19" LIFE LINE

I killed my television.
It was either me or it.
I did it swiftly and buried it in the backyard,
where the authorities of conformity
and the thought police
will never find out.
And prosecute me for murdering
a defenseless, harmless thing.

But it wasn't harmless.
It was the embodiment of pure evil!
Striking down my creativity and lust for life.
It was hypnotizing me into submission
with its thirty minute-quick-fix answer
on some sitcom reality where
canned laughter rises from an idiot one-liner.

Where $20,000 luxury car ads defecate
great-gotta-have-buy-now deals
on the porch of my mind.
Where tons of flapping tongues
interview every redneck-hillbilly
below the Mason-Dixon line
about their incestuous, drug-taking,beer-drinking, bar-brawling, dog-kicking,
wife-cheating, husband-beating,
I-don't-know-how-to-get-it-on lives.

Where Big Brother shows his face
in the form of a third-rate actor,
who's found work in a
desensitized entertainment show called:
IF YOU NARK THEM, WE'LL BUST THEM.

Where fresh air, rolling beaches, cloud-piercing
mountains, hair-thick forests came to me from a
19" life line.

So yes, I admit it.
I killed it! I'm happy I killed it.
And I would kill it again.
I am finally free!

I have climbed to the top of the mountain
and I have seen the light, of the boob tube
and I, yes I, have turned it off.
Can I get an 'Amen' from the congregation!
I am going back to the basics, baby.
I'll move up to Montana
and rent that Unabomber's cabin.
I will wash my hands clean of modern society
forever...

Except, well, I'll need to bring my computer.
I mean, come on, using a typewriter is

barbaric

let alone free hand - that's slipping into the

dark ages.

And I'll have to have a phone line, of course,
for my Internet access-

I love surfing the Web,

downloading, uploading, saving, cutting,
copying, pasting

and I just dig getting E-mail.

And I'll want to keep my $9,000
receiver, tape deck, Sony cd player and
JBL speakers-

because, honestly, I gotta have my tunes, man.

But the devil cord has been cut,
that evil snake of addiction has been severed.
I am now free, don't you hear? Can't you see?
Free damn it, free!
Follow me people!

Sloan Davis is an organizing force behind the A Group of Arkansas Poets (AGOCAP). Home Page. At least it is he who is most computer literate. Check out his home page.