Character Recognition
It’s getting harder to prove you’re not a robot
to the computer. You can robot-proof
your website by warping the text like wrought
iron, twisting it. The troubled youths
of the internet have robot brains. They want
to sell you pills to enhance your desire
or suffocate your appetite. Their words haunt
comments sections, and to your entire
list of contacts, they offer a link to a video
of a teenage girl. There is no clip,
just a virus, a girl. The robot keeps a photo
of her to show around, a silver lip
ring, Bettie Page bangs, two sparrows inked
beneath her collarbones. He plasters
the internet with her photo and a bogus link
that leads back to him. He posts faster
and faster when he thinks of her, the copies
mean more beauty. Her pixels glow
more radiantly than others, he types, http://,
but thinks, Click Here NOW, sparrow.
Stupendously funny - proving that kindness and insight can be combined into the word "sparrow"
ReplyDeletei don't want to only quote you back but i find that i come and get spilled into the poem. the lines themselves become the cage to thought. this is what i see,
ReplyDeleteThey want to sell you pills to enhance your desire or suffocate your appetite.
and
He posts faster and faster when he thinks of her, the copies mean more beauty.
and the imagery of Bettie Page!
where you go and what you do makes me dizzy.
what do these young people ever want? to disrupt us. do you remember being young and that being your primary directive?
xo
erin
Wonderfully inspired, Hannah.
ReplyDeleteTwitter has its own particular come-on, and woe be to the person who falls for the line about "all the nasty things being said about you". Never click that link!
It sure is getting harder..my character recognition line is now long and complicated...I think a robot would do less damage to any site than a warped human...it should be the other way around...or even better, the characater recognition phrase should have a psychological meaning that would ban the wrong mind from entering this space... : )
ReplyDeleteI'm here hoping to prove I'm not a robot, Hannah!
ReplyDelete