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Bumpertalk from the Highway and Line Noise

As posted on the WELL....

WELL Poets' Virtual Cafe -- have a cap and tell us a poem poetry.279.83 (gail) Mon 19 Dec 94 16:41 Two-part poem in progress read at the recent WELL Poets Reading: 1. Bumpertalk Information is pouring past me in the passing lane -- "I believe you Anita", "I brake for Jesus", "I believe you, MTV"... "Lead, follow, or get out of the way." And just where would you lead? Shall we all follow you down your offramp, up your avenue, down your street and pull into your precious parking place? Or can we weave wrecklessly, artfully a conversation of cars, a dance of words, a jam of bodies, ideas, fates? 2. Signal to Noise: Come in Please! tilde r tilde r tilde r r r are you? shift, shift, return. tilde r tilde r return. How do I counter thee, oh flood, oh cloud of characters, oh whirlwind of the scattered bones of meaning, black hole of text sans context? How do I answer thee, oh thousand monkeys typing in search of Shakespeare? Is my attempt to crystalize a grammar, my grasping for a starting place, for some known prompt, mere interference to your perfect random storm, oh my found partner? How many K of synchronicity do u ~ u ~ u ~ require to name me Dances With Line Noise? A note on the historic significance of line noise:
There were once slow modems with less error-correction. Strange pulses and mysterious currents would send blasts of characters, perhaps nonsense, perhaps tea leaves to be read. How can this be ancient history in so few years?

- Gail