Why Write Poetry When There Is Photoshop?

The lesser light of my wi-fi connection pales next to the blinking
of my sleeping laptop on the nightstand. If most men lead
lives of quiet desperation, we have made a kindling
of our morning paper for the bonfire of bytes
in the virtual, wireless calf we worship to distraction.

A new poetry must back slowly away, brushing the ash
of seventy years away as with a lodge-pole bough, until
our footsteps are erased back to the Confessional. There
we will leave the heresy until words are audible, spoken.

copyright 2008 by William Marchl