or at www.dickbentley.com. His new book, All Rise, contains recently published stories, poems, and graphic “wall poetry” that has been displayed in art galleries.
He has served on the board of the Modern Poetry Association (now known as the Poetry Foundation). He is a Pushcart Prize nominee. He was prizewinner in the Paris Review/Paris Writers Workshop International Fiction Awards. In 2012 and 2013, he gave readings of his poetry at the famous Paris bistro, Au Chat Noir.
Before teaching writing at the University of Massachusetts, he was Chief Planner for the Mayor’s Office of Housing in Boston. He’s a Yale graduate with an MFA from Vermont College.
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