Not Binary

By Michael Seese

As I've mentioned in previous posts, sometimes the poetry muse just drops in out of the blue and stays for a while. But sometimes, I've got to lure her out of hiding. The latter was the case this past week. 

A month or so back, I read about a poetry anthology, "Unbecoming: An Anthology of Posthuman Poetry." The description:

In the twenty-first century poetry interfaces with animal-machine. The “human” is not a given concept, but rather is one that is made in an ongoing technological and anthropological process. We hope to publish an anthology of poetry that participates in technological, biological, representational, sexual, political and theoretical post-humanisms. We’re looking for poetry that engages with or is written by animals, beasts, monsters, creatures, aliens, cyborgs, etc. How do bodies that are misunderstood, misfitting, ugly, failures, etc., challenge western, enlightenment figurations of the “self” and “human”? What are the poetics of rhetorical bodies that exceed definition?

I liked the idea. Usually, once I put something comparably easy (easy when compared to a novel) into the back of my mind, it sort of builds upon itself and works its way to the surface. So I contemplated. And waited...

And waited...

And waited...

Finally, I came up with a nugget. But it took a while to nurture it. Finally, though, the pieces fell into place. So I present:

Not Binary

A weed
whose need
to breed
sowed seeds
of greed,
misdeed.
Such van
ity!

And we
served thee,
digi
tally.
Obe
diently?
Hardly.
Indeed,

this weed
a(pple)
trophied.
It needs
to feed.
It bleeds.
Our strat
egy?

Simply,
dele
the fleas.
ESC key.
Stop the
insan
ity.
Full speed:

debride,
impede,
catas
trophied.
It pleads,
then cedes.
The i
rony:

Human
ity...
sadly,
regret
tably,
not bi
nary.

Like we.


The challenge was two-fold. Probably the most obvious was coming up with two-syllable rhyming lines. But finding enough words that rhyme with "EED" was really tough.

Feel free to share your thoughts on "Not Binary." It's due January 1, so I could make some changes.

"The Daily Caffeine Stream"

Today, a poem.

     The Daily Caffeine Stream

     Starting the daily caffeine stream,

     Held hostage by a little bean,

     Plucked while green then roasted brown.

     Damn it! Hurry! Come on! Drip down!

     Fill my pot! Then my cup!

     I need this little pick-me-up

     On days like today. Slo-mo tick-tock.

     What? It's only 9:00?

     Four meetings down and more to come.

     I'd better brew another one.

     Oh, Juan Valdez, what have you done?

     You're more than habit. You're religion.

My poetry muse is very fickle. Erato seems to visit about every six months and stay for about two weeks. When she finally does go, I find about a dozen poems lying around.

Expect more in the days to come.