Touch the Art

sent me this link, and I clicked it, not really knowing what to expect. I wasn't really paying tha much atention to it, because the first few seconds are just introductory words. That was when I heard the recorded voice of Marshall Soulful Jones as he started performing his poem "Touch Screen."

Here is the www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAx845… to the video of his performance at the Boston Poetry Slam. I was just so overwhelmed when I heard it, that I ran around showing the video on my laptop to all my sisters. I couldn't stand to wait for them to see it if they got it in an email.

I am not 100% sure this is the original format of his poem, because I couldn't find a written down copy anywhere on the inernets, so I listened to it over and over until I had gotten all the words down, and just formatted it myself. But the words are sill there in he order he said them, and their meaning is overpowering. The words themselves are incredible, but combined with the power he recited them with, and his robotic motions, every syllable was a hammer that pounded and pounded into my heart. That's certainly one way to leave an impression. No pun intended.

I hope you enjoy his performance as much as I did.

"Touch Screen"
By: Marshall Soulful Jones

Introducing the new Apple iPerson
Complete with multi touch and volume control.
Doesn't it feel good to touch?
Doesn't it feel good to touch?
Doesn't it feel good to touch?

My world is so digital
That I have forgotten what that feels like.
It used to be hard to connect when friends formed cliques,
But its even more difficult to connect now that clicks form friends.
But who am I to judge?

I face Facebook more than books face me,
Hoping to book face-to-faces.
I update my status
Four-hundred and twenty spaces
To prove that I'm still breathing.
Failure to do this daily
Means my whole web wide world will forget that I exist.

But with 3,000 friends online,
Only 5 I can count in real life,
Why wouldn't I spend more time in the world
Where there are more people that "like" me?
Wouldn't you?

Here, it doesn't matter if I'm an amateur person
As long as I have a profile.
My smile Is 50% genuine, and 50% genuine HD.
You would need blue rays
To read the whites of my teeth,
But I'm not that focused.

10 tabs open, hoping my problems
Can be resolved with a 1600 by 1700 revolution.
This is a problem with this evolution.
Doubled over, we used to sit in treetops
'Till we swung down to stand upright.
Then someone slipped a disc,
Now we're doubled over at desktops.

From the Garden of Even to the branches of Macintosh,
Apple picking has always come at a great cost.
iPod, iMac, iPhone, iChat,
I can do all of these things without making eye contact.

We used to sprint,
We used to sprint to pick and store blackberries,
Now we run to the Sprint store to pick Blackberries.
Its scary, I can't hear the sound
Of Mother Nature speaking over all that tweeting,
And along with it is our ability to feel as its fleeting.

You would think these headphone jacks inject
In the flesh the way we connect then disconnect.
Power on 'till we are powerless.

They've got us love-drugged,
Like e-pills, so we e-trade, email,
Emotion like e-commerce,
Because now, money can buy love for $9.95 a month.
Click to procede to check out.

Click to "x out" where our hearts once were.
Click. I've uploaded this hug, I hope she gets it.
Click. I'm making love to my wife, I hope she's logged in.
Click. I'm holding my daughter over a Skype conference call
While she's crying in a crib in the next room.
Click so when my phone goes off on my hip,
I touch, and I touch, and I touch.

Because in a world where there are voices that are only read,
And laughter is never heard,
I'm so desperate to feel,
That I hope the techno-logic can reverse the universe,
Until the screen can touch me back.
And maybe it will, when our technology
Is advanced enough to make us human again.