Poem on the passing of the Communications Decency Act
Thursday: Silence
Today is a black day
Friday: Rage
Today is a black day
Not black as in bad, though it is bad
Not black as in sad, though it is sad
But black as in blackout. as in nothing, the absence of light, of hope
Not black as in skin color
But black as in no color
No color and no joy
Today is a black day
The white man is riding roughshod across the last frontier
And we natives who have built our Home Pages here
Who once flamed our prey across the untamed expanse of the alt. hierarchy
We are in retreat
Today a Search Engine refused to accept the word sex as a valid parameter
Already we fall back into our native ghettos
Isolated, ignored
Sidelined to an oblivion of supplying decadence to jaded 14.4 bps tourists
Once we roamed this network freely
A proud and strong people
Now we cower here
Wearing virtual ribbons and writing poetry
Which itself will soon no longer be heard
Today is a black day
Saturday: Contemplation
Today is still a black day
But not a day for extending metaphors beyond the boundaries of cypherspace
Not a day for vague historical allusions
Nor for exulting in the nobility of defeat
It is a day for analysis, for careful thought
Have we fought, truly, deeply?
Or have we merely talked
And is talk enough?
Have we lost?
I don’t know
For all our history, our metaphors, our frontier spirit
Is a lie
The white man has always won, till now
He thinks he won because of his morality
Because his religion
Made him superior
Or because his money gave him control
But the white man is wrong
The white man always won through his technology
He made his firesticks bang and others thought it was magick
Because they did not understand
This time is different
We possess the machines
To him we are the shamans – no, the gods
And he fears us
He tries to trap us in his temples
How stupid
He makes the law of the land and thinks that he controls us
But we are not of the land
He cannot take what he cannot see
And we are not of his geography
We exist in an unknown land
The future
And in that land we always roam freely
And our enemies live in reservations
They fence themselves around with fear
Pity
Today is a black day
But it is lit by the glow of a million monitors
Saying “Fuck You”
© Rodney Orpheus 1996
