Internet

[Jerrybaldy]

I knew you were gone for sure
when your status
said 'deceased'.
Three said they 'liked':
your ex wife,
John Sheppard
and a dick head
called luvver,
who owed you twenty quid.
I wished I had called
for a cup of tea
or took you for a pint;
maybe just picked
up the phone.
'Goodnight my son'
I typed in a tribute
and took closure
from the X
at the top.

[Delta40]

I have often wondered about dying and nobody on lit-net knowing what happened to me. I really like the closure statement from the x at the top. One clicks on it so many times in a day without thought. Rather final in this context. I sometimes feel your poetry is slapdash Jerry and yet it always has the underlying appeal - Jackson Pollock poetry?

[MystyrMystyry]

I wondered about it once and if it had ever happened, and shortly after I discovered that it had before I joined, and it was one of the strangest sensations - being able to read their past posts as though they were still around, and because I hadn't heard their actual human vocal tones it was as though the ghost of a friend had been posting for my benefit

No-one I've met on-line has dropped yet but I imagine if it happens at Litnet it's going to sting much more than anywhere else, though I hope not while I'm around

[PrinceMyshkin]

Love the off-the-cuffness of several of your recent poems, oh Baldness!

[Haunted]

A bit of dark humor, three said they 'liked'. But then you surprised with a dead serious ending. And just when he thinks he can escape his son's death by clicking the x, closing the window is not exactly the same as closure. This is a great piece.

(btw I'm assumed dead if no one saw me for three days and Litnet would be a less haunted place)

[AuntShecky]

One statement I've typed more than once on the LitNet is "The writer cannot be held responsible for the gaps in his reader's education." I thought that those words were coming back to haunt me as I didn't get your piece on the first reading.

By the second time, however, I realized your speaker was talking about the "status" of a user of the Internet, on a social website such as "Facebook" or a similar venue. As a previous commenter -- I think it was our beloved Delta --mentioned, it's very strange when an Internet user "dies" in the physical sense. How would his online "friends" know that he has passed away?

This then was an original piece of speculation on your part, Jerry, and may be part of a whole new genre of fiction and poems born out of our digital age.

See? Your ol' auntie can be nice once in a while!

[Jerrybaldy]

Thanks Delta... I hope that you are not using Jackson Pollock's as in cockney rhyming slang.

MM. glad to have given cause for thought. I would imagine statistically quite a few litnetters on here, since the start, may no longer be with us.

Oh, Prince !! :)

Thanks Haunted, three days is quite short, I will do a draft today of 'Alas poor Haunted' today, in readiness should we reach day four.

Blimey Ol' Auntie. Manichaean and myself made our peace through mutual respect recently. Et tu Auntie? It's getting like Woodstock around here. Thanks :)

[firefangled]

Very thoughtful piece. You did set this up nicely for a one-two punch. Well done!

[everyadventure]

"luvver, who owed you twenty quid"-- so great!

Yes, I think we should have a service + eulogies for anyone who disappears for more than a month. And then if they rise from the dead... well, we can throw a welcome back party.