Titanium Spork (tiny tweak)

[bodkin]

(moved the colon as per Crayon's suggestion, corrected spelling of "tenant" as Ray noticed...)

Titanium Spork


Titanium Spork: You get the idea:
a spoon, knife and fork together in one
so no need to purchase the separate utensils
and probably also, in this simplistic,
unritualistic day and age, you will not need:
the napkin rings,
the sugar tongs,
or the pearl-handled oyster knife...

and neither need you
ever replace this Spork,
this transcendental utensil
as Titanium is indestructible
by any plausible, normally causable,
disaster of the kitchen or dining room variety
which doesn't involve a volcano.

Titanium Spork: You can clean it with a blowtorch
should the dishwasher break down.


Titanium Spork: Let's now take stock
of other ways in which it rocks;
the less direct benefits, accruing to you
the owner of this better-than-sterling tool.
You are cool
the other geeks will think you neat
you may even wish to skip
the ritual chopsticks for lunchtime sushi
and scarf the stuff down at a rate
that illustrates you have no fear
of ever breaking
your marvellous eating equipment.

Also... you always have
this imperishable piece
of metal about your person
which can be jammed
into any recalcitrant mechanism
like the autopilot of a 747,
a Death Star trash compactor on the detention level,
or that little door
on the front of your digibox
that's supposed to open
with a finger's stroke
and won't.


Titanium Spork: so now you own it:
the ultimate accessory,
but is this shiny thing necessary
or appropriate
to the ethically constructed life?

Because...

...while there are outdoorsy folks who will insist
their Spork's as crucial
as the dual-fuel CampStar lamp that twists, gently,
beneath the carbon-fibre ridge-pole
of their two person hike tent...

...and late-night coders who simply would not eat
without the additional incentive...

...is this enough?


Titanium Spork: Can we justify
the type of costs that underlie
such an object:
development,
production,
factory construction,
smelting Titanium by the Kroll process,
and the product placement surveys
by a brown, hand-knitted cardigan called Alison
with many frequent flyer miles
to major cities
in persistent light rain?

Titanium Spork: And what
of the Amazon Prime drone, that drops
like an anti-seagull from the overcast
to place implement
in outstretched hand
the moment you peel the cellophane
from the instant ramen noodle of your choice...?


Titanium Spork: how does it work--
the World devotes such energy
to cutlery perfection
while diagrams of devastation
bloom, wept at, but uncorrected
across Western Asia? How does it work
that there remain toddlers
who own no spoon of any sort
in dust
in tiny villages
in Africa?


Titanium Spork: the geeks are progressive,
their blog posts expressive
and always they'll claim:
that they'd really like to save the World
and put as much as nineteen dollars
and ninety-nine cents
in a Kickstarter campaign
to do that very thing
as recently as Tuesday.


Titanium Spork: and to be fair
many of them do more than that.


Titanium Spork: the geek agenda
is of no surrender
on any type of higher and higher
technology: Smart phones,
smart drugs, smart plastics,
smart cars, smart watches,
working smarter, not harder;
although often harder as well
on their cloud enabled,
RSA encrypted,
virtual platform
multi-tenant whateverscape...

...or sometimes just a database
of cost-effective
Mexican food.


Do not blame us
for the asymmetry
of modern life.

All we wanted
was to build wonderful machines
and turn them loose
to do their own things
to be of use
and free
at the point of need
or in any case so cheap
that they are a gift to the World
on the internet
in your phone
on every street corner
and all we want as our reward
is a comment somewhere deep in the source code
that says with mock pride
and even more mocking humility
that: Bobby-sixty-three was here

oh yes, and a salary, a Western lifestyle, a dirt bike, a car...


Titanium Spork: So much for the World,
and yet, possibly...

There are possibilities...
of an internet café at the edge of the conflict,
war correspondents post their stuff
and a teenager busses tables
for half a meal a day
the occasional human interest interview
and all the bandwidth he can steal;
at the end of the day he emerges
with six new ways to improve the ancient diesel generator...

There are possibilities...
that somewhere sub-Saharan
a thirteen year old girl
finding the third-hand maths textbook
her brother left unfinished
climbs a tree and reads
the whole thing in one sitting,
squatting, on the highest branch
and afterwards thinks
well obviously there's more to this...

Imagine her now,
imagine all the young people
who may yet learn
how to be geeks. They
have not yet heard the promises
of Titanium and technology,
of science and Sporks;
but she is listening now
as she stares speculatively at the far-off mountain peaks,
at a tiny metallic twinkle
as from some distant,
shiny,
wonderful
object.

[bodkin]

This is obviously very long... it's more of a performance piece, it takes me about 6.5 minutes to read it aloud...

[Crayon]

It's a bold delight. And I cannot really critique what is clearly a fervent performance piece.

Should Titanium and Spork be capitalised?

Spotted a typo: scarf/scoff, but maybe 'spoff' would suit better?

The colon should go after "that" not after "humility"?

Maybe 'Bobby-three-sixty'?

[Lou]

This would make an excellent performance piece. Go for it!

Best,
Lou

[bodkin]

Thank you both,

I like your edits Crayon. I don't know the word "spoff" but "scarf" is also in some places dialect for "eat" -- I suspect just stemming from a variant pronunciation of "scoff". Maybe I'll change it to "scoff" to be more canonical...

Ian

[JJWilliamson]

Great piece, Ian

I read every word and enjoyed the rhythms and rhymes very much. It's difficult to crit a performance piece
because of the emphasis, rhythms and speed of delivery the speaker intends to employ, but I can hear it in my mind's ear
and enjoyed it

I drifted a couple of times towards the end then perked up as you gathered pace for the close, which I also enjoyed.

Now all I need to know is what accent do you speak in. Then I'll be able to enjoy it again.

Best

JJ

[bodkin]

Great piece, Ian

I read every word and enjoyed the rhythms and rhymes very much. It's difficult to crit a performance piece
because of the emphasis, rhythms and speed of delivery the speaker intends to employ, but I can hear it in my mind's ear
and enjoyed it

I drifted a couple of times towards the end then perked up as you gathered pace for the close, which I also enjoyed.

Now all I need to know is what accent do you speak in. Then I'll be able to enjoy it again.

Best

JJ

Thank you JJ,

I'm glad it seems to be working...

There are many examples of my accent (I call it "no accent" but YMMV) on my website: http://www.ianbadcoe.uk/

However I am sufficiently encouraged by the positive responses so far to attempt a recording...

It's just taking a while to transfer the file... it might not be until tomorrow...

Ian

[Firebird]

Ian, I like it, especially the finale. However, I did feel it lost pace and some rhythm from

Titanium Spork: Can we justify
the type of costs that underlie
such an object:
development,
production,
factory construction,
smelting Titanium by the Kroll process,
and the product placement surveys
by a brown, hand-knitted cardigan called Alison
with many frequent flyer miles
to major cities
in persistent light rain?

Titanium Spork: And what
of the Amazon Prime drone, that drops
like an anti-seagull from the overcast
to place implement
in outstretched hand
the moment you peel the cellophane
from the instant ramen noodle of your choice...?


and for the next two stanza which I couldn't get to cut and paste.

Maybe you should post up a recording of you reading it. It would be good hear how you mean it to sound.

Cheers,

Tristan

[bodkin]

Titanium Spork.mp3

(6.06 MiB) Downloaded 181 times

Here you go, one's very own sultry tones...

Ian

[Firebird]

Ian, firstly, you read it fantastically. I really like the way you resist over-emphasising the internal rhymes. You have a measured tone, but maintain a clear rhythm. This is how I like to hear poems read.

I now think that this poem works well as both a performance piece and as a paper poem. The poem is epic and covers a huge amount of ground even though it is long. I love the ideas here, and think the Titanium Spork holds them together very well and is an excellent idea to show in some respects the redundancy of so many objects in capital societies and the desire to consume more and more every day, while those in other parts of the world have very little. I also like the irony that it is indestructible. A indestructible tool to help us eat/consume - could this be an image for capitalism. Maybe I'm pushing a point there. It also says a lot about the 'direction' of science and technology, and those who research and invent gadgets for us to consume.

I may be biased here as the poem is political and I think it represents many views I already hold, but I think your poem is excellent and well worth submitting to a journal that accepts long poems. I will be reading and listening to it again.

Excellent!

Cheers,

Tristan

[ray miller]

This is very good, Ian. There's something a bit tenuous about the ending, but lovely, inventive rhymes throughout. Fab.

on the front of your digibox
that's supposed to open
with a finger's stroke
and won't. - I wonder if won't was will not, would the rhyme with digibox be better than stroke/won't?

bloom, wept at, but uncorrected
across Western Asia? - not often you come across "Western Asia". You mean the Middle East?

multi-tennant whateverscape... - tenant

[bodkin]

Thank you Tristan!

It is a bit political, yes. I'm not generally political, because generally politics seems like puerile gibberish to me...

...so when I am a little bit political, I do try to represent a slightly broader picture. Things can be good and bad. 99.963% of all things are both good and bad, so I always try to show a more complex picture. Here that particular type of Spork really didn't need inventing... but I would never subscribe to the popular belief that all tech progress is inherently dodgy.

Thanks Ray!

I see what you mean about the rhyme with won't/will not, but I'm not sure I can picture the rhythm still working with three syllables to end the strophe... I'll live with that one a while and see if it grows on me.

Tenant/tennant -- good grief, you wouldn't believe how much this must have got spell checked as i copied and pasted it from place to place... Will fix that.

I said Western Asia because that's where Syria is, but I didn't want to narrow the focus to a single country since my point is bigger than one conflict, also I thought it scanned really well.

Thanks both,

Ian

[Crayon]

I like your edits Crayon. I don't know the word "spoff" but "scarf" is also in some places dialect for "eat" -- I suspect just stemming from a variant pronunciation of "scoff". Maybe I'll change it to "scoff" to be more canonical...

Spodkin - I spoontaneously coined the word spoff - a triple portmanteau: spoon + fork + scoff. Hmm... so I suppose it should really be: sporff - a verb for scoffing with a spork.

But I wasn't being serious; although, in context, the audience would likely still know what you mean, even if they don't get the joke.

[Macavity]

hi Ian,
Failed to read this (x2) without your reading. Definitely engaged middle to end.

some further thoughts...

(moved the colon as per Crayon's suggestion, corrected spelling of "tenant" as Ray noticed...)

Titanium Spork


Titanium Spork: You get the idea:................................................the double colons confused the opening for me
a spoon, knife and fork together in one
so no need to purchase the separate utensils
and probably also, in this simplistic,
unritualistic day and age, you will not need:.....................simplistic/unritualistic always find this rhyme delivery verging towards a bouncy rap
the napkin rings,
the sugar tongs,
or the pearl-handled oyster knife......................................I think the you here would be from a particular class

and neither need you
ever replace this Spork,
this transcendental utensil
as Titanium is indestructible
by any plausible, normally causable,................................................I guess this delivery is fashionable at the moment with Tempest
disaster of the kitchen or dining room variety
which doesn't involve a volcano.............................................the words of this strophe seemed purposed to sound not content

Titanium Spork: You can clean it with a blowtorch
should the dishwasher break down.......................................................that one gave me a smile


Titanium Spork: Let's now take stock
of other ways in which it rocks;
the less direct benefits, accruing to you
the owner of this better-than-sterling tool.
You are cool
the other geeks will think you neat
you may even wish to skip
the ritual chopsticks for lunchtime sushi
and scarf the stuff down at a rate.......................................scarf?
that illustrates you have no fear
of ever breaking
your marvellous eating equipment..................................................a little prosaic?

Also... you always have
this imperishable piece.....................................already established?
of metal about your person
which can be jammed
into any recalcitrant mechanism
like the autopilot of a 747,
a Death Star trash compactor on the detention level,................like the allusion, sort of geeky
or that little door
on the front of your digibox
that's supposed to open
with a finger's stroke
and won't.....................................................the delivery in this strophe is more to my ear


Titanium Spork: so now you own it:
the ultimate accessory,
but is this shiny thing necessary
or appropriate
to the ethically constructed life?

Because...

...while there are outdoorsy folks who will insist
their Spork's as crucial
as the dual-fuel CampStar lamp that twists, gently,
beneath the carbon-fibre ridge-pole
of their two person hike tent...

...and late-night coders who simply would not eat
without the additional incentive...........................................................loved that

...is this enough?


Titanium Spork: Can we justify
the type of costs that underlie
such an object:
development,
production,
factory construction,...............................................................too near the 'constructed life'?
smelting Titanium by the Kroll process,
and the product placement surveys
by a brown, hand-knitted cardigan called Alison...harsh
with many frequent flyer miles
to major cities
in persistent light rain?

Titanium Spork: And what
of the Amazon Prime drone, that drops
like an anti-seagull from the overcast.....love the notion
to place implement
in outstretched hand
the moment you peel the cellophane
from the instant ramen noodle of your choice...?


Titanium Spork: how does it work--
the World devotes such energy
to cutlery perfection
while diagrams of devastation......................................neat break
bloom, wept at, but uncorrected
across Western Asia? How does it work
that there remain toddlers
who own no spoon of any sort
in dust
in tiny villages
in Africa?


Titanium Spork: the geeks are progressive,
their blog posts expressive
and always they'll claim:
that they'd really like to save the World
and put as much as nineteen dollars
and ninety-nine cents
in a Kickstarter campaign
to do that very thing
as recently as Tuesday.


Titanium Spork: and to be fair
many of them do more than that...................we've had a few thats


Titanium Spork: the geek agenda
is of no surrender
on any type of higher and higher
technology: Smart phones,
smart drugs, smart plastics,
smart cars, smart watches,
working smarter, not harder;
although often harder as well
on their cloud enabled,
RSA encrypted,
virtual platform
multi-tenant whateverscape...

...or sometimes just a database
of cost-effective
Mexican food.


Do not blame us
for the asymmetry
of modern life.

All we wanted
was to build wonderful machines
and turn them loose
to do their own things
to be of use
and free
at the point of need
or in any case so cheap
that they are a gift to the World
on the internet
in your phone
on every street corner
and all we want as our reward
is a comment somewhere deep in the source code
that says with mock pride
and even more mocking humility
that: Bobby-sixty-three was here

oh yes, and a salary, a Western lifestyle, a dirt bike, a car...


Titanium Spork: So much for the World,
and yet, possibly...

There are possibilities...
of an internet café at the edge of the conflict,
war correspondents post their stuff
and a teenager busses tables
for half a meal a day
the occasional human interest interview
and all the bandwidth he can steal;
at the end of the day he emerges
with six new ways to improve the ancient diesel generator.

There are possibilities...
that somewhere sub-Saharan
a thirteen year old girl
finding the third-hand maths textbook
her brother left unfinished
climbs a tree and reads
the whole thing in one sitting,
squatting, on the highest branch
and afterwards thinks
well obviously there's more to this...

Imagine her now,
imagine all the young people
who may yet learn
how to be geeks. They
have not yet heard the promises
of Titanium and technology,
of science and Sporks;
but she is listening now
as she stares speculatively at the far-off mountain peaks,
at a tiny metallic twinkle
as from some distant,
shiny,
wonderful
object.........................................................beautiful ending to the poem

[bodkin]

Spodkin - I spoontaneously coined the word spoff - a triple portmanteau: spoon + fork + scoff. Hmm... so I suppose it should really be: sporff - a verb for scoffing with a spork.

Clever! Too clever for me, I thought you were just using a dialect I didn't know...

Ian

[bodkin]

Thanks Mac!

I'll maybe edit the colons. I wasn't thinking of them as double since the first was just walling the repeating heading off. I'll maybe swap the second for a comma, it's not hyper finickity punctuation in this one...

If it is rap-like then I hope that is too a minuscule degree. I've always hated rap, I completely fail to get the point...

Similarly I hope not to be like Kate Tempest, she's not my cup of tea at all...

"the words of this strophe seemed purposed to sound not content" -- hmm, not sure what you mean?

As already discussed "scarf" is also a dialect variant of scoff, with the exception that "scarf down" means "eat with huge vigour..." I thought it would be well know. When it was queried above, I looked it up and it seems like only about 1/2 of people recognise it. I assume it was Northern English but it seems to be more American... "Scoff" sounds wrong, to me, however so I'm going to try and keep "scarf"...

"thats" I can maybe trim -- good call.

Thanks,

Ian

[Macavity]

this transcendental utensil
as Titanium is indestructible
by any plausible, normally causable,

volume - loud percussion - I do very much like transcendental though

of course, it is all subjective, one person's noise is another's music

best

mac

[Crayon]

If it is rap-like then I hope that is too a minuscule degree. I've always hated rap, I completely fail to get the point...

Hate rap!? I can't let that go unchallenged. Not all rap is equal. There's lots of classic 'rapping' that's great performance poetry (with incidental music) by poets such as Gil Scott-Heron, Melle Mel, the Beastie Boys, and Chuck D. I don't understand how any poet wouldn't enjoy, or at least appreciate, the wordcraft and lyrical strength of performances such as 'Fight The Power' and 'Welcome To The Terrordome' by Public Enemy - or the joyous and theatrical wordfests of 'Sabotage' and 'Intergalactic' by the Beastie Boys.

[k-j]

I really like your titanium spork Ian. It's definitely baggy on the page but it rolls well enough when spoken aloud. I'l listen to the audio file tonight. The word "spork" grosses me out by the way. I wish you'd used something else. But I understand why you went with it.

[lorijones]

For years I lived on a corner where cars repeatedly sounded their horns. The constant repetition means that to this day whenever I hear a car horn I jump. Now whenever I read 'Titanium spork' I will respond in the same way. Full marks for quantitative audacity but please 'rap' it up sooner next time.

[1lankest]

Really enjoyed this, Ian. If I heard this performed in a live venue I'd leave mighty impressed.

Luke