Zoom Bomb<\/p>\n
In these pandemic times
\nour poetry events are virtual,
\nHollywood Square boxes
\nwith smiling faces waiting
\nfor feature poets, open mic,
\na chance to chat at the end.<\/p>\n
Last night, I was a feature,
\nwore a sparkly purple top,
\nmatching eyeliner and shadow,
\nmascara and a hint of violet
\non my lips, gold dangle earrings
\nand I was ready for my close-up.<\/p>\n
Not long after assembling
\nin our Zoom Room, we were bombed.
\nI had heard of it happening but this
\nwas my first raid. It was horrid,
\nfuzzy video but enough seen,
\ndepraved audio that flushed my cheeks,
\nturned my stomach, made me gasp on mic.
\nHow could he, such debase verbiage,
\ntaunting to shut down our meeting,
\nand then he was joined by another guy
\nand then, a female.<\/p>\n
Our host was remarkable, cool and
\ncalm efficient, muting the diatribes,
\nushering them out, zooming to slam
\nthe virtual door \u2013 she was our hero;
\nwe resumed our poetry event, which was
\nan amazing assemblage of poets from
\naround the world, over 40 participants
\nwith the open mic.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the raiders would be disappointed
\nto learn that they didn\u2019t stop our event,
\ndidn\u2019t crush our spirit, didn\u2019t destroy
\nour human sense of ethics with their trash talk.
\nI do wonder how empty their lives must be
\nthat bombing a Zoom poetry event
\nis how they get their kicks.<\/p>\n
~ J R Turek
\nJune 27, 2020
\nHour 4<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Zoom Bomb In these pandemic times our poetry events are virtual, Hollywood Square boxes with smiling faces waiting for feature poets, open mic, a chance to chat at the end. Last night, I was a feature, wore a sparkly purple top, matching eyeliner and shadow,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1325,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1325"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64437"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64449,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64437\/revisions\/64449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}