YOUR LIFE AS ...BY B WOLFE

Hey I though you said you couldn't write poetry. YOU LIED.

RT

Wow, Bill! Impressive. Deep and poetic with a science fiction feel. I'd like to see more poetry from you.

I never read poetry much, but I felt your poem, Bill, had a nice flow to it.
I think I understand it, and I also like what I think I understand.

Liked it, yet I never read poetry. I really should start!!!

Hey I though you said you couldn't write poetry. YOU LIED.

RT

Rick,

I didn't write it. I just typed the words as it wrote itself.

I'd been helping my niece with a detailed family history and I got to thinking about all these folks (over a hundred, and still counting) who contributed to my genetic make-up.

At 51 I have only a little grey hair, and plenty of it. I eat what I want and have no problems with cholesterol or blood sugar or. . . . anything, really.

I realized that I was one moment in a long and complicated chain, where the genes were 'fixed' in place. Once I had passed them on, I'd done my duty to the dance.

I thought about writing a story about it, but it ain't much of a premise, on its own.

It is the second poem I've ever written that wasn't assigned in some kind of class.

So did I really lie?

Bill

Bill, our lives have been holding patterns since Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon days, probably longer. Within this century lives will exit the holding pattern and enter the fast track. With genetic manipulation and recombinant DNA inside individual ova and spermatozoa we can expect future offspring to be matters of choice rather than lottery. Imagine the future ob-gyn asking, "Boy or girl, Mrs. Smith, blue eyes or brown. tall or short, concert pianist or nuclear physicist?"

I'm not much for poetry, but this one grabbed me. Maybe even the inspiration for a short story or two.

gino

[Lester Curtis]

Excellent, Bill, I like it.

[TaoPhoenix]

Hey I though you said you couldn't write poetry. YOU LIED.

RT

I think this is his way of saying it's not Vogon poetry!

Re Tao's comment, re my comment

I waive consecutive translation.

RT

I think this is his way of saying it's not Vogon poetry!

Naw. . .not Vogon. Fifth worse in the Universe, at best.

BW

[TaoPhoenix]

I re-read this again today, and I'll touch on the theme of unique vs universal.

A thundering amount of our culture revolves around which instant taps the universal and which taps unique specifics. Looking for life partners is among the toughest interplays of this. That's because single people can do/try "anything that's not illegal or immoral". This is essentially easy, in the sense it's mostly conceptually clear. (Let's ignore the fuzzy gray areas for a moment.)

However, when looking for a mate, then someone's subjective opion gets involved. Tshirts or Polo? TV Dinners or home cooking?

Grand poem.