David Selzer is a writer of poetry, prose fiction, screenplays and stage plays. He embraces digital platforms to share his work of more than fifty years… READ MORE


  • THE CYBER DEAD

    ‘Knock-knock-knockin’ on Heaven’s door,’ a busker

    began to sing near to the ice cream kiosk,

    just after I had left the public toilet,

    its adamantine urinals made

    in Burnley. I walked beneath the lime trees,

    along the embankment. The brown river

    swirled in spate, high with rains from the remnants

    of Atlantic storms breaking on shorn

    and distant mountains. I thought of those dead friends –

    their social media accounts intestate –

    forever alive, and orbiting

    eternally in cyber space, so close

    yet still and always forlornly ‘Knock-knock-

    knockin’ on Heaven’s door’.

     

     


    3 responses to “THE CYBER DEAD”


    1. John HUDDART Avatar
      John HUDDART

      Such a rich cornucopia of reference and description. Oh, to walk in England with you daily!

    2. Alex Cox Avatar

      My friend Rudy Wurlitzer says he co-wrote the lyrics to that song with B. Dylan in a stormy flight from Durango to Mexico City. He received no credit. Thus is the writer’s lot!

    3. Harvey Lillywhite Avatar
      Harvey Lillywhite

      Not sure about you, but the few times I’ve had to enter a recently dead person’s room, their clothes somehow frightened me, as if they had become heavy ghosts. The social media we leave behind is a bit similar.

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