The Whirlwind Review
Issue 1


Table of Contents
More Poetry
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Cristina T. Lopez-O'Keeffe

The New Border

We’re working in a world that seems to be manufactured on decoder-ring methodology. Everything is cryptically simple but unnecessarily complicated.
People don’t speak frankly, but in small circles of logic that wind up getting us nowhere.
So here we are, without progress, feeling somewhat disappointed.
If half the fun is getting there
And we go nowhere
Where’s the fun in that?
I’m not inspired anymore by what’s out there.
The passion is gone.
Revolutions are requested via email or text message and the real voice is muted.
Some say we’re louder with this technology:
The email-heard-around-the-world type of impact.
But it’s harder to connect when the only sound
Is the ticker-tacking of my fingers on the keyboard.

I wouldn’t even question any of this except
I miss your voice
And was wondering why we never talk,
Only connect.

I feel like I missed something when I got online.
Someone assigned me a UNIX account
I asked others for their addresses and so we started the dance:
AOL, Yahoo, HotMail, G-mail.
The carousel keeps circling by.
The same strange horse faces distorted by mechanical music.
We’re all pretending it's fun but wondering when we can get off.
But we can’t because whenever we stop
The cursor is blinking and we must press on.
Even ending this poem is difficult.
I have no more words but the cursor keeps asking “What’s next?”

What’s next?
What’s next?
What’s next?






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