Tag Archives: original poetry

I am a bag of meat

Posted on by

I am a bag of meat.

I am a collection of bones and water in a protein and fat based cover.

I keep my true self in my brain box up on top of a ladder of unreliable sensors.

It can’t be extracted.

It can’t be pointed to on a scan.

I’m not confident it really exists.

 

I spent nine months in a meat incubator

Then eighteen years in meat apprenticeship

To learn how to interpret what my bag of meat tells me

My fingers tell me about hot and cold

My nose identifies honeysuckle pollen

My mouth reports fried chicken.

Piece of cake.

My eyes and ears report the body language of another bag of meat,

Report the sounds and gestures,

Send messages to my brain box using both electrical and chemical signals

Pass the interpretations through a sea of mind-altering hormones and steroids who are busy just running the shop

My grey matter receives all of it

Compares it to past memories, degrading them

Tries to fit it into a framework

Increases or decreases other chemicals as a reaction

And then somehow instantly and interminably I “understand”

Sending new messages from the brain box to other systems to reply

 

It’s a wonder we get anything done

 

Every system has cells, every cell has memory.

My thighs remember things.

How to stand

How to run

My fingers remember complicated sequences.

Take away their memories and my brain box’s orders can’t be completed.

Is my true self in my fingers?

I guess so.

I don’t feel like me when I’m re-learning how to something my injured hand forgot.

I host an ecosystem.

Eyebrow mites.

Probiotic bacteria.

Mitochondria.

Germs.

Viruses.

Possibly even a parasite or two.

I like to think my true self is independent of my meat farm

But studies of toxoplasmosis say “probably not”

 

I am in a totally different meat bag than I was seven years ago

Every part of my meat bag is under construction every minute of the day

I am the city that never sleeps

It takes seven years to swap out the oldest parts

So at best I change a little each day

At worst, the meat bag’s intricate systems fight to keep me alive

I prefer the slow change, to be honest

 

We are all bags of meat.

We are each a collection of bones and water in a protein and fat based cover.

We are all changing ecologies of life

We are all trapped in cells

Trapped by cells

At

The

Whims

Of

Chemicals

We

Produce

 

“How are you today?”

 

Damned if I know.

Let me check with the meat and get back to you.

Milestones

Posted on by

I’ve had a weekend where I didn’t actually complete a single project I started.
I’m sleepless right now and I have a long week ahead of me.
I’m angry because I’m tired and I’d like to be asleep,
not failing at writing poetry, failing at working on the novel, or failing to check my email.

December 5th marks exactly 1 year that I’ve owned the kirabug.com domain.
The various incarnations of my website are much older;
my geocities site was started 5 years ago, though none of the archives are still there.
from there, to Earthlink, to Comcast, and now to here, my home

through two moves, three or four blizzards, various car accidents,
experiments with html, experiments with php, experiments with javascript
experiments with poetry, fiction, comics, forums, more poetry, more comics

I’ve changed. The site’s changed. We’re getting 1500+ readers a month
(that is, if I’m reading my logs right, but even so) it’s an odd feeling to think someone’s listening
especially at 2am on a monday which promises to be a very long day
when i feel like the whole world’s asleep, and i’m alone

I’ve been a little too quiet lately; I’ll try to remedy that
not that I’m sure that’s what you’re here for – the logs point to a strong
possibility you’re here for the comics, but hey
i’ve been babbling on for a year here and you keep coming back

thank you, all of you, for giving me an anchor, and a milestone to achieve

a poem

Posted on by

subpar, but i’m out of practice.

fun house

I’m an engineer now-
capable of conversing extemporaneous
on the relative merits of
agile development, refactoring,
and whether we really should
clean up the bad smells in that code.

I, who embraced an unholy fear of offending,
convince total strangers that they made mistakes
and get paid to do so.

I spend my free time programming,
or watching science-geek shows on cable
with my husband and my dog and my computer.
I eat too much for my already round frame, and
I work out.

I, who cannot draw, publish online comics.
I, who fear the world, publish my journal.

I haven’t read a book since December,

I haven’t written a poem since 2003.

sometimes, even I don’t recognize myself.

August 10, 2005