Virtuality

[RiverNotch]

Virtuality Hum hum

Though
this world Button pushed: I'm in.  
now holds me I imagine the world's dirty arms holding our arms, legs, flesh --
pulls my blood in Then we go in deeper, pressing into the muscle to let out some of the water,
calls me down loudly Then we go higher? This line's movement doesn't seem to support what I envision is this poem's u-shaped movement...
to bear my bones proudly ...but then here we go way back down again, to the very essence of our physical, worldly natures -- the bones. I see now: first, a picture of the world, which is naturally external to us even as we are a part of it, then the slow movement deeper in, then a brief glimpse of the station we just left right before the plunge. Alright.
I’m logging out of this skin Now, this seems to be the only element of the entire poem that fully relates to the title, but only now do I realize its importance. I just wonder, though, and this is considering the fact that I've only the slightest hint of what virtuality really means, but here: this process of logging out, of, in my mind, transcending the boundaries of the flesh....well, since this is the point at which you begin so, and yet this point is nalso the one point that says very explicitly that this is all somewhat virtual, is this making a statement on the essential virtuality of the spiritual world, or are you simply transcending everything virtually, but still acknowledging the essential truth of the spiritual world? Of course, this question is not meant in any way to influence the editing process: for one, the ours and uses here refer to this reflection's speaker and the poem's speaker, not the real, or at least the whole, me and you; for another, the ambiguity in itself is a real nice draw, and I suppose is one of the essences of the poem; and for one last cause, this is miscellaneous, or better still, I'm no philosopher.
forsaking worldly attractions One of the most eloquent lines of the poem, yet for me the least vivid. I suppose the reference to the world is fair enough, but I was hoping for something more specific there, other than "attractions": perhaps something as vivid as in the next line (though I don't really get the use of pliers: as much as they're used to hold things down, it feels like an image that doesn't entirely fit the more, er, universal nature of the poem; that is, it feels too concretely modern), or something that's somehow tied to the earlier images, to the blood, the motherly scorn, or even the internet.
breaking free of gravity’s pliers
to awaken beyond reach of these stars And so this is! I liked this on my first read, but reading this again, I do find this to be a bit cliche, and a bit, well, unsatisfying, though not because it's cliche. Rather, you seemed to skip the bondage of the stars: you forsook the world's arms, you freed yourself from then, and now you've accelerated to the level of the void? It feels to quick -- or I need to free my mind, perhaps, see this as the ultimate summation of one's transcendence, not just the next scene in a uniform movement: the flash of the literal in an otherwise immaterial, metaphorical, series of movements. But even as that freed idea, this does seem rather deficient, and I'm wont to say it's because it doesn't seem to reference virtuality, but to end it like that, to suddenly bring the vision down, feels too much like a cop-out, especially now that it feels so popular (er, Life of Pi?) -- so then what? The cliche? Maybe. Then what's the alternative? Hmm....
"to waken beyond the milky way" I first thought, since, er, mother's milk, mother earth? Or, well, whatever...