Some say we’re the new rock stars
instead of guitars keyboards or mics
we hold sketchpads wireframes
iterate juxtapose
suppose what wasn’t possible can be
a new way of taking photos of dividing colors
fragments and film amongst your friends
a new way of saying hello i love you a new way of sharing food
finding friends a new way of deciding who gets to show
up in your inbox
the dialogue we carry is heavy
the dialogue we shape is grand
a plan to disrupt the world
as we know it
shape it for us now
shape it for them to come
you are a tech startup entrepreneur
you run things
you iterate you posture you pose
sometimes you don’t know what the guy in the suit and tie
is even talking about but you shake your head you are
a techie used to be a joke
now no one laughs when you walk in the room
seeking enough bills to pay the bills
and then some the world has been shaped by your hands
100 years later after your father and his father
shaped it with their hands built up the New York City skyline
Can i get a shout out to the Statue of Liberty?
hands made her
Can I get a shout out for the Manhattan Bridge?
those black and white photos show the men
who built it lunching in the sky
because that was the only time
they’d ever be
invited to sit high up to lunch
Can i get a shout out for the roads the tunnels the bridges?
the cable car the trolley the tram
the Panama Canal the great dam
can we name those who built the future others thought impossible
Can i get a shout out for us now?
using our hands to make things the future
maybe impossible
but we’re not so different from the bridge builders
and the skyscraper creators we’re just doing it digital
sometimes literal
always configurable
curating how we see things even if someone says it can’t be done
Can i get a shout out for the click?
the mouse the wireframe
the kids once called lame
the freaks the new tech geeks
the imaginable unfathomable
Sometimes it ain’t easy
sometimes you never make it past
year 2 sometimes we slowly give way to a shrug a sigh a disbelief that all
we believed in can’t come true sometimes we are all so clearly you
sometimes we just want to change the word re imagine it in our hands
give it back to you to use
give it back to live better
give it back to you to be better
give it back to you to love more
to dream again
to inspire another day
This is for the tech startup entrepreneur
living your dream by doing
none of it is easy but all of it
yes all of it is history
re imagined
by your own
hands
Uchechi Kalu © 2014