A MultiMedia Poem

Ok

So here is my vision — a poem about multiple genres represented in the virtual world like this:

  • A video of a mouth reading the main poem, with other alternative voices reading the lines “blink-blink-blink” and “familiar shapes, forgotten signs”
  • A video montage of a right eye and a left eye, alternating images of many people’s eyeballs
  • The nose? not sure

Compile the video files into an HTML document set up like a real face and sync the video so that when they are all set to play, the mouth video reads the poems as the left and right eyes flicker through various people, reflecting different personalities.

Here is the poem:


Blink Blink Blink

A Multimedia Poem

They say that eyes are windows into the depths of the soul —
so what does it mean if there are multiple frames, multiple windows,
multiple voices,
converging and diverging behind the dancing curtains of these blue-green retinas?

Familiar shapes.
Forgotten signs.

blink – blink – blink –

Instead of imagining strangers looking in and watching me become myself,
I am the stranger looking out,
a scarecrow nailed to a post viewing the dispersing pixels
through the lenses of time and shifting personalities
and yet seeing nothing but the vast emptiness of the landscape around me.

Familiar shapes.
Forgotten signs.

blink – blink – blink –

The world shimmers silently from this side of the stage
in an eerie show of light and dark,
figures draped in sadness, bathed in laughter, drenched in confusion.
A conversation takes hold – voices casting shadows across the walls,
demanding room, elbows engaged, anger refracted, joy reflected,
and the eyes don’t lie: the turmoil is real, dangerous, troubling.

Familiar shapes.
Forgotten signs.

blink – blink – blink –

I am thinking of collage, a collection of things stored away in the attic
and quickly forgotten,
memories misplaced in cloudy mason jars sealed tight for the ages
as the echoes of what remain still linger, still lingering, even now,
just on the edge of understanding.

Familiar shapes.
Forgotten signs.

blink – blink – blink –

The eyes won’t lie: the battle rages
and the one to open the last mason jar releases the emotions into the night
and disappears.

Familiar shapes.
Forgotten signs.

blink – blink – blink –