Listen to Podcast Interview with Grace Cavalieri on The Poet and the Poem

Odysseus

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
0000The sun rose again0000days of rain with smoke0000
00and cars0000and air0000tasting of iron rust0000000000
000000the Old Coder warned the warriors00000000000000
000000000of the danger of open networks0000000000000
000000000000000but they were already gone0000000000
000off to the World Wide War000000Mrs. Odysseus00000
0000took out the trash thinking00000000"Not this day"0000
000not this day0000000000000000000000000000000000
00And so it was that the Happy Hacker kept his data00000
00in an ox-hide bound external storage device0000000000
00ate carbon for lunch00roasted amino acids for dinner000
0savored Chapman's Homer etched into Gorilla Glass0000
0000in long tedious electromagnetic rows00000000000000
000000Mrs. Odysseus working phone sex shifts000000000
00at the mini-mall0000spoke into her00000unencrypted00
0000000000000mic saying in a deep breathy way0000000
"yes I said yes I will Yes."000000000000000000000000000
00000pain killers made her feel like Nancy Sinatra0000000
00in gold-toed boots and all calls were recorded000000000
0000000000000000000000000for quality assurance000000
00the rose petals arrived at dawn000from the other side000
000of the planet000red massless particles of antimatter000
000with razor sharp teeth of invisible energy000000000000
00words burst into bits00form bled streams of content0
00000the dead were carried away00000000000000000000
0000into dictionaries00000000but the geeks fought back00
00with Heisenberg-like0000000uncertainty0000000000000
00ideas were stolen0000000language rent0000asunder000
00sentences trapped in 1s and 0s000until the red-fanged00
00000icons00000fled the battle00harmless as00000000000
000000000000000000blank neutrinos00000000000000000
000Odyssus cried out "Where art thou brothers?"00000000
00"nowhere" came the response00and Nobody had won000
000Akilleeze threw down his shield00dropped his sword00
00and walked off the set00Odysseus witnessed the scene00
000from a window in his trailer00000000000000000000000
0later00at the Underwater Bar in West Burbank California00
0000Akilleeze looked up from his sushi and 000whispered00
00across the table "I think this role could make me immortal"
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000