Nerd Pioneers

They dreamed
nights of five moons
back then:
turquoise dust,
fibrous plants,
thin-veined bipeds
with filigreed tendrils . . .

Ideas spun into planets
mingled with the lust
of apartment-bound
spectacled teens,
and the smell of dust
and mouldering wood
of battered paperbacks.

The nerds that came after
had the box
sculpt our dreams for us
in the sickly glare
of electric snow.
Lines were set, turns
of head, of phrases;
needs were met
so well, we did no work.

The otherworlds
we watched
were tangerine orange
soapcake yellow
and plastic cup blue.
Their tepid dramas
lulled and whispered
and congealed
on the mind's eye
like cool glue.

That's where we kept vigil
while real teens
slammed and necked at night.
That's why we can't right.