Robert M. Simmons  

New Release

         Lines from Chuck

    An Elegy for the Microchip

Many an eve

from yonder ivied casement⁹

as the glimmering landscape faded from sight¹⁰

did Chuck look down

with frown and wrinkled lip¹¹

at town and gown

and at the college library

with its dusty books,

moldy journals

and enigmatic classification schemes,

a repository

for dim-conceived glories of the brain,¹²

scholarly chow mein,

a rusted train

standing still at the station

while the rest of the world spun

with dizzying speed

down the ringing grooves of change.¹³

In cyberspace

there was no race,

no second place,

no gender, no infirmities,

no age, no rage,

no superior classes

with gold-rimmed glasses

sneering at the masses

from mahogany desks with marble tops.

He could not wait for time to trash

this temple of high culture

with its smug priests,

elite and effete,

not to mention superannuated,

vexed by full-text, fiber optics and websites.

They too must be driven from the campus

like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing¹⁴

he realized while skiing

the black diamond run on Mount Wachusett.

______________________________

NOTES ON “CHUCK”

One of the stylistic techniques used in writing “Chuck” was to weave direct quotations, garbled quotations, paraphrases and passing references from well known works of literature directly into the text of the poem.  To the best of my knowledge, all of these are cited below.  If something remains that should have been cited and lacks notation, this should be attributed to lack of diligence on my part rather than anything else. –R.M.S.

 9   Alfred Lord Tennyson, “Locksley Hall,” line 7.

10  Thomas Gray, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” line 5.

11  Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ozymandias,” lines 4 & 5.

12  John Keats, “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles,” line 9.

13  Alfred Lord Tennyson, “Locksley Hall,” line 182.

14  Percy Bysshe Shelly, “Ode to the West Wind,” line 3.

    © 2009 by Robert M. Simmons

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Subjects: poems about, Internet, technology, microchips, change, resistance to change, traditional values, college libraries, college librarians, college life, college administrators, college faculty, corporate executives, aging, mid-life crisis, disillusionment, death, research, satire, poetry, poems

Chuck: An Elegy for the Microchip