Extinction

I'm not feeling it today. I heard about the extinction of experience. What will life be in the coming years? We move ploddingly towards more and more abstract forms of experience, more virtual worlds, more internet-based relationships. Even my own relationship with my wife began essentially over windows messenger, and continues via text message. Will I one day live my days entirely in one place and have the world as I know it under my fingers, glowing through a million pixels in front of me?
Is it less real than my great grandparents who, whoever they were, walked out in the open air daily? who only knew what they saw and what the newspaper and radio brought? Is my life more abstract only because my exposure is greater? Is cyber-bullying substantially different than schoolyard bullying?
Is experience less real because it happens through a computer?

it's ALIVE

The spook alleys,
the mazes through
withered stalks,
the chain saws,
hairy wolfmen,
gorillas, monsters,
skeletons, blood,
screams, madness
calculated, designed,
engineered to make you
cringe, flinch, fear, and
feel – for once – alive.

traffic

Northbound commuters rush by
on my left, just over the yellow
line - my only defense. My bulb
blinks with the patience
of a reset clock. On my right,
southbounders continue their trek
to homes beyond the dashed
white lines and red lights.
Flanked by yellow lines, thin
barriers against the traffic's
relentless pulse, I rock gently
in the gusts, watching for a gap
to cross the stream onto
a quiet byway that leads
home.