Current Poem by Erik Menkveld

Okay we never stick our fingers in there
not even using knitting needles screwdrivers or nails
totally lethal okay but the current in those little holes
so what is that you can't see it please explain.

And so rub amber hair on end no wait
you all know magnets when you let them turn in a coil
a coil like when you wind a shoelace round a pencil
using copper wire and without the pencil copper wire right -

anyway okay good long rows of little balls in tubes
live wires in other words you see those little balls
that transfer tension from one to the next like when
I shake your hand and you shake hers and then I squeeze

your hand and you squeeze hers then when you feel me
squeeze it's actually the squeezing running through us
the same goes for a current but without the squeezing
tension do you see? You don't? How does TV work?

Translation: 2005, Willem Groenewegen