YouTube Bedrooms

Over at YouTube, there’s some kid in their bed room -- you can see their bed, their computer desk, etc. They’re up there while their mom and dad – if they have a mom and dad — are downstairs cooking and opening mail, maybe calling them down to do some chores. They record a message, a poem, a dance, some music, a plea. Some fantastic, some sad, some indifferent, some hilarious.

There are many of these kids. Of these people. It’s the drab frankness of their taupe coloured bedrooms, their fawn walls and pale brown bedcoverings. It’s the flatness of the light, the darkness under their eyes, the shadows on their face, the badly lit plainness of it all that moves me far more than what is being said, or shown, or performed.

This kid is a fantastic guitar player. But look around him as he plays. His face is covered. He’s some kind of YouTube everykid in a YouTube bedroom, his little computer desk with its mouse and computer, his normal drapes, his normal bed, his normal electrified Pachelbel passacaglia.

* * *

THIS NEW PLACE



the pants of contradiction
are filled with sunny days
happy days
when the dog is dog tired and lies
in the sleeping bag
howling

yes and I’m a hundred thousand fridges old
and leak somewhere out back
but rejoice in the fluid
misshapen ice trays finding
their place in history
night’s basking canary
a parade of smudges and cracks