In Praise of the "Off" switch

For some time now I have been musing on the subject of the "Off" switch:, and wondering if I could write a poem about it. But the challenge lay in going from something to nothing, (from that moment of intrusive noise, to silence), and knowing how to give expression to the experience.

In the first instance it may have been a broadcast that I wanted to hear and I simply had enough. Or there again, I had become aware of a noise in the background, (the left over's from someone else's listening), and I wanted rid of it, either because I wasn't interested, or having lent an ear, decided that it was so much twaddle.

But recognising also the profound nature of a technology, that can bring pleasure as well as pain, I have long had a fascination for the ease with which this same sophisticated broadcasting technology, makes it possible for us to abandon the process at will, to say nothing of that "Off" switch, that all of us carry around in our head.

Well, as is often the case, while I have been working on one thing I have been thinking about another; and that is what has happened here. While occupied in the laborious task of compiling an index of Chinese poetry, in translation! (work that spans some three thousand years), I have found temporary relief, (or should it be release), in shaping the poem that I have been thinking about for so long:

   In Praise of the "Off" Switch

   It's time to write a sonnet in your praise:
(I've grappled with the subject now for days),
For when my head is sizzling in the waves
I loose control, and grasp at what I crave.
   And in that silence - I am lost for words,
Oblivious to the antics of the birds,
For I stand neutered: speechless at my craft;
A poet without words is simply daft.
   But poets do not give themselves to death,
No matter how they grieve or are bereft.
Knee deep in silt, and filt'ring like a sieve
They find the limpets - words by which they live.
      "My friend! Marconi! You are not to blame,
      That I should reach for the, "Off" switch, again."


Cormac
2nd-3rd June 2010
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© Cormac McCloskey

Note: This blog, "In Praise of the "Off" Switch", was first published on Windows Live Spaces, by me, on 7th June 2010