You and I have so many words
that they spill out into the margins
and jam the Darlings of our salutations.
Our e-mails are getting as dense as bricks.

We drop them in each other's boxes daily,
overloaded with every weighty topic
we can think of. Truth, life, death, sex, love,
God, music, art and of course, each other.

The one I'm about to send you
is lighter. It's short and to the point,
entitled, "Let's get real and do it."
Book us a site in a five star cyber hotel.

Choose one with the usual services,
fly-through options for viewing,
full digital manipulation of images
and chocolates on the pillows at night.

Modems will not be permitted there.
You must use your natural talents to log me on.
Where and when and how you do it,
is virtually up to you.


The Significance of the Mouse

in a back-street Internet Cafe in Delhi.

Because you read poetry
you might expect a pun,
a metaphor or a symbolic tale.

You might strain your brain
for hidden meaning
as if analysing a dream.

This mouse is much simpler.
It is grey, flesh, blood and fur.
Wiggley nose, long tail, pink paws.

It peeped out from between
the keyboard and the screen.
It did not go "click."


Mapping the Route

'Out of thin air-
state-of-the-art communication, e-mail
hitting my in-box just when I'm feeling low
in someone else's room.
I log-on to find you've found me. I come alive
and so surprised, I write right
back about my travel plans. I'm slipping out of sight
of everyone who thinks I have a role
to play, fixed firmly in cement
about who I ought to be.
To hell with them. I'm out of here, I lick
my lips and hit the road.'

Funny how the energy can be
so high from old lost love, lifting me right
off the ground, hovering in the air,
a cartoon ghost of the Australian wind, low
to the ground, blowing the dust off the road
so only the things I like
are ahead of me, beaches, sunshine, meant
for me, charmed just for me, in sight
at the end of the tunnel, hardly another mile.
There is nothing left for me in this room
except a borrowed computer. I roll
it away from the window, lock the door, then leave.

'I wish I had a convertible now, fresh air
in my hair, radio blasting the open road,
a quick stop to shop at the mall,
songs much too loud, too full of life
too strong for a heart to hold, an old heart like
the one I still have, over-loved, over-loaded, low
on believing I can do this again, make room
for you again, let you in through cyber space, write
myself into oblivion, letting the words scroll
from my finger tips, tangle in my web site.'
What will this new composition be--
a love song or just another lament?

History first. Let's compare
our lives and loves, blow by blow.
We'll write the stories once, then lock
them up in files, never again to be read.
Then we can call them secrets. Maybe
first, just once, the stories can be strewn
around our in-trays for a while till we believe
that everything that happened, everything we wrote
will give us clearer insight
into what it is that's meant
by this new connection now, creating all this mail.
For me, I know I'm giving you a major role.

Do you have one for me that's slightly rude?
You know, sexy, naughty, all that internet slick
talk that leads to bye bye
respectability and hello blackmail,
as well as sleeplessness that roots
us into nightmares of a payroll
that's embezzled or some exposure scare.
It's husbands, wives and children we're afraid of, not the law,
but scared of where the end of all of this is meant
to be-- it's not in sight
from here, so I believe
it might already let us loose in too much room.

________________Limits? Would you rather have some rules
________________laid down on frequency, on copyright,
________________fixed on messages, labels of female and male,
________________his and hers, confidentiality on what we read,
________________categories, closed files, compartments?
________________Yes, of course, me must use care
________________in how we toss around the stories of our lives.
________________Trust me. We'll go slow.
________________We'll peel away the layers, have a look
________________at all the new ways intimacy can be
________________shared, savoured, scrolled and printed by the ream
________________yet safe, protected by this wary foresight.

'Ill now recite
our very simple rules.
No more than two, (or up to five if very small)
messages can come and go in any day. Be
honest in everything you say. Be assured I mean
exactly what you read.
Behave as if my life
were in your hands, my rhyme
and reason dangling from a cliff, below
which is an endless fall into world wide air.
Be sure that what you write
is worth the stamp you needn't even lick.

________________Ready now? Let's go to places snail mail
________________never went -- deeper, darker, lighter, brighter,
________________faster, fuller with despair
________________more packed with joy. I love
________________to tell you secrets now. The lock
________________is off the box, the rum
________________is in the glass and I let it overflow.
________________Drunk on the super highway, let's incite
________________a riot, stir the shit, rile
________________authority, tear written words to fragments
________________which we cut and paste and copy
________________with such abandon, like a silly fairground ride.

Music too begins to flow--
you dare to write the tunes without a care
and I churn out lyrics by the mile.
Keyboard, drum machine and lute,
still leave you free to croon
the words I wrote, completely by the rules
we had agreed to implement.
There is nothing here to disbelieve,
no errors to rewrite,
no censorship is sought
for overstepping what seems to be
a most inviting, open ended road.

'But there's another route.
A homely path through penny royal mint,
my garden in the summer, a snail,
its glistening trail. A slug, its slick.
A butterfly, a robin and a bee,
the orchard, an apple and a pear.
As pure as sunlight in the morning room
complete with shadows when the sun's low.
Here, we could meet, shake hands, cement
our friendship in full sight
of everyone, nothing to hide, no back road
no undercover roles.'

But what would we eat or write
in such a place with so much light?
I'd rather picnic with you in my windowless room
groping for grapes to give us some relief.
I'd feed you in the dark, then roll
you over and expose you to the air.
still keeping the lights down low
still popping berries into your mouth, for insight
into the whipped cream workings of your mind.
Some little crusty cakes might venture down the road
pulled in a cart by a clapped out mule.
Just let them be.

'Be brave enough to look
at everything I write, then re-write
and send to you, both fair and unfair,
comforting or distressing.'
_______________In hindsight
now we know we pushed ourselves too far below
our tolerance for spicy food, and stripped down love.
Pick up the battered kitchen broom
and sweep away these crumbs-- blow
them into the air and let them ride
_____the currents out to the great cyber space cleansing department
_____in the sky--mouldy pie in the sky, Swiss cheese on a rotten roll
_____gliding by, doughnuts with just too many holes, maybe.

_______13.
_______Indigestion, belly like cement, no chop you want to lick
_______no body part you want to write about, extol the role
_______of-- how it turns you on, off, high, low, makes you barely alive.
_______made-in-heaven emails, stampede this star spangled road.
_______Tell me, would you rather say a little prayer and then goodbye?

Linda Chase



Linda Chase grew up near New York City. She studied creative writing at Bennington College in Vermont and then went to live in San Francisco. She moved to Edinburgh in 1968, and currently lives in Manchester, where she has founded Cahoots magazine and established the Village Hall Tai Chi School. Her first full length collection of poetry These Goodbyes was published in 1995 by Fatchance Press.